>>> Sata drivers will need to come sometime

>> SATA drivers have been in MorphOS since version 2.5.

> Silicon Image SATA drivers, not those for the G5.

As far as I understand, stephen_robinson was talking about SATA drivers in general at this point. It may be that I misunderstood him there, though.

>>> I dunno if the G5 Mac's cooling system is unique, but every
>>> active cooling system will need some form thermal mangment
>>> sofware support, irrescpective of the CPU family?

>> I doubt that the active cooling system of my Mac mini G4
>> is controlled by any software component of MorphOS.

> If I remember correctly, the initial G5 port left the cooling
> system running at full speed.

Yes, that's what I remember as well. But I also know that the cooling systems of G5 Macs are much more needy in terms of operating system support in order to work properly compared to the cooling systems of G4 Macs. I still remember the fuss that was made about it when support for it was added to the Linux kernel for the G5 Macs.

>> I doubt that the active cooling system of my Mac mini G4 is
>> controlled by any software component of MorphOS.

> there surely is some SW in MorphOS to keep the Minis from burning out
> AFAIK this is done by throttling the CPU under small loads.

Thanks for correction. I didn't know that.

> Even if there is some direct control of the fans, it might well
> be that the components used by Apple for this are very different
> between Mini, PB or the various G5s.

Yes, that's for sure I think.

Andreas (and everyone else),
Obviously, the SATA and cooling system software issues are not major hurdles.
But if none of the developers want to tackle them, we're still out of luck.

Frank's got his own projects (the last time I checked in with him he and a few of his fellow developers were going to re-visit the R300 drivers to work on 3D support). And David and I have been trying to encourage R400 support as well. To this end, if I can't get one of the four FireGL X3s I own to re-flash correctly for Mac, I'm going to pay for an already functioning card and ship it to Frank.

The G5 does seem like a natural progression of current developments.
And I hope we see support eventually.
And Frank's argument about the large, heavy towers doesn't apply to the G5 iMac (which we also saw some proof of concept work on).


However, considering how well our current hardware works (especially when comparing benchmarks of the G4 Macs to the X1000) I think we can wait awhile (and hopefully focus on developing new software).

Quote:

Well, at least I think so. I wouldn't even consider any other machine to be a worthy upgrade to my old Pegasos 2 - especially when they are sometimes even cheaper than G4 PowerMacs (if you don't count the really old ones) and Minis.

I've never been much of a laptop fan myself and I happen to like the G5 aluminium case - besides, the dual G5 PowerMac I have here is much quieter than the Pegasos 2.

I really hope that MorphOS supports G5 at some point, Pegasos 2 is really starting to show it's age (cpu & ram speed) and I barely have the motivation to use it anymore. Sure, there are faster G4 machines available but IMHO they are pretty rare & expensive (compared to the G5 machines) and would offer only a slight imporovement over Pegasos 2.

[ Edited by Pecosbil 14.02.2012 - 14:55 ]

I also do like big boxes ... That said it's a shame there isn't a cheap generic (up-to-date) motherboard available for MorphOS so we can build our own system.

@Pecosbil,

I think you would be surprised how much faster a 1.25GHz, or 1.42GHz G4 PowerMac is when compared to your Pegasos2, even if your Peg2 has a 1GHz G4 in it, or is over-clocked to 1.2GHz. The RAM speed and some other components in the PowerMac's are faster and better integrated together than in the Peg2, IIRC. Check out the benchmarks that have been posted for both computers. Then there are the 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz and 2.0GHz G4 accelerators for some of the G4 PowerMac's, if you really want more speed.

I agree that the prices for the G5 PowerMac's in some countries and areas are as cheap as many of the prices for the better G4 PowerMac's. The low end 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz G5's are probably not much faster than the best G4 PowerMac's, but I think the 2.0GHz and faster G5's are a significant step UP and worth the effort to port MorphOS to in the future.

The way I see it there are only 3 path's forward for MorphOS. 1. Keep going along the current path of supporting G4 Mac models, until all of the models that make the most sense are supported and optimized and then move on to supporting some of the G5 Mac models (then, after support for several G5 models is completed, IF no new PPC hardware has been created and made readily available at a reasonable cost by that time, then you think about moving to the x86, and/or ARM architectures). 2. After support for all the G4's is finished, port MorphOS to an imbedded, or custom PPC motherboard design, like Hyperion has done with OS4.x on the SAM PPC and X1000 boards, but maybe some new Freescale, or other Power Architecture board will become available in the near future. 3. After MorphOS3.0 is finished and optimized, quit doing more work on any PPC platforms (which everyone keeps saying are a dead end and a waste of time) and start work on moving to x86 and/or ARM.

