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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Software News => Topic started by: eliyahu on March 22, 2016, 06:12:10 PM
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(http://www.a-eon.com/images/warp3dnova_logo.png)
Introducing Warp3D Nova
Shader based 3D graphics are finally a reality!
A-EON Technology Ltd (http://www.a-eon.com/) is pleased to announce that a native 3D Shader-based API has been developed for OS4. Warp3D Nova (http://www.a-eon.com/PDF/News_Release_Warp3D_Nova.pdf) has been the result of over nine months of hard work by graphics guru and AmigaDeveloper.com (http://www.amigadeveloper.com/) Team member, Hans De Ruiter. It offers significant opportunities for exciting advancements in 3D software running on the AmigaOS4 platform.
Why is Nova needed?
The original Warp3D API is over a decade old, and as a consequence, is not based around Shader technology and many related functions that modern graphics cards support. Modern 3D engines require Shaders and having this support on OS4 will remove more obstacles to porting games and applications from other platforms. To further ease porting from other systems, we have contracted Daniel Muessener (GoldenCode.eu) to develop an OpenGL ES 2.0 wrapper for the new Warp3D Nova.
In addition to the coding talents of Daniel, we have been in contact with other prominent 3D developers from across the Amiga community and provided them with early access to the software.
Warp3D Nova Features
- A modern shader-based 3D graphics API for use by 3D software running on the AmigaOS 4 platform
- Supports vertex and fragment (pixel) shaders giving developers great freedom over lighting models, effects, vertex transformations, etc.
- Hardware accelerated Transformation, Clipping & Lighting (TCL) is implicitly supported (programmed via shaders)
- Uses the SPIR-V standard for shaders. A GLSL to SPIR-V compiler is included
- All rendering is done via Vertex Buffer Objects (VBOs) which can be stored in VRAM for high performance Render state stored in Render State Objects (RSOs). Having no global state avoids state thrashing, and allows multi-threaded rendering. Note: While there's no global state, a default RSO is allocated for convenience
- Includes an SDK with everything needed to start writing apps & games including examples ranging from querying hardware capabilities through to per-pixel lighting with normal mapping
- Can co-exist with the original Warp3D-SI & MiniGL
Special thanks go to Andy Broad for developing the glslangValidator tool.
Requirements
- AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition or newer
- A supported Southern Island* series graphics card with GDDR5 RAM
- Radeon HD 7750-7970 series
- Radeon R5 230/235/235x
- Radeon R7 250x/265 series
- Radeon R9 270/270x/280/280x
(*Not compatible with HD7790 or Southern Island graphics cards with DDR3 RAM)
(http://www.a-eon.com/images/warp3dnova_os4.png)
Warp3D Nova libraries, SDK and tools
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This is great news!! Thank you eliyahu!
Cheers!!
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:banana::banana::banana:We love ya Hans & Daniel & Andy :hammer::banana::banana::banana:
:drink:
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Great news but what about the others like me having older Radeon 9000, 7500 and 9250 in AmigaOnes cpu ? these old cards are supporting shaders as well !
is this coming for free ?
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Great news but what about the others like me having older Radeon 9000, 7500 and 9250 in AmigaOnes cpu ? these old cards are supporting shaders as well !
is this coming for free ?
at the moment only certain radeonhd cards are supported, but A-EON are making available a DDK for third-parties to develop additional drivers for additional video cards.
as for pricing, that wasn't announced. either way, given that the OS is now so much cheaper, it doesn't bother me much one way or another. :)
-- eliyahu
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Will it be released for 68k machines once/if drivers for older Radeons are available?
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It would be nice to see it released for MorphOS as well. Any word on a possibility for that?
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Wow THANKS and great!!!! Job boys!!!!!
Well done
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:pint::hat:
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Great news but what about the others like me having older Radeon 9000, 7500 and 9250 in AmigaOnes cpu ? these old cards are supporting shaders as well !
The shader capabilities in Radeon 7000-9250's are really really basic. That's why ATI never wrote a GLSL compiler for them. Of course, if someone wants to have a go at creating a Warp3D Nova driver anyway, then that's cool. Just know that it'll only ever be able to use really basic shaders.
Hans
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Very cool indeed!! Nice work Hans!
I wonder why the DDR5-only limitation?
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Very cool indeed!! Nice work Hans!
I wonder why the DDR5-only limitation?
That's a limitation of the 2D RadeonHD driver. DDR3 cards have a poor track record, and so far I've been unable to figure out why.
Hans
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A closed source 3D API only for OS4?
Good luck!
You will need it.
On the other hand, if it gets open and available for MOS, AROS, Amiga, etc it will indeed be something positive and worthwhile. If not, it will certainly languish in obscurity within time.
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Gulliver:
Congratulations on being the first d!ck in this thread.
You could have asked if there were plans to port to other platforms in a nice way but instead chose to don your flame gear and toss an incendiary device.
What has been accomplished here is an amazing amount of work in nine months by a small team on a likely fairly limited budget.
Requesting that this becomes "open" and available to other platforms is naive to the extreme.
Normally I don't do the "angry" type of post but really dude, get a clue.
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Looking forward to putting Nova to use on X1000 with R9 270. There may be hope for 2016 yet. ;)
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Gulliver:
Congratulations on being the first d!ck in this thread.
You could have asked if there were plans to port to other platforms in a nice way but instead chose to don your flame gear and toss an incendiary device.
What has been accomplished here is an amazing amount of work in nine months by a small team on a likely fairly limited budget.
Requesting that this becomes "open" and available to other platforms is naive to the extreme.
Normally I don't do the "angry" type of post but really dude, get a clue.
I didn´t insult you.
But hey, maybe it is the way you were brought up. I dont blame you.
As for the matter, have you seem something good come out from previous closed source AmigaOS 3D API attempts? Just remember Warp3D, this is just history repeating over and over again.
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From what I can tell people have been happily using Warp3d for a good few years. Just because you're on the wrong team and didn't get a kick of the ball doesn't give the right to be obnoxious and ignorant.
