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Right...fan speed control.
I completely discount the video card arguments, as I don't think they are valid.

BUT, a G5 with its fans running at full speed would be most annoying.

So...TWO issues. One that's easy to solve (install a network card), and another that would require some development work.
BUT, how much difference can there be between fans speed control on AGP G5s and PCI-E G5s?

And, if I had to, I could alter the water cooling system of a G5 with a hardware monitor to control fan speed.
Give me a port that adjusts the fans to run full speed, and I'll have a separate hardware controller built in a couple of weeks.
Its the kind of hacking I'm good at. Relatively simple.

bigfoot told me several times there won't be a g5 11,2 release. at least not with 3.10. don't know what's gonna happen after that.

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Yes, I know that, as I exchange the occasional message with Mark.
And no, 3.10 will only add X5000 support (and some REALLY freaking cool upgrades).

I'm not sure how many new video drivers Mark is planning on releasing (how many will be completely ready in time), BUT he is working on ALL of the cards that precede the GCN cards. So, no more X1950XTX as our top card.
And some of those mid-range 5000 and 6000 cards are SO nice.
I had a chance to play with a few before shipping them to Bigfoot, and they are impressive, producing frame rates that our current card simply can't touch.

I don't know if he'll support the AGP variants of the R600 and R700 cards for our legacy systems, I'd sent them to him fairly late in the development cycle for the R600 and R700 drivers (and I NEVER press for details - it would be...rude).

But an AGP 3850 or 4650 would be too cool in a G4 or G5.

And the jump from HD 4000 to HD 5000 is incredible. But think about it, without other PCI-E systems, these cards are limited to the SAM460 and the X5000.

Would you like the option of, say, an HD6750 in a PCI-E G5? It can be done, because Linux users are doing it NOW.

And we know MorphOS can run on a PCI-E G5, it just needs a network driver and fan speed control. Not nearly as much work as Mark had to do to complete the original G5 port.

So its not really a question of could it be done, or the amount of work required (which, no doubt, some of us would be willing to pay a bounty for), its a matter of WILL....will it be done, is there the will to do it, will they be reading my will and it still won't be done, etc.

Honestly, is there any really legitimate reason not to do this?

[ Edited by Jim 23.09.2017 - 18:33 ]

new hardware means more user support, service and maintenance. i think its just not beneficial enough for a handful of users. afaik the g5 port didn't sell as they all had hoped.

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When did we start providing user support, service, or maintenance.
We report bugs in the OS, and they (hopefully) get fixed.

And G5 adoption? I believe that has become one of our most popular new platforms.
PowerBooks and the G5, why would you choose anything else?

I have a G4, an iBook, and one G5. And the G4 powered hardware pales in comparison to the G5.

Similar hardware that I could use modern PCI-E cards in (like Radeon HD cards)?
I'm sure that would be popular, as it would be the lowest cost of entry for MorphOS systems that support PCI-E video cards.
AND it would be the most powerful of those systems.

So, why not somewhat slow performance at the low end with Tabor, faster performance with the X5000s, and cheap, REALLY fast performance with the PCI-E G5?

I'd buy the middle and last option (actually already I have the quad G5 and will be buying an X5000/40).

Look, I CAN'T see using AGP cards in my PCs anymore, there just AREN'T any really high end cards in that format anymore (the best is probably the 4670 - and that's really weak).
So, PCI-E is a must, at least for decent video cards.

You can't argue that the 11,2 doesn't make sense.
Its the natural end point to our PPC evolution.
The most powerful PPC offered on a desktop.

I'm never likely to see Power9 support, but for God's sake, why NOT adopt the 11,2?
Why SHOULD I have to settle for less than the best?

why the hell do you need a fast GFX card? for what purpose? there is no software that can utilize and use the full potential of those cards. not even the currently supported ones are fully maxed out. this bigger and better absurdity is the last thing thats missing and of vital importance for our system. MorphOS needs more and better applications. A recent browser, email client with IMAP support, video/live streaming capability, hardware decoding support, webgl, shader support etc.
Currently supported gfx cards would be fast enoug for all this. theres really no point in supporting HD5000 cards. thats like driving to the backery next door with a lamborghini instead of a ferrari.

