@Hammer

Interesting the Witchers slow mode being 25Mhz; the Supra28mhz slow mode is 7Mhz which is particularly good for testing.

Seems like your more of a power user than me so that PiStorm (or a V4) is a very wise move. I don't really use Imagine4, I just wanted to get the most up to date Rendering software I could, working on the A2000 for a bit of fun.

I mainly use Wordworth 7 (good RTF support, I save as RTF in Linux/Windows boxes too), PPaint (also good file type support, for other PC's), HippoPlayer (playing mod files), Gaming (almost everything via WHDLoad) & general tinkering with the OS. I've spent a lot of time over the years trying to get hold of the best possible software available that works (in different categories e.g. Redering – Imagine4 on plain 68000 Amigas) well on my different systems then setting this up & not so much time actually using them!

I wont really benefit from a V4 or PiStorm for any software I use regularly at the moment, but at some point I plan on getting one (or two). It opens up the possibility to do other things on the Amiga & hopefully support further development, plus play some games that need a CPU with more oomph .

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A1200+Mediator+Voodoo3+040+130mbRAM+0S3.9
A2000+Supra28mhz+9mbRAM+OS3.2.2, CD32 & WinUAE

Update – PicShow, ViewAnim & AnimatedIcon – What they are good at

Since my last post I've found Animated GIF's online & done some more testing.

Unfortunately some modern GIF's don't play correctly using AnimatedIcon. Quite a few of these play better & sometimes very well using ViewAnim or PicShow (if it plays fine on PicShow it nearly always plays fine on ViewAnim & vis versa).

PicShow - best if you have a folder full of GIF Anims & you just want to see what they are (once you've viewed the GIF you just right click on the screen & select the next one).

ViewAnim - best if your looking for the greatest chance of being able to View a GIF (same as PicShow) but also want the smoothest playback. It has no GUI so on double clicking the icon, Execute file pops up with ViewAnim in the command box. You need to drag n drop the GIF you want to play into the command box & click Execute to play.

AnimatedIcon - best overall for any Animated GIF it can play. It's very easy to use & it plays as smooth as ViewAnim. GIF's continue playing whilst you do other things & it will play several at the same time. This makes it much more fun to use … goes well with HippoPlayer .

Last edited by Tpod on 26-Jul-2024 at 04:50 PM.

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A1200+Mediator+Voodoo3+040+130mbRAM+0S3.9
A2000+Supra28mhz+9mbRAM+OS3.2.2, CD32 & WinUAE

Other Viewers

I've unachieved some of the other software kindly mentioned in this thread. None worked out, but were understandably suggested because on Aminet, the readme for these & others could certainly do with some more detail!

EyeViewer 2.1 - is 020+ only (think it's a picture only viewer).

AnimIcon 0.4 (newer version of AnimatedIcon) - is 020+ only. I took a look at this one on my A1200 040 but no luck. Perhaps I was being a bit dim & with more time & effort could of got somewhere (definitely not the simplest thing to get working).

FastView - Most likely 020+ only, it crashed the A2000 on clicking the icon but started fine on the A1200. It is however just a picture viewer.

Last edited by Tpod on 26-Jul-2024 at 04:54 PM.

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A1200+Mediator+Voodoo3+040+130mbRAM+0S3.9
A2000+Supra28mhz+9mbRAM+OS3.2.2, CD32 & WinUAE

@Tpod

As you seem to like my ViewAnim program I developed it a little further. Well, a lot actually.

- it can be run from Workbench.
- it can be used as default tool in icons.
- it asks for a file if none is given or if the given one cannot be loaded.
- you can drag another animation file into the window to load it.
- you can select another file by pressing the enter key, the space bar or the right mouse button.
- you can specify as argument or icon tooltype where the window shall open.
POSITION=T -> top left corner of the screen
POSITION=C -> center of the screen
POSITION=M -> under the mouse pointer
POSITION=320,160 -> the given position
- you can specify the animation speed as argument or tooltype.
SPEED=10 -> give FPS between 1 and 50. Default is 10.
- the SPEED tooltype can be set in the animation's icon, too, to set individual speeds for different animations.
- it now uses timer.device so that the animation keeps going if the window becomes inactive. This allows to run multiple instances at once which all keep moving at the same time.
- frames are shown while loading. The mouse pointer stays busy until the whole animation is loaded.

The download link is the same as above: https://thomas-rapp.hier-im-netz.de/download/viewanim.lha

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Home: thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de

@thomas

Great to see an unexpected ViewAnim update, with its nice icon & extra features, it's certainly much more user friendly now.

I've done a fair bit of testing & unfortunately there is a bit of a technical hitch! Tested on A2000 in my usual PAL High Res. 8 colour & a little on WinUAE with same config. & same basic results (appears slightly worse sometimes on real hardware).

