Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!barrett From: ivans@zeta.org.au (Ivan Smith) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: CyberGraphics, version 40.47 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics Date: 11 May 1995 15:32:36 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 368 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <3otamk$7en@kernighan.cs.umass.edu> Reply-To: ivans@zeta.org.au (Ivan Smith) NNTP-Posting-Host: astro.cs.umass.edu Keywords: graphics, 24-bit, emulation, shareware Originator: barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu PRODUCT NAME CyberGraphics, version 40.47 (registered version) BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cybergraphics is software drivers/emulation software, including Workbench emulation, for 3rd party graphics boards that use the Cirrus Logic family of chips. It allows retargetable graphics (RTG) type extensions to the Workbench environment and is very similar in operation to the standard AmigaDOS way of doing things. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Thomas Sontowski and Frank Mariak Address: Thomas Sontowski Bensberger Marktweg 15 51069 Koeln GERMANY Frank Mariak Klosterstr.7 44135 Dortmund GERMANY E-mail: marvin@sun.ph-cip.uni-koeln.de fmariak@chaosengine.ping.de LIST PRICE The shareware registration fee is $35.00 (US) or DM50.00. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE A supported third-party graphics board: EGS Spectrum, OPAL, Retina Z3, Domino, Merlin, PicassoII, PiccoloSD64, and the forthcoming CyberVision64. RAM as recommended by the graphics board manufacturer. A hard disk is not necessarily needed. It will run from floppies. Space needed for Libraries is about 96K. 68020 or higher CPU recommeded. SOFTWARE AmigaDOS 2.x recommended. AmigaDOS 3.x preferred. COPY PROTECTION A registered Monitor file is required for full functions. Hard drive installable. Installer by Robert Reiswig. Copy protection is just right - the unregistered version lets you see the functions of the software in limited view modes, and the only annoyance is the lack of 24-bit display modes. Everything else is functional. All 24-bit modes are enabled when you receive your key/Monitorfile, which is registered only to you and cannot be transferred. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 3000/040/40, 2MB Chip RAM, 12MB Fast RAM NEC 3D MultiSync Monitor and Phillips CM8833 Monitor GVP SPECTRUM24 24-bit graphics board Kickstart 40.68 (3.1) Workbench 40.42 (3.1) 880K internal floppy, 1.76MB external floppy Seagate 240MB (x2) SCSI hard drives TEXEL (Plextor) DM5024 Double Spin SCSI-2 CD-ROM (external) Play Inc. (Digital Creations) PAL DCTV Software: Mpeg_play, ImageFX2.0, ADPRO, DPaint5.0, Personal Paint6.1, Real3D 2.49Demo, Image Engineer 1.1, Flick1.4, Professional Page4.0, PageStream3.0d, Cyberview2.0 and CyberWindow. INSTALLATION Installation is by the Standard Commodore Installer Program (written by Robert Reiswig). Installation is straightforward and was accomplished by installing the Shareware version 40.46, ftp-ing to retrieve the 40.47 registered version, and then updating the libraries and drivers, again using the Commodore Installer program. The Installer was intelligent enough to check hardware and software already installed, and it politely asked before removing or moving anything. You are asked for your particular graphics card and the bandwidth of your monitor. 24-bit modes are enabled by copying over the file in DEVS:Monitors with your personalized monitor file. Installation was a joy and very straightforward. BACKGROUND The Cybergraphics software system has been around on AMINET for quite a while beginning with version 40.40. I downloaded all the versions to 40.46 before having a "shell accident" one day. I copied ENV: to ENVARC: by accident without a backup. I thought nothing of it considering the way ENVARC: is copied to ENV: at startup and I hadn't done anything except open a shell after a cold boot. When I re-booted I had no EGS system on my SPECTRUM card. The Visiona software was refusing to mount the drivers to initialize the card, and I was losing my temper after 3 re-install attempts with the EGS software. I already had the Cybergraphics 40.46 system installed and stored on my SYS: partition. So in a fit of rage, I deleted everything to do with EGS and simply copied the SPECTRUM monitor driver into DEVS:Monitors and re-booted. Suddenly I had new modes in my STANDARD screen mode requesters. I was back up and running in 800x600x256 in next