Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: nrichers@trentu.ca (Nikolaj Peddie-Richers) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Retina 24-bit graphics board Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics Date: 19 Apr 1993 02:20:26 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 546 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <1qt29a$er1@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: nrichers@trentu.ca (Nikolaj Peddie-Richers) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: hardware, graphics, 24-bit, Zorro card, commercial PRODUCT NAME Retina 24-bit graphics board BRIEF DESCRIPTION High-resolution, 24-bit graphics board for the Amiga 2000/3000/4000 with 1, 2, or 4MB of on-board 32-bit wide RAM. (The 4MB version is tested in this review.) Comes with a Workbench emulation and VDPaint, a 24-bit paint program. COMPANY INFORMATION Name: MacroSystem Computer GmbH Address: Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse 85 5810 Witten Germany Phone: (+country code) 02302/80391 FAX: (+country code) 02302/80884 DISTRIBUTORS The card was bought from: Promigos Switzerland Mr. H. R. Wenger Hauptstrasse 37 5212 Hausen bei Brugg Switzerland Phone: 011-4156-322132 FAX: 011-4156-322134 BBS: 011-4156-322133 The North American distributor is (thanks to Rudolf Neuhaus for this information): MacroSystem US Mr. Robert Tingley 17019 Smugglers Cove Mount Clemens, MI 48038 Phone: (313) 263-0095 LIST PRICE DM 798,- for 4MB version plus shipping and handling; 1 and 2MB are versions cheaper. Paid sFr. 798,- plus s&h (1 DM = sFr. 0.85, I think). In American money, that's about $570, subject to variations in the exchange rate. Your bank can tell you what the exact exchange rate is. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS - Amiga with an empty Zorro II slot. - Monitor (at least a VGA one recommended) and monitor cable. - Kickstart 37.175 and Workbench 37.67, or higher. MacroSystem recommends 1MB Chip RAM, 4MB Fast RAM, and a 100MB SCSI hard drive. You can run with less, but the recommended minimum configuration for VDPaint is 5MB RAM and lots of free hard drive space, due to the size of 24-bit pictures. Plus I recommend a _big_ screen. At high resolutions, things get small. COPY PROTECTION None. The VDPaint version included will run only on the Retina. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING - Amiga 3000/25 - 2MB Chip RAM, 8MB Fast RAM, 100MB SCSI HD - Kickstart 37.175 (2.04) and Workbench 37.71 (2.05) - Samsung Syncmaster 17-inch multisync monitor - Retina with 4MB RAM REVIEW The following discussion consists of a short introduction, the "ins and outs" of software and hardware installation, the setup of the Workbench emulation, and some real-life impressions of the card with the programs I use. All of it carries personal bias; I bought the Retina for a specific purpose, and I can tell you how well it lives up to my expectations. That is, I am not interested in (or capable of) a full technical review of the card, nor in some general, lofty, can-she-fly-to-the-moon-in-principle kind of discussion. Furthermore, I have had the card for four days only, and I am discovering new features all the time. This review is not exhaustive, then. For a long time, I have wanted to use higher resolutions on my Amigas. I spend much of my waking life researching and writing philosophy papers on a bizarre Austrian philosopher called Ludwig Wittgenstein, and I am tired of flickering, dog-slow overscanned screens on a small monitor. If you spend entire nights writing, then you certainly know what I mean: the standard Amiga output, including AGA, doesn't quite do the trick for this kind of work. There are a number of Amiga graphics boards on the market; but until very recently, all of them were aimed at the graphical artist or CAD users. Often, these boards are very expensive, putting them out of my reach. Enter the summer of 1992. I was in Switzerland and heard of a high-resolution board called Domino by XPert systems. I didn't get one in time, having to leave for Canada before any boards were actually shipped. Some time later, I heard that the board is actually quite slow, since it relies on the CPU for blitting operations; it's a "dumb" VGA card with a Zorro II adapter. But its most interesting feature, besides its high-resolution, is a so-called Workbench Emulation, which allows the card to be integrated into the Amiga Workbench environment. Winter 92-93: through USENET discussions, I get to know Rudolf Neuhaus, who tells me about a card he bought at a computer show; it's called "Retina" and does the same as the Domino, but more. In particular, it