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Warp3D Nova running under AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on an AmigaOne X1000
https://youtu.be/G_STXjTaVoY
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actually i wonder how much warp3d has been used really. in its time there were very few programs to use it. on 68k there was a port of mesa called storm mesa, which could actually be used for porting 3d programs (i made few attempts) but since it was using warp3d as backend the results were very limited.
now, what concerns this announcement. its a move in some more reasonable direction than usual. but at this a bit slow time of the year there is usually some announcement like that to fill the gap before amiwest. lets see what and when the actual release happens and under what conditions. if anyone remembers, last year there was an extended memory addressing patch released for os4, which was also as enthusiastically welcome, because it made it sound as if os4 receives some contemporary os features. it was quite a publicity issue, but im still not aware of a single piese of software using this since then.
therefore, remembering also "xena" fiasco ("the community will show us what can be done with it") im a bit sceptical about expectations towards third party support as of today.
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Warp3D Nova running under AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on an AmigaOne X1000
https://youtu.be/G_STXjTaVoY
nice, but these are rather basic demos demonstrating basic opengl capabilities. gears look pretty much the same with storm mesa/warp3d on an 68k amiga. i have spotted some bump/reflection map on the warp3d animation itself, but its just about it so far..
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The Logo demo uses Shaders, buffer objects et al of course so no fixed pipeline, truly groundbreaking on AmigaOS... You cannot see that visually but you can see the results of it running. The Logo demo was created for us to test functionality of Warp3D Nova.
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From what I can tell people have been happily using Warp3d for a good few years. Just because you're on the wrong team and didn't get a kick of the ball doesn't give the right to be obnoxious and ignorant.
Most programs didn't use Warp3D directly, but through OpenGL implementations, like MiniGL or StormMesa.
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actually there is a handful warp3d demos and mostly simple games, not worth any upgrade. almost none has ever programmed directly against w3d, with one notable exception of alain, the autor of wazp. so if daytona writes at least a wrapper for opengl2 (2004) it may have some impact on software, but as such even if laying foundation for this wrapper the availability of warp3d nova is so far simply a nice news item. a direct implementation of gallium/mesa without detouring the interface through some unnecessary orthodox api (and likely introducing additional bottlenecks by the way) would be more sensible for porting software which is using opengl anyway.
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It's not like Mesa must to be implemented on top of a Gallim3D-compatible driver. Mesa had drivers long before Gallium3D was conceived. It was only introduced to simplify driver creation by implementing boilerplate for a state tracker. My point is that one could use Warp3D Nova as a low-level layer to make a Mesa driver, just like they did with StormMesa back in the day.
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It's not like Mesa must to be implemented on top of a Gallim3D-compatible driver. Mesa had drivers long before Gallium3D was conceived. It was only introduced to simplify driver creation by implementing boilerplate for a state tracker. My point is that one could use Warp3D Nova as a low-level layer to make a Mesa driver, just like they did with StormMesa back in the day.
thats what the plan seems to be. still how convenient even an updated warp3d as a driver layer is it remains to be seen. i wonder if the old software depending on minigl and the old w3d is supposed to go through this now, as replacement. since after so many years an independent implementation might be more sensible than trying to keep up the compatibility with the old one. i trust this has been well considered.
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Warp3D Nova offers no backwards compatibility, just as OpenGL ES2 is not compatible with OpenGL ES1, thus mobile drivers implement both. I don't think Mesa was even considered, otherwise they would have gone straight for a Gallium3D driver, which would have worked with Mesa out of the box. IMHO that would have made more sense, since it'd have offered backwards compatibility with old software with a nice speedup, plus the new shader-based OpenGL APIs. Best of both worlds.
Since neither Warp3D Nova, nor the planned OpenGL ES2 wrapper implements the fixed function pipeline, old software can only use it, if someone provides a full OpenGL implementation. This can be Mesa, Regal, or whatever else there's out there.
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Not sure what to think about this announcement really - nice for x1000 and x5000 users I guess (assuming that software is developed that takes advantage of it) but along with the Enhancer package, this feels like A-Eon trying to take the future direction of AmigaOS 4.x into its own hands.
Which is understandable I guess since they're heavily invested in PPC hardware but A-Eon's boards aren't the only game in town - there's Classic, Pegasos, Sam and of course UAE and others - and developments like this are just further fragmenting the user base. There's already a handful of applications and games that won't run on some of these platforms due to them requiring hardware 3D and/or compositing - bringing Nova to the mix just means a smaller audience for software reliant on it.
Until there's PPC hardware that offers a sane price/performance ratio (and Tabor isn't it) there's never going to be a 'standard' AmigaOS platform. I love the drive to do *something* to move AmigaOS forward but the money and effort being expended on stuff like this is of benefit to a tiny fraction of the Amiga community. Such a shame.
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Aegis;
Cant really say I agree.
AeonKit went for PPC, and while they seem to work well with Acube, they cant be expected to bend over backwards to accomodate their customers for example.
Same goes for the owners of 10-20 year old PPC hardware. At one point they have to decide which standard to set, and since noone else is picking up the slack, I dont see any reason to be negative about their move.
Yes, some of us might find the hardware of choice to be suboptimal (main point seems to be FPU), but they have now built the API with Daniel working on OpenGL. He is one of the most active GN gamecoders, so im rather positive with the way forward. AeonKit seems to be the only people in town working on AOS4x, so if anything, they will consolidate the PPC crowd.
With regards to Vampire/Classic;
Matthew has indicated hes aware of the potential pool of users/customers that is surfacing on the classic market, so im sure there will be improvements there too.
Likewise AROS activity is picking up, so its going to be intresting times both for NG and classic.
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Not sure what to think about this announcement really - nice for x1000 and x5000 users I guess (assuming that software is developed that takes advantage of it) but along with the Enhancer package, this feels like A-Eon trying to take the future direction of AmigaOS 4.x into its own hands.