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because the MorphOS devs have restricted resources. if you put work into a port, which is not really fundamental, you'll have less time to work on essential and important stuff. you want that? i hope not.
There is so much more important stuff than another G5 port.

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Probably because there are less G5 PowerMac towers in Europe than North America, and most of the MorphOS users live outside of North America.

Also, I think the MorphOS Dev. Team has finally "seen the light" regarding how difficult and time consuming it is to support so many different hardware platforms. With the statements regarding shifting to x64 hardware, I think some of the team members might have already decided that "any" time spent working on supporting additional PPC platforms would be a waste of time. The task of creating a port to x64, plus breaking backward compatibility and working toward providing SMP and/or memory protection, must be so daunting, I would think that some/most of the team probably is distressed or worried, that they have enough developer resources to make the switch successful.

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Its odd that I get feedback that this ISA change is not as daunting as the additional features that are planned for the new platform.
And some of the developers, like Mark, have a real affinity for what they've already created.
When the R500 drivers were being created, Frank had a PCI-E X1950XTX, but Mark asked me specifically for an AGP X1950GT so that he could use his AGP G5 for development.
To the best of my knowledge, he's using a SAM460 for a lot of the current development (even though he has an X5000).
He says the cooling fan of the beta X5000 machines 'is just too loud for continuous use'!

In any case, once the ISA shift occurs, I'm keeping my PPC systems, if only for nostalgic value.
And I could reduce those to one PPC system, if it was as nice as the 11,2.

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No doubt that some of the MorphOS Dev. Team members feel the same way as Mark, and would like to continue using PPC for a long time. How many feel this way, and what parts of MorphOS they work on, will likely influence how fast the shift to x64 happens, or if it is successful at all.

Until we have proof in the way of more modern software to run on MorphOS for x64 (obviously only after the port to x64 has been released), I don't have a preference. Once we (hopefully) have more modern and powerful programming tools, which result in dozens of new and better software titles to run on MorphOS for x64, then I doubt I will keep any PPC systems to run MorphOS, unless I am also running some other retro software which will only run on PPC, that I want to continue using.

I'm pretty much not a "loyalist" when it comes to any computer OS, or hardware architecture. I only care about what my computer can run and how useful or fun that software is for me. Being easy to use and understand is also a big plus, which is why I am so fond of AmigaOS1.3 to AmigaOS3.9, and why I dislike Windows so much, and Linux & MacOSX to a lesser amount.

A-Eon's choice of case & CPU fans has not been very good so far, as the X1000 had the same complaints regarding fan noise. I'll probably eventually upgrade my X1000 fans to something less noisy and more efficient (or at least equally efficient), if/when I ever use it more often. I'm surprised Mark hasn't swapped out his noisy fans in his X5000, as it certainly must be much faster for using as a development platform than his SAM460.

> theres really no point in supporting HD5000 cards.

Problem is with Sam460 and X5000 users wanting to try out MorphOS on their machine bought originally for OS4. They won't change their graphics card just for that, so MorphOS should properly support whatever is in there, or will miss out on these potential users. So indeed, there's little point in supporting HD5000 cards, as HD7700 and newer is what Sam460 and X5000 use mostly.

>> afaik the g5 port didn't sell as they all had hoped.

> Probably because there are less G5 PowerMac towers in Europe than North America

At least eBay Germany has always been filled with supported G5 Macs, so enough for every German MorphOS user to own a two-digit amount :-)

I don't think Mark was thinking about outsiders when he started this, and each generation of AMD gpus has been somewhat evolutionary (at least up to the GCN cards), so I understand his starting with the R600s and working up, since the last adopted series was the R500s.
Occasionally he'll drop a little info on me that gives me some insight into the changes, and its been pretty cool.
The R600s and R700s are extremely closely linked, but the jump to the 5000 startled me in how much was gained (even lower end card like the 5650 and 5750 are a better choice than the 4870).
So yeah, there more than a little utility for us with these cards.