has 24-bit display modes and comes with its own blitter. It sounds great. In fact, it sounds so great that I decide to take the plunge and order one blind through my father in Switzerland in early March. Promigos is back-ordered, and it takes _three_ shipments from the manufacturer to fill my order. My card has the serial number 18086, the 102nd Promigos sells. A 17-inch monitor rounds off my leap into serious Amiga power; judging by how small things get even on a screen like this, I would recommend this as a minimum configuration. Three days ago, my card arrived via courier; the packaging is OK. Two disks and two manuals are included: one each for the Workbench emulation and VDPaint. The card itself is quite small, full-length, but about half-height with relatively few chips on it; my (untrained) eye can discern some ZIP RAMs, a big NCR chip, which must be the VGA/graphics chip itself, a memory controller, and EPROMS. The card has a 15-pin VGA socket on the back. With 4MB, the limit for the Retina, every other ZIP RAM socket is populated; with 2MB, all sockets are populated, but with lower-density chips; at 1MB, every other sockets is populated again. All cards are identical except for the amount of RAM on them; a jumper alters timing slightly for the different configurations. Most applications don't need 4MB RAM; it is only once you get into 24-bit graphics work or need to open a large number of Retina screens under the Workbench emulation that things get memory-intensive. The card itself is a 32-bit card with a 16-bit Zorro II interface and connector. The hardware installation is relatively simple; always ground yourself to prevent static build-ups, and let a technician do the installation if you don't trust yourself fully. [MODERATOR'S NOTE: As the review mentions, do not attempt to install any hardware device unless you are comfortable and experienced at doing so. If you are careless, you may void your warranty or even damage your Amiga. If you are in doubt, have a professional do the installation. - Dan] On my Amiga, the warranty seal was broken by CBM itself when they installed additional memory after I bought the machine directly from CBM Switzerland. Be aware that opening your machine voids any warranty, at least in some countries. After unscrewing five screws, the A3000 cover can be slid off, and the daughterboard with the expansion slots becomes visible. Unscrew one of the slot covers on the back, and slide the card into the corresponding empty slot until it sits in the slot firmly. Screw in the one screw that holds the backplane of the card. On my card, the was a small gap between the A3000 case and the Retina backplane; to screw it on, I would have had to bend the metal backplane, the thought of which went against my very soul. Two small washers from Home Hardware solved the problem, and the card now fits _perfectly_, much to my delight. I recommend you do not re-assemble your machine fully until you've successfully installed the included Workbench emulation and have run it. If you're afraid they'll arrest you for running a pirate radio station, slide the cover back on. Once the hardware is installed, you can power up your Amiga and install the software. First gripe: if you just click on the HD_Install icon, nothing appears to be copied, contrary to what the manual says. It turns out the install script works fine when run from Shell. I just copied the entire disk onto my "System:" partition. Later I re-installed everything with the install script; both ways work. The software includes the retina.library for the Workbench emulation, RetinaEmu (the Workbench emulation itself), RetinaScreenMode (to set your display preferences and your monitor type), RetinaComm (a utility-commodity), a harlequin.library (the card can run programs written for the Harlequin graphics card), and some utilities which allow you to test the Retina, define new monitors, or to display pictures and animations. Information for programmers is included also. Further, the software comes with support files for VLab, apparently a digitizer also from MacroSystem, a saver module for ADPro, and an ARexx script for ImageMaster. I am not familiar with any of these programs; maybe someone else can write how well the Retina works in conjunction with these. VDPaint is installed separately (cf. below). To redirect all output to the Retina automatically upon boot-up, you also need to either copy RetinaEmu into your WBStartup drawer or include in your s:Startup-Sequence or s:User-Startup; the startup file is better, since you start displaying "stuff" earlier. The Workbench emulation is a piece of software that allows