Subject: REVIEW: Picasso II graphics board
From: [email-masked] (A.B.Laughton)
Date: 12 Sep 1994 01:25:00 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Picasso II graphics board

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	A 24-bit graphics board for Amigas with Zorro slots.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Blittersoft
	Address:	40 Colley Hill
			Bradwell
			Milton Keynes
			Bucks. MK13 9DB

	Telephone	(0908) 220196
	BBS		(0908) 310208
	Internet:	[email-masked]

LIST PRICE

	Various options, either 1MB or 2MB (recommended) RAM.
	Currently #349 for 2MB version, #499 for 2MB & TV Paint 2.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		Amiga with Zorro 2 or Zorro 3 slot.

		Monitor capable of 38KHz (minimum) to 64KHz (to show all
		modes).

		A hard drive and 3MB RAM are almost essential for dealing
		with 24-bit images.

	SOFTWARE

		AmigaDOS 2.04 or greater.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 4000/030, 2MB Chip RAM, 8MB Fast RAM
	Mitac 15 inch "Hyper-VGA" monitor (28-64KHz)
	Standard 80MB Hard Drive (1.0 MB/sec)
	Western Digital Caviar 420MB Hard Drive (2.1 MB/sec)
	Internal high density floppy drive
	External 880K floppy drive
	Kickstart 39.106, Workbench 39.29

INSTALLATION

	The manual describes this in clear detail.  The hardware part is
easy.  (NOTE: the A4000 comes with warranty stickers on the case which have
to be removed before you can install any internal expansion.  Mine were
removed by Wang when they replaced a faulty SIMM.  I was told that removing
these stickers does not void the warranty because A4000's are meant to be
user expandable.  You might like to check this yourself....)

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  If you are not comfortable opening up your
	Amiga, then you should have the work done by an authorized Amiga
	service center.  Opening your Amiga yourself may void your warranty,
	and careless work may even damage the machine.  - Dan]

	The software installation requires that you know some technical
details about your system; in particular, the maximum frequency your monitor
can accept. They take great care to state that you can destroy your monitor
by entering the wrong details here!

REVIEW

	One of the things that makes the Amiga such a great computer is its
graphics.  In the days of the first A500's, home computers were expected to
use a domestic TV and the Amiga was king (queen?). When I took my new 500 to
a TV shop to get a SCART TV, the assistant tuned right past the frequency,
thinking it was a TV station. :)

	Since then things have changed. For serious work, or even frivolous
work, a TV is not good enough. Monitors such as the Phillips 8832 make a big
improvement in the picture quality, but they cannot increase the resolution
above the TV limits that the Amiga was built to. Meanwhile, the PC world was
enjoying higher and higher resolutions and cheap monitors.  The problem is
that PCs use a whole different set of standards from the TV ones.  (This is
why Amigas excel in desktop video.)

	The AGA chipset is a step in the right direction by having a new
mode, called Productivity, which works with PC monitors.  [MODERATOR'S
NOTE:  Actually, Productivity mode debuted in the ECS chipset. - Dan]
Unfortunately most programs expect a TV type output, so you will probably
need to keep your TV anyway.  A1200 owners score massively over us poor 4000
owners because the 1200 has two Video Out ports to the 4000's one. (Why,
Commodore, why?)

	Because of the two types of output, graphics cards (yes I've finally
got round to them) come in two flavours.

	o	Video Cards such as Opalvision don't offer any higher
		resolutions because they are designed to work with video
		equipment - like TVs.  However, they do give high quality
		'true colour' (24-bit) output.

	o	Graphics cards such as the Picasso ignore all this TV stuff
		and go off to play with the big boys from the PC world (and
		use their chips, by the way). Most can show 24-bit images
		up to 800x600 if they have enough memory, but the important
		part is the high resolution modes.

	If you get a graphics card, you HAVE to get a PC type monitor. To get
one that will show all the new modes (and what's the point if you don't)
will cost quite a bit (mine was #380).

	So what do you get? Well basically, you can now run Workbench and any
system-aware program in as high a resolution as you want. For example, I'm
writing this in Final Writer which is running at 1152x900. This means that I
can show a whole page of text in a nice font and still read it clearly.

	Workbench is massively improved.  No more cluttered screens and
everything written in nice clear 20+ point fonts.

	There are several disks of software supplied with the board. This is
installed with Commodores standard installer. Most important are the new
screenmodes for the Preferences list. There is also a useful screen mode
selection utility which runs in the background and pops up whenever an
unrecognised program tries to open a new screen. It then gives you the
option to change the screenmode temporarily or every time the program runs.
There is a picture viewer for IFF, GIF & JPEG formats, modules for ImageFX,
ADpro & Real3D plus a screen blanker

	All Picasso boards come with a registered version of the animation
editor MainActor which is shareware but of commercial quality. It is
possible to buy the board with TVPaint 2 for an extra #150. I got the
cut-down version TVPaint junior which works very well but would probably be
to slow with a 68000 CPU.

DOCUMENTATION

	Two manuals:  one for TV Paint, if you get it, and one for the board.
The board manual is well written and quite big. It includes a lot of
technical detail, some computer graphics background theory, and several
example programs in C.

LIKES

	The manual is very good, as is the supplied software. The best point
is the way that other programs such as Imagine2 & Dpaint can be redirected
to work on much higher resolutions. (Imagine is amazing at 1280x1024.)

DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

	The worst problem I`ve had is finding a suitable monitor.  The
Picasso has a very useful pass-through socket that detects when you are
using an Amiga or Picasso screenmode and switches between them
automatically.  This makes linking up one monitor very simple, but if you
ever play 15KHz games on your machine and you don't have a flicker fixer or
display enhancer, that monitor will have to be able to receive the standard,
unpromoted signal as well as the higher frequency Picasso modes.  At the
moment, I use a TV for games and a PC multisync monitor for Workbench and
applications.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	I'm told that the main differences between the few cards at around
this price are speed and compatibility with Workbench. Apparently the
Picasso is one of the best at both, and is the cheapest!

CONCLUSIONS

	If you spend a lot of time using Workbench or graphics type
applications (e.g., DTP), you would be much happier using a graphics card.

	If you want a graphics card, the Picasso II is hard to beat.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1994 Arthur Laughton.  All rights reserved.

	If you have any comments, flames, free copies of Lightwave... you
can contact me via Email: [email-masked].  (Hiya to Steve S. and
Rob.)

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