Apple II Transwarp (not IIGS version) - Where does it shine?

[eightbit]

Since acquiring my wonderful IIe Platinum with an included Transwarp card I have been playing around with different software (games mostly) and they are basically unplayable with the Transwarp enabled at full speed (3.6MHz). I saw that coming even before I started as I suspected most games to be programmed with the default 1MHz in mind. So it has basically been an extra step of disabling the Transwarp by holding ESC on first power on.

 

Tonight I checked the manual and found that it can be switched to half speed at 1.7MHz. This was kind of cool as it made QIX play at arcade speed! But, everything else I tried was pretty unplayable.

 

I am just wondering where something like this shines? Is it more for business applications and programming? Are there any games that were specifically written to take advantage of the additional speed? Seems a lot of cool stuff can happen with the additional speed if used correctly.

 

I just am not sure I really need this in here. I have a TWGS in my IIGS and that thing was basically required for it to operate normally, but the Transwarp in the Apple II...I just don't know.

 

Does anyone have one of these and have any examples of software that takes advantage of it or even requires it? I see A2Heaven has crazy accelerator for the Apple IIe to get it up to 16.6MHz. Where would anyone need that speed on a IIe I have to ask?

[Keatah]

Apple II games don't accelerate too well, unless the acceleration is slight, like 1 MHz or less.

 

Some subLogic simulations could use a boost, like Space Vikings or Saturn Navigator. I would guess that adventure and role-playing games would benefit greatly for their drawing routines. Or anything like paint programs.

 

AppleWorks loves all the speed you can give it, as do other business applications.

 

Locksmith copier will analyze disks faster.

 

And homebrew AppleSoft programs using math are good candidates, as well as BBS stuff. So, yeh, non-game stuff!

[spacecadet]

Try Flight Sim II. I don't think I've ever tried it on the IIgs in "fast" mode, so I don't know what effect acceleration has on it. But that game runs at like 1fps normally. 3fps would be awesome!

[eightbit]

I guess it's cool to have in there for certain occasions. It did do wonders on Qix, but for many other things it just doesn't work out. Most games are too fast or the controller goes crazy.

[rpiguy9907]

Bilestoad!

[Iamgroot]

Any 3-d rendering games should benefit. Racing and flight simulator games

board and card games, playing movie videos or video rendering and graphics compression

Any hi-res desktop applications. Apple2Desktop, GEOS, Beaglewrite uses the hi-res screen for word processing and has a WYSIWYG font display that requires speed.

Any applesoft basic programs that don't have text or graphics animation would be a boon.

A graphics compressor for the Double Hi-res screen takes over 75 minutes at 1 Mhz to compress. At almost 4x the speed, an accelerator would take just under 20 minutes. Use the accelerator speed (or the force) to save disk space compressing text and graphics files.

[Keatah]

A graphics compressor for the Double Hi-res screen takes over 75 minutes at 1 Mhz to compress.

 

What sort of compression ratio does this (whtever it is) get?

[DeathAdderSF]

In my notes here, I find two 8-bit games that actually ask if you have an accelerator: Tomahawk and Borrowed Time. I'm sure there are others.

[Bill Loguidice]

I remember in the early SSI catalogs the company making a big deal about how several of their games would benefit from an accelerator (I believe they sold at least one). That was probably because a lot of their early software was primarily BASIC-driven. I don't recall them pushing the offer for too much longer. In any case, I remember the price of the accelerator being quite high.

[Iamgroot]

 

What sort of compression ratio does this (whtever it is) get?

 

 

pretty good. I wrote an LZ4 compressor that gets average 66 % compression.

 

Dbl hi-res - 33 blocks down to 11 (very complex graphics still get about 33 % compression, but adventure graphics like Kings Quest and The Black Cauldron getting 66%-80%). I believe this is better compression than what Graphics Magician was getting. A lot faster too. At this ratio, a file should be able to be loaded and drawn to screen faster than loading the whole file directly from disk

 

Hi-res - 17 blocks down to 5-8

 

Text compression - These are instruction text files and not lists of words or charts

- < 10 blocks - < 25 %

- greater than 10 blocks file size - 40 %

- 20 blocks or greater text file size - 50%

- 30 blocks or greater - 66-70%

- 50 blocks or greater - 70-80%

- the larger the text file size, the greater the compression.

 

At 66 % compression, a 140 kb disk can hold 20-25 dbl hi-res pictures

 

You can see an example of dbl hi-res compression on this disk

 

http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ftp.apple.asimov.net/images/productivity/graphics/misc/best.dbl.grafx.2mg