AmigaOS 4.x to support about 180 Graphics card chips

[Rogue]

But this also brings up the second issue of AOS4 I don't like, inconsistancy. Which API will coders have to use, P96 or SNAP?  

If you have a look at the SNAP sdk, you will find out that this is no API for high-level graphics. As its name implies, it is a driver system, and as such it is not intended to be used directly, in the same sense as SCSI device is not used to read files from disk.

SNAP will be integrated as a monitor driver under Picasso96. The original graphics library and the Picasso96 API will be used, like before. Plans are to extend the graphics system starting at 4.1, and eventually replace it and provide an interface for backwards compatibility.

There is nothing inconsistant about this. You where just jumping to conclusions.

I agree that many of the 180 graphics chips supported will probably never be used in an AmigaOne (TSENG ET4000 anyone), but that is actually not the point. The point is, *if* you want to buy a graphics card, or happen to have one in your hand, chances are that you will find it mentioned on a 180 entry list, as opposed to a list of only 5 or so cards.

Also, no one ever claimed that these will be supported with 3D drivers (again the ET 4000 doesn't even have a 3D core). However, the same problem would arise if we or Alexander and Tobias would need to write the 2D drivers, only that we would also be burdened with that one. And, as the press release also states, we are cooperating with SciTech on this, so anything done on their part also benefits OS 4 customers.

[Rogue]

One thing that always bothers me is that people complain about the 3D drivers taking soo much longer ("years of planning" etc ad nauseam). I would like to ask, though, what is the difference between now and before? If SciTech SNAP wouldn't have been chosen, we would have to do both the 2D and 3D drivers. How come that some people take 180 graphics drivers for 2D as a sign that 3D will be massively delayed? That is one thing that I can't get into my head. Perhaps someone can enlighten me...  :-)

Rogue my point is I'll believe everything when I see it...AOS4 was supposed to be done by how many due dates so far?... I'll believe it when I see it... I think its great to 'hear' that  180 graphics chips will have 2D... but I'd rather 'see' it .

[billt]

>Not saying that having support is bad, but that I am sick of people going "oooooo, 180+ chips, must be great." It's
>not great, as AOS4 will never see a good portion of them.

How many caards are already supported is not what is important here. What is important here is the target market size of SNAP compared to the target Amiga-only market. Is SNAP's potential userbase particularly huge? Maybe not. But compare that potential market size to the Amiga-only market, who is huge in comparison?

This is going to be important when talking to chip or card makers about docs required to make drivers. When we asked Nvidia about getting an NDA for the stuff needed to write GeForce drivers, they are so not interested in AmigaOS they never even bothered to say no, they just completely ignored us. ATI's first reaction was of the "Why the hell would we want to invest our effort in AmigaOS??!!" type, but they agreed when we worked to convince them we'd do ALL the work, we'd take ALL the responsibility and risk, and they wouldn't have a single penny going into AmigaOS Radeon drivers. They are so not intrested in AmigaOS that they really don't like answering questions when we find issues in their docs such as conflicting info on different pages and such, they won't correct their docs just for us.

With SNAP, you're now talking AmigaOS 4 users, but you're also talking about Linux and LinuxPPC users now, which may be more interesting to the hardware manufacturers to offer a bit more support, at least to the extent of allowing SciTech and Hyperion access to more docs that Hyperion or Forefront alone are too small for, and hopefuly the hardware vendors will also be more willing to spend time supporting their documentation as well.

Please understand, this isn't about the nearly 180 cards on the list already. It's about having better vendor support regarding the newest ones on that list, and getting future hardware on that list easier than without the SNAP stuff, because the larger target market will be more interesting to the vendors this way. This one point is, in my opinion, the biggest one to consider regarding this announcement. And it's good news IMHO.

