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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: ravnen on January 24, 2007, 07:51:56 AM

Title: PPC and now what?
Post by: ravnen on January 24, 2007, 07:51:56 AM
Well I finaly got the tower and mediator for my a1200. And after strugeling with a cdrom drive (as always) I got everything installed. Very easy and finaly my a1200 got great graphics to.

Well, this machine is a blizzard ppc 040@25 and ppc @160.
I have never used it for anything, since it crashes after 20 minuttes when installed in the desktop cabinet (removing the trapdor extended this period a bit). Well in the tower it works very stable, but this is my first ppc enabled amiga.

So what now?

What is the difference between warpup and powerup?

I managed to get amigaamp to use a warpup mp3 decoder engine, but ahi does not work on ppc (just installed the ppc version on os3.9 cd).

What else can I do with a ppc?
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: A4000_Mad on January 24, 2007, 08:43:15 AM
I was going to ask that question myself as I'm a newbie to the PPC's 233Mhz chip myself  :-D

So far I have only used FroggerNG.WOS to play AVI, MPEG and Quicktime videos with fantastic results. The PPC version of AmigaAmp for MP3 playback and ShowPPC for displaying photos at lightning speed  :-)


I think you will be advised to use WarpOS instead of PowerUP.


A4000 Mad






Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: ravnen on January 24, 2007, 08:44:41 AM
Well, I use it, but at startup it nags about ppc.library existing, is it just to remove it from libs and it will stop bugging me?
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: d0pefish on January 24, 2007, 08:59:09 AM
For you, the ppc.library is in the ROM of the Blizzard accelerator, and not a physical file on your hard disk.

Add this patch to your startup-sequence to remove the redundant ppc.library from memory on startup:
http://devnull.owl.de/~frank/BPPCFix.lha

Remember to check the readme.

Alternatively, use the BPPCFix module from Piru's excellent BlizKick package; you can also add other useful patches to your Kickstart in this way.
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: derringer3 on January 24, 2007, 09:00:29 AM
Shortly: not too much. I walking in your shoes too. Seriously the problem is only solved with OS4. OS 3.9 is a hibrid OS it has some benefits for ppc but the main work is still mk68 cpu.
For exaple show a jpeg image (with warpjpeg datatype), ppc can do the things easily, but to read the datas from hdd, and put the decoded data for the screen is still the mk68 cpu's work. So it can be much faster if the work will be only the ppc cpu's work. So i already waiting for the OS4 to port it bppc.

Warup-powerup match i think is talked to death in these pages already. Some pup application is better than warpup, but in all, there is more warup apps out there.

Anyway i use it for the following:

Decode:

-mp3
-video( mpg,avi,divx) yes still lagging, but i think its only for the ssslow ide interface)
-Lha,zip,lzx,arj,rar - warpup version (much faster than  mk68)
-datatypes (warpjpeg,warppng etc)
-There is a warpup ahi version (3.x or 4.x) i try it already, its good for composing music, with digibooster, but overall not an option.

Games:

-there is doom,hexen,heretic,quake,quakeII FPS games,
- a lot (?) of other too, (strategy,action, adventure) searh for it on HOL or any amiga dealers's shop.
 My favourite is software tycoon.

Emulator:

there is some playstation, etc emu which uses warpup, but unfortunatelly not for macos.

word processing:

Amigawriter is a good ppc word processor, unfortunatelly not  as usable as ms word.

Some other apps:

3d raytracing, Sound converter,

demos:

There is a bunch of good ppc demos! check them on: http://ada.untergrund.net/


If you use warpup application, you can check it is really uses ppc: idlewos.
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: ravnen on January 24, 2007, 09:01:01 AM

Ahh, thanks, that explains a bit.

@derringer3

Thank you for this nice list. I'll play around with it tonight.
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: A4000_Mad on January 24, 2007, 09:03:54 AM
I was saying that other more experienced members might advise you to use WarpOS. I don't mind what you use  :-D

It doesn't sound like a good idea to delete 'ppc.library' to me. I'm using version 46.37 of it :-)



EDIT

@ darringer3 and d0pefish

Just saw your posts after clicking 'Submit', and they are a lot more useful than mine :laughing:

A4000 Mad
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: TrevorDick on January 24, 2007, 09:05:10 AM
@Raven
Quote
What else can I do with a ppc?

Quite a lot really. There are several commercial PPC games that you can purchase. Check with AmigaKit.  You could download MorphOS PowerUP for classic Amigas.  I'm not sure whether it is compatable with mediator? Perhaps someone else can confirm?

