I was having a discussion with Hans De Ruiter about why he hasent ported his more modern drivers over to MorphOS that he dies for A-Eon on OS4.1 and was given a pretty interesting answer. It seems the discussion was brought up in the past abiut it, but was refused because A-Eon charges for these drivers (As I feel they should for all the work that goes into them) and the MorphOS team leadership refused because they dont want paid drivers on the platform.

Why is this and how is that an issue here? How is it any different from other paid software available? I for one would love to see this happen and cant see how it would cause any issues for those that are fine with using the free drivers and didnt want to support it.

Not trying to start anything negative, just curious as to why this is a road block is all.

It would help a lot for those of us that have an X5000 and want a single GPU for both OSes, that's for sure

Or OS4 could get drivers for older cards, too. It's not like MorphOS or OS4 actually get remotely close to being able to use the full capabilities of those older cards.

Having 2 sets of drivers from different developers for the same group of cards sounds dangerous.

If they were for NVidia or Intel cards it would make some sense but as it stands it's a matter of time till cyfm/bigfoot reach the same cards.

What happens if these modded P96 based drivers don't work with the latest CGX or other API. What if we do get an AMD64 port and Hans fails to deliver the drivers for it.


Just look at OS4 and what a legal mess that is (and to some extend also a usability mess).

Quote: I agree with jacadcaps, and I too have said the same thing about MorphOS before. When would we get the chance to use 1GB of VRAM/GFX card memory on our system, and when do OS4 users get to use all that GFX RAM themselves?

It is just plain overkill IMHO, and seems to me to be totally unnecessary to have GFXs cards with so much memory that they are never going to realistically be utilised. It's also a joke what OS4 users seem to spend on their GFX cards, never mind the exhorbitant cost of the hardware that is produced for it. The OS4 itself also seems quite stagnant, with few updates since release, no new browser, which is a must-have for any current operating system. It really is our poor cousin, and more so as its users waste their money on overly expensive hardware - their choice to do so of course.

On the other hand, I really like the "recycled" Apple hardware that MorphOS uses. There's still a plentiful supply of used hardware to choose from via many online resources, and sufficient Apple Radeon AGP/PCI-X, even some PCI-e, GFX cards to go around, even if some are PC based which limits or restricts use of Open Firmware (OF) to use backup GFX cards that work with the hardware and OF to resolve any such problems that arise, even if that means switching back to a PC based compatible GFX card of choice, that is probably significantly cheaper than a user would install in their OS4 hardware, even if it is also MorphOS compatible.

It feels like the OS4 community want to join our "club" as there are benefits to be had from it, but I don't get the same overall feeling that many, or more than a handful, of MorphOS users would like to migrate "once-in-a-while" to OS4 - as there's little to nothing there, that there isn't already here in more and better quality, to enjoy.

It is sad that OS4 went their own way, and MorphOS another, but I decided to migrate in 2013, long after OS4 had initially been released and could not find much to stay committed to Amiga OS, and looked at MorphOS and all that I saw inspired me, and it is a decision I would not change now, some 10+ years later.

I did own an OS4 system for a short while, but I was never inspired by the 'feel' of the OS4 or even the more modern hardware . . . that was slower !! I also never got the 'spark' that I had when I owned my 'Classic' Amiga systems, and yet I still have that 'spark' now, and ever since, that I owned my MorphOS licence and X-Apple hardware.

In fact I'm still looking forward to the future with MorphOS, thanks to the efforts of the MorphOS Development Team, their betatesters and . . . the great community we have here!

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The problem from A-Eon is that it treats fans more like customers than fans. Let me explain, instead of asking for the right amount of money for the programs, they/he tries to make money as if the world were going to end tomorrow, for example, selling 2D drivers and selling 3D drivers a year later, without any discount, you have more examples, Personal Paint, the original is still better than the modern one despite the new effects.

> when do OS4 users get to use all that GFX RAM themselves?