to no time. GETTING IT TWEEKED This version allows some environment variables to be set. There is one for Hi-Res pointers, one for CPU blitting, one for hiding 15-bit modes, and one for re-direction of the alert screens. A utility is provided similar to the Display Adjust program supplied with the Visiona software for the Spectrum card. If you are in doubt as to what versions you are running, there is also a program called "Cyberver" that will show all revisions of the libraries installed. Once I had registered and received my Personal Monitor File (by Email), I set about configuring the software to drive my monitor properly. Fortunately, if you pick the correct upper frequency for your monitor during the installation procedure, you will have very little to do here. Most modes worked straight up with my NEC 3D, and there are some modes that were just not possible under EGS -- namely, 1600x1200x256. There is a "test" button in the monitor configuration that places a familiar test pattern for that mode on your monitor,. The software is intelligent enough to warn you if the mode exceeds your monitor frequency range. Obtaining a 800x600 24-bit mode was a little tricky, but no concern when I realized what everything did in the configuration screen. It is certainly much easier than the EGS Display Adjust software. My only gripe is that there is even less in the AmigaGuide documentation than there is in the GVP manual about the technical details of what your adjustments do. HOW DOES IT WORK? Cybergraphics works the same as any other Monitor Driver you have in your DEVS:Monitors drawer. There is nothing in your Workbench start-up drawer and no patching of anything that is noticeable: unlike the EGS software, which spends a lot of its time on boot, copying and moving things, slowing the boot down. Graphics memory on your graphics board (if present) is used in the same manner as it always was. In my case I always have 1.89M of Chip RAM available, just as I did under EGS. Any program which presents you with a standard screen mode requester can more often than not use the CyberGraphics Modes. What this means in reality is that without mode promotion, I suddenly have seen Personal Paint, Deluxe Paint and ProPage/PageStream in 256 colours for the first time on my machine. Most of these programs are stable under the emulation. DPaint can crash sometimes with brush operations, and you may have to refresh the screen manually because the software seems not to do it. Brilliance will NOT use CyberGraphics modes because of the way it uses the native CHIP RAM. Programs which hit the graphics chips hard like Vista Pro and Scenery Animator have to be used in normal PAL or NTSC Amiga modes. They WILL crash your machine if run with CyberGraphics active. My only disappointment with the colour modes of DPaint/PPaint is that animation is of course not possible on the Cyber modes. Fortunately, DPaint5.0 is able use high colour buffers in ECS native modes, so there is really no excuse for not pumping out 256 colour animations. The Workbench is the biggest surprise though! Using the standard Workbench screen mode Prefs program it is possible to use a 8, 15, 16 or 24-bit Workbench! Programs like Multiview still show everything in 256 colours, but that is more an Intuition limit than the emulation software. Planned additions to CyberGraphics are the extensions to Intuition to allow higher colour modes. This, I believe, is the RTG extension to Workbench that Commodore of old should have given us with AmigaDOS 3.1. SPEED vs EGS Overall, all software works with CyberGraphics. ImageFX, ADPRO, Photogenics and Real3D have drivers provided which drive your board directly. Particularly spectacular is the ImageFX render module. Intuition functions such as opening, closing and moving windows are several times faster than the EGS emulation. Windows snap open, even in 256 colours. They open as fast in 256 colours under Cybergraphics as they did in 8 colours under the EGS system. Blit operations seem to be faster, even when using the graphic boards on board blitter. [MODERATOR'S NOTE: Keep in mind that the reviewer's machine has a 40 MHz 68040 CPU. Your results may be different with a slower machine. - Dan] DOCUMENTATION Documentation comes in the form of AmigaGuide (TM) manuals. I found it a little light on the technical side, particularly the section dealing with the setting up of the monitor modes. Apart from that, it's reasonable and easy to read. It comes in the original German and an English translation. The English version is