Picasso96_1.25 1.25

Short:        Picasso96 for Amiga graphics boards
Author:       Tobias Abt <tabt@studbox.uni-stuttgart.de>
Uploader:     M G Viper <mgviper gmx net>
Type:         driver/video
Version:      1.25
Architecture: m68k-amigaos

This archive contains all you need to get Picasso96 up and running on your
Amiga.  Picasso96 offers support for many different Amiga graphics boards,
has  builtin  HiColor and TrueColor support for intuition screens and many
more...

Requirements:
- Kickstart and Workbench 3.0 (V39) since Picasso96 v1.17,
- Motorola MC68020 processor or better,
- CyberVision 64, Domino, Merlin, oMniBus, Picasso II, Picasso II+,
  Picasso IV, Piccolo, Piccolo SD64 or Spectrum.

AnyWare, i.e. not commercial or ShareWare. No distribution restrictions.

Short history:

Changes in 1.25:
- Installer help page works on Hi/TrueColor screens now.
- mask blits (e.g. Locale prefs) work on Hi/TrueColor screens now, too.
- added ENV:Picasso96/DirectColorMask environment variable which enables
  blitting (especially scrolling) with a plane mask on Hi/TrueColor
  screens when set to "Yes". WARNING: if you activate this, shell
  scrolling will get terribly slow!
- PabloII support added to PicassoIV.card

Changes in 1.24:
- corrected checks for maximum BitMap size that may be put to the board.
- CV64: some minor speed improvements, corrected sync polarities and screen
  clearing.
- changed screen mode name for 8 bit modes for better sorting.
- lots of speed improvements on the Cirrus GD5446 (as used on the PicassoIV).
- finished BltPattern() with masks in Hi/TrueColor (ColorWheel should finally
  work on all screens as expected).
- mouse sprite speed is now the same for all sprite resolutions.
- detecting of empty software mouse sprites implemented.

Changes in 1.23:
- further on-board hardware-blitting support implemented.
- friends to bitmaps already on the board will be allocated on the board,
  too, especially clip rects. This in combination with the new on-board 
  blitting functions can lead to dramatically improved layering operations
  if there is enough off-screen memory available on the board. So you
  might think twice before spending all board memory for large and/or
  TrueColor screens... :-)
- improved management of on-board memory.
- to take advantage of the new features, some S3 driver blitter functions
  had to be rewritten and may be a little bit slower now. This also fixes
  some potential problems with small screens at the end of the board
  memory due to restrictions caused by the way the blitter has to be
  programmed and leads to more efficient memory usage.
- fixed rounding and pixel clock slider (edit screen) in Picasso96Mode.
- PiccoloSD64: improved timing and fixed ZorroII planar2chunky bug.
- fixed two color chunky screen layering bug.
- changed naming scheme for screen modes to give more detailed 
  information on the different modes (limited to 31 characters by the OS).
  The display IDs are still the same, so only a few braindead programs
  should notice.