A system with an HD 5750 is a quantum leap over the X1900XT.
And the jumps up from there to the 6750 (with is Juniper Pro gpu, just like the 5750) or the 7670 (which is a Turks XT gpu and actually a little lower in performance) aren't that impressive.

And still, I really like the 6670, 6750, and 6770.
They perform as well as any card in the 7000 series below the 77XX.

Of course, all of these are Terascale cards.
GCN doesn't start until the 7730.

And how much will we get out of GCN? I doubt it will be much. The operating frequencies are only slightly higher, we have no Gen3 PCI-E slots (so that feature won't matter), and our drivers uses a surprisingly small number of graphic primitives (think about it, what executes on our highest end cards also works on a Radeon 9200 - or even lower cards).
No, what's important for us are transfer rates, basic copies to and from memory, fill rates, primitive functions that are improving, but don't reflect all the new functionality built into a modern gpu.
In short, I saw great leaps in DX12 performance with the GCN cards, but in DX11 performance sometimes the 6000 series cards did better than the 7000 series cards.

So, with Linux being a consideration, I'm probably sticking with a 6000 series card, either the 6670 or the 6750.
Believe me, these will be scary fast under MorphOS.

Heck, even the R700s will have something to offer, because they are much faster than the R500s and the driver will offer composting (so far this is the highest gpu that that function will be supported for).

Which really makes me hope Mark does give us AGP R600 and R700 support.
A G4 or G5 with a Radeon 3850, 4650 or 4670 would offer compositing AND be much faster than our current cards, I don't doubt for a second that a well written MorphOS driver for these cards will easily allow our G4 systems to step all over Tabor (let alone what a G5 could do).

So YES, there ARE reasons to support cards below the HD 7750.

We just need to stop thinking in terms of OS4, after all, Linux users of A-eon and Acube systems use cards below the GCN series too.

> GCN doesn't start until the 7730. [...] there ARE reasons to support cards below
> the HD 7750.

Like the 7730? ;-)

> how much will we get out of GCN? I doubt it will be much.

Me either. That's why I never quoted performance as reasoning for my opinion that giving priority to GCN-based cards would be better.

> our drivers uses a surprisingly small number of graphic primitives (think about it, what
> executes on our highest end cards also works on a Radeon 9200 - or even lower cards).

I'm not sure this makes sense. Programs don't talk to the graphics card drivers directly. There's at least one level of abstraction in between, so I think the graphic primitives can be different between drivers for different GPU generations.

> a well written MorphOS driver for these cards will easily allow our G4 systems to
> step all over Tabor

...except in 3D operations.

> We just need to stop thinking in terms of OS4

*If* the MorphOS team wants OS4 users on Sam460 and X5000 to try out MorphOS, then they just need to *start* "thinking in terms of OS4" ;-)
Hans de Ruiter published the results of his latest OS4 graphics card survey some months back, which shows a clear trend towards GCN-based cards. Of all users of Radeon HD and newer cards (which should be Sam460, X1000 and X5000 users combined), about 75% use HD7xxx/Rx. Unfortunately, we don't have the data to be able to subtract out the X1000 users from this, and we also don't know how many of those HD7xxx cards are HD76xx and lower cards and thus not GCN-based.

>>there ARE reasons to support cards below
>>the HD 7750.

>Like the 7730?

Ah yes...you ARE good at picking up minor mistakes . For my part, I didn't even know there was an HD 7730 until yesterday, I've never seen one.

>> how much will we get out of GCN? I doubt it will be much.

>Me either. That's why I never quoted performance as reasoning for my opinion that giving priority to GCN-based >cards would be better.

Honestly, except for new system buyers, I don't see the logic in using GCN cards, there a lot of 5000 and 6000 series cards at bargain prices right now that will absolutely fly under an NG OS.

>> our drivers uses a surprisingly small number of graphic primitives (think about it, what
>> executes on our highest end cards also works on a Radeon 9200 - or even lower cards).

>I'm not sure this makes sense. Programs don't talk to the graphics card drivers directly. There's at least one >level of abstraction in between, so I think the graphic primitives can be different between drivers for >different GPU generations.