all or some output to be redirected from the Amiga's custom graphics chips to the Retina. This means that you can run most programs on the Retina, but at higher resolutions and/or higher refresh rates, making use of the Retina's capabilities, but not loosing Workbench support at the same time; this is the best of both worlds, as it were. So that, with the Retina, your Amiga _behaves_ and _looks_ like an Amiga, just at much, much higher resolutions. RTG support for the Retina has been announced in the manual; but until this by now mythical animal is ready, the Workbench emulation of the Retina is an excellent solution. For the installation process, two monitors are preferred, since until you've fully installed the Workbench emulation, some output will be through your normal Amiga monitor socket or the Retina's. So I deprived my understanding wife Jennifer of the CBM 1960 multisync from our flicker-fixed A2000 for the duration of the operation. Once the software has been transferred to hard disk (you could run the card on a floppy-based system, if you had to), you need to run RetinaScreenMode to set the preferences for your monitor; particularly what your vertical and horizontal frequencies are; this will limit your display possibilities, and you will be given a list of possible resolutions for your monitor. You select your frequencies by choosing from a list of monitors on the left of RetinaScreenMode's windows, having the list of possible display resolutions on the right. Beware, though; you need a monitor that can do 64KHz (?) vertically to make full use of the Retina; mine can do 49.8KHz only, excluding me from some of the nicer (more flicker-free) resolutions. Then you need to run the ScreenMode program from your Prefs drawer; you have to enter higher values for your horizontal and vertical pixel number. I entered 1024x768. You need to activate auto-scrolling. In IControl, also in your Prefs drawer, you also need to switch off "Screen Menu Snap." Now you can run RetinaEmu and select your Workbench screen resolution; I have mine set to 1024x768 at 57Hz non-interlaced. (Actually, since writing this review, I now have a virtually flicker-free 1280x1024 @ 87Hz. See the end of the review.) Rudolf Neuhaus can run his at the same resolution, but at 76Hz since he has a 64KHz monitor! RetinaEmu is written as a Commodity and can be called up through a hotkey or Commodities Exchange. In RetinaEmu, you can define a default screen resolution; for each program, display can be on the Amiga graphics chip or on the Retina board (I set all screens to be displayed on the Retina). Whenever a program opens a screen, it will be opened on a default-size Retina screen. But, once you've run a program, the Retina emulation usually can identify the screen by i) public screen name, ii) screen title (in titlebar), or iii) path and name of the program run; a list is kept of all programs run. You can now change the parameters for the screens of specific programs from the list of possible screen resolutions. I have not yet found a program that cannot be identified. This method of allowing you to customize screens is extremely flexible and _very_ reliable; I have not had any problems. The manual of the Retina does not say what the limitations of this card are, so here is a _partial_ list of the possible resolutions and refresh rates which you would get if you had the monitor with the highest vertical frequency range in the monitor list (79KHz). This is at 8-bit (256 colours): - 1024x768 @ 76Hz non-interlaced - 1280x1024 @ 87Hz interlaced - 724x566 @ 76Hz (maximum overscan PAL) - 1440x1132 @ 87Hz interlaced) - 800x600 @ 76Hz - 364x283 @ 76Hz Group modes (cf. below) include: -1900x1426 @ 70Hz etc. My monitor's list (50KHz) includes some other resolutions like: - 1024x768 @ 57 Hz non-interlaced - 1280x1024 @ 87Hz Group mode: - 2400x1200 @ 50Hz interlaced (it works; I've _run_ a 2400x1200 WB! But it does flicker.) - 1280x1024 @ 87Hz There are a large number of screen resolutions, and I have not tried them all; this list is just to give you an idea of the kinds of resolutions the Retina is capable of. In 24-bit mode your refresh rate drops; I've used - 1024x768 @ 60Hz interlaced - 800x600 @ 50Hz non-interlaced Group mode: - 800x600 @ 50Hz With a bit of calculation you can also figure out why the Retina comes with up to 4MB of RAM; at 1024x768x24 bitplanes, you need a whopping 1.8MB of RAM just for the picture, independent of the RAM needed for program requirements or picture manipulations! A group mode defines the range of possible screen resolutions, all of which must fall within the bounds of the group mode definition. Depending