For some reason GIF's that played fine on the old version (but not on AnimatedIcon) now don't! It's the same GIF's that have issues on this new version & AnimatedIcon. Worse still, quite a few that worked well on all three Viewers now flicker on this new version . I tried the speed feature to see if it made a difference but it didn't. On some very small GIFs that flicker, they only flicker when moving the mouse.

If you do fancy looking into this & could get it playing as well as the old version it would clearly be the best GIF Viewer available. A good source of glitchy & not so glitchy GIF's is GIFGIFS.com see below.

GIFGIFS.com

Examples of GIF's that work fine on all the GIF Viewers I use including the new version of ViewAnim.
Select Category – Sports/Water-Sports:
Page 4 – Swimming_down.gif, Page 7 Diver_4.gif.

Examples of GIFs that worked perfectly on the original version of ViewAnim but not on the new version.
Category Transportation/Planes:
Page 2 – man_on_plane.gif, Page 4 – eurofighter.gif, Page 16 – mustang.gif

Examples also in Transportation/Planes that didn't even work properly using the original version of ViewAnim (or any other viewer):
Page 1 – c-5.gif, Page 2 – MIG-29.gif, Page 12 – 3d_scenery.gif.

Example that flickers on the new ViewAnim but work fine on old version & AnimatedIcon
Transportation/Trains: Page 2 – Train_front.gif

New feature & change that would be good to see:

Currently there is no title bar to drag on very small gifs (just Close & Depth Gadget) so the GIF can't be moved. If there could be a minimum size to insure you have a tiny bit of title bar so moving is possible or the AnimatedIcon way i.e. no boarder & you can just move the actual GIF.

In the tool types of the GIF's use 'FPS=' instead of 'SPEED=' so that it works in the same way as AnimatedIcon. If playback is sorted (& small GIF title bar issue) so it works like the old version again then not much benefit changing this as no need to use AnimatedIcon anymore .

_________________
A1200+Mediator+Voodoo3+040+130mbRAM+0S3.9
A2000+Supra28mhz+9mbRAM+OS3.2.2, CD32 & WinUAE

@Tpod

Thank you for the feedback. Last time I forgot to mention that ViewAnim now properly takes transparency information into account if available. This probably caused the flickering. The drawing has been changed now to first compose a frame in a temporary bitplane and then copy the whole thing into the window. This should fix the flickering but might be slower.

I think I implemented all your suggestions now.

There is a new tooltype BACKGROUND which determines how the background behind the animation is drawn.

If the value is numeric, it is taken as a pen from the screen's current palette.
If the value begins with # followed by six hexadecimal digits, it is taken as a RGB value and the best matching pen is used.
If it is the name of a picture file, it is loaded as a pattern which fills the background.

There is another new tooltype BLEND. It causes the next frame to be drawn on top of the previous one without clearing the background. For most animations this causes an unwanted smear effect, but the 3d_scenery gif needs it to be shown correctly.

The download link is still the same: https://thomas-rapp.hier-im-netz.de/download/viewanim.lha

Looking forward to your comments.

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Email: thomas-rapp@web.de
Home: thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de

@thomas

I've not managed to do any real testing on the new version yet (only about 5 minutes so far). I did try the new BACKGROUND tooltype, which I can already tell is a very helpful addition. I hope to give it a good test run at the weekend & will report back.

You also took the time & effort to implement a minimum bit of title bar for those very small GIF's which works fine, however apologies as I was a bit dopey suggesting that solution ! One of AnimatedIcon's best features is that there is no border & you can just move the actual GIF. This means for example if you have a road as part of your Workbench Backdrop, you can pop a GIF of a bike on it & it looks like it's part of the Backdrop, or say a spinning planet on a space backdrop etc.; this makes it more fun to use. Sorry to be a pain not mentioning it earlier but I thought I'd at least mention now before I get around to testing.

Last edited by Tpod on 01-Aug-2024 at 12:02 AM.

_________________
A1200+Mediator+Voodoo3+040+130mbRAM+0S3.9
A2000+Supra28mhz+9mbRAM+OS3.2.2, CD32 & WinUAE

@Tpod

Ok, this evolves to a quite powerful app.

So now the entire window body can be used to drag the window.

However, the biggest addition is the new tooltype DISPLAY=ICON. With this set, it does not open a window at all but creates an app icon on the desktop, just like AnimatedIcon.This includes full transparency if the gif is transparent.

The BACKGROUND tooltype still works as before, but the new value BACKGROUND=-1 enables transparency. This is the default in icon mode.

The BLEND tooltype is still needed for some animations.

_________________
Email: thomas-rapp@web.de
Home: thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de

@thomas

Been testing the latest version; on the positive side both BACKGROUND & BLEND work great, so GIF's that didn't play properly on any player work as they should (if correct tool types used obviously).

