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Vampire V4 Standalone - Details and Pricepage  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 

John Vasco

Posts 11
01 Oct 2019 14:21


Any more images you can share of the V4?


Richard Gatineau

Posts 60
01 Oct 2019 15:06


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

    Herz has not the same meaning anymore today with LCD Monitors.
    In the "old" days more Herz means nice picture with less flicker.
    This is not the case anymore today.
    Today a Monitor will not flicker anymore and a picture will look as nice with 10 Hz as with 200Hz
 

  No... Hz is always related to the framerate. At 10Hz, your mouse pointer is a joke (CRT or LCD)
 


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
01 Oct 2019 15:37


Tim D wrote:

  i.e. will it support these official DIGITAL-VIDEO resolutions:
  ...
 

 
The list is endless.
Everyone who knows AMIGA OS, will know that resolutions can be freely created.
 
From 8x8 to 4096x4096 you can freely define or invent any resolution on AMIGA.
  This means the list of possible resolutions is a list of about 16 million entries long.
 
 
So if you ask me what is the maximum resolution you can do with 2 Megapixel - then its not easy to answer this "simple".
As on AMIGA you can define hundreds of resolutions matching this.

The "simple" answer that we always give since 2 years .
Is always the same simple answer
We support 1280x720@60Hz

This answer did never change.
Of course the answer is incomplete as you can define hundreds or thousands of different higher resolutions too.



Markus B

Posts 209
01 Oct 2019 18:19


Well, that's a clear answer then.

I was hoping the V4SA would extend this limit.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
01 Oct 2019 19:28


Markus B wrote:

I was hoping the V4SA would extend this limit.

Well you can display 1200x800 or 1920x1080 ...
And those modes are @25/30Hz also great for Workbench usage or writing Letters etc.

The Vampire is super - but its still only an AMIGA..
And realistically if the Vampire4 would support output at 1920x1080 resolution with 60Hz - what would it improve?

It would change nothing..
First of all 30 Hz is not "jerky" picture.
And you can not "move pictures in more than 30Hz" in this resolution anyway.

Lets make an simple example:
Lets take a PPC AMIGA wth 2 GHz Clockrate with a high end PC-GFX card.
Lets say your high end PC card can display 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz.
Does it improve anything?
No!

The limit is the CPU and the Bus to the GFX card -
even the 2 GHZ PPC machine not not be able to push enough
pixel over the bus to play Doom in FULLHD @60Hz.

So there is very little benefit of a GFX card providing a mode - which the PC can not utilize.

Don't we agree?


Mike Kopack

Posts 268
01 Oct 2019 19:59


So the short answer is - 1920x1080 is probably going to be fine for workbench desktop use but not for playing videos or gaming within a window due to refresh rate (30hz) without at least a little blur/jumping. But then show me an Amiga app that really does that (even most videos are only 30fps).

Rtg gaming wise you probably won’t want to go above 1920x720 just to keep the frame rate up, and likely lower than that in many cases.


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
01 Oct 2019 20:44


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  It would change nothing..
  First of all 30 Hz is not "jerky" picture.
  And you can not "move pictures in more than 30Hz" in this resolution anyway.

No, but that is an eye killer. Anything below 70Hz.



Mike Kopack

Posts 268
01 Oct 2019 20:48


Well, again, it "depends".
If you have a static image on the screen - nothing is moving around, then 30 Hz is fine, you won't see it at all..

It's only if things are moving where low FPS or low refresh Hz on an LCD is noticeable and can be a problem.


Nikos Tomatsidis

Posts 66
01 Oct 2019 21:06


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

     
Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

        It would change nothing..
        First of all 30 Hz is not "jerky" picture.
        And you can not "move pictures in more than 30Hz" in this resolution anyway.
       

       
        No, but that is an eye killer. Anything below 70Hz.
       
     

     
      That is a wrong statement. Almost anything today is 60hz. Bellow that it can be flicker. At least in high res.
      The problem in many cases regarding fps and smooth playback is the conversion. All Hollywood film is 24fps. Converting this to for example 30fps Will in many cases give stutter. For Amiga most prods. are PAL standard. PAL is 50hz and the CPU Will in many cases try to run as fast as possible. It is not like a modern display can not handle it but it might be stutter as everything standard today is at least 60hz.Remeber hz AND FPS are NOT THE SAME.
     


Markus B

Posts 209
01 Oct 2019 21:16


Of course 1080 is good only for Workbench, for games there is no sufficient horsepower. But 25 Hz is useless as the mouse movement will look shitty.

720p50 is ok, although a bit outdated nowadays.


Pitteloud Stephane
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 69
01 Oct 2019 21:26


Beside those frequencies consideration, I think that it's important to say that the workbench is barely usable in 1080p anyways : the UI was not designed for such a big resolution, therefore all gadgets and UI elements looks damn small.  I tried it, and I switched back to 720p. For me, 1280x720 or 1366x768 are the best 16/9 resolution for our beloved classic AmigaOS.


Roger Andre Lassen

Posts 150
01 Oct 2019 21:43


Well, gadgets, widgets can be bigger with VisualPrefs. I tried WB in 1080P on the ZZ9000. I think it looks absolutely gorgeous. But thats me.


Pitteloud Stephane
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 69
01 Oct 2019 22:36


Oh, it’s nice, for sure. But it’s damn small. Sizing the gadgets won’t solve the scaling problem of the whole UI. this remind me windows 8 on the first ultra hd monitors.


