Hi there!
I have a pegasos II G4 and am looking at the hardware compability list (https://morphos-team.net/hardware) trying to figure out what gpu to get. If possible, I would like to try to get the "best" supported gpu. I've tried to search online, but find it quite hard to understand if I can use any of those listed graphic cards on all the supported motherboards or if I need to exclude some of them because of me using a pegasos (and not a powermac 5 for example).
Thankful for any help regarding this!

> If possible, I would like to try to get the "best" supported gpu.

The best tested thing is to source a 3.3V-compatible AGP 1.0 Radeon 9800 (Pro/XL/XXL/XT).
If you are adventurous and want a (probably) unique config, you could try to source a PCI Radeon HD5450 and have that working even in 3D with the latest public TinyGL beta, at the expenses of lower bus speed and not being able to access the SmartFirmware though.

Indeed, the CGA-5452PLI also has HDMI.

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Such as this one? (Have found one of those)

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/asus-hd-5450-silent-v2-1-gb.b1535

Edit: Ohh... saw that this one was pci-e, the search will continue..


[ Edited by lordborak 18.05.2026 - 05:36 ]

> the search will continue..

Best of luck! :-)


Btw, there're some updates (good and bad) to what I wrote in comment #2 in 07/2024:

Bad (#330) in 09/2024: R800/R900 support absent from tenth public TinyGL beta
Good (#194) in 05/2026: 3rd-party SmartFirmware improved to use graphics chips behind a bridge

AFAICT, MorphOS does not rely on any PCI SmartFirmware Setup, so it wouldnt require any 3rd-party SF "rewrites".
Any bridge detection would therefore be part of MorphOS' PCI early setup process and not rely on any dubios "improvements"...

> AFAICT, MorphOS does not rely on any PCI SmartFirmware Setup,
> so it wouldnt require any 3rd-party SF "rewrites".

At least my statements in comments #2 and #5 about accessing SmartFirmware are only about accessing SmartFirmware, i.e. prior to booting any OS.

> Any bridge detection would therefore be part of MorphOS' PCI
> early setup process and not rely on any dubios "improvements"...

The claimed improvements in the 3rd-party SmartFirmware include enabling the SmartFirmware itself to look behind bridge chips, not enabling any OS (which might or might not have this capability) to do so. Neither am I aware of any claims this improvement was about any OS nor do I have any idea what should be dubious about this SmartFirmware improvement.

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Yes, but this kas1e´s patch is a must-have if somebody need OF output from firmware, for example has more operating systems. Other ability will be direct boot from SATA cart.


kas1e also made X1000 firmware patches - boot from USB, boot from all SATA and CPU overclock

Ok, might be but I have both the sourcecode to the X1000 firmware as well as the Peg2 SmartFirmware, so I couldn't care less.
This won't help you much but I might look into that myself eventually once I feel like it ;)

> I have [...] the sourcecode to the X1000 firmware

That's interesting. Maybe you could assist ssolie and the ExecSG team updating it (#132) ;-)

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Great!

For Pegasos II a firmware update could also improve usb keyboards/mouse support.
The actual is very poor and to speedup startup I had to plug also an old ps2 keyboard.

> For Pegasos II a firmware update could also
> improve usb keyboards/mouse support.

Indeed:

"Were able to add UHCI support to original OF, so now my firmware can detect usb keyabord"
https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=160559#forumpost160559

("original OF" means CodeGen's SmartFirmware here, not bplan's SmartFirmware based on CodeGen's work.)

"imroved UHCI, so USB booting works from pure VIA's ports of pegasos2 + does not matter on what port you attach keyboard/mouse it works in any now."
https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=160609#forumpost160609

Well, he could probably do the OS4 community a better favor by fixing some of that for more recent X5000 hardware, e.g. USB keyboard issues, instead of spending time on hardware that has hardly any relevance these days - but whatever floats his boat ...
Pegasos2 always will have a place in my heart but I wouldn't really use it today thanks to some better alternatives for MorphOS ....

> he could probably do the OS4 community a better favor

His Pegasos II firmware improvements do not aim at the OS4 community in particular but at anyone still using a physical Pegasos II, regardless of the operating system(s) used on this hardware. As far as I'm aware, he first expressed his interest on the inner workings of the Pegasos II SmartFirmware (back then mostly to no avail) 3½ years ago here on MorphZone (#39) even.

> by fixing some of that for more recent X5000 hardware, e.g. USB keyboard issues

Isn't MorphOS team member Mark "bigfoot" Olsen the developer of the original X5000 firmware? Maybe he can help there?

Mark indeed did the "original" X5000 firmware and even continued to fix some issues after the public release internally. AEon had different plans on how to "enhance" the U-Boot F/W, though, so any of bigfoot's improvements never made it to public and I can't even tell if any U-Boot F/W that is newer or under someone else's maintenance has ever been released.

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For MorphOS only there is some better alternatives. But for MorphOS and AmigaOS4 simultaneously there is today only two other alternatives - Sam460 and X5000.
Sam460 is much slower than my Pegasos 2 1.8GHz and X5000 is much more expensive.

So doing Pegasos 2 upgrades make sense. Not to say it is hobby

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Yea, I didn't say that it is complete waste of time, only for me personally at the moment. Some people upgrade their Atari Falcon 030 or their A600 gear. So it is always a matter of perspective and what you want to spend your personal time on .... ;)

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I agree. I very appreciate kas1e's work. For me personally X1000 CFE patches are very suitable - boot from USB and overclocking are great. On other way Pegasos 2 fimware upgrades has main benefit using of PCIe cards. Unfortunatelly this is limited to PCI 33 MHz slots, so probably the main benefit from this will be the joy that it works.

If I understand Kas1e correctly... Once the first version is ready, the Pegasos II SmartFirmware repository will be uploaded to GitHub as a public archive.
Then, anyone who has the time and desire to contribute can do so, knowing that the benefit will be shared with all Amiga NG users.

> using of PCIe cards […] is limited to PCI 33 MHz slots, so probably
> the main benefit from this will be the joy that it works.

As far as I understand, MorphOS has been offering this joy since 3.10 or earlier. And SmartFirmware access itself surely won't be recognizably limited by the slow 33 MHz clock rate. So the new joy somewhat impaired by the speed limit will only be the case for OS4 and Linux which on the Pegasos II rely on RTAS and thus on SmartFirmware's ability to look behind bridges.

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That's true; with Smart Firmware, the limitations certainly aren't an issue.
But in practical use with OS, we compare:
Radeon R300 card in an AGP slot (PCI 66 MHz) with real measured throughput 234 MB/s.
HD or RX card + bridge latency in a PCI 33 MHz slot with 115.4 MB/s.

A more modern card will likely be faster for video playback and old AGP card in 3D, SDL,...
So have to put two cards in Pegasos to receive full benefit from modern cads

Maybe if there will be some HW hack to use AGP slot for bridge ( some PCI signals are missing on slot ), this solution make sense.

2 cardswon’t work as the AGP one won’t get initialized when a PCI GFX card is found.
Also a 2nd Radeon will be ignored by MorphOS anyways.

Unless you use an AGP Voodoo as those will work without.

>> A more modern card will likely be faster for video playback
>> and old AGP card in 3D, SDL,... So have to put two cards in
>> Pegasos to receive full benefit from modern cads

> 2 cardswon’t work as the AGP one won’t get initialized when a PCI GFX
> card is found. Also a 2nd Radeon will be ignored by MorphOS anyways.

On MorphOS, the mentioned benefit of Radeon HD/RX for video playback is moot anyways ;-)

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You are right, I forgot about it.
So we definitely need AGP-PCI hw hack