Which is understandable I guess since they're heavily invested in PPC hardware but A-Eon's boards aren't the only game in town - there's Classic, Pegasos, Sam and of course UAE and others - and developments like this are just further fragmenting the user base. There's already a handful of applications and games that won't run on some of these platforms due to them requiring hardware 3D and/or compositing - bringing Nova to the mix just means a smaller audience for software reliant on it.
Until there's PPC hardware that offers a sane price/performance ratio (and Tabor isn't it) there's never going to be a 'standard' AmigaOS platform. I love the drive to do *something* to move AmigaOS forward but the money and effort being expended on stuff like this is of benefit to a tiny fraction of the Amiga community. Such a shame.
Well, if one could find a *working* PCI->PCI Express converter you could use newer cards on most Amiga with PCI slots or PCI boards...
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The argument I think a lot of people have is the closed nature of it, and that no attempts at least publicly were made to bring it to MorphOS or AROS. I clearly remember talk of not wanting to be split between red and blue at Amiwest. This still seems like a one sided race to me.
Hopefully I am proven wrong, I have interest in all sides and own hardware that supports all platforms, both NG and classic.
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I guess the main reason I'm underwhelmed here is that AmigaOS 4.x finally has an opportunity to mature into a standard open-source platform and it's not Nemo, Cyrus or Tabor - it's UAE.
Now I get that users heavily invested in PPC hardware probably don't want to hear/consider that but WinUAE's running AmigaOS really well in the latest betas (it was already usable and it's just had a 30% speedup).
UAE's endlessly extensible if the will is there to work with Toni and the rest of the UAE devs - there's already support for 512MB of video RAM via uaegfx and there's potential to add gigs of RAM if Hyperion could be persuaded to release a kernal that supports Zorro III RAM (they've already written one).
There's also no reason that something like Wazp3D couldn't be implemented for hardware 3D support on AmigaOS too. Work is needed on speeding up Q-Emu (particularly the soft-float stuff) that Toni's unable to do - but the Amiga community could be doing it - either directly or sponsoring it but whilst Toni and Frode and all the others are quietly working away performing minor miracles, money and time is being poured into porting AmigaOS to yet more one-off platforms and yet-more software targetted at a small subset of a small user-base.
Post-Commodore the community's always been running off in different directions pursuing similar but not shared goals - Nova to me is just another example of that.
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The argument I think a lot of people have is the closed nature of it, and that no attempts at least publicly were made to bring it to MorphOS or AROS. I clearly remember talk of not wanting to be split between red and blue at Amiwest. This still seems like a one sided race to me.
Hopefully I am proven wrong, I have interest in all sides and own hardware that supports all platforms, both NG and classic.
i dont think aros needs it. as mentioned before warp3d has almost never been used directly on the platforms it was available for including genuine amiga. there alsways been soem sort of opengl wrapper in between, storm mesa, minigl, tinygl..
morphos had some sort of warp3d reimplementation or wrapper for some time, the name of goa or something like that, which has been depreciated in the meantime afair. i think today they have a native kind of opengl library same as aros even if possibly not as feature complete, but maybe more optimized.
so in short, im not sure its aros which uses gallium/mesa7 or morphos who need to catch up now, but its still os4 trying to catch up with others. so far we only see some basic demos, so its hard to tell how this will practically impact on application level.
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I guess the main reason I'm underwhelmed here is that AmigaOS 4.x finally has an opportunity to mature into a standard open-source platform and it's not Nemo, Cyrus or Tabor - it's UAE.
im sorry you have invested your bets with something that was obviously not going along your expectations. os4 is neither going to be open source nor it is going to support uae. it has been told over and over. im not sure how have you managed to skip past these clear statements till today, to grow upset just now.
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Well, if one could find a *working* PCI->PCI Express converter you could use newer cards on most Amiga with PCI slots or PCI boards...
Looks like Startech makes such a device. Anybody tried this?
https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Slot-Extension/PCI-to-PCI-Express-Adapter-Card~PCI1PEX1
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im sorry you have invested your bets with something that was obviously not going along your expectations. os4 is neither going to be open source nor it is going to support uae. it has been told over and over. im not sure how have you managed to skip past these clear statements till today, to grow upset just now.
UAE is open-source - I wasn't talking about AmigaOS - if you want to extend the underlying hardware capabilities you can - anyone can.
And regarding my expectations, barring an unlikely shift to ARM/x86 eventually the only way to run AmigaOS will be via emulation - surely you understand that?
Hyperion will support whatever makes them money - if they sell more copies of OS4.1 Classic then they'll support Classic - they'd be suicidal not to.
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i dont think aros needs it. as mentioned before warp3d has almost never been used directly on the platforms it was available for including genuine amiga. there alsways been soem sort of opengl wrapper in between, storm mesa, minigl, tinygl..
morphos had some sort of warp3d reimplementation or wrapper for some time, the name of goa or something like that, which has been depreciated in the meantime afair. i think today they have a native kind of opengl library same as aros even if possibly not as feature complete, but maybe more optimized.
so in short, im not sure its aros which uses gallium/mesa7 or morphos who need to catch up now, but its still os4 trying to catch up with others. so far we only see some basic demos, so its hard to tell how this will practically impact on application level.
Yeah, Warp3D itself doesnt mean much to AROS and MorphOS. At this age using Amiga native 3D API doesnt pay off anymore because all major 3D software is coming from other platforms. Warp3D is more or less driver API these days and these things are tied to the underlying operating system. Warp3D Nova is a foundation stone for coming OpenGL ES 2 wrapper.
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Looks like Startech makes such a device. Anybody tried this?
https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Slot-Extension/PCI-to-PCI-Express-Adapter-Card~PCI1PEX1
I've never seen a PCI-E 1x graphics card.
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UAE is open-source - I wasn't talking about AmigaOS - if you want to extend the underlying hardware capabilities you can - anyone can.
And regarding my expectations, barring an unlikely shift to ARM/x86 eventually the only way to run AmigaOS will be via emulation - surely you understand that?