OS4 for classic Amigas should also be available fairly soon (hopefully)  As a beta tester I have a pre-release OS4.0 version running on a Towered A1200/PPC.

As far as powerup versus WarpOS ir really depends on the software you wish to run.  Unfortunately they will not co-exist.

TrevorDick
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: derringer3 on January 24, 2007, 09:10:38 AM
MorphOS is NOT compatible with mediator. I tried, but there is only blank screen, and then i checked its home-page. Threre is a faq and it said: not workink on mediator.
So i will be never try again.
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: Amigaz on January 24, 2007, 09:11:44 AM
Quote

TrevorDick wrote:
@Raven
Quote
What else can I do with a ppc?

Quite a lot really. There are several commercial PPC games that you can purchase. Check with AmigaKit.  You could download MorphOS PowerUP for classic Amigas.  I'm not sure whether it is compatable with mediator? Perhaps someone else can confirm?

OS4 for classic Amigas should also be available fairly soon (hopefully)  As a beta tester I have a pre-release OS4.0 version running on a Towered A1200/PPC.

As far as powerup versus WarpOS ir really depends on the software you wish to run.  Unfortunately they will not co-exist.

TrevorDick


He's talking about the PowerUP ppc.library in the BPPC flashrom not the one on disk in LIBS
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: d0pefish on January 24, 2007, 09:17:53 AM
PowerUP ppc.library should be considered legacy and dropped in favour of the more modern WarpOS.

If there's something that you *really* need to run that was designed to run on PowerUP, check out the WarpOS-compatible PowerUP emulation library by the same author of BPPCFix.
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: Piru on January 24, 2007, 09:22:45 AM
@d0pefish
Quote
PowerUP ppc.library should be considered legacy and dropped in favour of the more modern WarpOS.

Technically speaking there is nothing more "modern" in WarpOS compared to PowerUP. WarpOS introduced some really retarded designs, which only made it really hard to support it for the future amiga like OSes (funnily WOS was marketed as future-proof, and the basis for next PPC AmigaOS, which it wasn't. In fact it was total dead end, and AFAIK AmigaOS 4.x final doesn't support WOS applications).

However, naturally if you must run both WOS and PUP apps on AOS 3.x setup, then WOS + ppclibemu is the way.
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: derringer3 on January 24, 2007, 09:28:30 AM
I think who uses ppc accelerator here, is already uses pup and warpup at the same time. (emulation or termination, or whatever)So there is no really differences between apps if you configure well your system.
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: TrevorDick on January 24, 2007, 09:31:08 AM
@AMIGAZ
Quote
He's talking about the PowerUP ppc.library in the BPPC flashrom not the one on disk in LIBS

Understood,I had missed that!

TrervorDick
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: d0pefish on January 24, 2007, 09:31:36 AM
Quote
Technically speaking there is nothing more "modern" in WarpOS compared to PowerUP...


Thanks. :) Yes, I was at least partially aware of WarpOS being poorly designed and so on, but I just said the above for simplicity's sake, for the guy who's new to all the PPC stuff.
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: humppa on January 24, 2007, 09:41:53 AM
Quote
MorphOS is NOT compatible with mediator.


Only 99% true.

When disabling the memory window (setting=0MB), I got an RTL8029 ethernet-card working on a Meditator 1200 under MorphOS.

Works absolutely flawlessly...
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: d0pefish on January 24, 2007, 09:45:15 AM
@Piru, again:

Just out of curiosity, am I right in thinking that the MorphOS implementation of WarpOS compatibility is more stable/reliable/better designed than WarpOS on OS3.x?
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: yssing on January 24, 2007, 09:55:17 AM
Well there are commercial games, like Wipeout2097, Heretic II and others... Its great, you need the Blizzard Vision though..
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: ravnen on January 24, 2007, 10:00:45 AM
I have a defective one, will that help. hehe?

So the voodoo will not work?
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: nasty on January 24, 2007, 12:14:24 PM
Quote
Well there are commercial games, like Wipeout2097, Heretic II and others... Its great, you need the Blizzard Vision though..