on the resolution you need, a screen will open with the _best-suited_ resolution. Surprisingly, interlace at high resolutions is actually quite usable; I have not experimented too much with this yet, but it seems that 1024x768 @ 57 Hz non-interlaced flickers more than 1024x768 @ 91Hz interlace! In fact, 1024x768 @ 91Hz _doesn't_ flicker. The loss of picture quality is small, and further experimentation with interlace at high-refresh rates seems worthwhile. I wonder what 1024x768 @ 114Hz interlace would look like. But then maybe it wouldn't be interlace... I don't know. With the help of an included ARexx script, you can make up your own monitor definitions. The Workbench emulation is limited to 16 colours at this point. The card itself is capable of displaying 256 to 16.8 million colours at the resolutions mentioned above. Since 16 is less than 256 we can conclude that the Workbench emulation does not make full use of the card yet. For that, we'll have to wait for RTG to make its debut. However, having said that, the RetinaEmu allows you to open screens with "extra" colours. This means that, for example, if I want to run my ancient DPaint II in low-res at 32 colours half-bright I can use this mode to do it -- and it works. If I don't chose "extra colours," I get 16 colours with the palette repeated where the other colours normally are. The manual warns you that, because the Amiga has to re-calculate data for these extra colour screens, this mode is quite slow. DPaint II seems all right in this respect. VDPaint opens its screens in 24-bit, so you can work in 16.8 million colours without problems. Since this card has far better output than AGA chips in terms of resolution and number of colours, it would be nice to run all those AGA specific programs with it. Since I don't have any, I don't know whether it works, but I suspect it doesn't, since I don't have Workbench 3.0. However, the display program that comes with the Retina, which can display pictures and animations, does support formats like HAM8, IFF-ILBM 24 bit, IFF-DEEP, IFF-ILBM in 2 to 256 colours, etc. OK, enough techno-speak. How does the Retina fare when actually put to use? The short answer is: very well. You have to see it to believe it! I now run my Workbench on a 1024x768 [1280x1024 at the end of review] screen with lots of space for my various docks under ToolManager 2.0 and for programs that open windows on the Workbench. I can run Term 3.2 on my Workbench, having it take up about a quarter of my screen 80x25 mode with Topaz 11 as my terminal font. Term 3.2 scrolls in 16-colour mode without the usual flicker now; CPUBlit has finally made its way into the Trashcan on my system. I don't have a high-speed modem right now, so this is at 2400 Baud. Clock, Calculator, Notepad, Agenda, Docks, File Finder, etc., all fit onto the screen at the same time, leaving lots of space for other activities. I can open about fourteen shells at the default size [at 1280x1024]. Much unlike the native Amiga display, things don't slow down on the Retina when you have, say, ten or twelve windows open. This is a big bonus, for what good is a big virtual desk (the Workbench) if you cannot spread your stuff out? The Retina has more than fulfilled my expectations in this way. You now have a real Workbench where you can spread out your windows, not having to scroll around; seeing everything, but not dying from clutter. It's a state-of-the-art work environment. PageStream 2.22: Since PageStream can be run on the Workbench, using it in high resolutions is easy. Suddenly, the page that one could see very little of at NTSC-interlaced resolution with maximum overscan can be seen in full and flicker-free at a size that is readable [at 1280x1024 resolution]. You can see two pages at the same time, readable. The detail is incredible; a Times outline font looks like Times, without jaggies that usually accompany on-screen display; documents are displayed with great detail. A page _looks_ like a page now. This is a dream come true. excellence! 