Bitchin' Fast! 2D, (Video Loca, 1994, MCA) \ VOGONS

Bitchin' Fast! 2D, (Video Loca, 1994, MCA)

Topic actions

Post a reply

First post, by Apolojuice

Posted on 2020-02-24, 22:17

Apolojuice Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: 2019-02-03, 09:37
Location: Ontario, Canada

Does anybody remember this card?

IBM was working with Video Loca (later bought by Bitboys) to produce a video card that could run the XXXGA resolution at 4096x3072 at 42bit color depth at 69Hz, (2D > 3D), they were used briefly on CIA's IBM PS/2 Model 420 workstations that were responsible for scanning the American aerospace for early detection of foreign attacks, until they were decommissioned in August 2001.

I remember that this card had five GPUs on it, much like their later work with the Bitchin' Fast! 3D. And I remember thinking to myself that Matrox was the only manufacturer to make GPU for both the 2D and the 3D cards (I can't even remember the specific gpu used). I'm trying to put together a computer with 5 separate cards that has similar or same gpu core as the one used on the Bitchin' Fast! 2D, and I was wondering if anyone here could remember what the other four GPU's were.

Many thanks.

I only forget.

Reply 1 of 30, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2020-02-24, 22:36

cyclone3d Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 7905
Joined: 2015-04-08, 06:06
Location: Huntsville, AL USA

Bitchin' Fast! 3D was literally a joke ad.

There would have been absolutely 0 reason to have 5 different 2d cores on a single card.

On top of that, what would 42bit color depth be good for anyway? No displays would have even been able to use that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth

The biggest hurdle back then would have been the amount of video RAM needed.

Resolution--------8bpc--------------10bpc------------12bpc------------16bpc-------------32bpc 1280x720-------2,7 MByte--------3, […]
Show full quote

Resolution--------8bpc--------------10bpc------------12bpc------------16bpc-------------32bpc
1280x720-------2,7 MByte--------3,4 MByte-----4,1 MByte--------5,5 MByte------11,0 MByte
1920x1080-----6,2 MByte-------7,7 MByte------9,3 MByte-------12,4 MByte------14,8 MByte
4096x3072-----37,7 MByte-----47,2 MByte-----56,6 MByte-----75,5 MByte-----151,0 MByte
8192x6144----150,9 MByte----188,7 MByte---226,5 MByte---302,0 MByte---604,0 MByte

https://www.cgdirector.com/ram-video-editing/

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 2 of 30, by rmay635703

Posted on 2020-02-25, 00:25

rmay635703 Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1541
Joined: 2019-01-19, 19:32

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmCEXbspWuI

Model 420 likely requires some herbal compounds to work

Reply 3 of 30, by swaaye

Posted on 2020-02-25, 00:46

swaaye Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 8140
Joined: 2002-07-22, 21:24
Location: WI, USA

👍

Reply 4 of 30, by The Serpent Rider

Posted on 2020-02-25, 02:12

The Serpent Rider Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 5665
Joined: 2017-03-25, 19:07
Location: The Hole

https://www.cgdirector.com/ram-video-editing

This info is absolutely incorrect for displays.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 5 of 30, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2020-02-25, 05:46

cyclone3d Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 7905
Joined: 2015-04-08, 06:06
Location: Huntsville, AL USA

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-02-25, 02:12:

https://www.cgdirector.com/ram-video-editing

This info is absolutely incorrect for displays.

What do you mean? I linked it because that is the amount of video needed for uncompressed frames at listed resolutions and color depth.

bpp is not the same as bpc
https://www.diyphotography.net/8-bit-vs-16-bi … th-use-matters/

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 6 of 30, by The Serpent Rider

Posted on 2020-02-25, 06:20

The Serpent Rider Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 5665
Joined: 2017-03-25, 19:07
Location: The Hole

What do you mean?

You also need to include alpha channel. Which is, obviously, not a problem for uncompressed video frames.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 7 of 30, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2020-02-25, 07:07

cyclone3d Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 7905
Joined: 2015-04-08, 06:06
Location: Huntsville, AL USA

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-02-25, 06:20:

What do you mean?

You also need to include alpha channel. Which is, obviously, not a problem for uncompressed video frames.

Ok, true. So what would the size be at 4096x3072 at different bpc including alpha channel?

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 8 of 30, by Grzyb

Posted on 2020-02-25, 07:07

Grzyb Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1648
Joined: 2019-05-08, 13:47
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-02-24, 22:36:
On top of that, what would 42bit color depth be good for anyway? No displays would have even been able to use that.

Actually, with analog signal, every display is able to use that.

Żywotwór planetarny, jego gnijące błoto, jest świtem egzystencji, fazą wstępną, i wyłoni się z krwawych ciastomózgowych miedź miłująca...

Reply 9 of 30, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2020-02-25, 08:53

cyclone3d Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 7905
Joined: 2015-04-08, 06:06
Location: Huntsville, AL USA

Grzyb wrote on 2020-02-25, 07:07:

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-02-24, 22:36:
On top of that, what would 42bit color depth be good for anyway? No displays would have even been able to use that.

Actually, with analog signal, every display is able to use that.

Yeah... Use it as in it would physically work.. but how many colors can the monitor actually display?
Most of the better ones later on were sold as supporting 16.7 million colors if memory serves.

