AGA Wallpaper...where's my chip ram gone?

[NovaCoder]

Hi,

Now that I've got my AGA HighGFX desktop running at a flicker-free 1024x768, I'm after some nice wallpaper to show off with.

I'm running OS3.9 on a 1200 030 with 64mb fast ram. I'm using HighGFX at 32 colors to keep the speed up.

Without any wallpaper I've got about 1.5mb chip ram free (I've already set the icons prefs to use fast ram). I've had a few attempts at reducing the colour depth of a 1024x768 image down to 16/32 colors and so far I either end up with a dithered image and/or only 500k of chip ram left.

I guess the trick is to base the wallpaper's palette on the palette of the WB icons, what's the best way to do this?

Also does it matter what format the wallpaper is in...what's best?

And if anyone has any AGA chip ram friendly wallpaper let me know and I might just nick yours instead

[mihcael]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

...

I guess the trick is to base the wallpaper's palette on the palette of the WB icons, what's the best way to do this?

Also does it matter what format the wallpaper is in...what's best?

And if anyone has any AGA chip ram friendly wallpaper let me know and I might just nick yours instead

Amiga IFF will be the fastest format to load,

I found using half the colours of thw workbench pallete produced ok results so in your case use 16, there are tools which allow a more optimized pallete but i cant think what it is called!

Are you using FastIprefs?? (cant remember whether it loads the picture into fastram? think it does?? but it will make workbench faster and use less chipram in general)

[Bloodwych]

Hi Novacoder, you need to start exploring the wonderful world of patches.

OS39 does have an option to use "Other Mem" for certain things - it's in the Prefs drawer under the name Workbench. I'm unsure how much that offloads by itself, it might be just for Graphics cards...

...if so you will need to be using FBlit to move as many items to fastram as possible, including icons.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by mihcael

Amiga IFF will be the fastest format to load,

I found using half the colours of thw workbench pallete produced ok results so in your case use 16, there are tools which allow a more optimized pallete but i cant think what it is called!

Are you using FastIprefs?? (cant remember whether it loads the picture into fastram? think it does?? but it will make workbench faster and use less chipram in general)

Nope, not currently using any visual patches. I assume that loading the wallpaper into fast ram won't help much as it will need to be copied to chip ram to be rendered?

[Bloodwych]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Nope, not currently using any visual patches. I assume that loading the wallpaper into fast ram won't help much as it will need to be copied to chip ram to be rendered?

Try the Workbench prefs setting I mentioned above first since you have OS39. It may work better with FBlit installed (get from Aminet).

For instance, in my OS39 ClassicWB pack installing FBlit and WBCtrl results in the following chipram with a 64 colour screenmode and a JPEG background. FBlit is offloading most stuff to fastram (1767K left).

Also, you can get a nice Workbench without a huge background image too:

http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/os39pics.htm

[NovaCoder]

ok guys, cheers for the help

I'll let you know how it goes....

[NovaCoder]

Oh well it didn't go that well. I downloaded FBlit from Aminet and although the install is very simple I couldn't get it working. It get complaining that 'FBlit' was not an executable (called from my startup-sequence as per instructions), if I change FBlit to be executable it just makes my system unstable. Has anyone else had these kind of issues when using FBlit with OS3.9 + HighGFX?

[DJBase]

I use FBlit together with FText on OS3.9 but I don't use HighGFX.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by DJBase

I use FBlit together with FText on OS3.9 but I don't use HighGFX.

When you installed FBlit, did you have to change 'FBlit' to executable? If not, is you version executable by default (found in the 'C' folder).

Thanks

[DJBase]

FBlit has rwed flags but I don't remember if I set the execution flag by myself.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by DJBase

FBlit has rwed flags but I don't remember if I set the execution flag by myself.

Ok thanks, I'll try it again with a different monitor driver, which one do you use BTW? Also, how many colours do you run in?

[DJBase]

I use the default PAL in HighRes Interlace at 640x480 with 256 colors.

[Smiley]

Here is simply the best wallpaper for OS3.9

http://amiga.roomies.dk/wallpapers/A...d-1280x960.jpg

I used it with my old A1200T and it looked great on my LCD!

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Smiley

Here is simply the best wallpaper for OS3.9

http://amiga.roomies.dk/wallpapers/A...d-1280x960.jpg

I used it with my old A1200T and it looked great on my LCD!

Thanks, really cool paper but not sure if that will convert to 8bit that well

Oh well, I've stuck it on my PC at work....that should scare my boss!

[marcfrick2112]

OK, first , 'wallpaper' is Windows .... not Amiga. Second, Someone can maybe help my memory here, .. does it take more memory to remap a higher-color background to WB? E.g. does it take more RAM to use a 256-color pic, than say a 32-color pic mapped to the WB palette?? (Not to the icons' palette, BTW... iiirc) This is what I did for years with my A1200T/OS 3.9, BB1+2, I had usually between 1MB and 1.4MB Chip free after boot) OK, I had only the problem that by backgrounds looked liked crap on WB, So, I used an old version of ImageFX from a cover disk, to remap the pics to my WB's colors and resolution, much later I added FBlit, etc. I wonder if it's the pics. that are part of the problem.

[klx300r]

bit off topic but does anyone know if FBlit and WBCtrl would work ok with the Indivision AGA card under OS3.5 running a Blizzard 030@50?
also what does WBCtrl do exactly..the description on Aminet is quite vague..

[moondynejoe]

I have an indivision aga andf had a similar dilema.
The Amiga 1200 only reall works in 32 colours at a reasonable speed at 1024x768 and the only reasonable desktop that i could get i had to make myself using personal paint.

In perosnal pain the idea is to be running in an image resolution with the same amount of the program will select the best colours for that image that match your desktop, in our case its 32 colours. now choose the pallete "from screen" option and choose workbench, no doubt you have notices that the image is now totally the wrong colours, in order to fix this choose remap colours from the selection menyu and the program will match the best colours it can from those that are available from those used in the desktop.

The results are a bit hit and miss but i had some sucess using the logo from amiga.org and filling in the background with a pale blue colour. with a bit of trial and error you can create a nice background image in 32 colour .iff foramat that does not take up much of your precious chip mem.

hope this helps

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by klx300r

bit off topic but does anyone know if FBlit and WBCtrl would work ok with the Indivision AGA card under OS3.5 running a Blizzard 030@50?
also what does WBCtrl do exactly..the description on Aminet is quite vague..

Fblit *should* work the same because it doesn't know anything about the Indivision.

[XDelusion]

Nova: What did you end up doing to resolve this? I just installed OS3.9 was going to go through that startup-sequence pack you sent me, but I'm hung up with FBlit. It is doing the same exact thing to me.

[Amiga1992]

Maybe Fblit isnt compatible with your version of AmigaOS? I run 3.1 and it works just fine, loads all thise pesky bitmaps to Fast RAM and leaves my chip RAM alone.