Hyperion will support whatever makes them money - if they sell more copies of OS4.1 Classic then they'll support Classic - they'd be suicidal not to.
the question is what one needs os4 for, especially under uae, except as a gimmick. afair there is no native software for it worth mention, that wouldnt be a port from the host or comparable platform. and beyond that we already know that so called os4.1fe "classic" sales (mostly for uae, since working ppc accels are rather few out there) already exceeded the sales for real os4 hardware, probably by magnitudes. and what are the notable results? besides, we also know, that when approached by vampire/apollo team for licenses hyperion demanded rather unrealistic conditions, and refused any development support. so if it doesnt indicate anything, i dont know what does, however you are free to draw your own conclusions, of course.
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@thread
guys, the hyperion/UAE discussion is off-topic. please move it to another thread (although we've talked about it over and over...).
-- eliyahu
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the question is what one needs os4 for, especially under uae, except as a gimmick. afair there is no native software for it worth mention, that wouldnt be a port from the host or comparable platform.
Well, none of us 'need' OS4 - there's better supported alternatives out there for those that need to run modern applications (I make my living using modo, LightWave, DaVinci Resolve etc.)
But OS4 fills a nice, nostalgic niche for those of us the love the Amiga and out of all the NG platforms, OS4 feels the most like 'home' to me. I'm running it under emulation on my i7 PC purely for the fun of it and would seriously consider using it on a laptop dedicated to email/browsing/games (using in under Linux Mint on my i3 laptop atm).
There's such a huge schism between the platforms AOS is available for now though that how do you develop for that? Many applications/games will run great in 128MB of RAM - I know, I've tried tons of them - but there's also a number that won't.
I'd like to see a middle-ground that's ubiquitous enough that it can be used as a modern baseline and the A-Eon products aren't that - Tabor has (had?) the potential to be but until AmigaOS debuts on it (and we see what the final cost is) we just won't know (my opinion is that developing PPC hardware that offers a comparable price/performance ratio to commodity PCs running WinUAE is and will always be unachievable).
UAE on the other hand would make an excellent baseline if it was better supported by Hyperion and the Amiga community in bringing it up to spec (RAM, faster FPU, hardware 2D/3D) - and the cost of entry is peanuts for an OS 4.1 license if you've already got a reasonably-specced PC. It could be the perfect development platform and entry point for those interested in AmigaOS (really, it already is).
and beyond that we already know that so called os4.1fe "classic" sales (mostly for uae, since working ppc accels are rather few out there) already exceeded the sales for real os4 hardware, probably by magnitudes. and what are the notable results? besides, we also know, that when approached by vampire/apollo team for licenses hyperion demanded rather unrealistic conditions, and refused any development support. so if it doesnt indicate anything, i dont know what does, however you are free to draw your own conclusions, of course.
The real litmus test will be what happens after the Cyrus and Tabor ports are done - even if Hyperion wanted to support emulation (and I see their distribution of the Classic ISO via Cloanto to be a sign of interest) they're too busy with that right now. Perhaps you're right - we'll see.
Anyway - I said my bit - I don't want to derail this thread any more than I already have.
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@Aegis
Only a short comment... Toni is "not amused" because never got any support from Hyperion how you can read on eab, they have even the fix to support ram ready but are not willing to give it to paying customers. If such behavior is wise can everybody decide for himself.
@topic
gratulation for getting 3D support. There is still the problem now to get adapted software for it, also not everyone owns supported graphic cards so the number of potential customers now is rather limited. I assume that the main targets for a-eon (next to existing X1000 owners) are potential future X5000/Tabor owners and they want to offer 3D support despite no MESA/Gallium.
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@Aegis
Only a short comment... Toni is "not amused" because never got any support from Hyperion how you can read on eab, they have even the fix to support ram ready but are not willing to give it to paying customers. If such behavior is wise can everybody decide for himself.
Personally I never expected the restrictions to be lifted when I purchased AOS 4 FE.
Noone should feel cheated with the limitations when using it on WinUAE.
Customers that purchased it should have known it was for PPC hardware, not emulation.
The restictions was very clear upon release.
That said, it would probarly be GOOD for AOS that it supported UAE usage to its fullest, including a WinUAE installer/Amiga Forever style installer, like with AmiKit (with adjustable harddisk allocation upon installation).
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Personally I never expected the restrictions to be lifted when I purchased AOS 4 FE.
Noone should feel cheated with the limitations when using it on WinUAE.
Customers that purchased it should have known it was for PPC hardware, not emulation.
The restictions was very clear upon release.
That said, it would probarly be GOOD for AOS that it supported UAE usage to its fullest, including a WinUAE installer/Amiga Forever style installer, like with AmiKit (with adjustable harddisk allocation upon installation).
ironically is "Classic" the only useful version right now if you want to start because of no hardware available. I am pretty sure that there are a number of people that have not bought it because of those limitations. As a company I would not care where someone uses it as long as I get money. But that is me... :)
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I've never seen a PCI-E 1x graphics card.
You can plug a 16x card into a 1x slot. The card will automatically downgrade.
PCI slots (33Mhz/32bit) don't even saturate the 2.5Gbit/s bandwidth of a single PCI-e 1.0 lane.
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I've never seen a PCI-E 1x graphics card.
I bought this one out of ebay for a motherboard where the 16x pci-e was broken : http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-8400-gs/specifications
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Indeed there is no harm in plugging in even a PCI-e 16x card in a 1x slot. I imagine it would be faster than those awful low-end PCI cards, mostly meant for HTPC-s.
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Running Gears3 from Minigl Demos results in 100% cpu use.
Running Warp3D Nova Gears results in 12% cpu use .
Idle system is 5 % cpu use.
Sam460ex RadeonHD 7750
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thats anyway quite a high resource demand for such a simple demo.
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The Warp3DN Logo demo maxes out at 62% of cpu use .
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The Minigl demos are using Warp3D.
The famous cow3d demo using warp3D also results in 100% cpu usage .
Will be interesting to see what happens with a Warpd3D nova version
thats anyway quite a high resource demand for such a simple demo.
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sounds suspicious, dot you think? maybe there is some busy looping in a driver or synchronization or whatsoever. what happens if you run further applications alongside? maybe simply that cpu load utility is wrong?
