Is SVGA useful ?
John Tovey
Are the advantages of SVGA significant ?
Paul Jeffrey Smith
>
>What is the current display standard for the PC games player?
>Are the advantages of SVGA significant ?
I think most standard games would be in 320x200, or something there about (some tweaked modes, such as 360x240 etc) but mostly that I think.
And to answer is SVGA useful. Take a look at Links 386 Pro! Holy cow.. I'm saving up to get that myself.
It's well worth the price, although it needs a decent CPU speed to generate the images. Something like Wing Commander might not be feasible as yet in a higher
resolution, just not quick enough. Another draw back is the size of the program
. SVGA takes up BIG space...
Hope this answers your question... I'm sure there is someone else out there
that knows a bit more :-).
regards..
Paul Smith
--
psm...@esk.compserv.utas.edu.au
"That sounds about right..." - Einstein
"Nah, try squaring it." - Cleaning Lady
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WSHB employee
+ In article <1992Oct28.1...@bas-a.bcc.ac.uk>, sha...@ucl.ac.uk (John Tovey) writes:
+ >
+ >What is the current display standard for the PC games player?
+ >Are the advantages of SVGA significant ?
+
+ I think most standard games would be in 320x200, or something there about (some tweaked modes, such as 360x240 etc) but mostly that I think.
+
+ And to answer is SVGA useful. Take a look at Links 386 Pro! Holy cow.. I'm saving up to get that myself.
+
+ It's well worth the price, although it needs a decent CPU speed to generate the images. Something like Wing Commander might not be feasible as yet in a higher
+ resolution, just not quick enough. Another draw back is the size of the program
+ . SVGA takes up BIG space...
+
+ Hope this answers your question... I'm sure there is someone else out there
+ that knows a bit more :-).
+
Well SVGA is very usefull as far as CAD and such other stuff.
As you said though most games are not written yet for SVGA territory
and running these games with an SVGA monitor you just end up with a
VGA type graphic with just a little enhancement for the dot pitch of
the SVGA monitor. So in my conclusion in most case (except like LINKS
386) VGA is an excellent choice. Unless you really have the need or
just really want an SVGA, VGA is the ticket. By the way I updated my
VGA monitor to SVGA 1 meg card and it most cases there is very little
difference except for more defintion to the shape of things.
--
...cal...@wshb.csms.com. If it wern't for bad luck,
kamikazi"calvin" I'd have no luck at all!
>From a warped mind comes a warped product.
These are not my employers opinions. In fact I don't know if there mine!
Andrew Stevens
>+ >What is the current display standard for the PC games player?
>+ >Are the advantages of SVGA significant ?
>+
>+ I think most standard games would be in 320x200, or something there about (some tweaked modes, such as 360x240 etc) but mostly that I think.
>+
>+ And to answer is SVGA useful. Take a look at Links 386 Pro! Holy cow.. I'm saving up to get that myself.
>+
>+ It's well worth the price, although it needs a decent CPU speed to generate the images. Something like Wing Commander might not be feasible as yet in a higher
>+ resolution, just not quick enough.
Actually, the big killer for throwing around SVGA (640x480x256 and up)
is the looooow bandwidth available into the frame buffer memory across
the ISA bus. You simply can't get more than 5-6Mbytes/sec across even
with the best designed cards. Even fairly lowly 386en can saturate
that. If you work the numbers out it means you can get decent
frame-rates for 320x200 and the like but 640x480 (4 times as much!) is
out.
However, as EISA / localbus prices fall to sensible levels this
situation will change radically. I confidently predict a re-run at a
higher level of the EGA->VGA transition where publishers of ``biggies''
supported both formats. The trend to CD-ROM should mean the space-pain
of supporting multiple versions of GFX should be tolerable.
Andrew
PS
It is not clear what you mean by SVGA. Strictly, 640x480 x256 colours
(which is what ``SVGA'' games seem to use) is ``enhanced VGA''
or something along those lines. Any old ``VGA'' monitor will
display it. As I understand it, SVGA starts when the number of
pixels goes up (i.e. 800x600 and so on) you need a faster
``SVGA'' monitor.
Finally, it is not clear that for fast action games there is much point
in going significantly beyond 640x480 dots. The human eye, at speed,
simply doesn't resolve that accurately. Adding more colours though is a
different matter...
--
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