The number of colors available for any X-bit image is just 2^X if X refers to the bits per pixel and 2^3X if X refers to the bits per channel.

so 42-bit depth - way over that. Looks like 48-bit color is about 481 trillion colors... So around 60 trillion for 42-bit color, right?

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/bit-depth.htm

And what interface would it have had to use at that bit depth and resolution.

See here:
http://monitorinsider.com/cable_bandwidth.html

Sounds to me like something like that would have been completely unusable over an analog vga type signal.

The technology for something to supports those crazy specs did not even exist back then.

Even now, the higher end LCD can't even support that much bandwidth... And video cards look to be limited to 12bpc or 36-bit color.. and that is at probably a max of 1080p.

From looking up stuff, consumer monitors are going to be 8bpc, higher end 10bpc, and 12bpc is very rare.

So yeah, 20+ years ago and this sort of thing was not anywhere near being possible.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 10 of 30, by H3nrik V!

Posted on 2020-02-25, 09:27

H3nrik V! Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1491
Joined: 2019-03-25, 16:00
Location: Denmark, Naestved

Grzyb wrote on 2020-02-25, 07:07:

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-02-24, 22:36:
On top of that, what would 42bit color depth be good for anyway? No displays would have even been able to use that.

Actually, with analog signal, every display is able to use that.

True that!

But no person in the world would be able to distinguish it from 24-bit color 😀

But then again - if the spoof was to be true, the CIA computers probably could've used all that resolution to find details .. 😉

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 11 of 30, by The Serpent Rider

Posted on 2020-02-25, 09:49

The Serpent Rider Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 5665
Joined: 2017-03-25, 19:07
Location: The Hole

cyclone3d wrote:
So what would the size be at 4096x3072 at different bpc including alpha channel?

No idea. We don't even know how it would be divided on such card. 12bpc + 6bit alpha? 10bpc + 12bit alpha? Uneven bpc?

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 12 of 30, by Grzyb

Posted on 2020-02-25, 10:33

Grzyb Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1648
Joined: 2019-05-08, 13:47
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-02-25, 08:53:
Yeah... Use it as in it would physically work.. but how many colors can the monitor actually display?
Most of the better ones later on were sold as supporting 16.7 million colors if memory serves.

Well, modern monitors, with digital inputs, indeed support precisely defined number of colors - eg. 16777216.
CRT monitors, however, usually claimed infinite number of colors.

Żywotwór planetarny, jego gnijące błoto, jest świtem egzystencji, fazą wstępną, i wyłoni się z krwawych ciastomózgowych miedź miłująca...

Reply 13 of 30, by Garrett W

Posted on 2020-02-25, 12:13

Garrett W Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 683
Joined: 2018-09-23, 09:54

Did you guys seriously fall for this 😁?

Reply 14 of 30, by BinaryDemon

Posted on 2020-02-25, 13:20

BinaryDemon Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 653
Joined: 2018-01-17, 00:35

Im gonna stick with my IBM Bitchin’ Fast MDA card. The cursor blinks so fast it gives some people seizures.

Check out DOSBox Distro:

https://sites.google.com/site/dosboxdistro/ [*]

a lightweight Linux distro (tinycore) which boots off a usb flash drive and goes straight to DOSBox.

Make your dos retrogaming experience portable!

Reply 15 of 30, by H3nrik V!

Posted on 2020-02-25, 13:50

H3nrik V! Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1491
Joined: 2019-03-25, 16:00
Location: Denmark, Naestved

BinaryDemon wrote on 2020-02-25, 13:20:

Im gonna stick with my IBM Bitchin’ Fast MDA card. The cursor blinks so fast it gives some people seizures.

🤣

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 16 of 30, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2020-02-25, 15:24

cyclone3d Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 7905
Joined: 2015-04-08, 06:06
Location: Huntsville, AL USA

Garrett W wrote on 2020-02-25, 12:13:

Did you guys seriously fall for this 😁?

No. Just jumped down a rabbit trail into technical theory.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 17 of 30, by GrizzlyAdams

Posted on 2020-02-25, 15:34

GrizzlyAdams Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 8
Joined: 2018-01-04, 02:30

And I'm just smiling over here with my Bitchin' Fast! Audio card...

Attachments

Filename

AudioLoca.png

File size

2.2 KiB

Views

1212 views

File license

Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 18 of 30, by Grzyb

Posted on 2020-02-25, 16:10

Grzyb Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1648
Joined: 2019-05-08, 13:47
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

GrizzlyAdams wrote on 2020-02-25, 15:34:

And I'm just smiling over here with my Bitchin' Fast! Audio card...

So, how fast it is?
If it can play the entire content of a 74-minute Compact Disk in less than 1 minute, then I want to buy that card as well!

Żywotwór planetarny, jego gnijące błoto, jest świtem egzystencji, fazą wstępną, i wyłoni się z krwawych ciastomózgowych miedź miłująca...

Reply 19 of 30, by DNSDies

Posted on 2020-02-25, 20:10

DNSDies Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 263
Joined: 2013-08-03, 17:39

For real, an ¡AudioLoca! card featuring the best audio chips of all time would be cool.

Lets see:
SB Pro/16
Real OPL3 and OPL2
Gravis Ultrasound
Roland LAPC-1
Roland SC-55

What else can we throw in there?
Disney Sound Source?
A3D and EAX support?

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to General Old Hardware

Main menu

Common searches