Graffiti card

[Highwayman]

Has anybody any experience with these? They sound like a good (cheap!) way to have a higher colour WB on my machine.. 384 x 576 (apparently the max resoultion on non AGA) sounds a bit dodgy for Workbench though..Anybody have any screen shots?

cheers!

[pTah]

this card doesnt let you run WB in 256colors. theres no wb-driver...
it only works with some games and shapeshifter.

[musashi5150]

Yup, they aren't suitable for Workbench. I have a couple of these cards and they are pretty cool... but they are only for games which specially mention them (like Trapped), Shapeshifter or for coding yourself

[desiv]

Thread necro!!! ;-)
I have a Graffiti on the way (from across the pond, so it will take a while)...

I'm wondering why there's not more discussion about the Graffiti tho.
Not just because it sounds interesting, but recently...
Indivision ECS has Graffiti emulation.
Indivision AGA MK2 is going to have it (does it or will it take a software update??)..

I thought I even read on here that support was added to WinAE for this...

Now, for WinUAE, it's probably not a big deal as it mostly is for speed increases in a few games and Shapeshifter, but...

Has anyone tried the Graffiti emulation in the Indi ECS??
How does it actually work???
I know it wasn't hugely popular, and not a lot of software was out for it. Probably because of it's limited numbers..
But with the emulation in the Indi's, seems like there will be more users..
I know NovaCoder has talked about adding it to his ports eventually...

I also wonder.. I know there was never a WB driver for this, but...
Could there be?
Just theoretically... Could a RTG Picasso type driver or something be made to have a chunky WB? Would it help?

I'm wondering if I can get my incoming Graffiti to work with my GBS-8200 for a true poor man's IndiAGA MK -.5.. ;-)

Oh well, just thinking out loud..
I'll see what kind of speed differences I notice when I get him..
I might even install ShapeShifter and set it up to be able to test that... ;-)

desiv

[FastRobPlus]

I asked some of your same questions in a thread on Amibay.

The general concensus was that Grafitti can't ever have a P96 driver like the experimental IndiECS driver as it lacks an internal framebuffer.

To get Indi to do Grafitti emulation, I think you just set Grafitti emulation to on in the Indivision config tool.

[fishyfish]

So far as I know its not a gfx card as such, bur rather shares more in common with akiko. The higher spec the machine, the less useful it is to a point where its more or less pointless for '040 upwards where its fast enough to do c2p conversion at write speed. This (and finances) is a big part in why I decided against it on ambay. It simply adds nothing for my system. Unlike the indivisions it has no framebuffer, so most of the (already small) benefit is lost.

This is my understanding at least. I hope it's right or I wouldnt have let it go on amibay

Will be interested in hearing your experiences though when you receive it.
Good luck

[FastRobPlus]

Originally Posted by fishyfish

This is my understanding at least. I hope it's right or I wouldnt have let it go on amibay

Will be interested in hearing your experiences though when you receive it.
Good luck

I think Magic Eye still sells Grafitti.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by FastRobPlus

The general concensus was that Grafitti can't ever have a P96 driver like the experimental IndiECS driver as it lacks an internal framebuffer..

True, although I wasn't sure if you couldn't use CHIP RAM as a type of framebuffer..
But I know NOTHING about what is involved in that type of driver.. ;-)

I'm just wondering if, since it's MUCH faster with CHUNKY...
and if there are now a lot more Grafitti users (Indi ECS)...
Why aren't more people posting comments and vids talking about how much faster GLOOM or whatever are running???

Well, I'll see when mine gets here...

Hopefully I can find an app that shows FPS, so I can have some numbers to show...

desiv

[fishyfish]

@FastRobPlus

Ah, ok, cool. Nice to know I can get one if it turns out to be worthwhile. Thanks.

@desiv

Please do keep us updated. Im interested to hear your experiences and results.
Also, what hardware will you be using it on if you dont mind me asking? Would be interesting to hear how much benefit it has for different sorts of specs.

[desiv]

Well, I have an A1000 with 4M and a dual CF hard drive; 1.3.
An A500 w/ 2M CHIP and 8M, no hard drive; 1.3 and 2.05.
An A1200 w/ ACA1230/28 (64M).
I'll mostly use it on the 1200, but I'll test it on all of them.

OK, I just checked..
I have DoomAttack installed and showing my framerate.

It also allows you to change your C2P mode, and C2P_graffiti is one of the options.
I tried it (I know, I don't have a graffiti yet), and it shows something that I can kind of tell is Doom. Couldn't read the framerate tho, so that will have to wait until I get my Graffiti.
If anyone has an IndivisionECS, they should be able to try it..

Now, in all fairness to Graffiti, it says in some of the tech documents that you have to do it properly to get the best speed.
I'm hoping that DoomAttack has done Graffiti well...

I have GloomDeluxe installed, but it only shows me one C2P option. Can't remember where I got it, so not sure how I might find/enable Grafitti on that...

desiv

[desiv]

Hey, found a video on youtube that shows someone using an IndyECS with Grafitti emulation ON for NemacIV!
(A600 with an ACA at 25Mhz)
[ Show youtube player ]

He starts with a small screen size and 1x1.
Then (about 2:25 in the vid) he goes 2x2 but full screen.
Seems pretty fast and playable.
Just near the end, he goes 1x1 in full screen and it's pretty slow. ;-)

I wish he had the another video showing the same things, but without Graffiti mode for comparison, but still...

desiv

[fishyfish]

There's also a few videos out there showing Doom running on a600+indiecs in 256 colors (using framebuffer+graffiti emulation) if you're interested to see. Not sure how much it relates to just using graffiti (no fb or 256color modes), but interesting to see nonetheless.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by fishyfish

There's also a few videos out there showing Doom running on a600+indiecs in 256 colors (using framebuffer+graffiti emulation) if you're interested to see.