True, most graphics operations run through TinyGL, but our version of OpenGL is so dated that almost all our cards have the commands that have been implemented in this package.

>> a well written MorphOS driver for these cards will easily allow our G4 systems to
>> step all over Tabor

>...except in 3D operations.

Yeah, even if we get AGP R600 and R700 support, 5000-7000 (and later GCN) cards will have a distinct advantage, but I'm beginning to wonder how well Tabor will work with its graphics cards. The P1022 has only SIX SerDes lanes which must drive the NIC, SATA, AND PCI-E interfaces.
Something tells me operations to and from system memory are really going to be really slow.
So, given that we'll have 1.42 GHz G4 PowerMacs going up against a weaker 1.2 GHz P1022 (with its funky spe fpu), there's still a chance that Tabor won't fair well. Its a given that programs that aren't heavily graphically oriented will be much faster on the PowerMac. And graphics programs...we'll just have to see.

>>We just need to stop thinking in terms of OS4

>*If* the MorphOS team wants OS4 users on Sam460 and X5000 to try out MorphOS, then they just need to *start* >"thinking in terms of OS4"
>Hans de Ruiter published the results of his latest OS4 graphics card survey some months back, which shows a clear trend towards GCN->based cards. Of all users of Radeon HD and newer cards (which should be Sam460, X1000 and X5000 users combined), >about 75% use HD7xxx/Rx. Unfortunately, we don't have the data to be able to subtract out the X1000 users from >this, and we also don't know how many of those HD7xxx cards are HD76xx and lower cards and thus not GCN-based.[

Again, good point, I don't know what X1000 owners have upgraded to (but its unlikely they've kept their Radeon HD 4650s).
X5000 owners primarily have Radeon HD 7750 cards or R7 250 cards (both GCN).
I'm not sure either could best a Radeon HD 6870, but it is what it is.

That actually goes hand in hand with my argument in support of Tabor.
We need to provide support for the hardware they have, if we want them to try MorphOS.

Finally, as I've mentioned several times, GCN cards will eventually be supported. Mark has (I believe) about three of these.
And I'm not in any hurry, as I want to use an HD 5750 or HD 6750 and dual boot MorphOS with Linux.

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Very exactly!

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VERY EXACTLY! Eh?
And complete bullshit.

Mark's has worked VERY hard to complete these drivers and the HD 5000 were close to ready awhile ago.
Why do we need them?
First, these cards are cheap.
Second, the 5000 series is almost twice as capable as the R700/4000 series.

So the R600 and R700 drivers are almost ready, the 5000 and 6000 series drivers are close.
And after that, maybe he'll get around to the GCN cards so SAM460 and X5000 OS4 user can try MorphOS without having to swap their video cards.

Look, you're getting these new drivers and more.
Why not show a little gratitude for my friend and the BEST coder in the MorphOS development team.

You don't want to use superior video cards with these new drivers?
Then why don't you just revert to the Radeon 9200 that was our top supported card just a few years ago and STFU?

Finally, these drivers will be vital to the X64 fork, or were you planning on installing Radeon X1900XT cards in modern X64 hardware?
Sheesh, I don't think I've EVER seen a more pointless, negative, and just plain STUPID group of comment like the last two ever posted here.

[ Edited by Jim 24.09.2017 - 16:39 ]

Welcher Rechner ist denn performanter mit MOS; Der PowerMac G5 Quad oder A5000?

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Weil MorphOS Quad G5 nicht unterstützt, würde ich den X5000 sagen.

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MorphOS unterstützt den PCI-E G5, aber der Port ist noch nicht komplett und wir dürfen ihn nicht haben.

Probably totally fubared by translation, but the port lacks network drivers and fan speed control.
Otherwise, the G5 appears to be significantly better.

Außerdem unterstützt MorphOS den X5000 derzeit nicht, alles ist gleich, die G5 ist immer noch das bessere System.

[ Edited by Jim 25.09.2017 - 16:40 ]

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Well, current version of MorphOS doesn't support the X5000, but we all know that the next version (3.10) will do, as stated multiple times by MorphOS Team members. And we all (?) know that said version won't introduce support for PCIe G5's.

