I need a better display as my (66) year old eyes cannot stand the flicker too much longer. Also I am on a limited budget. Which is best, a FlickerFreeVideoII & SVGA, or a Picasso Graphics board & SVGA? I would prefer a MultiSync but they cost too much. Or another board. I have been on the web for 3 weeks and probably would still not be on except for the ease of using MiamiDemo & VoyagerDemo. Now I have IBrowse and think it is great, and registered Miami. Oh yes! I am using a stock Amiga 2000 with ADspeed.
Thank you,
Stan Young
You have a number of options.
First of all, I might add that you are comparing apples to oranges. Both the Picasso and the FlickerFreeVideoII would solve your problem, but in two different ways.
The Picasso would give you entirely new video capabililities. You would get a full 24-bit display (16.8 million colors), higher resolutions (up to 1280x1024 or even 1600x1200, with some boards), and no flicker...except perhaps in some extremely high-resolution modes. Basically, the Picasso, or any other board like it (and there are many: EGS, Cybervision, etc.) would simply replace your existing video hardware. A SuperVGA monitor, I believe, would serve your purposes well with these. They would install into your computer's video slot. It would also leave your standard 23-pin RGB socket vacant, so you could continue to use your Amiga's output if you wanted to for some reason.
A FlickerFreeVideo II board does not take up a video slot (it plugs in under your Denise chip), and it does not improve your video or graphics capabilities, per se. Rather, it enhances the display, as you wish to have done. It eliminates the flicker in most modes (all if you have the standard Denise), and eliminates those ugly scan lines in noninterlaced modes. A SuperVGA monitor would work well with this board, although it would not support your standard Amiga modes if you installed a bypass switch on the FFVII, which really doesn't matter, since if you want to you can plug your old RGB monitor into the 23-pin RGB socket, which the FFVII also leaves vacant.
There is also another alternative: the FlickerFixer, or another board like it. This is like the Picasso, in that it occupies your video slot, but like the FFVII, in that its sole purpose in life is to deinterlace and de-scanline your display.
You should be able to find a new FFVII board for something in the range of $150-$200. A new FlickerFixer, if you could find one, would probably be somewhat more, and a display board such as the Picasso would probably be in the range of $300 to $500. However, you might also find any of these available for sale online, in magazines, or otherwise, for a much better price.
What you should get depends on the degree to which you wish to expand your Amiga. If you just want to improve your display, an FFVII (or FlickerFixer) will do the job. I use an FFVII in my A500, and it has served me well. If you would go so far as to upgrade your video and graphics capabilities significantly, however, a Picasso, Cybervision, etc. would give you excellent results.
Something else to keep in mind is that although the FFVII operates transparently to the system, the 24-bit display boards generally come with control software that requires Amiga OS 2.0 or greater in order to run, so unless you already have a newer version of the operating system, you might have to upgrade that as well to properly use one of the higher-powered boards. Of course, since you use all this recent software like IBrowse and Miami, I suspect that's not a consideration in your case.
Michael Webb
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
Hi!
I have run into a bit of a silly problem it might seem, but I just can't get something to work properly. When I format a disk, the icon it gets after it's finished is an old 1.3 disk icon. I don't even have this icon in my env/sys drawer; the def_disk.info there is a MagicWB one, and, well, I just can't get it to take that icon, nor does it accept to take the def_busy.info icon, when I format the disk. Then it takes the ordinary MagicWB empty disk instead *totally mad!* :). Well, I don't know if you can help me out but I thought you could try it.
Yours Sincerely,
Richard E.
That is an odd problem. The 1.3 disk icon is showing up? Are you sure it's the 1.3 and not the standard 2.0+ icon (a rectangular harddisk-looking unit)? For that matter, what version of the Amiga OS do you have?
Did you install MagicWB properly, using the script? Has it ever worked properly for you? If it isn't a major loss to you, you could probably attempt to solve this problem by reinstalling MagicWB from the archive with the installation script.
I can't give you any definite answers from what you told me, but this should be a good place to start, anyway.
Michael Webb
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief