RETINA - The New Breed of Amiga Display Cards  ------------------------------------------------  by Nik Vukovljak Ed: See Nik's description of the Amiga Graphic Artists' SIG in the Feedback drawer.  ¿? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿?  Author's Biopic: I'm a Final Veterinary Science Student at Sydney University who spends a lot of his free time dabbling in Graphics (mainly 3D) on the Amiga. I am also the President of the A.G.A. Sig (Amiga Graphic Artists Special Interest Group) - a group of people that have a particular interest in Graphics on the Amiga. When Commodore released the Amiga it was the most advanced Personal Computer in terms of its graphics capability. Unlike the PCs or the Mac of the time, it could display up to 32 true colours out of a palette of 4096 and it had the HAM mode in which pseudo 4096 colour graphics could be created or viewed. The Amiga enjoyed its position at the top for a few years, but then the PC and the Mac platforms caught up to it and overtook it. The Amiga could (and still can) out-animate either of these platforms but as far as the screen resolutions and number of true colours displayable, it was left behind. The third party hardware manufacturers helped bridge the gap between the other platforms and the Amiga and it could now display up to 24 bit colour and at all the different resolutions but these boards had and still have one major flaw in them - they display the graphics and can manipulate them through their own software and the software that supports them, but they work independently to the Amiga Workbench and in some cases even require a separate monitor for their display. The reason for this lies in the way that the Amiga was built. In order to be able to manipulate graphics the way it can, Amiga relies heavily on its custom chips and the Amiga Operating System fully supports these chips. The presence of these chips is therefore both a blessing and a curse and has prevented easy support for the new graphics boards. Commodore has started to act on this matter, and as I see it in two ways: i) Upgrading the Custom Chipset - Upgraded to AGA and working on the AAA. ii) Upgrading the software and preparing it to support the Retargetable Graphics (RTG) - This has started happening from the KS 2.0 onwards.  Retargetable Graphics (RTG) What Retargetable Graphics means is that any graphics card (preferably a fast one) with a properly written driver will be able to display and run through the Workbench and the Workbench (and hopefully all the software) will support all the graphics resolutions and the number of colours that the particular graphics card supports ( i.e. not just what the Custom Chips support). RTG has been present on the PC and the Mac for a while now ( PC since the Windows ) but they never had to contend with an architecture like the Amiga's. While Commodore is working on the Operating System that will fully support the RTG the third party manufacturers have decided to release the boards which give us the taste of what the future holds for the Amiga, and which will be ready for the RTG when it finally arrives. A year ago at the WOC '92 GVP were the first to show us the Workbench running in 1280*1024 on a 20 inch screen and supporting 24 bits in colour. Their prototype board, the EGS was shown running TV Paint at great speed, opening huge Pagestream Screens that updated extremely quickly, and running Imagine ( well, almost ) in resolutions that I could only dream of. GVP still haven't released their card, but at least 3 European manufacturers have announced similar boards, one of which, the Retina, is now shipping.  About the Retina The Retina comes in a colourful box depicting an eye on the front listing the features of the card on the sides and the back in a typical marketing language (HYPE). The manufacturers claim that their card is " Ideal for: 24 bit Display, Video Painting, Desktop Publishing, Desktop Video, Graphic Design, and 3D Rendering ", and that the persons most likely to benefit from it are: " Artists, Videographers, Animators, Graphic Designers and Desktop Publishers ". While the card certainly meets some of the criteria listed, its abilities in some areas are exxagerated as you will see. Upon opening the box you find a Zorro II card with a 15 pin VGA output (the card is in a Static Free Bag), a 30 page manual, 2 disks with Retina Software, and a registration card addressed to Power Peripherals (who are the Australian Distributors).  Hardware The card is surprisingly sparsely populated. There are, not counting the RAM, ten chips on the whole motherboard one of which is an SVGA Chip. Retina comes populated with 2Meg or 4Meg with the 2Meg version expandable to 4Meg by changing the 256K*4 chips for 1M*4 chips (ZIPs). The displayable resolutions of the Retina range from 800*600 in 24 Bit, to 1024*768 in 16 Bit and 1280*1024 in 8 Bit Non-interlaced. The card can however, output even higher resolutions in Interlaced mode. The display chip can output different vertical frequencies (up to 89Hz) and therefore on suitable monitors even the Interlaced resolutions may appear Flicker-Free. While the Retina that I received for review had 2Meg on board, I have also had numerous opportunities to use a 4Meg version at a friend's house. The 4Meg version is supposed to enable double buffering for animation playback. We however, could not get the card to display any animations with the software provided. The future versions of the software are supposed to address this according to some reports on the Usenet.  