> Welcher Rechner ist denn performanter mit MOS; Der PowerMac G5 Quad oder A5000?

Falls mit "A5000" der X5000 gemeint ist:
Bezüglich Performance hat der X5000 eigentlich nur einen Vorteil: Integer-Operationen. In allen anderen Performance-Bereichen (FPU, SIMD, Speicherdurchsatz, PCIe) hat der X5000 das Nachsehen. Als sonstige Vorteile des X5000 fallen mir ein, dass er neu erhältlich ist, dass er kompatibler zu aktuellen Speichermedien ist (SATA2 vs. SATA1) und dass der Firmware-Prompt auch mit handelsüblichen Grafikkarten erscheint.

und der X5000 ist stromsparender ;)

> except for new system buyers, I don't see the logic in using GCN cards

So you do see the logic for new system buyers. Fine :-)

> there a lot of 5000 and 6000 series cards at bargain prices right now
> that will absolutely fly under an NG OS.

Again, my point is neither about price nor about performance. It's just about what's 3D-supported by OS4 and thus sold with new OS4-compatible systems that happen to be (or will be) supported by MorphOS as well.

>> Programs don't talk to the graphics card drivers directly. There's at
>> least one level of abstraction in between, so I think the graphic
>> primitives can be different between drivers for different GPU generations.

> True, most graphics operations run through TinyGL

I don't think they do. While Ambient's effects (Enhanced Display) do use 3D functions of the GPU, they do not require a TinyGL driver.

http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=11275&forum=12&start=6

The abstraction layer I was referring to is the 2D one called CyberGraphX/Cybergraphics (they can't agree to one definite name it seems).

>>> a well written MorphOS driver for these cards will easily allow our G4 systems to
>>> step all over Tabor

>>...except in 3D operations.

> Yeah, even if we get AGP R600 and R700 support, 5000-7000 (and later GCN) cards
> will have a distinct advantage

Also here I was not talking about performance but about the existence of 3D support, which OS4 provides for GCN1 (Southern Islands) GPUs.

> I'm beginning to wonder how well Tabor will work with its graphics cards.
> The P1022 has only SIX SerDes lanes which must drive the NIC, SATA, AND
> PCI-E interfaces.

Yes, and when you think of it, PCIe x4 + 2x SATA + GbE would require 7 SerDes lanes, wouldn't it? See there for a more detailed elaboration of Tabor's P1022 SerDes assignment conundrum ;-)

>> Unfortunately, we don't have the data to be able to subtract out the
>> X1000 users from this

> I don't know what X1000 owners have upgraded to

It's irrelevant as MorphOS won't support the X1000 :-) The reason I'd want to subtract out the X1000 owners is to see what the Sam460 owners have (X5000 owners all use GCN-based cards, no doubt).

> I'm not sure either could best a Radeon HD 6870

To me it's not about "best", but about when the GPUs used in MorphOS-supported machines (that aren't currently used with MorphOS by their owner) will be supported by MorphOS. The sooner the better I'd say. And to a lesser degree it's about 3D support :-)

> We need to provide support for the hardware they have, if we want them to try MorphOS.

Exactly! :-) And this includes the GPUs, of course.

> GCN cards will eventually be supported.

Yes, I'm confident they will. I'm just not sure every generation before them must be supported ;-)

> the Radeon 9200 that was our top supported card just a few years ago

The Radeon 9200 was never the fastest R200-based card ;-)

> these drivers will be vital to the X64 fork

All the more incentive to skip some generations I'd say :-)

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Yes, actually if you want to split hairs, it's not even an R200 card.
Although I lump everything from the 8500 to the 9200 in that category/generation.
And that would leave you're best choices as the 8500 or 9100.

As to skipping earlier generations, I like having the option of using cards that came before the GCN cards.
They offer a good value for your money.
And they're easier to get working under Linux.
But, we should see GCN eventually, nothing is ever on a timetable, so we've got to be patient and wait at least 'two weeks'.