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The CPU load utility seems accurate .
sounds suspicious, dot you think? maybe there is some busy looping in a driver or synchronization or whatsoever. what happens if you run further applications alongside? maybe simply that cpu load utility is wrong?
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CPU usage without the actual framerate doesn't say a lot. You can produce 100% CPU usage drawing a single triangle at 1000 FPS.
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Cow3D gives about 114 FPS.
CPU usage without the actual framerate doesn't say a lot. You can produce 100% CPU usage drawing a single triangle at 1000 FPS.
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Cow3D gives about 114 FPS.
Sure, but Cow3D is a Warp3D program. My point was, that the Warp3D Nova example programs by themselves, without CANDI running, locked at a sensible framerate would probably consume very little CPU power compared to Warp3D. CANDI can skew the results, since 2D Compositing API is still very CPU bound.
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Ok. I am not running Candi.But I don't know if any of the Warp3D Nova demos give any FPS
information .
Sure, but Cow3D is a Warp3D program. My point was, that the Warp3D Nova example programs by themselves, without CANDI running, locked at a sensible framerate would probably consume very little CPU power compared to Warp3D. CANDI can skew the results, since 2D Compositing API is still very CPU bound.
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i was miss leaded at the beginning by the name of the package containing "warp3d" and that it was suggested being an upgrade to the previous warp3d. now i understand that it is completely different library the applications need to be particularly compiled against. existing warp3d applications wont take any (speed) advantage of it.
so there is now warp3d.library in the system and some other library for warp3d nova functionality alongside?
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Yes there are two separate libraries .
i was miss leaded at the beginning by the name of the package containing "warp3d" and that it was suggested being an upgrade to the previous warp3d. now i understand that it is completely different library the applications need to be particularly compiled against. existing warp3d applications wont take any (speed) advantage of it.
so there is now warp3d.library in the system and some other library for warp3d nova functionality alongside?
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@wawrzon
Please take a look at the pictures in the News Release which show the libraries:
http://www.a-eon.com/images/warp3dnova_os4.png
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Running Gears3 from Minigl Demos results in 100% cpu use.
Running Warp3D Nova Gears results in 12% cpu use .
Idle system is 5 % cpu use.
Sam460ex RadeonHD 7750
Be careful what you compare here, the Warp3d Nova demos are locked to the screen refresh rate.
On my system (x1k) the Nova gears example barely gets out of the 'rest CPU noise' (as displayed in CPUInfo docky) , at the default window size, though CPU usage does go up as the window size increases.
These aren't demos but coding examples. Please don't attempt to use them for crude benchmarking. The results would be less than meaningful.
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thx for confirmation. maybe it should be clarified. i have the feeling, users rush now for warp3d nova supported cards, expecting some immediate improvements, even with the existing software, as spectre did in his post about cow3d. perhaps it would be better to hold off till the package is actually released and at least a single actual application is available for it. this might be a better publicity policy in a long run, while avoid disappointments on part of not so well informed customers.
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On my system (x1k) the Nova gears example barely gets out of the 'rest CPU noise' (as displayed in CPUInfo docky) , at the default window size,
thats how it should be i guess.
though CPU usage does go up as the window size increases.
something is still done in software? on these simple examples?
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I was not "expecting" anything just trying to demonstrate that the new driver uses much less cpu resources than the old Warp3DSI driver.
The supply of compatible Radeon HD Southern Islands cards is shrinking so
he who hesitates may be lost.
I got a pair on HD7750's almost two years ago and I am glad that I did.
thx for confirmation. maybe it should be clarified. i have the feeling, users rush now for warp3d nova supported cards, expecting some immediate improvements, even with the existing software, as spectre did in his post about cow3d. perhaps it would be better to hold off till the package is actually released and at least a single actual application is available for it. this might be a better publicity policy in a long run, while avoid disappointments on part of not so well informed customers.
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The supply of compatible Radeon HD Southern Islands cards is shrinking so
he who hesitates may be lost.
It's not like you can't benefit from them in the mean time, they are faster than other OS4 supported cards (give or take specific hi or low end versions within the series) and you can use Warp3D )non Nova) on them now.
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ok, but perhaps the user would be better off, deciding if he needs to buy immediately another graphics card himself upon a consideration based on actual facts he is honestly presented with, rather than driven by vague suggestions, he may find misleading afterwards. there is already enough people complaining about having bought forthcoming models upon such promises.
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ok, but perhaps the user would be better off, deciding if he needs to buy immediately another graphics card himself upon a consideration based on actual facts he is honestly presented with, rather than driven by vague suggestions, he may find misleading afterwards. there is already enough people complaining about having bought forthcoming models upon such promises.
What works currently with Warp3D V5 and minigl are not vague suggestions.
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Some of the responses in this thread are so predictable.
OS4 was lambasted for it's inability to support halfway decent 3D despite running on higher end Radeon cards.
3D support arrives, and suddenly it's another reason to complain.
I've had nothing to do with Nova but I do know Warp3D and from the description of how this works, it's simply nothing like the original Warp3D. And believe me, that's a good thing. The original Warp3D suited old cards where the only thing they accelerated was rasterisation. By moving vertex data to buffer objects, the supported cards are now able to accelerate every part of setup and rendering.
All that is missing now is an OpenGL implementation on top. MiniGL suffered because it could only use Warp3D to handle the very last stage of the graphics pipeline and often had to do very nasty workarounds to get basic GL tasks done.
Shader support on older cards might be poor, but they still support VBO, hardware transformation, clipping and lighting. That means that significantly better drivers are possible for Nova running on the older Radeon hardware.
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@Carlos ,
Description for these kind of responses :
Ami nit pick .
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Seeing as Nova is a completely new architecture is the old Warp3D API going to be implemented on top of it ala Goa?
Also is there a rough ETA yet of when the OpenGL layer is going to be made for it?
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Implementing Warp3D functions on top of Warp3D Nova wouldn't give any benefits. The main bottleneck of Warp3D if that most of the graphics pipeline is on the CPU. The GPU is only rasterizing triangles either way.