readable by both beginners and old hands. LIKES I like the more system friendly way Cybergraphics works. It seems more "natural" and doesn't stress your RAM out by loading a totally different desktop system, as the EGS system does. The faster blitting is good and the extensions to the bitplane depth of Workbench should be fantastic when it's completed. (Imagine 15-bit animations playing on the WB in a window.) Retargetting is kept to a minimum, and that's a good thing. All of my terminal programs and just about everything I own can run on a Cybergraphics screen with increased colour depth. Term4.3a looks amazing in 16 colours (VGA) and updates speedily with a 28.8K connection throwing characters down the line. You get your draggable/scrollable screens back when using the graphics card, which most emulation software eliminates. I have had to learn to pull screens down again after all this time. The Hi-Res pointers are their correct colours and size, unlike EGS where my hand pointer looked as if it has been amputated and roasted. I also am very grateful that it has made my system more stable. There are absolutely zero crashes from re-targetting. (The EGS ESP program is, well... $%&@^%!) I like the fact that I am confident that I can continue working and not crash in the middle of anything and lose it as I used to do. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS There are only three things I don't like about this product and they are: (1) When using a dual monitor setup (My DCTV is on the other monitor), there is a constant flashing of what looks like corrupted Chip RAM patterns on an inactive Amiga screen. Switching to and from Cybergraphics modes and ECS modes fixes it sometimes, but it is mostly there all the time. (2) With Mpeg_play, to play Mpeg in 24-bit you cannot use the EGS24 option any longer. The way to do it is to use the Village24 option (The villintuisip.library is installed by Cybergraphics for you). The big problem is that although it is surely showing in 24-bit, all the chroma is reversed. The luma (black & white) is correct but all colour is reversed totally. 180 degrees out of phase? I don't like seeing my Mpegs in reverse colours, although it has given me some ideas about colours :) I have Emailed the authors about this. I hope it's the library and not the CyberGraphics software itself. Perhaps on the next compile of Mpeg_play, TapAvi and Flick, we'll see a specific "Cyber" option. (3) In 24-bit modes you see 3 pointers due to "a hardware limitation". COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS The only other system I can compare Cybergraphics with is the Visiona EGS 6.2 and 7.1 versions. Overall the Cybergraphics system has it on the Visiona system. There is no "kludging" the system as EGS does, much less software configuration than EGS, and it just seems less alien to the Amiga way of doing things. BUGS The only bug I noticed is documented by the authors and that is sometimes if you have a Cybergraphics screen in front of a "native" screen you see two pointers periodically. They are fixing this. The reverse coloured mpegs could be the library not the Cybergraphics system itself, so I don't consider it a bug in that sense. Games will crash if you start them under the emulation. Frank Mariac has uploaded a little 1K utility called "Cyberswitch" that is used in a script file. It resets the Amigas video modes, temporarily disabling the the Cyber modes. There seems to be a small bug in the ADPRO saver which causes an emulation error (8000003). VENDOR SUPPORT Vendor support is excellent if you have Internet access. By snail mail would be labourious. Robert Rieswig and I have spoken frequently on IRC #Amiga channel about CyberGraphics. He was instrumental in helping with installation and registration. All Email to any of the three authors is answered within 24 hours. WARRANTY There is no warranty expressed or implied. CONCLUSIONS Overall I would rate this product as 4.5 out of 5 stars. It is many times more usable for an EGS owner and should be just what the operating system ordered when the few remaining bugs are sorted out and we all have CyberVision64 boards. It is an excellent replacement for the EGS system, and I feel my board is more a "part" of my machine now. Operation is silky smooth and everything has stablized. I am *very* satisfied. The best $35 spent this year! COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1995 Ivan Smith. --- 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 Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews