wcfrench

14th May 2004 00:58 UTC

AVS Bliss (Utopian Concept)
AVS would be the uncontested, undefendable, unstoppable chamption of all Winamp graphics if it could access the video card CPU.

I know immediately, all of you programmers thing about what or what isn't feasible. But just for one second, imagine with me. The amazingness and simplicity of AVS and shuffling through gorgeous presets, running completely smoothly in the background on your desktop. 1280x1024, 32bpp, smooth as a baby's behind. Now THAT, my friends, would be the shit.

Lack of resolution for "parties" is the biggest downfall of AVS right now. Albeit, it kicks some serious ass and I'm not here to contest that. But just the idea of the AVS running smoothly at high resolution in desktop mode, ... it's like a koan in itself.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?
I don't know!!!

What color is nothing?

If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound?

A plug-in is not really a plug-in. That is exactly why it is a plug-in.

(cue Bruce Lee/oriental flute pipe enlightenment riff)

Doodeedoodeedoooo.......

Peace,
Charlie

Jaak

14th May 2004 05:30 UTC

search forums...
you'll find quite a interesting posts and flame

And yes, winamp doesnt develope avs anymore, so big speed boost is just a sweet dream that will never happen. Only possibility is that avs will get open surced but as for now everyone can forget any major updates for avs.
Ofcourse avs would be perfect thing for parties if a heavy preset would run 60 fps at 1280x1024

Tuggummi

14th May 2004 07:25 UTC

For now AVS will just remain a play-ground for a few nutcakes who like (to quote unconed) "Play with the lego blocks and not just watch the final product." :p

If a dozen of people who think that avs could be whole lot better post that avs should be a whole lot better, does it irritate the regulars?
You may just want to think about that when the first flame arrives to this thread ;)

Jaak

14th May 2004 09:48 UTC

Tugg, aren't you the olny regular who doesnt want avs update?

wcfrench

14th May 2004 10:09 UTC

Yes I read the thread prior to posting and I understand the semantics of creating AVS plug-ins to access the function of a video GPU.

It was just a dream, something to maybe look forward to at some point. I program for a living, but only know a very small amount about 3-D rendering and it was mostly all written formulas.

Anyway it wasn't meant to upset anyone. Hopefully, someone who has the talent and capability will find that it's worth the challenge one day and it will happen. For now, AVS is the best there and undisputably rocks, which I've already said.

Tugg needs a BBC :)

At least in my dictionary, that's a beer, a bong, and a cig. :D :cool: :rolleyes: :) :p :winamp: :) :)

wcfrench

14th May 2004 10:12 UTC

Please take no offense to my garbled reply.

TomyLobo

14th May 2004 12:03 UTC

first of all: nearly none of the effects avs has are supported by current video hardware (although it wouldn't be that hard to put that into hardware but the broad demand for it is missing)
for example convolution filters of all types (including trans/blur)
this would be very easy to do in hardware i think...
next is Dynamic Movement: this effect could only be partly done in hardware. to keep its versatility, it would have to fill a table with the target x/y values (filling that table costs most CPU time of a DM) and then give that to some kind of automatism in the GPU (which would have to be implemented by graphics card manufacturers)
of course there are these pixel/vertex shaders which are also kind of scriptable, but i don't know anything about them so i don't know if they could be used for that...
next problem would be the need for memory in high-res modes... i once calced that i think and i came up with 7,5 MB per buffer in 1600x1200. if you use 3 buffers, 10 effect lists and 2 frame buffers you'd need about 110 MB of memory... that's quite a lot i think if you keep in mind that with hardware acceleration, people could and would make more advanced (and thus more memory intense) presets...

Mr_Nudge

16th May 2004 09:48 UTC

When you've got avs running fullscreen for long times (ie. at parties) what does it matter how much memory it takes up, it's not like your going to be doing anything else with your comp at the same time.

TomyLobo

18th May 2004 10:57 UTC

the problem is: to actually have speed it up, the buffers would have to be kept in the memory of your graphics card, which is not always as big as 128 MB.

btw a Picture II (if completely rewritten for best hardware support) would also need its own buffer, which adds another 7,5 MB per Picture II to the list

Mr_Nudge

22nd May 2004 02:46 UTC

If you want avs for a party, use fullscreen at low-res and a projector and project it onto a wall or something. People aren't going to be looking for that much quality so what does it matter.