And for the other question about P96 native or SNAP API usage, that would presumably be up to the developer to decide. If you want your driver Amiga-only, use P96, like Elbox does to make sure no one else can take advantage of their work. The more free-minded folks may choose to support SNAP, to give both AmigaOS and Linux types something to use, though I see this more often bringing existing Linux SNAP drivers to us, not the other way around. It may also affect OS3.x users not moving to AmigaOnes or PowerUP cards, as for the moment SNAP sounds like OS4 feature, so P96 drivers would be at least source compatible between 3.x and 4.x OS versions. Mostly depends on what the driver developer wants to do though.

[Rogue]

mips_proc wrote:
Rogue my point is I'll believe everything when I see it...AOS4 was supposed to be done by how many due dates so far?... I'll believe it when I see it... I think its great to 'hear' that  180 graphics chips will have 2D... but I'd rather 'see' it .

And my point was that if you want to blame us, blame us for those release dates that we actually missed. We are working on this for slightly above a year now, and in that year, more has been done on OS 4 than ever before. That is what counts, and that is why it will be available at one day.

Anyway, you will see that I never mention a release date anymore. But now I will announce it. Yes, I will tell you when AmigaOS 4 will be ready:

[color=FF0000]:flame: WHEN IT'S DONE! :destroy:[/color][/b]

There you have it. Can't I be more precise?  :-D

[Quixote]

Methuselas mentioned:

Man, I can't believe some of you people! What the hell is wrong with you? Hyperion strikes up a partnership with a graphics card driver designer and you've gotta bitch. I think some of you owe the people of Hyperion an apology.

:lol: Thank you, Methuselas!  

That was pretty much my reaction when I noticed this thread a few minutes ago.  Thanks for adding a voice of reason.  I was of a mind to write something similar, but you beat me to it.

[DaveP]

@Rogue, HyperionMP

I wouldn't bother correcting those that are trying
to pour cold water on this. They are all *bar none*
Amiga.org users that are well known for their methods and motives anyway  without your intervention. As Ive said before with every Troll/mudsling/FUD post on one "side" you can hear the cash register going for the other "side" with the "what a bunch of tossers" factor.

Id like to say I think this is outstanding news, the ability to re-use old GFX cards will be a boon for upgraders and it corrects one of my annoyances with the current status of MorphOS and what was the claimed support of AmigaOS4 for only a few graphics card chips which is why I opted for the top of the range Power system ( because I can't be arsed to work out a box from the support list! ) from Eyetech.

Now others will feel more freedom to pick and choose their cards for A1* boxes.

Well done!

Oh and the frank and honest interview from Ben was quite excellent too, so Ill shut up about March being critical aswell ;-)

@Downix
Hey, so its not 3D, who gives a sh*t? What do I have open on my desktop most throughout the day? Well on monitor 1 I have email, news tickers and a browser. On monitor 2 I have my code editor ( Visual Slick Edit ) and on monitor 3 I have my "test screen" which mostly shows the 2D side of the product I am enhancing but say one in a hundred times shows a 3D display without hardware acceleration.

Every once in a while I run a 3D game that benefits from hardware acceleration.

This is why when you and others pointed out that hardware accelerated drivers for MorphOS were not so vital because with 600Mhz you can do a reasonably complex >25fps 3d environment with software rendering I agreed totally.

Now somehow you are trying to claim that it is a big problem that these drivers are 2D only?

The broader the driver support on a platform the more credible that platform becomes - irrespective of driver completeness. Example: My Intel Anypoint wireless 2 USB kit only had drivers for Win* until recently. The new Linux based drivers mean that I can finally use it with Linux making me a very happy man.

Such small victories mean a lot to end users.

[Crumb]

But this also brings up the second issue of AOS4 I don't like, inconsistancy. Which API will coders have to use, P96 or SNAP?

Picasso96. There's no need to make the things more complex.

BTW you have a similar inconsistency in MorphOS with the 3D APIs. No game coder has used Rave ever, they've always used Warp3D. Will they use Warp3D to make it compatible with every AmigaOS or will they use Rave to make it MorphOS-only?