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@Carlos ,
Description for these kind of responses :
Ami nit pick .
While we disagree on some topics, I'd agree with you here.
Its an Amiga tradition, something is introduced that improves our experience, and immediately the fanatics start picking it apart.
This is good stuff guys.
Hans has managed to make it worthwhile to use a higher end card.
And OS4 gets 3D support for HD cards before MorphOS.
Way to go guys.
Just take the boon, and stop picking at it.
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Implementing Warp3D functions on top of Warp3D Nova wouldn't give any benefits. The main bottleneck of Warp3D if that most of the graphics pipeline is on the CPU. The GPU is only rasterizing triangles either way.
What about support for new cards in the future? I'm assuming they won't have Warp3D drivers for them, so is Warp3D deprecated like Goa for R300+ is on MorphOS?
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At the moment, it is on the drawing board to extend driver support beyond Southern Islands as ATI produce more chipsets in the future. However, the most important task at the moment is to get Warp3D Nova released.
As regards the original Warp3D, we have some plans to continue working on drivers for low performance platforms.
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What about support for new cards in the future? I'm assuming they won't have Warp3D drivers for them, so is Warp3D deprecated like Goa for R300+ is on MorphOS?
Sure, technically it's possible. The principle is the same as Regal and GLES2.
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@amigakit
Is there a PCI-e adaptor for Sam440 planed to be sold from your store? Compatible GFX cards to fit this mobo-adaptor combination (it would be ideal, if sold as a bundle)?
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@Cass: that would be great!
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@amigakit
Is there a PCI-e adaptor for Sam440 planed to be sold from your store? Compatible GFX cards to fit this mobo-adaptor combination (it would be ideal, if sold as a bundle)?
Sam 440ep (flex) has a problem
1. Radeon HD 7XXX cards doesn't work. Requires uboot update.
2. Radeon HD 5XXX-6XXX does work, but there is no 3D support for those cards.
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@amigakit
Is there a PCI-e adaptor for Sam440 planed to be sold from your store? Compatible GFX cards to fit this mobo-adaptor combination (it would be ideal, if sold as a bundle)?
Those adapters exist, but see above post.
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(http://www.a-eon.com/images/warp3dnova_logo.png)
Introducing Warp3D Nova
Shader based 3D graphics are finally a reality!
...
Requirements
- AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition or newer
- A supported Southern Island* series graphics card with GDDR5 RAM
- Radeon HD 7750-7970 series
- Radeon R5 230/235/235x
- Radeon R7 250x/265 series
- Radeon R9 270/270x/280/280x
(*Not compatible with HD7790 or Southern Island graphics cards with DDR3 RAM)
...
Some questions:
- Does the requirement "AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition or newer" include the AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition for PPC equipped classic Amigas as well?
- If so, do I understand you correctly that I would have to throw my Voodoo4 PCI out for one of the mentioned Radeons, in order to be able to use Warp3D Nova?
- Do the mentioned Radeons work with my old Mediator, or would they even require the new 3V version of the Mediator?
- Is a CSPPC in a classic A4000 sufficient at all for the daily use of Warp3D Nova, or does it only make sense with NG Amiga hardware?
- What software can currently take advantage of Warp3D Nova?
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forget it..
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@ wawrzon:
forget it..
It would be nice to know to whom and to what you're replying.
Not just you personally, but all posters here who have this bad habit of replying without indicating to whom and to what they're replying.
Is it really too demanding for you to put an "@ xyz:" at the beginning of a posting/reply or simply to use the "Quote"-button?
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@ Dandy
Is possible to use Radeon HD7XXX cards with mediator?
I think that Warp3D Nova doesn't wotrk with Mediator, because you can't get Radeon HD 7XXX cards work with it.
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@ wawrzon:
It would be nice to know to whom and to what you're replying.
Not just you personally, but all posters here who have this bad habit of replying without indicating to whom and to what they're replying.
Is it really too demanding for you to put an "@ xyz:" at the beginning of a posting/reply or simply to use the "Quote"-button?
to you. isnt it obvious, that the post references the one just above if there is no quote?
and isnt it obvious that you cannot fit a pci-e card into the mediator, when there is no appropriate slot?
you can of course be first to try, even if it would require adapter over adapter over adapter just to prove that the driver doesnt work nevertheless, but according to your posts im not sure if the system you are planning to use is stable enough to deliver dependable results.
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@ Dandy
Is possible to use Radeon HD7XXX cards with mediator?
I think that Warp3D Nova doesn't wotrk with Mediator, because you can't get Radeon HD 7XXX cards work with it.
i doubt. mediator interfaces through zorro to the amiga which interfaces then via cpu or expansions slot to the turbo board. the effective bandwidth is 7mb/s. addressing the graphics card is tricky and seldom anything else than voodoo3 or radeon 92xx is used. even if the card attached via a pci-pci-e adapter would be recognized, which is a task almost impossible to imagine even for a skilled geek, the bandwidth makes it completely senseless for any more complex 3d usage i fear.
however similar applies to older amigaone (NO X), pegasos and sam440 computers, so it isnt that tragic for us.
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@ Dandy
Is possible to use Radeon HD7XXX cards with mediator?
I think that Warp3D Nova doesn't wotrk with Mediator, because you can't get Radeon HD 7XXX cards work with it.
I had a hell of a time getting my Radeon 9250 and heck any other card working ok with my mediator so I'll be surprised if it does work but happy if it does :)
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to you. isnt it obvious, that the post references the one just above if there is no quote?
I saw this as one possibility among others.
But to be sure I think it would be the better way to principally use the "Quote"-button or to begin a posting with "@ xyz:"...
and isnt it obvious that you cannot fit a pci-e card into the mediator, when there is no appropriate slot?
Well, it's also obvious that you cannot plug an SCSI-II device into an UW-SCSI cable - unless you use a suitable ADAPTER...
you can of course be first to try, even if it would require adapter over adapter over Adapter...
That sounds familiar!
