Frustrated SAM460 owner

[Nicsoft]

@Duce

The original poster bought the system from ACube.  ACube has provided the original RadeonHD 2D driver and of course, it has been stated by Hyperion that AmigaOS 4.2 will have Gallium3D supporting the 4000 series and above.

The X1000 First Contact systems have only been shipped to customers with 5000 and 6000 series cards and this is the primary reason that A-EON commissioned the Warp3D driver for these cards.  Development for each series is expensive and time consuming.  It is better to concentrate on a set series of cards before embarking on other development work.

Can someone technically oriented (regarding drivers) explain the difference regarding Warp3D vs Gallium3D?

So that I'll know if an upgrade to a 5000 series card is needed...

[Hans_]

@BSzili

The discussion was about providing support for the existing userbase with Radeon HD 4000 cards, and not about dealers offering HD 4000 cards.

In order to understand why things are the way they are it's necessary to take the blinders off and look at the wider picture.

@Duce

Would I be ticked off if I bought a prebuilt OS4 machine with a 4000 series card in it, only to find out that I'm not going to ever get proper drivers for it?  Yes, I sure would be.

I would ask why vendors ever sold the things with those cards in the machines to begin with, and I'd never do business with them again.

Back then, the 4xxx series was the only one supported. It was never the intention to not support the 4xxx series. AMD's pace of obsolescence is relentless, and that basically forced us to upgrade to the 5xxx+ series earlier than I had hoped.

For the record, Gallium3D should bring full 3D support for the 4xxx series. It's just that the 5xxx/6xxx Warp3D drivers will come sooner.

Was full 3d support ever promised for the 4000 series cards?  If so, I hope those that bought such rigs with 4.1 get some sort of free upgrade to 4.2 where the hardware they purchased with the machines is actually fully supported.

It's no secret that modern OpenGL 2+ was the goal for these cards. However, nobody was promised 3D support for free.

Hans

[wawrzon]

Can someone technically oriented (regarding drivers) explain the difference regarding Warp3D vs Gallium3D?

So that I'll know if an upgrade to a 5000 series card is needed...

not that im oriented, but afaik gallium/mesa is an (up to date) opengl implementation providing an abstraction layer where different backends can be addressed. it can render in software as well as take advantage of an at hand hardware accelerated driver available for numerous models.

warp3d as a lower level 3d gfx standard with rather a limited set of features, since it originates from the last century when about opengl 3.x was standard. it is rather a question of legacy that it is being kept. there is a very limited number of by todays standards rather outdated software available for it.

both projects are two completely different issues. given the limited resources it is disputable if it makes so much sense to develop w3d standard further, instead opengl should be used, because it is still widely used in open source software that is the main source of software for ng-amigalike systems.

[woof]

>Thellier does a great job with wazp3d
THANKS

>I also have problems with the water effects in Hurrican
Compositing CANT do all the "Blending" functions that Wazp3D got
It is only an a "aproximation" : compositing is NOT a true 3d driver
 
> I get a blue screen once I get out of the house in Frogatto
I had this bug too BUUT i remenber to have fixed it a long time ago ....
Do you use latest Wazp3D from Aminet and the Wazp3D.cfg config joined inside ?

>Can someone technically oriented (regarding drivers) explain the difference regarding Warp3D vs Gallium3D?

Those are both 3D drivers : some functions are almost the same like DrawArray that draw an array of triangles describing a 3d object

But Gallium3D use also new high level functions that use "shaders" so you can do more things (pixels effects but also space or lighting transformations)
But shaders are harder to set up for basic effects that are "builtin" in Warp3D (it is called a "Fixed Function Pipeline")

As Hans wrote Modern OpenGL 2+ need a driver with shaders

Gallium3D is open source and has been ported to Aros for years ....
Warp3D is closed source but is widespread in the Amiga world and as MiniGL/StormMesa (=OpenGL) use Warp3D it has become the de facto 3d driver for AmigaOses


Alain Thellier - Wazp3D Author

[wawrzon]

However, nobody was promised 3D support for free.

Hans

were they not? i thought they were?