As I have stated before, unless a new PPC motherboard is created in the near future with better performance than the G5 PowerMac's & G5 iMac's, that can be purchased at a reasonable price (less than $1,000 up to a max. of $1,500, depending on what the performance of the system really is), then it really does not make sense to port MorphOS to such imbedded, or custom PPC hardware. As for moving to x86 and/or ARM, with so much work already done in AROS, why duplicate that work in MorphOS? Just join the AROS team(s) and help move it forward so it catches up to where MorphOS is now more quickly and by doing so consolidate into one larger group of users and developers, instead of fracturing our community into another smaller group, by having some PPC MorphOS users and developers and some that want to move to x86, or ARM? Then our community looks like this:

Amiga 68k users
AROS users
MorphOS users on PPC
MorphOS users on x86/ARM
OS4.x users on PPC
Natami, MiniMig, Chameleon & Replay users on FPGA

How much further are we going to split apart the former and current Amiga users into ever shrinking smaller groups that constantly fight with each other over which path is the best one (or the only true and rightful successor to the original Amiga)?

[ Edited by amigadave 14.02.2012 - 10:41 ]

2.1Ghz iMac G5 port would be sweet and it would be a nice upgrade from my Mac Mini.

Under MorphOS, could a G5 (or even a G4) support a video card that is not supported by Apple (but is electrically compatible with the system's graphic card slot) if an Apple supported PCI card is also in the system to let it boot?
For example, I've been told a PC Voodoo 3 video card will work in a PCI slot on a G4 if the system has an Apple compatible AGP video card installed.

If this is the case, we could use AGP and PCIe PPC Macs to run video cards with even more modern GPUs (then are currently available to OSX users).

3850, 4670, or 4870 anyone?

Quote:

x86...

takemehomegrandma,
Quote:

While he's repetitive, he does have a valid point.

pega-1,
Quote:

I wonder if any of the MorphOS Dev. Team members could be enticed to work on SATA drivers and Thermal Management software for a few of the G5 PowerMac Towers, if a bounty for each of those two parts needed to make the port to G5 PowerMac towers possible were created?

Creating such bounties and seeing how many people donate to them would be one sure way to gauge how much interest there is for the port of MorphOS to G5 PowerMac towers. We could set a time limit to the bounties and if enough interest and money is not raised within say 6 months, the bounties could be canceled and the money returned to the people who donated their money. I know the people who manage the bounties won't like this idea, as it is a PITA to return, or redistribute money after it has been donated.

I would donate toward such bounties and promote them to others to encourage them to donate also. I would hope that enough other MorphOS users would want a MorphOS compatible computer that is much more capable than their current G4 PowerMac's and future G4 PowerBook's. My suggestion is that the bounties target only the 2.0GHz and faster G5 PowerMac's, and to make the port simpler, for now the target G5 PowerMac's should not include the later PCIe models, and should stay with only the AGP models of G5 PowerMac's.

If anyone else here likes this idea, please speak up and spread this idea to other non-English speaking MorphOS forum sites, so we can gauge how many of the existing 600 to 750 registered MorphOS users would want a port of MorphOS to a 2.0GHz or faster G5 PowerMac tower.

It is not necessary to know how many existing MorphOS users oppose this idea, but I am sure that some of you who oppose this attempt to find out how many are in favor of such a G5 port of MorphOS, will voice your opinions.

[ Edited by amigadave 14.03.2012 - 06:11 ]

hmmm, didt Morphos Team say they would be considering where to move after Morphos3 was out ?

arent we just a bit pre mature on asking this question as they will soon have the meeting them self and decide if they will port to g5/arm/x86..

X

[ Edited by XzIt 14.03.2012 - 15:26 ]

i agree it's a bit early for such a discussion. All efforts should be put on finishing the morphos 3.0/powerbook port (then bugfixing in next versions).

what about setting a poll about the next MorphOS goal ? I'd be curious to now the amount of morphos users prefering an architecture move to a G5 port.

XzIt
hmmm, didt Morphos Team say they would be considering where to move after Morphos3 was out ?

arent we just a bit pre mature on asking this question as they will soon have the meeting them self and decide if they will port to g5/arm/x86..
,

I don't remember them ever giving any clues to the direction they might take.
And branching into another ISA doesn't preclude continuing PPC support (at least for the time being).

My idea with the bounties, (or it could be done with a poll, if enough people would see it and participate in such a poll) is to gauge interest from the MorphOS users (and possibly a few people who are not yet users, but are thinking about it and would like to see a port to the G5) regarding their desire to have a port of MorphOS to a 2.0GHz or faster G5 PowerMac tower.

It has nothing to do with the MorphOS Dev. Team, but would be a tool for the Team to look at to help them determine if a port to the G5 PowerMac is wanted by enough current and potential MorphOS users.