They can (and if they pay A-Eon, also do) use this since 2016 with Warp3D Nova, which allows textures to be stored beyond the former 256 MiB limit.

> It is just plain overkill IMHO

Beside the larger VRAM, newer graphics cards have the advantages of more recent OpenGL standard (for ports of modernish open source games) and hardware video decoding to relieve our decrepit CPUs (the newer the GPU, the more recent the supported codecs). All of this requires driver/software support, of course, but OS4 (rather 3rd parties) has proven that it's possible.

> Radeon AGP/PCI-X […] GFX cards

AFAIK, there's no such thing as PCI-X graphics cards.
[Corrective edit: there is, but not MorphOS-compatible, see next comment.]

> a PC based compatible GFX card of choice, that is probably
> significantly cheaper than a user would install in their OS4
> hardware, even if it is also MorphOS compatible.

Unfortunately, and as alluded to in comment #2, there's no overlap between GPUs 3D-supported by MorphOS and GPUs 3D-supported by OS4 (except ancient Radeon R200 series).

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 10.07.2024 - 18:23 ]

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95-front.small.jpg

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Exactly my point. OpenGL is basically obsolete by now.

>> AFAIK, there's no such thing as PCI-X graphics cards.

> 95-front.small.jpg

Ah yes, I forgot about the Matrox cards, thanks. So make that "no such thing as MorphOS-compatible PCI-X graphics cards" :-)

>> more recent OpenGL standard

> OpenGL is basically obsolete by now.

Indeed, I should also have mentioned Vulkan, which coincidentally requires the Radeon GPU generations 3D-supported by OS4, i.e. GCN1/GCN4, which also support the last OpenGL.

All good replies here. I guess my though is, so what if they paid drivers dont match the included ones. Nothing would make you use them if you didnt buy them. I mean I had an X5000 and liked it, but OS4.1 was getting pretty stale with very little updates, and I liked having MorphOS on it, but never felt it was better than my G5 PCI-E machine, so I let it go.

What did work was the video drivers. I could use the stock drivers included and not use newer cards, or I could (I did by the way) Pay for the modern ones and had great experiences with them.

Just a thought is all. I would love to see a card off the shelf you can still get and put into a PCI-E G5 and have it work. I currently have what I think is the most modern card available for my G5 PCIE-E now though and it is fine for what software is out.

> I currently have what I think is the most modern card available for my G5 PCIE-E

Which one is that? The most modern (i.e. newest) card so far reported to work with MorphOS in PCIe-based PowerMac G5 is the Radeon HD5450 from 2010, which also works in 3D with the latest TinyGL beta.

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Hmm, maybe not.. I have the Apple X1900 card. I thought it and the PC X1950 were the best it would do. I do have a PC HD5450 new in the box though. Are you sure this works in the G5 PCI-E? I had it for the X5000 and never installed it. Isnt this HD5450 lower end card?

[ Edited by Acill 15.07.2024 - 09:14 ]

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Simple answer: The X1900/X1950 is the fastest card you can get for MorphOS but HD4xxx/HD5xxx/HD6xxx have a more modern feature set.

The X1950 (klick) has OpenGL 2.1, Shader Model 3.0, the HD5450 (klick) OpenGL 4.4, Shader Model 5.0. A HD 6670 (klick) would be faster than the X1950 in many aspects within the same power envelope.

Though I don't know whether this matters concerning TinyGL on MorphOS which is only a small subset of OpenGL. Also 3D-Accel is not supported yet on current TinyGL for Radeon HD cards.

What's more inconvenient is that the PCIe G5 is rather picky regarding video cards. Of 4 HD5450 I tried only one got me a picture on the screen on MorphOS. Also several other Radeon HD cards refused to work on my PCIe G5. It is not yet known why the PCIe G5 does not 'like' the many cards, but does like some.
It is not that picky with R300/R400 cards. I had a X1950, X1650, X1300 which all worked fine.

>> The most modern (i.e. newest) card so far reported to work
>> with MorphOS in PCIe-based PowerMac G5 is the Radeon HD5450
>> from 2010, which also works in 3D with the latest TinyGL beta.

> I have the Apple X1900 card. I thought it and the PC X1950 were
> the best it would do.

As ernsteiswuerfel wrote, this depends on the meaning of 'best'. You wrote "most modern", which I thought to refer more to feature set (newer standards etc.) than to speed.

> I do have a PC HD5450 new in the box though.
> Are you sure this works in the G5 PCI-E?

You may try. Some cards work and some don't, and nobody seems to know why.

> Isnt this HD5450 lower end card?

Yes, it's a low-end card from a more modern (4 generations) series of cards than Radeon X1000 series.

> The X1900/X1950 is the fastest card you can get for MorphOS

...on the PCIe-based PowerMac G5. On X5000/Sam460, HD6870/5970/5870 should easily outperform X19x0.

> 3D-Accel is not supported yet on current TinyGL for Radeon HD cards.

How can TinyGL for Radeon HD cards not support 3D acceleration on those cards when that's the sole purpose of TinyGL? Isn't this what the ninth public TinyGL beta brought a year ago for all TeraScale2-based cards? Or do you mean this works with HD5450 on X5000/Sam460, but not on PCIe-based PowerMac G5?

> What's more inconvenient is that the PCIe G5 is rather picky
> regarding video cards. [...] It is not yet known why the PCIe G5
> does not 'like' the many cards, but does like some.

Is it the PCIe G5 or MorphOS on the PCIe G5, i.e. is it also this picky when running Linux?

> It is not that picky with R300/R400 cards. I had a
> X1950, X1650, X1300 which all worked fine.

These are all R500 cards. AtomBIOS versions older than that from R500 are not supported by MorphOS.

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True. But Acill was asking for his G5. But also my answer was a bit unspecific so thanks for pointing that out.

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Yes, full 3D-Accel support for R600 cards was one of the target goals of the bounty. But this specific point is not yet completed. So up to now no 3D-Accel for >=R600 on MorphOS on any system (yet).

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Only MorphOS on the PCIe G5. The cards run fine on Linux on the PCIe G5 (apart from some endiannes bugs, but still better than R300-R500 on Linux where mesa shows quite some colour issues and misrenderings).

> full 3D-Accel support for R600 cards [...] is not yet completed.

HD5450 has TeraScale2-based R800 ("Evergreen") series GPU, which like TeraScale2-based R900 ("Northern Islands") series GPU is listed as newly supported with the current TinyGL beta (so no TeraScale3-based RV970). TeraScale1-based R600 and R700 series are explicitly non-supported (yet) by TinyGL, despite the driver being called r600.library, which supposedly will span TeraScale1+2 (i.e. R600 through RV940 GPUs) when finished.

> So up to now no 3D-Accel for >=R600 on MorphOS on any system (yet).

So what does the new TinyGL driver do on the TeraScale2-based cards (R800, R900 minus RV970) listed by bigfoot when he released the current beta, if not 3D acceleration? And what do the "known issues" refer to if not issues with 3D acceleration? What is meant with "applications and games that [...] misrender"? Misrender in 2D, really?

Quote:
Ah yes, this was my mistake then. I have a HD4550 in my PCIe which is RV710, so 3D-Accel on this card is not supported yet. That's why I tried to source a 'G5-nice' Evergreen card at that time, which I failed. Memories came back now.

So you are correct that the latest TinyGL public Beta should just work with Evergreen cards. At least on the X5000 and the Sam.

This is all a confusing mess.

Indeed, agreed with Acill, I can't keep any of this straight lol. For my personal use case I wish the "best" 3d-accelerated GPU for my X5000 in OS4 was also similarly fully supported in MorphOS, but I digress. My current 2-GPU setup is pretty gross.

I also Agree with Acill, ATI/AMD Drivers are a mess especially on AGP G5 systems. My Sapphire ATI Radeon X 1600 Pro 256MB rarely works. I've switched back to using the ATI 9800 Pro.