Amiga.org
Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Hardware News => Topic started by: eXec.pl on July 24, 2009, 09:59:29 AM
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The Amiga platform, in spite of its development, is still incompatible with many contemporary solutions. A good example is lack of a complete support for the up-to-date graphic cards, especially in the field of 3D acceleration (OpenGL) or the Color Management System (ICM). Hans de Ruiter is the one who has met the challenge to develop drivers for the latest AMD Radeon HD graphic cards. The project, which started last year, has already given the first results. It’s reasonable to support Hans de Ruiter’s work in order to reward him for his achievements and to encourage him in his further work. That’s the reason why the eXec internet magazine has launched a campaign for Radeon HD driver support. The campaign is addressed to Amiga enthusiasts who are eager to accelerate the development of Amiga platform. Donations can be made by HDR donate button (http://hdrlab.org.nz/radeonhd-donate). For a start, the eXec editorial staff is donating a purchase of a HIS Radeon 4350 PCI graphic card, which so far is the most modern solution of AMD for low-end market.
About Radeon HD driver:
The goal of this project, leaded by the Hans the Ruiter, is to create an Amiga OS graphic driver for R5xx (and following) GPUs. One of the motivations for Hans’ work is to be able to use shaders, that are present in the modern GPUs. However, it is important to mention that full support of modern graphic cards need much work to be done. Hans initiative is an important step, that in future will allow to introduce many modern technologies, such as; UVD or shader.
About eXec magazine:
eXec is the oldest and the only internet magazine in Poland, that is exclusively oriented to the Amiga platform. It has started its activity in the year 2000, in a form of a newspaper (attached with CD). Now it is available only as websites: www.exec.pl (http://translate.google.pl/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=pl&ie=UTF-8&u=www.exec.pl&sl=pl&tl=en) and www.amigaos.pl (http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=pl&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amigaos.pl). eXec stuff and readers are still looking for the new opportunities to support development of the latest versions of AmigaOS.
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Is this using the recently provided documentation for R500, R600 and R700 series chips that AMD released?
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Is this using the recently provided documentation for R500, R600 and R700 series chips that AMD released?
Yes. That and the accompanying code which they released with a BSD license. Their documentation has too many holes to be used alone (no AtomBIOS details, missing registers, etc.).
Just to clarify, the driver requires minimum Amiga OS 4.x. With several people still working on Amiga OS 3.x stuff, I think that it's worth being specific about requirements.
Hans
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@Hans
Yes. That and the accompanying code which they released with a BSD license. Their documentation has too many holes to be used alone (no AtomBIOS details, missing registers, etc.).
Now here is what I meant when I mentioned the Genesi certification with ATI. Genesi used to have contacts at ATI who would know the right people to talk to. However, since ATI was acquired by AMD, the right people tend to move around, leave for other jobs etc.
Just to clarify, the driver requires minimum Amiga OS 4.x. With several people still working on Amiga OS 3.x stuff, I think that it's worth being specific about requirements.
Do you think a driver could be developed for OS3.x ?
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Do you think a driver could be developed for OS3.x ?
In theory, yes. However, the slow speed and lack of DMA on any of the PCI bus-boards means that it's not worth it, IMHO.
Hans
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In theory, yes. However, the slow speed and lack of DMA on any of the PCI bus-boards means that it's not worth it, IMHO.
Hans
Uhm, why would it matter? While Radeon support can not be ever incorporated into old Amigas (due to lack of BIOS on some older Amigas) it should not be worse than existing gfx cards.
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Uhm, why would it matter? While Radeon support can not be ever incorporated into old Amigas (due to lack of BIOS on some older Amigas) it should not be worse than existing gfx cards.
So did elbox add a bios to their mediator boards?
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I might be being stupid, but couldnt the required initialisation be passed to the card via code rather from a bios ?
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I might be being stupid, but couldnt the required initialisation be passed to the card via code rather from a bios ?
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if there was code in the bios... :)
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So did elbox add a bios to their mediator boards?
Ah... I wasnt aware Radeons already work on old Amigas. I always thought they never bothered with it.
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Uhm, why would it matter? While Radeon support can not be ever incorporated into old Amigas (due to lack of BIOS on some older Amigas) it should not be worse than existing gfx cards.
I said that it would be possible, but I personally don't think that it's worth it. Sure it won't be worse than existing gfx cards, but it's a fair bit of effort to make that happen.
Hans
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I think one of the major PCI issues with newer cards and classic amigas is that most classical PCI "Bus Boards" slots are only pci 2.1 compatible. If memory serves, PCI 2.1 will not provide a low power voltage line that PCI 2.2 cards require.
If I remember correctly Elbox fixed the PCI 2.2 issue with one of their amiga 1200 PCI busboards
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@motormouth: besides radeon cards sold by elbox are slightly modified to fit voltage standard of their boards. it seems it is just a simple voltage divider. HIS Radeon 4350 PCI could maybe electrically work out of the box if it can be driven with 5 volt instead of 3.3 too. i personally would love to see a card and drivers supporting better 3d standards than voodoo does (low res textures, outdated opengl) on original amigas but it might be a bit of overkill very well. also regarding, how many people own an pci extention in the first place.
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I said that it would be possible, but I personally don't think that it's worth it. Sure it won't be worse than existing gfx cards, but it's a fair bit of effort to make that happen.
Hans
Rogue commented some months ago, that *if* another update for OS4 classic happens, then he would look into adding Radeon 9250 support.
So if that ever materializes, maybe he might also be able to implement your driver.