3.0: excellence! is a typical example of programs that are written for lower resolutions like high-res interlace: when you open a screen, the program is cramped into the upper left corner. Now, excellence! supports high-res, high-res interlace, productivity modes, and the 2024 mode. I find there are two possibilities here: either run excellence! in PAL full overscan, 724x566, but with a high refresh rate (76Hz) and have a rock-steady display but at relatively low resolution. Or use the 2024 mode and either run it on 1280x1024 or make your own monitor file that is closer to the 1008x1008 of the PAL 2024 resolution, flicker-free as well. However, since excellence! -- solid word processing as it otherwise provides -- does not allow you to scale your page, things get small in the second case. I had excellence! set up to use LetterGothic at 13 points as the default font, which means that, together with Post and PostDJ, I can generate and print out Postscript files without having to change any of the page parameters. But you can also use the four Postscript fonts included with excellence!. They sort of "fake" Display Postscript, I gather, and they require a pitch of 15. On a normally sized PAL screen, you don't see more than two thirds of the page, but in the 2024 mode you do. Of course, you lose colours in this mode, since the 2024 mode is limited to four. It's a trade-off; philosophy deals with universals, not particulars; and as universals are colourless, I'd rather have more detail than more colours. DPaint II: Much to my surprise, DPaint II runs on the Retina; however, it cannot take advantage of the higher screen resolutions. 640x400 is the limit. But, you can run it in 32-colour mode in low-res interlace, or 640x400 in 16 colours, always at a 76Hz refresh rate, which is rock-steady. I have noticed that the "fill" tool no longer works; but it was buggy even on the native Amiga display and sometimes caused DPaint to freeze. But not working and usually working are two different things. VDPAINT I cannot say much about this program, but give my first impressions. It looks very powerful and has all the standard tools and then some. Instead of a toolbar, it has sort of a toolbox that pops up on your screen, which you can close or leave open after you've selected your weapon. VDPaint usually sells for about DM 800,- and the results you can produce with it are stunning; I have taken some 24-bit JPEG pictures and played with them. 24-bit colour at 1024x768 is like a photograph. Brilliant quality. I've actually sat down in front of the TV after working with VDPaint, suddenly thinking to myself "Gosh, that's blurry!" One nifty feature is the little preview window in the file requester with depicts a miniature version of your picture with some file formats. Maybe somebody more knowledgeable can review this program and give it the credit it deserves. Other programs tested: Snap 1.62, MagicMenu, TinyClock, and TPP (Text Plus Professional, a TeX front-end) all run. In fact, I have not yet encountered a program that doesn't run. The only program I found that caused some problems was 'Liner, a shareware outline program I had lying around. It produced a "Retina Alert" which looks much like a AmigaDOS alert, except it's in green, not red. The alert told me to switch to an Amiga output to see an Intuition alert and returned to the Workbench emulation screen afterwards, so I suspect the problem is that 'Liner misbehaved, but not in a way specific to the Retina. Even on the native Amiga display, 'Liner gets messed up with different font sizes and produces Enforcer hits, if I remember correctly. Things like your pointer preferences make for some comic relief the first time you run them. How much space does a 320x200 screen (the pointer preference program's screen resolution) take up on a 1024x768 screen? Not much! For all later runs you can set the resolution in RetinaEmu, though, so that you can have your low-res screen back. Since the Retina can run Harlequin-specific programs, I'd be interested to hear from someone who actually does it. DOCUMENTATION, LIKES AND DISLIKES The card itself delivers excellent performance at a good price. My only gripes are with the install script and the documentation. The documentation is very good for someone who already has some grasp of the fundamental concepts in the graphics card business. I don't, and I found it quite difficult to find my way round the first time, since you have to do this and that and you don't really know why. When things don't work out -- the install script is just one instance -- you're in trouble. The second day I had the Retina, I powered up my Amiga in the morning -- and nothing appeared on the screen after it finished booting. So I had to get the second monitor again and go trouble-shooting. There wasn't much in the manual. It turns out that for some really _bizarre_ reason, RetinaEmu tried to re-direct a screen called "Workbench" onto the Retina, which worked the first day I had it. After _hours_ of fiddling, desperation, frustration, and an increasingly strong headache, I found out that I have to enter "Amiga Workbench" for the screen name to re-direct the Workbench output to. (It pays to read screen titles 8-).) Since then, the Workbench emulation has worked