On the A2000 if I don't change any tool types & only view one GIF at a time ViewAnim seems to work fine (played various GIFs for 31 mins). Also on my WinUAE OS3.9 040 RTG setup everything appears to work perfectly ... although am I right in thinking there's currently no way to quit in ICON mode yet?

Unfortunately on the A2000 once you use the BACKGROUND, BLEND or DISPLAY=ICON tooltypes you end up with a system freeze (in a few seconds or minutes), resulting in a blank screen (I've had grey & I think green or possibly yellow). Also just running multiple (anything more than one) ViewAnims results in a system freeze pretty quickly.

I normally have VirusZ III 1.02 (for anyone interested there is much newer (2022) β of VirusZ III available) in my WBStartup draw but when I started ViewAnim it brought up a Software Failure for VirusZ (error #80000003) so I removed it & switched off then later continued testing.

On a Winuae 68000 OS3.2.2.1 setup using BLEND I got a HALT 2 freeze & also without BLEND I had a system freeze which turned to a grey screen then after a few seconds some thin vertical lines (7 of the 8 colour palette excluding orange (I think))appeared.

Also on WinUAE I tried an old OS3.1 68000 setup, but starting ViewAnim produced an almost instant system freeze & automatic reboot.

Wishing you success figuring out this freeze problem. If possible it would be very useful to have both BACKGROUND & BLEND optionally set via the GIF icons tool types rather than ViewAnims.

_________________
A1200+Mediator+Voodoo3+040+130mbRAM+0S3.9
A2000+Supra28mhz+9mbRAM+OS3.2.2, CD32 & WinUAE

@Tpod

Quote:

am I right in thinking there's currently no way to quit in ICON mode yet?

Select Icon -> Delete from the menu.


Quote:

If possible it would be very useful to have both BACKGROUND & BLEND optionally set via the GIF icons tool types rather than ViewAnims.

This was possible from the very beginning. BLEND, BACKGROUND and FPS are also read from the animation's icon. The ViewAnim icon only sets the defaults.


Quote:

WinUAE

Can you provide the WinUAE config you used?


Quote:

freeze

Could you also provide detailed system information, which CPU, how much Chip RAM, how much Fast RAM, which HDD controller. How much RAM (Chip and Fast) is free when you start ViewAnim?

And also the preferences, mainly screenmode.prefs and wbpattern.prefs. If wbpattern is a picture also the picture file or at least the dimensions of the picture and the file type.


Quote:

an old OS3.1 68000 setup

ViewAnim is not expected to run on WB 3.1. It requires features which were introduced only with OS 3.5.

_________________
Email: thomas-rapp@web.de
Home: thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de

@thomas

WinUAE

SCREEN is PAL:High Res. 8 colour 724x283

WBPattern Type = Pattern
I use the Preset Patterns: Workbench = bottom right preset, Windows= 2nd on Right Preset.

(NOTE: Also tested with a clear Grey for both Workbench & Windows & instead of freeze got a Software failure error 80000003 Task 002E9B58 then rebooted.)

Hard Disk is: uaehf.device (note under Expansion Board Settings Box 1 = SCSI controllers, Box 2= GVP Series II(Great Valley Products), Box 3 is greyed out, little box (next to box 2) =1 next box is clear … I believe as it is, it is not actually selected/working; no mention in ShowConfig in the OS).

GIF's used 3d_scenery, c-5 & f-18_2.

CPU=68000

RAM Chip=2MB 1,619,936 at crash Fast:8MB 6,613,904 at crash.

Sent PM of actual Config file

_________________
A1200+Mediator+Voodoo3+040+130mbRAM+0S3.9
A2000+Supra28mhz+9mbRAM+OS3.2.2, CD32 & WinUAE

@thomas

I'm not too keen testing again on my A2000 (OS3.2.2.1) until system failure/freeze issue is hopefully ironed out on WinUAE. I can say that it would have frozen/crashed with well over 300,000 Chip RAM & 4,500,000 Fast Ram still available. I use my own pattern for Windows & my own IFF 678x270 Picture for Workbench on a 678x270 PAL:High Res. 8 colour Screen.

Hardware:
Amiga 2000 1MB Chip RAM
68HC000 Accelerator: Supra Turbo 28 MHz (onboard 16K static RAM cache, SysInfo 2.65 Mips)
GVP Impact Series II HC+8 populated with 8MB of 70ns SIMMS (GVP ROM 4.13). SCSI2SD 4.2 with a 4GB SD Card as Hard drive, also SCSI DVDROM & Zip100 drive plus a Multiface III.

Last edited by Tpod on 04-Aug-2024 at 10:29 AM.

_________________
A1200+Mediator+Voodoo3+040+130mbRAM+0S3.9
A2000+Supra28mhz+9mbRAM+OS3.2.2, CD32 & WinUAE