Software The Retina software comes on 2 disks one of which is occupied by the Paint program, while the other contains all the WB emulation software. The Paint Program - VD Paint or XI Paint comes in both the 68000 and 68030 versions. There is however No manual provided. Macro Systems are however, in the process of producing one and the registered users will be getting their copy sometime in the future. The Manual that comes with the Retina while brief (only 30 pages) covers the installation of the hardware and the software quite well. Clear instructions are provided as to the setup of WB emulation, the choice of the monitor and getting those partially incompatible programs to work. The manual also warns you about using wrong monitor settings in the monitor setup program. This can destroy your monitor! Since I was using a borrowed SVGA monitor of unknown brand and specs, this caused a few scary moments while I was choosing what I thought would be the most appropriate monitor in the list provided. One place where the manual fails however, is in not providing full instructions for the utilities provided on the disk other than the setup programs. There is on-disk documentation but it is in German!  Well, what is it like to use the Retina? In a word - AWESOME! You get a Rock-solid display in the highest resolution that your monitor can handle and the WB suddenly takes on a whole new, very professional look. Modelling in Imagine in 800*600 or 1024*768 (on my friend's NEC 3D) is a whole new experience - the extra detail provided is just amazing. Pagestream, when opened on these screen sizes looks positively professional especially now that the redraw speed is higher than normally seen on just accelerated systems. In fact, the whole Workbench has a much snappier feel even in the 16 Colour mode - it feels like a normal 4 colour Workbench and this at 1024*768! If you are a professional Graphic Designer or a Desktop Publisher then this board is for you. The Paint program that comes with the Retina, while no TV Paint or Opal Paint is good for touchup work. The speed of the '030 version is quite acceptable (on my 33Mhz '030 A2000) with the Airbrush mode actually faster than in the Opal Paint. The toolbox is TV Paint type (i.e. floating) and contains most of the painting functions as well as some special effects, but the power found in Opal Paint and TV Paint is not really present in XI Paint (VD Paint). The program is also not bug free and while it crashed only once (after I asked it to do a dozen operations in a short period of time) the bugs tend to slow it down when certain functions are performed. E.g. when doing a Gradient fill the Brush size must be 1 pixel or the Fill takes 5 times as long to complete for no reason. If you are a 2D Artist or a Videographer, then the benefits of getting this card are not great right now. The paint software is still not the state of the art (as well as the manuals still being nonexistent) and the Retina's limited output options (VGA type connector only) would make it hard to use with the Genlocking equipment. The card can however, sync down to the normal Amiga frequency but a special cable is required that needs to be obtained from Macrosystems is needed to connect it to a 1084 monitor or the genlock. Retina can also work in tandem with VLAB, a 24 bit real-time Frame Grabber which accepts both Composite and Y/C inputs. Setting up the WB emulation is quite straightforward thanks to the manual and the easy to use software (all WB 2.0 look and feel), but Two monitors are really required or a Multisync that can scan down to the 15.7 kHz (together with a switchbox that can switch between the Amiga and Retina signal). Once everything is set up the WB will start-up in the Retina emulation mode and from then on the programs running via the WB will be displayed through the Retina. The 2 monitor system or a switchbox system is I believe, still essential in order to run the poorly behaved software (e.g. Games), but more importantly, in order to view animations as viewing of these is not as yet supported by the Retina. Pictures of any number of colours can be displayed through the Retina via its own Display program if they are IFF's or via the supplied Retina drivers for the Image Master and ADPro. So, if you want to keep your Amiga 2000 or 3000 system and want to run your Productivity Software in Very High, Flicker-Free resolution then this card is for you. Remember that the board is probably RTG ready and that with the resolutions and the WB emulation you also get a 24 Bit display and a Paint Program. There is also a freely distributable Patch for the Retina available that enables the Retina to run the AGA software in 256 colours on non-AGA machines. The AGA emulation is right now slower than the real thing but Macrosystems promise a large speed increase in the next software revision. As a side note, the Emplant (Mac II emulator, PC in the future) manufacturers, Utilities Unlimited have released a Retina driver for their Mac emulation allowing for up to 24 Bit colour in the emulation (normally 16 colours on the ECS machines, 256 on the AGA). The speed of the display according to them beats that of the Mac Quadra (tested on an '040 equipped Amiga 2000). As I mentioned previously, this board is ideal for Graphic Designers and Desktop Publishers, but lacks in features needed by the Videographers. The ideal setup for the Videographer would be to have both the Retina and the Opal Vision, one for the WB and one for painting and output to Video. This is a costly solution but may be worth it. I would like to thank Sigmacom for providing me with the Retina card reviewed in this article. If you have any further questions related to the Retina (or just wish to check it out for yourself), or the Amiga Hardware and Software call the guys at Sigmacom as they will more than likely be able to help you with your queries. Their phone no. is: (02) 524-9846 I would also like to thank Ben Kintominas for letting me borrow his SVGA monitor without which this review would not be possible. Thanks Ben. Price: with 2 meg $852 Availability: Good Amiga dealers, Megadisc  ¿? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿*? 35 ¿?