If I e.g. copied a file from my internal HD to an SD-memory card (or the other way round), the path of the data looked like this:
IDE-HD<->UW-adapter<->CSPPC with UW-SCSI hostADAPTER<->Amiga mobo<->Zorro III busboard<->Mediator PCI busboard<->Spider II USB2.0 host ADAPTER<->USB hub<->USB card reader<->SD-memory card.
(OK - meanwhile the path is shorter, as I exchanged the PCI Spider II for a Deneb in a Zorro III slot)
Adapters everywhere!!!
:eek: :D
just to prove that the driver doesnt work nevertheless, ...
That would be really bad luck after all the effort of finding and fitting all the required adapters...
:biglaugh:
But I would nevertheless expect the driver (in the case at hand the driver for a new, supported Radeon graca) to work with the graca, despite "all the adapters" - like copying data from my internal HD to an SD-memory card works in the example above - despite all the 'adapters'...
but according to your posts im not sure if the system you are planning to use is stable enough to deliver dependable results.
I'm not PLANNING to use a certain system, I'm already using it since I built it back in 1997/98.
Aside from current booting problems due to contact issues in the connector between CSPPC and the A4k mobo, the system ran stable since I built it.
I was just wondering if I could take advantage of the new Warp3D Nova with this given system - and to what extend.
And what I possibly might have to change in my given system, in order to be technically (harwarewise) able to capitalise on the new Warp3D Nova...
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i doubt. mediator interfaces through zorro to the amiga which interfaces then via cpu or expansions slot to the turbo board. the effective bandwidth is 7mb/s. addressing the graphics card is tricky and seldom anything else than voodoo3 or radeon 92xx is used. even if the card attached via a pci-pci-e adapter would be recognized, which is a task almost impossible to imagine even for a skilled geek, the bandwidth makes it completely senseless for any more complex 3d usage i fear.
however similar applies to older amigaone (NO X), pegasos and sam440 computers, so it isnt that tragic for us.
The current CPUs available for 68k Amigas are a major bottleneck too. Pre loading textures can alleviate bandwidth limitations but obviously there's only so far you can go with about 7MB/s, and the returns diminish pretty quickly. It still felt like my 210Mhz BPPC was the bottleneck back in the day.
No one I know of has tried even a HD2400 in the Mediator so we don't know if PCIe cards work or not. If it ever becomes necessary due to a lack of availability of older cards then I'm sure Elbox would update the pci.library to support PCIe cards sitting behind a bridge.
Version 11 was released in July.
The pci.library ver. 11.0 includes new procedure for allocation of the PCI memory. New procedure allows faster computer start when the multi-device PCI cards are used (e.g. Spider USB controller). New pci.library gives the possibility to reallocate (free and allocate) PCI spaces from the driver for the specific PCI card. It is useful in case of PCI cards, which do not report their PCI spaces typically (e.g. some PCI processor bridges).
I believe the last bit meant that you no longer needed a patched pci.library to use WarpOS for Sonnet, it could also mean tha PCIe cards are already recognized.
X1xx0 and HD series cards work in the Eyetech A1s but nobody seems to have tested anything as high as a R7 etc.
Sam440 can use upto HD6xx0 cards but nobody confirmed or denied if the recent uboot update allows cards supported in Nova to work or not. Only the Pegasos 2 is confirmed not to work with any PCIe cards.
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@ Rob - #87:
Original by Rob:
The current CPUs available for 68k Amigas are a major bottleneck too.
...
As you're just talking about 'bottlenecks' in 68k cpus - does anyone here have a reasonable explanation why the CyberstormPPC only allows the use of 128 mB RAM?
According to 'Vintage Box': MC68060 tech. details (German only) (http://www.vintagebox.de/mac68k/cpu/68060.html), the Motorola MC68060 CPU can directly address up to 4gB memory.
So what is the problem (aside from missing slots for more RAM chips) to add more RAM to a CSPPC?
I always thought 128mB is too little RAM for such a system...
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So what is the problem (aside from missing slots for more RAM chips) to add more RAM to a CSPPC?
I always thought 128mB is too little RAM for such a system...
It is because of the Memory-Map of the A3000/4000....
$0400 0000 - $07FF FFFF Motherboard Fast RAM
$0800 0000 - $0FFF FFFF Coprocessor Slot Expansion
$1000 0000 - $7FFF FFFF Zorro III Expansion
so only 128 MB Ram are adressable to the Processor-Slot :(
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It is because of the Memory-Map of the A3000/4000....
$0400 0000 - $07FF FFFF Motherboard Fast RAM
$0800 0000 - $0FFF FFFF Coprocessor Slot Expansion
$1000 0000 - $7FFF FFFF Zorro III Expansion
so only 128 MB Ram are adressable to the Processor-Slot :(
Hmmm - difficult to believe.
Aside from 2 mB CHIP RAM, I do not use the adress space for the mobo ram at all, as I have my 128 mB of 64 bit ram on the CSPPC.
Does the CSPPC count as "Coprocessor Slot Expansion"?
It is really hard to believe that just 128 mB out of the 4096 mB of RAM the 060 can directly address are left for real, physical RAM...
It means that 3968 mB are reserved for the "Memory-Map of the A3000/4000", right?
:confused:
And this is "hard wired" and cannot be changed?
:shocked:
No way to use unused parts of this "Memory-Map of the A3000/4000" for real, physical RAM?
Bummer - that's really disappointing...
:(
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Hmmm - difficult to believe.
Aside from 2 mB CHIP RAM, I do not use the adress space for the mobo ram at all, as I have my 128 mB of 64 bit ram on the CSPPC.
Does the CSPPC count as "Coprocessor Slot Expansion"?
YES! It is different in the A1200.... there is NO MOBO-Fastmem and NO Zorro III... So Blizzard with SCSI-Module or BlizzardPPC can use 256 MB or more...
It is really hard to believe that just 128 mB out of the 4096 mB of RAM the 060 can directly address are left for real, physical RAM...
It means that 3968 mB are reserved for the "Memory-Map of the A3000/4000", right?
