Re: Second Sight....

[philip@labtam.oz.au (Philip Stephens)]

Lim Thye Chean writes:

>Just wanted to know: what really so great about Second Sight? Since you
>already have it, can you share your experience? Have it really enhance your
>GS experience or does it only display beautiful image and that's it?

  I'm surprised at you, Lim Thye!  The card specifications alone should answer
your questions:

  * 16-bit colour resolution for modes up to 800x600
  * 24-bit colour resolution for modes up to 640x480
  * 20 Mhz Z180 processor for "blitting" (and undoubtable usable for many
    other tasks if programmers are clever enough)

  Now those are pretty damn good specs.  To give you an idea of what I
believe is possible with the Second Sight: how does a Doom-like 3D graphics
engine sound to you?  I've written one for Unix and X, and as soon as I order
and recieve my Second Sight card I'm gonna start porting away...
  (To give you an idea of the feasibility: I wrote my initial version of my
3D graphics engine on my GS, and with semi-optimised assembly language for
the time-critical parts I got it down to 1 fps @ 7 Mhz.  But with the Z180
doing most of the blitting and texture maps stored directly in VRAM, I
believe I can have a 320x200x256 resolution screen rendering at a respectable
frame rate.)
  Frankly, the Second Sight is a real breath of new life for the GS...we can
now write programs that look as good as any other platform.  We can have JPG
images displayed in 24-bit colour!  We at last can write games that have
great colour and shading, not to mention faster graphics using sprite routines
downloaded onto the video board itself.  What more could you ask for?

  Will it enhance the GS experience??  You better believe it!

=========== Philip Stephens, Systems Programmer, Labtam Australia ============
====== Owned by Motor (Mo for short), the power-purrer from Down Under =======
== DS (B+S+O+W)t Y 2.5 X  L W C+++ I T++ A+ E H++ S+ V+ F Q++ P B PA+ PL+++ ==
"Many views yield the truth.  Therefore, be not alone." -- Viggies' Prime Song