[woof]

>Thellier does a great job with wazp3d
THANKS

>I also have problems with the water effects in Hurrican
Compositing CANT do all the "Blending" functions that Wazp3D got
It is only an a "aproximation" : compositing is NOT a true 3d driver
 
> I get a blue screen once I get out of the house in Frogatto
I had this bug too BUUT i remenber to have fixed it a long time ago ....
Do you use latest Wazp3D from Aminet and the Wazp3D.cfg config joined inside ?

>Can someone technically oriented (regarding drivers) explain the difference regarding Warp3D vs Gallium3D?

Those are both 3D drivers : some functions are almost the same like DrawArray that draw an array of triangles describing a 3d object

But Gallium3D use also new high level functions that use "shaders" so you can do more things (pixels effects but also space or lighting transformations)
But shaders are harder to set up for basic effects that are "builtin" in Warp3D (it is called a "Fixed Function Pipeline")

As Hans wrote Modern OpenGL 2+ need a driver with shaders

Gallium3D is open source and has been ported to Aros for years ....
Warp3D is closed source but is widespread in the Amiga world and as MiniGL/StormMesa (=OpenGL) use Warp3D it has become the de facto 3d driver for AmigaOses


Alain Thellier - Wazp3D Author

[Hans_]

Can someone technically oriented (regarding drivers) explain the difference regarding Warp3D vs Gallium3D?

So that I'll know if an upgrade to a 5000 series card is needed...

Warp3D is an old 3D API designed for AmigaOS way back in the late nineties. Given its age, it doesn't support modern graphics card features like programmable shaders. In fact, it doesn't even support hardware accelerated Transformation Clipping & Lighting (TCL). Combined with MiniGL it supports a subset of OpenGL up to about version 1.5 of the OpenGL specification. On the upside, it does work and is available for AmigaOS now (although the Evergreen driver for Radeon HD 5xxx/6xxx cards is yet to be released).

Gallium3D is a new modern framework for writing graphics drivers. It's designed to sit between the hardware and any 2D or 3D API (so, OpenGL, Direct2D/3D, etc.). Gallium3D's design is completely based around the modern GPU and its programmable shaders. Combined with MESA, it supports up to OpenGL 3.3 (depending on the driver). It really is a quantum leap ahead of Warp3D. Delivering modern OpenGL was the main reason why I started working on the 2D Radeon HD in the first place. Gallium3D's downside is that it is set for release in AmigaOS 4.2, and I cannot say when that will be.

So, your dilemma is, upgrade to a 5xxx/6xxx card for Warp3D, or wait until AmigaOS 4.2. Either way, you should probably wait until the Warp3D driver is actually released before deciding whether to buy a newer card or not.

Hans

[Hans_]

were they not? i thought they were?

Okay, I'm not 100% sure about that. A1-X1000 first contact customers may have been promised a free upgrade, but I can't find any announcement to back that up. I don't remember ACube ever promising anything, though.

Hans

[ssolie]

Okay, I'm not 100% sure about that. A1-X1000 first contact customers may have been promised a free upgrade, but I can't find any announcement to back that up. I don't remember ACube ever promising anything, though.

Nobody has been promised any free upgrades for any 3D drivers that I'm aware of.

The only "free" license that has been promised is for X1000 First Contact customers. They all purchased a copy of 4.2 when they bought their machines. We shipped them a free license for 4.1 Update 6 in the mean time.

[cgutjahr]

The only "free" license that has been promised is for X1000 First Contact customers.

This sounds like there are "first contact" X1000 customers and other X1000 customers? Maybe this is just a language barrier thing, could you clarify?

[amigakit]

To clarify, all retail customers (non-beta) are X1000 First Contact - they received their system from the batches which started shipping to end users in January 2012 onwards.

[Nicsoft]

Thank you ALL very much for explaining the Warp3D vs Gallium3D difference! :-)
I've  had a look at 5000 series cards now, and they are cheaper than my 4000  series card was, when I bought it in 2011! But still, the graphics isn't  the "weakest part" in my Sam460ex (at least) in my opinion.

And thank you Alain Thellier - Wazp3D Author
For giving me (us) 3D pre...