Markus B

Posts 209
02 Oct 2019 03:49


Roger Andre Lassen wrote:

Well, gadgets, widgets can be bigger with VisualPrefs. I tried WB in 1080P on the ZZ9000. I think it looks absolutely gorgeous. But thats me.

What's the refresh rate of the ZZ9000 in 1080p?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
02 Oct 2019 07:07


Markus B wrote:

What's the refresh rate of the ZZ9000 in 1080p?

Answer yourself what the Zorro2 Bus bandwith is.

The Zorro Bandwidth is 3.5 MB/sec maximum.

How big is a 1080p image in MegaByte?
For sage of argument lets say 1920x1080x32bit
A= One screen is 8 MegaByte in size.

This means if you want to copy the screen from CPU memory completely to the GFX Card, then you need nearly 3 seconds to copy 1 frame!
- Showing a static picture works.
- Redrawing small parts works.

Lets say you want to show a video in a Window on Workbench.
Lets say the Video is 640x480
How big is the size of each video frame to copy to the window?
How many FPS can you max do?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
02 Oct 2019 08:45


nikos tomatsidis wrote:

  The problem in many cases regarding fps and smooth playback is the conversion. All Hollywood film is 24fps. Converting this to for example 30fps Will in many cases give stutter.
 

You are 100% right.
Its a fact that Hollywood films are 24fps.
 
All conversion are bad, the very best solution is NOT to convert at all.
You will get the very best movie playback on a screenmode with exactly 24 Hz.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
02 Oct 2019 09:27


Mike Kopack wrote:

  Rtg gaming wise you probably won’t want to go above 1920x720 just to keep the frame rate up, and likely lower than that in many cases.

 
 
Lets look at your game example.
I think you are a little too optimistic what Amiga can do.
Even 2 GHz Amigas can not do this.
 
 
And lets us do some simple math to understand what we talk about here:
 
1280x720 screenmode at 32bit ==  3.5 MB per frame
To reach 60 FPS you need a memory copy bandwith of 210 MB/s read and 210 MB/s write.
 
  Let us compare what memory bandwidth a normal AMIGA with Zorro2 Bus has. An AMIGA with Zorro2 bus can best case reach 3.5 MB/s.
 
No AMIGA (even including all PPC AMIGA) can reach the value of 210 MB/sec memcopy to GFX card.
 
In fact the Vampire is the only AMIGA that can reach this copy value.
But its completely impossible to render any game of this size in time.
 
If you talk about RTG games 320x240 is reasonable expectation for 30 FPS rate. 640x480 you can do if you are happy with 20 FPS.

Of course you can not reach this with Zorro2 AMIGA GFX cards because of the AMIGA bus limit.

We need to mind that this is no PS4.
Not even a 2 GHz PPC can do such games!
I we understand what an AMIGA can do
and if we have reasonable expectations
then we won't be disappointed.
 


Markus B

Posts 209
02 Oct 2019 09:29


The good thing about the Vampire is that it's not limited to a slow bus system. So these limitations do not apply.

I consider it a missed opportunity that the V4SA can't handle 1080p50/60 as the graphical subsystem is powerful enough.

1080p24 is obviously good for video playback but the Workbench is limited to 720p, I'm afraid.


Andy Hearn

Posts 374
02 Oct 2019 09:56


the refresh rate of the ZZ9000, and ANY RTG amiga graphics solution is primarily dependant on the ram bandwidth that the graphics chip has at it's disposal.

where Zorro/PCI add in cards win, is invariably they have their own ram that is separately clocked, and, for "back in the day" numbers, usually much higher bandwidth than the system ram for the rest of the machine.
also with good drivers - the system would NOT treat the graphics card as a dumb frame buffer which required the need have to do full frame copys across the zorro bus (hence "dumb"), but send the graphics operations to the graphics chip to execute those operations in its own ram - would be a much nicer user experience.
imagine it like RDP. you do not need to send a full frame across the bus every 60th of a second, but only "what's changed". and if you have a simple processor on the other end that can help draw shapes, move/blit blocks of ram around, scale video, then so much the better.

conversely, this is where the vampire looses, is that it has to share the ram bandwidth between the graphics and the rest of the system. But where it wins, is that crazy ram bandwidth is actually *available* to the rest of the system. Also that i imagine there is no "waiting for the bus" penalty when doing graphics operations, or writing to "RTG graphics memory".

if i recall correctly, the CV64/3D has a 64bit bus @ 50Mhz, and the CVPPC has a 64bit bus at 80Mhz. both overclockable. but, for better or worse, that was only available to the graphics chip to draw the screen and do any of it's own operations in. So provided your data rate for -> horizontal res * vertical res * bit depth * number of frames per second, did not exceed that bandwidth, you were/are free to program whatever resolution you like.
except the permedia2 chip on the CVPPC/BVPPC; that had a maximum horizontal graphics bitmap size of 2000 pixels.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
02 Oct 2019 09:57


Markus B wrote:

  1080p24 is obviously good for video playback but the Workbench is limited to 720p, I'm afraid.
 

 
Help me understand your sentence.
 
We know all Hollywood movies run at 24 FPS.
And we are all happy to watch them like this.
And you can watch cinema movies for hours.
 
But you can't stand watching the AMIGA mouse pointer at 24 FPS?
 
I can only tell you about my eyes.
If my eyes have no problem watching cinema movies at 24 FPS
then my eyes also have no problem to watch Amiga mouse pointer at 24 FPS.

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