AmigaOne X1000, Amiga OS 4.1.x, & Gaming

[Iggy]

Well MorphOS at least has 3D  support for a large number of the cards that it supports.
And while we don't have DirectX, we do have some OpenGL compatibility.

AROS also has soon 3D support and Hyperion has announced that they would also like the support OpenGL (eventually).

So, yes all NG systems are hobbyist system. Many of the games available are ports from other OS'. But the fun is in seeing what new capabilities you can gain while still maintaining some legacy compatibility in a next generation development of a system we all hold dear.

It may just be hobbyist, but its developed far better then I ever thought it would.

[Iggy]

@ amigasociety

I guess you're starting to figure out why you don't find many AmigaOS4.x users here lately eh :razz:

Uh, because there aren't that many in total?

Or maybe its because they get tired of hearing that their OS doesn't compare well to the alternatives?

When your rendering figures with Radeon HD graphics compare poorly to a Radeon 9200 based system you know there's something wrong.

[Iggy]

I would take it you put MorphOS in the same category as Amiga OS 4.1.x and AROS as a hobby OS only and not one folks should look at to help run their businesses or for production of modern gaming, like we have been discussing in this thread I started?
TJ

I know that would be Piru's sentiment, but I use MorphOS as often as any of my other systems.
I have Linux and Windows, but whenever possible I use MorphOS. It boots fast and has a decent web browser. I don't really care about games, but we could use an office package or a better word processor.
And it would be great if UAE was as powerful as WinUAE.

Hobbyist OS' are always in flux, buggy and unstable with features incomplete or entirely missing. MorphOS has been stable and functional for years.

[Iggy]

Killer gaming on X1000... :lol:

One of the later "killer games" was Starcraft 2 (just one of several killer games the last years). Just for a reference, look at the list of people involved in the "Credits" cinematic ending the single player campaign (feel free to look through the whole list to really get a feel of the amount of people involved):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Pu_j9yHCg&t=3m45s

As you can see, the list goes on for many minutes, and contains more people than most Hollywood Blockbuster movies!

The game was released worldwide on July 27, 2010. Here is part of the marketing for the game (yes, that's a Jumbo Jet painted in a SC2 theme!)

It sold 1,000,000 units the first day.  As of December the same year, the game has sold nearly 4.5 million units.

OK, hmm, so now when the "Amiga" is back in force with the X1000, why wouldn't Blizzard be interested in supporting this new technological revolution you say? After all, it's sold in, what, a hundred units? Two hundred? Three hundred?

2007 level performance of the HW, without driver support for 3D, completely lacking the SW framework needed, etc. And costing some $3,000 making it really dressed for success! I mean, how wouldn't it make sense for a game publisher to spend time developing for this gem?

PS.
Maybe if the community provides Blizzard with a free X1000 system? We could set up a bounty collecting the money from the community! Then someone living close by could go over to the Blizzard head quarter delivering it? And ssolie could provide them with the SW and information they need? This will be great! :rolleyes:

I detect a slight note of sarcasm.

[Iggy]

Fair comment. Wii has Xbox1 quality visuals at best though

Firstly the PS3 has twin 6800GTX SLI type performance.  The 360 has ATI Radeon X1800/1850 type GPU. Both are old hat really. However the CPU is about the same as an AMD triple core Phenom so it isn't the CPU grunt as such either, and the G5 class PPC is not even close to the PPC performance of the IBM Xenon 3.2Ghz CPU in the 360 and even if it was OS4 can only use one core.

What IS different is the architecture of the consoles, the bus bandwidth is incredible for a start. The OS overhead is minuscule too and the hardware specification is locked. This means consoles are very efficiently utilized unlike Win7 gaming PCs.

What x1000 needed in the first place was a locked graphics card with top end specification, and then pay for full 3D driver development for that one and only 3D card specified.

As it stands the x1000 technically could never compete with even a £500 PC gaming wise, so it might get better games than SAM based machines but that's not really enough IMO.

Actually, the G5 core is more capable then the cores in the Xenon.
The Xenon cores and the PPE core of the Cell BE (in the PS3) are both in order execution designs.
The G5 is an out of order processor and is significantly more powerful per clock cycle.
Current game machine processors, while clocked fast, are closer to G4s the their performance.