Wipeout2097 runs without any problem on my voodoo as does payback,heretic II, nightlong. Dont think i've had any problems with any games on the Voodoo the only thing I couldnt run on the voodoo was the xmas os theme and the lemmings theme (as these require the bvision) :(

But I did have afew problems with alpha channels on heretic II using the Bvision, But I never use the bvision so its not a real problem :)
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: derringer3 on January 24, 2007, 12:14:43 PM
@humppa:

AFAIK morphos needs a gfx card to operate. AGA is not supported, so how the hell are you get working it on mediator+voodoo or any other gfx card +mediator combo?

Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: humppa on January 24, 2007, 12:58:34 PM
Quote

derringer3 wrote:
@humppa:

AFAIK morphos needs a gfx card to operate. AGA is not supported, so how the hell are you get working it on mediator+voodoo or any other gfx card +mediator combo?


By using a BVision together with the Mediator.  8-)
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: derringer3 on January 24, 2007, 01:05:08 PM
Ok you're the winner, i missed that option.
But using 2 gfx card for running morphos is such a waste.

Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: humppa on January 24, 2007, 02:29:15 PM
Quote

derringer3 wrote:

But using 2 gfx card for running morphos is such a waste.


It would be a waste, but I'm not doing that. I am only using the BVision.
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: Jupp3 on January 24, 2007, 02:47:45 PM
Quote
Just out of curiosity, am I right in thinking that the MorphOS implementation of WarpOS compatibility is more stable/reliable/better designed than WarpOS on OS3.x?

The last version of WarpOS contains some bugs that were never fixed. And I guess it's safe to say that they never will be :-)

Anyway, WOS emulation in MorphOS doesn't have (all) the said bugs, therefore some WOS programs/games (glquake at least, iirc) work on MorphOS when they fail on AOS3.x+WOS.

Also, many games/programs run faster, becouse there's no need to switch between 68k & PPC and some system functions have been rewritten as PPC native.

It's also worth pointing out that BPPC version of WOS is more buggy than CSPPC version (I think that glquake worked on csppc)

But in any case, it doesn't matter which one is better (I'd say PowerUP), but WarpOS definitely has more software (so I ended up using it anyway) - and you can run most PowerUP software with emulation anyway.

Also, both MorphOS and AmigaOS4 exes use elf format like PowerUP does (you know, "the monster" :-D)
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: stopthegop on January 24, 2007, 07:04:40 PM
Quote
by derringer3 on 2007/1/24 4:00:29

Shortly: not too much. I walking in your shoes too. Seriously the problem is only solved with OS4. OS 3.9 is a hibrid OS it has some benefits for ppc but the main work is still mk68 cpu.
For exaple show a jpeg image (with warpjpeg datatype), ppc can do the things easily, but to read the datas from hdd, and put the decoded data for the screen is still the mk68 cpu's work. So it can be much faster if the work will be only the ppc cpu's work. So i already waiting for the OS4 to port it bppc.

Warup-powerup match i think is talked to death in these pages already. Some pup application is better than warpup, but in all, there is more warup apps out there.

Anyway i use it for the following:

Decode:

-mp3
-video( mpg,avi,divx) yes still lagging, but i think its only for the ssslow ide interface)
-Lha,zip,lzx,arj,rar - warpup version (much faster than mk68)
-datatypes (warpjpeg,warppng etc)
-There is a warpup ahi version (3.x or 4.x) i try it already, its good for composing music, with digibooster, but overall not an option.

Games:

-there is doom,hexen,heretic,quake,quakeII FPS games,
- a lot (?) of other too, (strategy,action, adventure) searh for it on HOL or any amiga dealers's shop.
My favourite is software tycoon.

Emulator:

there is some playstation, etc emu which uses warpup, but unfortunatelly not for macos.

word processing:

Amigawriter is a good ppc word processor, unfortunatelly not as usable as ms word.

Some other apps:

3d raytracing, Sound converter,

demos:

There is a bunch of good ppc demos! check them on: http://ada.untergrund.net/


If you use warpup application, you can check it is really uses ppc: idlewos.




There is also Imagine 6, Hollywood/Designer, Digital Universe, Moovid, StormC, ImageFX4.5, CubicIDE, SFX, and some others..  These all make use of the PPC
Title: Re: PPC and now what?
Post by: ravnen on January 24, 2007, 07:49:27 PM
So I have a bit of a problem with the warp3d demos.

My setup is as mentioned earlier: Blizppc 040 @ 25-ppc @ 166, mediator and voodoo 3.

The warptest program displays okay.
The gearsppc only gives me a grey screen (both on the voodoo and aga).
Gearsppc-window gives me a recoverable alert, and gives me a debug window.

Gears 68k gives me a flashing gray screen.