flawlessly, but I don't want to be in the shoes of someone who has even less knowledge about the inner workings of the Amiga than I do. The manual does not give you the full technical specifications of the card. I think it has an advanced VGA chip with a pixel clock of up to 90MHz. It does state that the card has some BitBlit logic on-board, though, which I take to be something like a blitter. Finally, since the card is now available through a North American distributor, there must be an English manual available. In case I haven't mentioned it yet, all documentation I received is in German, though the programs that come with the Retina are localized/multilingual. That's fine with me, but then not everyone reads weird Austrian philosophers for a living.... COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS - Domino; simple VGA card with Zorro II adapter card. Slow. - Merlin; similar specifications, but apparently with Zorro III support. This card is vapourware still, and the one time I called the company about the Domino, they were quite rude. I took my business elsewhere in the end, and I haven't regretted it. - Picasso II; not much information here. Vapourware still, from what I can tell, although some people report having seen one on shows. Possible 1MB on-board RAM limit. BUGS None found. One behavior that is a feature and not a bug is the effect of running KCommodity and working with VDPaint whilst leaving the screen blanker option of KCommodity on. Since VDPaint seems to avoid the Workbench emulation and run on the card directly, inputs under VDPaint don't seem to count for KCommodity. So your screen blanks. But since you can't hit a key or move the mouse that would "un-blank" your screen, you're sort of stuck. I have managed to switch back to the Workbench screen, but without a mouse pointer. Included with the Retina is RetinaComm, though, which resolves that problem (my Trashcan is getting fuller). VENDOR SUPPORT No experience; so far, I have been able to resolve all the problems I encountered. Once set up, the Retina is virtually maintenance free. Rudolf Neuhaus has been in touch with the programmer at MacroSystem who seems to be very helpful. WARRANTY I have not found anything in the manual about a warranty. I think this may be because German law requires some basic warranty to be offered; for example, six months or so. Wer weiss mehr? CONCLUSIONS Buy one! This is an excellent deal for an excellent card. And get a big monitor, too. The Retina allows you to enter the realm of workstation-level display quality _now_ with a reliable Workbench emulation and free-but-fully-functional 24-bit paint program -- at a very reasonable price. It integrates fully into your normal work environment, once it is installed. The software makes the Workbench emulation setup for your applications painless (after you've installed the Retina emulation itself); all they need to do now is to provide a manual more aimed the beginner and get rid of that install script problem. An advanced user will find the current manual quite satisfactory, I think. The Retina represents a new breed of Amiga display card which is guaranteed to become much more important, once the fabulous RTG makes it into broad daylight. The Retina deserves highest marks for its resolution and colour capabilities, outstandingly well-done Workbench emulation, speed, and availability. A Retina-equipped Amiga is a competitive workhorse. [Writing this review has had one positive side for me also; after all the experimentation I did with settings to get straight about the workings of the Retina emulation, I have settled for a new screen resolution; 1280x1024 @ 87Hz interlaced; the whole screen is virtually flicker-free and I get even more space! Once you get this feeling of having lots of space to work on, sitting down at a 14" monitor running a 600x400 screen makes you feel almost claustrophobic! Freedom is addictive.] COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1993 Nikolaj Peddie-Richers. All rights reserved. PROVISO: by submission to comp.sys.amiga.reviews, permission is granted to redistribute this review, provided that it is not done for profit; for example, not in a publication of the IDP Communication Publication Group. If you wish to include this review in any commercial publication, written permission of the author is required. Furthermore, no part of this review may be altered without permission of the author under any circumstances. All copyrights and registered trademarks of products mentioned in this review are acknowledged. No copyright infringement is intended. --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu