@Andreas_Wolf

Quote:

Well, the list posted had a line omitted anyway. After some discussion to clarify what constituted the definition, he posted it with the list so there would be no confusion. In essence...his thread...his terms.

Quote:

I don't see any dramatic difference between what you and red have said. Have we over analyzed this -yet-?

source

Oh, the bit about Micros being warehoused. Priceless!

#6

>> Does the 2.7 GHz G5 PowerMac provide twice the per-core performance
>> of the 1.8 GHz X1000?

> no one has yet provided Blender 2.62 tests run on G5 Mac.

Then let's just take 2.48/2.49 test runs (single core):

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=35671&forum=34&start=140#665585
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=35671&forum=34&start=160#665666

1.8 GHz AmigaOne X1000: 420s
2.3 GHz G5 PowerMac: 223s

For the 2.7 GHz G5 PowerMac to be twice as fast as the X1000 it would have to reach 210s. Linearily scaled, 223s at 2.3 GHz means 190s at 2.7 GHz and 206s at 2.5 GHz. So in terms of this single-core Blender 2.48/2.49 benchmark, a 2.5+ GHz G5 PowerMac is (more than) twice as fast as the 1.8 GHz AmigaOne X1000. This in turn entails that MorphOS running on 2.5+ GHz G5 PowerMacs would fulfil Mequa's wish :-)

> Untill then. G4 and PA6T is faster than G5. ;-)

In your dreams :-)

> otherwise it's [...] as modern as average PC today.

Average PC existing in the households today maybe, but not average PC brand-new for sale today, see R700 GPU, DDR2 RAM, PCIe v1.x, SATA2, USB2.

@Andreas

You see the AmigaOne X1000 as a Nemo motherboard with various bundled peripherals, while I see the AmigaOne X1000 as the SMP and Xorro/Xena enabled *OS4 system* it was announced to be (and OS4 is not only the entire base for its name- and boing-ball license, it's also the sole reason to its entire existence). You think it's enough that they make 2 production batches (soon 3?) financed by pre-orders to call it "here/available", while I think there is more to it than that in order to be able to say it's on the market, like having it in stock at least at the manufacturer so that potential customers are actually able to buy the product (like all previous AmigaOnes, all Sam's, all Pegasos motherboards, all Individual Computing's products, well, practically *all* similar consumer electronics products in existence), being able to buy a product is kind of essential in this context IMHO, and by "product" I of course also mean the SMP and Xorro/Xena enabled *OS4 system* it is meant to be. You think it's ready developed since the nemo design is done, I think there are huge development challanges still to be overcome, especially bringing true SMP to OS4 without breaking the Amiga in it, heck it's still even lacking fundamental drivers for its on board controllers, so it's not ready. I'm actually looking forward to be proven wrong by "ssolie" when he will bring true SMP capabilities to OS4.2, which should not be very far off now, since this is said to be the next OS4 version (of course this has been changed before, OS4.1.3 was said to be the last one, but then they had to make this 4.1.4 quickfix release to mend what 4.1.3 broke, and now we have 4.1.5 for the A1X1K (soon to be relased to other "Amigas" as well?)); it will be very interesting to see, since it might actually involve true magic. You think it's a done deal, that the AmigaOne is ready, here, and a finished product, while I think the challenges of reaching the specs it is said to have are so overwhelming (and Hyperion's track record so underwhelming) that it's very doubtful it will *ever* reach its goal, hence "Vapor". And I think we will never agree on any of this.

@number6

Here is a better link:

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=29050

"Vapor here is defined as products announced for the Amiga market that after a long period of time never materialized for sale in that form."

How long is "a long period of time"? 2.5 years and counting (about a full computer/generation lifetime), with no trustworthy signs of it will *ever* reach its goals, no matter any additional time you might allow?

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

All features that trump our own hardware (except for the last - IF you add a PCI USB card).
But our software does have better quality.

> You see the AmigaOne X1000 as a Nemo motherboard with various
> bundled peripherals

...on the hardware side and OS4 on the software side. Yet OS4 currently not fully supporting the hardware doesn't make the X1000 a "prototype" or "vapourware" to me.

> You think it's enough that they make 2 production batches (soon 3?)
> financed by pre-orders to call it "here/available"

No, I think and said that is enough to call it non-vapourware, non-prototype and a product that was in production, as well as to call its existing purchasers customers.

> being able to buy a product is kind of essential in this context IMHO

For something to be non-vapourware and a product, as I understand these terms, it's sufficient that it was in production and buyable at a certain point or period of time.

> You think it's ready developed since the nemo design is done

No, I think and said that the hardware side of the AmigaOne X1000 product is readily developed.

> it's still even lacking fundamental drivers for its on board controllers

2 of them.

> true SMP capabilities to OS4.2 [...] should not be very far off now

They still have some time left:
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7183&start=662 :-)

> You think it's a done deal, that the AmigaOne is ready, here, and a
> finished product

No, I don't think nor said that. I said "product", not "finished product".

> I think we will never agree on any of this.

That is probably true.

>> R700 GPU, DDR2 RAM, PCIe v1.x, SATA2, USB2

> All features that trump our own hardware (except for the last - IF
> you add a PCI USB card).

My Mac mini has on-board USB2, and so does the eMac :-) For the rest you are right of course, although my comparison was with new PC systems rather than with old PPC Macs ;-)

@takemehomegrandma

According to your own definition all Sam systems are complete vapourware:

Disappointed from OS support of board components? The FPGA wasn't supported at OS level until recently. Proper support of the single PCI slot in the Sam440ep mini? Wasn't there in the beginning.
No continuous availabiltiy: You could (and can) actually try to buy one. But, surprise, surprise, they are often unavailable. Because ACube waits until enough orders are in to make another batch of boards (sounds familiar, doesn't it?). I (for example) waited 5 months until delivery of my Sam440ep. After this batch the Sam was again unavailable - until the next batch were produced.

So, the same "vapourware" definition is true for the Sams - at least in the minimum sense of production in batches.

In conclusion for AmigaOS we only have vapourware HW or old, discontinued HW (here: Pegasos II, Teron-AmigaOnes). For MorphOS only the latter is true.

Why not let the people happily use their vapourware and/or outdated stuff? But... - on the other hand this thread is one of the most entertaining one's I've seen here at MorphZone since months...

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

True, my own PC is a little dated but its got a 3.6GHz Quad core processor, an R800 video card in a PCIe 2.0 slot, DDR3, and USB 3.0.
But it doesn't run MorphOS and neither does the X1000. ;(

"Average PC existing in the households today maybe,"

Yes, that's what I meant.

"but not average PC brand-new for sale today, see R700 GPU, DDR2 RAM, PCIe v1.x, SATA2, USB2."
Nemo can hold the same GPU than latest x86, DDR2 is sometimes faster than DDR3, PCIe v1 is enouh for nemo's CPU's capabilities 2.0/3.0 could not give extra on it, most modern hard drives do not transfer more than sata2 can handle, not all new PCs have USB3 and very rarely it's supported by peripherals. So x1000 is not too obsolete on those issues. Surely the lack of driver SW for all that modern HW makes one cry. But that's the same also for latest x86 when AROS is run natively (when hosted you get more goodies, I know).

Anyway. 3000eur is too much for a weird hobby toy for most people. Also for me.

And one nasty thing... the 3D support is coming first&foremost for r700, IIRC. And r700 GPUs are disappearing from average PC shop... I hope the new GFX system will more easily support future GPUs, one day.
( I wonder what all we had already if there was no split in OS developing resources... )

[ Edited by KimmoK 07.06.2012 - 22:11 ]

>> but not average PC brand-new for sale today, see R700 GPU,
>> DDR2 RAM, PCIe v1.x, SATA2, USB2.

> Nemo can hold the same GPU than latest x86

True, but the AmigaOne X1000 system is specified by A-Eon with R700:

http://www.a-eon.com/x1000.html

> DDR2 is sometimes faster than DDR3

Only in cases where latency has more impact than bandwidth.

> PCIe v1 is enouh for nemo's CPU's capabilities 2.0/3.0
> could not give extra on it, most modern hard drives do not
> transfer more than sata2 can handle, not all new PCs have
> USB3 and very rarely it's supported by peripherals.

True :-)

> And one nasty thing... the 3D support is coming first&foremost for
> r700, IIRC. And r700 GPUs are disappearing from average PC shop

How does that matter when the X1000 already comes with it pre-installed? I take it AmigaKit have stocked at least as many of those cards as A-Eon have PA6T chips in their possession ;-)

> I hope the new GFX system will more easily support future GPUs, one day.

Gallium3D/Mesa already supports up to R900:

http://www.x.org/wiki/GalliumStatus

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

Wow! That improved significantly.

Nice to see that Gallium info.

I know that Gallium is not the fastest 3D (low level) driver out there, but it seems appealing featurewise (done+WIP+planned):

Some features/supported things for video stuff:
•g3dvl: Generic GPU-Accelerated Video Decoding
•g3dvl: The old video decoder Younes wrote for GSoC a few years ago.

Some features/supported things for new games and the porting of games:
•d3d1x: Direct 3D 10/11 (easier PPC game ports from Xbox360?? & windows.)
*mesa: done for r600 (ATI R600/R700/R800/R900), r300 (ATI R300/R400/R500)

Some features/supported things to boost math on slow CPU machines:
*opencl (I know OpenCL itself is a lot of work and then the applications SW, but Gallium enables the start of the work, one day.)

...One day PCIe capable Amigan HW (with Gallium) will be a lot more nicer than today.
"With regards to graphics driver support for AmigaOS4. This is where we are spending most of our effort -- but more news on this later.
-TrevorD"

Is there any info what MOS team is planning to do to use the latest GPUs? Also Gallium?
Perhaps only after the architecture change as old Macs are pretty well accelerated already????

[ Edited by KimmoK 08.06.2012 - 09:16 ]

Quote:

No of course not (and if you are replying to my posts, please bother to actually read them first). While no or flaky drivers is a discomfort that no paying customers should have to live with, it's still *very very* far from promising a re-engineering of Amiga OS in a way that many people simply describes as impossible. Please tell me you see the difference?

[ Edited by takemehomegrandma 08.06.2012 - 09:39 ]

> d3d1x: Direct 3D 10/11

Only done/WIP for nVidia so far according to the table.

> opencl

Looks bad for R700:
"N/A", "Only partial OpenCL support is possible, support through vertex shaders."

http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/GalliumCompute#Current_Status

> Is there any info what MOS team is planning to do to use the latest
> GPUs? Also Gallium?

Their stance regarding Gallium3D from almost 2 years ago:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7464&forum=11&start=1

I'm not aware of any more recent statements.

@Andreas_Wolf

IIRC, also r700 series OpenCl performance is anyway very low when compared to any newer chip.

Anyway, if we one day have OpenCL, most who are in that kind performance need would happily upgrade.

Quote:

"a lot" is something of an understatement. It's sort of like writing a new OS and a compiler for it.

Gallium probably doesn't help that much but you will need some way of sending kernels to the GPU.

I don't know if there is an open source implementation but you'll find bits of it in the LLVM/clang compiler set. Some of the grand central dispatch stuff is also opensource.

Once you have all that lot then you have to write something in it, it's not the easiest of languages to program in.

> I don't know if there is an open source implementation

If you mean OpenCL, then yes, there is one under development:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTEwMjU
http://tstellar.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-test-clover-with-r600g.html (for R800/R900)
http://www.x.org/wiki/XorgEVoC/GalliumCompute (for nVidia)
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7853&forum=3&start=1

I did a search for the amount of times "vapor", "vaporware", "vapour" and "vapourware" (allowing for both UK and US spellings) was used on this thread, and after what post its usage increased.

The results were a little amusing:

X1000_vapo.png

Update:

>>> [...] USB2

>> All features that trump our own hardware (except for the last - IF
>> you add a PCI USB card).

> My Mac mini has on-board USB2, and so does the eMac :-)

The "silent" on-board USB2 of the PowerMac G4 FW800 is now supported by MorphOS:

"Enables USB2 mode for onboard NEC chipsets in PowerMac FW800."
http://www.morphos.de/releasenotes/3.0

> That is the first I have heard about more boards being on their way
> already. That will make many anxious buyers very happy, that did not
> get their orders in fast enough to get one of the "First Contact"
> X1000 computer systems. I hope that your next production run sells
> out almost as fast as the "First Contact" computer systems did.

New information:

http://www.os4welt.de/viewtopic.php?p=12213#p12213
http://www.amigakit.com/x1000/

It seems the second batch will still be called "First Contact" systems.

And this:

"Presumably unintended, the way of sending the e-mail also disclosed that in addition to purchasers of the first batch, there seem to be at least 540 users currently interested in also buying an AmigaOne X1000."
http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2012-06-00032-EN.html

X1000 looks to me to be only for the most hardcore of hardcore enthusiasts. Who probably have a MorphOS machine too. And a dedicated AROS PC. Another PC set aside for Amiga Forever and WinUAE. Another one for Amithlon. And a whole bunch of kitted-out classic Amigas, with 68060s and rare PPC accelerators no doubt. And a Minimig or two. And a portable ARM device specifically to run UAE. All with registered WHDLoad. Maybe a few C64s and Atari 800s as well.



[ Edited by Mequa 12.06.2012 - 03:49 ]

@Andreas_Wolf

Looks like MorphOS 3 made them busy.

> X1000 looks to me to be only for the most hardcore of hardcore
> enthusiasts. Who probably have a MorphOS machine too.

To me it seems like so far, the majority of X1000 users do not have a registered MorphOS machine, which I think is not surprising as those enthusiasts are mostly enthusiastic about OS4, and less so MorphOS :-)

> Looks like MorphOS 3 made them busy.

I'm not sure that the release of MorphOS 3 is a reason for A-Eon's announcement. After all, sale of the second batch had been announced for late Q2 (i.e. end of June) already in March.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7183&start=601