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seanhunter11/09/20242 repliesview on HN

Well the nvidia would have no trouble doing that at the refresh rate, resolution and colour depth that the atari was using if that was the target. Ataris were great for their time no doubt but to optimise very high frame rate, colour depth and resolution a modern graphics api is doing some setup that requires a bit of time so that the common case works very smoothly after that.


Replies

Moru11/09/2024

Yes, that is the problem with modern things. Claming to be new and modern but things that used to be instant is getting slower and slower. There was a time when things were still getting faster and faster. I had the privilege to try a normal fixt-line phone a month ago. I had totally forgotten how fast they call and connect after using a modern smartphone for years.

I remember the time when I started with phones. A connection took 10-20 seconds before you heard the tone after dialing the number. And then the AXE (or whatever they vere called) switchboards came. The connection time dropped to just a second or less. Now the connection time depends a lot on how fast your smartphone is. Mine takes several seconds even though it's just a couple of years old.

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account4211/11/2024

There is nothing about the modern graphics pipeline that absolutely requires mode changes to take seconds. That's literally an eternity in computer time.

At least the refresh interval can now be changed on a frame by frame basis again. Resolution and bith depth changes on the other hand are still take an insane amount of time.