I paid over $3,000 to run OS4.x on my X1000, maybe I would be willing to donate $1,000+ toward a bounty that would get MorphOS ported to my dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac?

It would be good to know how many more of the existing MorphOS users want a port of MorphOS to the G5 PowerMac. This might make some difference to the MorphOS Dev. Team in making their decisions.

It can't hurt to try to find out how many would like and support a port to the G5. That information would be useful to the Team.

As pega-1 stated earlier, the decision to continue support for more PPC computers in the future might depend on how many people purchase licenses for the G4 PowerBook release of MorphOS3.0.

I think many people will buy a license for the G4 PowerBook, but since they are a little more difficult to obtain in some countries at a decent price, the popularity of buying a G4 PowerBook and register MorphOS on it, may, or may not meet the MorphOS Dev. Team's expectations.

I hope the PowerBook registrations are high enough to encourage more PPC ports, which means the G5 Mac models.

Miky and others

Its a noble action to try and start a bounty for g5 port.. but lets not fall into the Hyperion/OS4 trap of putting all efforts into platform porting instead of important software porting and drivers.. f.ex.

Office port
Cairo HW render for Odyssey
better Flash support
Java

etc etc etc

magnetic,
Quote:

As much as I would like to have MorphOS on my dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac, I have to agree that it would be better to put the same time and programming effort into better software for MorphOS.

The hardware we have right now is adequate and runs MorphOS very well. More and better software would be much more important right now than another hardware model supported.

I don't know if any of the MorphOS Development Team members have the desire to work on any of the software items you mentioned though. I don't know how Fab feels about your Cairo HW render for Odyssey, or better Flash support for Odyssey.

I don't thing anyone is interested in doing any work on bringing Java support to any Amiga inspired platform. All the old attempts seem to have dies a long time ago, unless there is one that I don't know about.

Any Office port is going to be a huge project, but i would love to see the MorphOS Dev. Team members join with other non-Team members to make such a port happen.

>> Office port
>> Cairo HW render for Odyssey
>> better Flash support
>> Java

> I don't know how Fab feels about [...] better Flash support for Odyssey.

Some thoughts on this by Fab from 7 months ago:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7960&start=46

> I don't thing anyone is interested in doing any work on bringing Java
> support to any Amiga inspired platform. All the old attempts seem to
> have dies a long time ago, unless there is one that I don't know about.

It appears that there still is one:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7960&start=38
(last two links in that posting; and meanwhile the development blog got also some more recent entries than the linked one, with the most recent one dating January 2012)

magnetic,
Quote:

Wow, magnetic's back to posting useful ideas instead of just being an angry dude.
I'd agree with most of those, but the flash support question isn't as important to me.
Flash doesn't run that well under OSX on a G4, so its performance under MorphOS on those same machines may never be all that great.

Just some more food for thought. Here is a link to an article on the accelerate your mac website that talks about how the bandwidth available in the G4 PowerMac's limits the performance of the video cards.

The higher bandwidth to all components of the G5 PowerMac systems removes this bottleneck and that is what this page of benchmarks shows, because the G5 can feed enough data to the video card, which allows better frame rates on the several different games shown.

I don't expect this article to change anyone's mind regarding if the G5 should be the next target to port MorphOS to after the port to the G4 PowerBook is completed and perfected. But the link below shows one of the areas that would be improved by moving to the G5 PowerMac architecture and it mentions several other areas of the G5 that improve the bandwidth over what the best G4 PowerMac's could do.

So, anyone interested it looking at benchmarks that compare the G5 with our currently supported G4 systems can take a look here:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G5/Dual_g5_9600_9800_tests.html

Update:

> Fab has already made a statement regarding 1080p video handling on the 2.7 GHz PowerMac G5:
> https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7372&forum=11&start=19

"PowerMac G5 2.7 GHz: [...] Watching 1080p Videos at full speed and having just 35% CPU usage is really cool."
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9261&forum=11&start=16

But this is not with H264 obviously. With H264 on 2.5 or 2.7 GHz G5, the experience seems to differ:

"My Passive cooled 2.7ghz is [...] under 100% load by playing a 1080P video (Which btw it can't do smoothly if you were wondering.)"
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9261&forum=11&start=23

"MPlayer can't play MP4 files at full speed with 100% load, [...] ofcourse i am talking about 1080p videos [...], and the machine (2xG5/2.5) wass still pretty quiet."
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9261&forum=11&start=24

"h264 1080p is certainly doable on a 2.5 or 2.7GHz machine. It's even ok on my 2.3GHz."
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9261&forum=11&start=25

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 05.06.2013 - 11:11 ]