Zorro III Space YES. So think about a Mediatorboard in your A4000 with a 256 MB GFX-Card and 4 ZoRAM Boards :) That is more than 1 GB of Adressspace.... build a ZoRAM++ with 1 GB for example....
And this is "hard wired" and cannot be changed?
:shocked:
YES
No way to use unused parts of this "Memory-Map of the A3000/4000" for real, physical RAM?
Bummer - that's really disappointing...
:(
Maybe with a Hack something like the 64MB MOBO-Fastram-Hack.... but I have no Idea if this works.....
The aktual update for OS4.1 FE includes a new Feature that you could use Zorro 3 RAM as RAM instead of SWAP-Space. I think they managed it to "swap" parts of the Cyberstorm Memory with Z3-Ram. Let us call it an intelligent "copy" Routine.....so there will be more RAM available, wenn the update comes out.
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YES! It is different in the A1200.... there is NO MOBO-Fastmem and NO Zorro III... So Blizzard with SCSI-Module or BlizzardPPC can use 256 MB or more...
I always wondered why the inferior A1200 could be loaded with more RAM than an A4k with CSPPC...
Zorro III Space YES. So think about a Mediatorboard in your A4000
Already got a Mediator.
with a 256 MB GFX-Card
I have a 32 mB Voodoo4...
and 4 ZoRAM Boards :)
In the Mediator?
I thought the ZorRAM was for the Zorro Bus.
And all the ZorRAM Memory cannot be used as FastRAM - just as swap memory.
For this I have a 1tB HD at a fraction of the price of one overpriced ZorRAM board.
Furthermore, the RAM on the CSPPC is 64 But wide. I doubt the ZorRAM boards also provide 64 Bit wide RAM.
What I need is more real 64 Bit wide FastRAM on the CSPPC.
IIRC, I have something between 90 and 100 mB FAST available after booting.
If I want to start NetSurf for example, I already need 32 mB just for that.
Then roughly half of the RAM on the CSPPC is already consumed and there's not much left for serious multitasking with e.g. ArtEffect and/or Wildfire7 PPC...
That is more than 1 GB of Adressspace.... build a ZoRAM++ with 1 GB for example....
What for (see my arguments above)?
:confused:
Maybe with a Hack something like the 64MB MOBO-Fastram-Hack.... but I have no Idea if this works.....
The aktual update for OS4.1 FE includes a new Feature that you could use Zorro 3 RAM as RAM instead of SWAP-Space.
Now this sounds interesting. Can you come up with a link to these news to learn more about it?
But nevertheless - as my main system is OS 3.9/WarpOS 16.1 (I just have an 'experimental' installation of OS 4.0 classic, as it doesn't support my hardware config sufficiently), I would need an OS 3.9 version of this feature and it would have to support my 1 tB harddrive at the UW-SCSI of the CSPPC besides the ZorRAM boards.
I think they managed it to "swap" parts of the Cyberstorm Memory with Z3-Ram. Let us call it an intelligent "copy" Routine.....so there will be more RAM available, wenn the update comes out.
I'm wondering how the Performance is, given the fact that CSPPC's RAM is 64 Bit wide and ZorRAM's is just 32 Bit. I might get better transfer rates with a real harddrive on the UW-SCSI of the CSPPC...
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I'm wondering how the Performance is, given the fact that CSPPC's RAM is 64 Bit wide and ZorRAM's is just 32 Bit. I might get better transfer rates with a real harddrive on the UW-SCSI of the CSPPC...
Most of the Mediatorboards have PCI AND ZorroIII :D so you can install 4 PCI cards AND 4 ZoRAM-Boards if you want.......
Performance was allways the reason for not using Z3-Memory in 4.1 but I think they managed it to get it faster.... think about the WinUAE-users.... they are also limited on 128 MB Fastmem.... they also managed it to use more than 2 GMB Ram on the NG-Amigas.... so let´s wait for the update.....
The informations about more FastRam are very reliable :D
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Performance was allways the reason for not using Z3-Memory in 4.1 but I think they managed it to get it faster.... think about the WinUAE-users....
Wishful thinking. They might finally lift the zorro ram blocade in order to satisfy potential alice customers. On uae there is no speed penalty.
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Most of the Mediatorboards have PCI AND ZorroIII :D so you can install 4 PCI cards AND 4 ZoRAM-Boards if you want....
...
:shocked:
Of course!
And I got one of the "rare" ones and have to install Zorro cards in the Zorro III slots on the Micronik Z-III busboard 'beneath' the Mediator:
(http://www.wiehltalbahn.de/images/sampledata/fruitshop/540.jpeg)
But wouldn't the access to cards in the Mediator be anyway generally slower than access to cards in a Zorro III Slot?
I don't know how other Mediators work - but with the one I have the information coming from a Zorro III slot would first have to be processed by the Mediator's logic cirucits, before it reaches any slot on the Mediator (see photo).
And processing costs time...
So I would assume that a ZorRAM card in a Zorro III slot directly on the Micronik Z-III busboard must be slightly faster than the same card in a Z-III slot on a Mediator with Z-III slots.
...
think about the WinUAE-users.... they are also limited on 128 MB Fastmem....
My memory may be tricking me, but I'm quite sure that I could set up my outdated AmigaForever 2006 to use more RAM, e.g. 1 gB.
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Dandy, it sounds like you need to upgrade to the 'inferior A1200' if you'd like 256MB Fast RAM. Anything else is hack.
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Dandy, it sounds like you need to upgrade to the 'inferior A1200' if you'd like 256MB Fast RAM. Anything else is hack.
Paul, I actually HAVE a towered A1200.
And it is sitting in the corner and collecting dust for a reason:
It IS inferior compared to an A4000.
The address bus of the Motorola 68EC020 (a variant of the Motorola 68020) in an A1200 just has a word size of 24 Bit, whereby a fully specced version in theory could address an address space of just 16 mB of RAM.
By contrast, the address bus of the A4000 has a word size of real 32 Bit, whereby in theory an address space of 4 gB RAM could be addressed.