Might be interesting..
I saw a few listed using Indi, but haven't found many mentions of the Graffiti.

I DL'd some ADFs for Nemac IV so I'll try to get that set up ahead of time for some testing...

I was thinking of copying the C2P files from DoomAttack that I have to the Gloom Deluxe directory, so see if they are the same format..
Although I'd expect you'd need more than just C2P files... It's a different screenmode too..
Although, maybe the software will recognize from the C2P file and use the appropriate screenmode.
I'm not sure how "standard" those C2P files are...

desiv

[desiv]

Well, a bit of a delay on the testing...
Got my Graffiti, but it doesn't appear to be working...

I'll poke at it some more...

--------

OK, did some poking and the Graffiti is working...
...with the demos on the floppy that came with it...

It isn't working with the version of DoomAttack and Nemac IV I have.
No idea why....

Hmmm....

desiv

[amiman99]

I have the card and it works with DoomAttack, but only with AGA machines. Make sure you select Graffiti Screenmode and graffiti C2P.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by amiman99

Make sure you select Graffiti Screenmode and graffiti C2P.

Ah, that might be what I'm missing there...

Where do I select "Graffiti screenmode?"
I was just editing the config file and changing the C2P...

I knew I was probably missing something..

OK, I found out that if I hold SHIFT, it gives me a requester so I can choose the screenmode.
(I know I SHOULD read instructions, but.. ;-)

I was able to play DoomAttack in NTSC Graffiti!!!
(Not PAL for some reason tho... More testing.)

Ok, I was able to play in PAL, but I had to boot my Amiga into PAL mode (early boot menu).

Neither of those options work for Nemac IV tho.

I don't have any initial numbers yet (I have -fps, but I need to do some compares), but my gut feeling is that this is slower than the 020 optimized C2P modes.... But I haven't compared resolutions, etc..

desiv

[lost_loven]

In Nemac IV in the .config folder where you installed it change the GRA-WINLEFT from 2 to 1. That seemed to help the Graffiti mode for me with the messed up colors. Here is a video if that helps any

[ Show youtube player ]

lost

[desiv]

Thanx!!!

I had to drop my GRA-WINLEFT to 0 to work, but now I can launch Nemac IV in NTSC mode.
PAL didn't work, but if it's like DoomAttack, I need to boot the machine into PAL with the pre-boot menu first.

So, now I have DoomAttack and Nemac IV working.

I haven't found anyway to get Gloom Deluxe working, although I've heard it should.
I only have the blackmagick_1 file in the C2P folder.
I tried putting the graffiti C2P file from DoomAttack in there, just to see, but that didn't help.
Possibly the disks I had for GloomDeluxe just didn't come with the Graffiti C2P file for it?

Anyway, not bad for testing... ;-)

Thanx for the Vid too..
Initially I thought my Nemac IV wasn't working as well (Intro looked very different) and then I saw you had the Directors Cut. ;-) Your Intro is nicer..

OK, so this thing works.. ;-)

I'll try to get some comparison tests..
Of course, it's not totally fair as the test will only be as good as the C2P driver.
i.e. With DoomAttack, there is a graffiti C2P driver, but also some optimized 020 drivers. I wonder if that means there could be (if someone would write them) optimimzed 020 graffiti C2P drivers? So comparing graffiti to 020 might not be a totally level playing field.
But I should get some comparisons...
I'll compare to standard, optimized and graffiti.

Thanx again..

desiv

[NovaCoder]

I'm not an expert in how Graffiti works but this is what I've read so far:

1) ECS Graffiti is pointless (note that the recent IndivisionECS Direct frame buffer updates to ADoom (v1.4) is not using Graffiti).
2) The main benefit of Graffiti seems to be that it uses less data to display an 8bit image vs planar AGA (this is important because the CHIPRAM writes across the bus are very slow in Amiga town).

According to the docs on Jen's site, it appears that you don't need to perform C2P when using Graffiti.

Originally Posted by Jens

Graffiti changes the Amiga bitplaned graphics into a chunky
pixel mode. I.e. one byte in memory represents a single
pixel. The value of a byte selects it's colour. The colour
palette is 256 out of 262144 at a time. Possible
resolutions are 640x256, 320x256, 160x256 and 80x256. In
each mode, 256 colours are available, interlacing doubles
the vertical resolution.

For full speed advantages, AGA Chipset or the A3000 are
recommended. For more speed, accelerator cards with
burstmode fastmem are recommended.

Due to the limited bandwidth of the chipmemory, the frame
rate of a motion sequence is limited. At about 7MB/s on
AGA-chipsets using 4 Bpls hires, with longword-access about
74 frames/s can be transferred - more than required.

Graffiti

BTW, Jens has confirmed the Indy Mrk2 will support an extended Graffiti mode that will support a 24bit palette (currently only an 18bit palette is supported).

[amiman99]

I have A600 with ACA630 25MHz, could someone tell me why DoomAttack in Graffiti mode does not work? I have tried different ways and could not get it to work. Works fine using the picture display viewer, so I can see the 256 color picture of the cat.