AmigaOne X1000, Amiga OS 4.1.x, & Gaming

[amigasociety]

Curious about gaming on the Amiga platform.

Now that the AmigaOne X1000 is shipping, and Amiga OS is up to 4.1u5, I wonder if this newer more powerful NG Amiga would make a killer gaming platform also.

My guess the AmigaOne X1000 was designed for more professional use but now that it is the most powerful system to run Amiga OS 4.x, will it attract any from the outside work on the gaming capability of the Amiga platform.

Is gaming relying on strictly high GHz power to propel the 3D nature of gaming or does the respondent OS have anything to do with gaming?

Obviously most games 3D games these days are running on Windows based platform with gaming computers, high overclocked CPUs, water cooling, and all that.

But, is it that they need all this speed because of the bogged down Windows it runs on?

Can a speedy X1000 running Amiga OS make some killer gaming because of how fast the Amiga OS is?

Or again is it all about power power power?

tj

[amigasociety]

My question was genuine.

I am not a gamer, don't really follow it in the gaming world, and wondered if a modern day Amiga has good gaming capability.

If I am not mistaken, some popular gaming platforms are PPC based with CPUs that are not super pumped up with all the water cooling, overclocked cpus, etc...

And obviously these major gaming platforms are still in business and making fun games for all.

So I was curious what stands behind the game and it capability.... is it all about power power power only or does the OS have something to do with it, or all about drivers for the GPUs and that is where gaming is now.

So, right now, same question for MorphOS since I am also planning on buying and supporting this platform, mostly for fun and to help support the folks that work hard on it.

Does the MorphOS platform, version 2.7 or the newer 3.0 coming out, running on say Mac Minis, make a favorable and fun platform to support gaming developers?

TJ

[amigasociety]

The secret is in the GPU support.

Seriously, if you're worried about games you picked absolutely the worst system imaginable. Did you get rid of your A4000? That was a far, far better platform for games - but then it was an Amiga, not an AmigaOne like what you have now. Apparently you don't understand the difference.

No, I own a A4000T, A1000, CD32, SAM 440ep, and the X1000.

As mentioned before, I am not a gamer, at least in the modern sense.  Worried about gaming, that is silly.  Just questions for learning more about the subject and looking for info and feedback.

I enjoy the games from the wayback machine, but that does not mean if I am curious, and have questions, not to ask them in the forums.

Since I do not have a great knowledge of the gaming platform of today, other  that the few I play like Castle Wolfenstein once in a while, my question was just out of curiousty, not that I purchased my X1000 for gaming.

I use Mac professionally and the X1000 will also be used in my office, so no plan to be an expensive ornament as another user put it.

I take it some of you don't feel Amiga OS or even MorphOS are not used for business use or gaming?

If that is the case, why be on these forums?  What about Amiga OS or MorphOS do YOU use them for?

Some will be hobby, some gaming, some professionally, it is just a computer, and whatever model makes the day go happily along, the more power to the owner.

tj

[amigasociety]

Since the late 1990s, the Amiga has been years behind PCs and consoles in terms of games. We have some fun Amiga-developed shareware and ports of open-source stuff ("homebrew", in modern parlance), but a single modern major commercial game is developed by hundreds if not thousands of developers, and with a budget of millions upon millions of dollars. No commercial publisher is going to come anywhere near the X1000 with its installed base in the tens of users right now, regardless of the technical capabilities of the hardware. Same thing with MorphOS and the other OS4 machines, which estimates suggest number well under 10,000 users combined.

Attracting commercial interest will only be realistic if the user base can be grown to the millions. In the meantime, it's a homebrew world we're living in.

I guess a huge hand and thanks goes out to the folks that keep this Amiga platform alive, even with open source ports.

Kind of sad the Atari and Commodore of days past are no longer alive and especially in the gaming world.

But my use again is not games but still nice to know some folks port some games over for us to enjoy.

tj

[amigasociety]

Anyone using these NG systems for any professional work are few and far between, you could likely count them with fingers in our one hand (no office suite or support for modern file formats kind of kills the whole idea). Gaming is probably limited to retro action, such as mame and friends (and to be honest you can run mame on pretty much any box, it doesn't have to be $1000-$3000 one). For serious gaming (modern titles) you'll just use a PC, Mac or a console.

Hobby.. that's the ticket.

amigasociety, I sincerely do hope you did consider these issues before buying your $3000 computer.

Piru, the X1000 was purchased mostly for hobby and fun but with a dream that fun new things will come from the platform.

No, the X1000 was not purchased so I can throw out my Macs or replace them.  :roflmao:

I enjoy many platforms and the X1000 now sitting at my main office u shaped desk will be used for mostly bringing computing fun back into my life but just like most computers in my home, I find a everyday use for them, and the X1000 will for sure see that happen.

I must say, what I like most about Amiga X1000 and the Amiga OS, is the super fast desktop experience.  Must say on my Mac, even one that is real new with no defrag issues in the drive, spinning beach ball starts to drive me nuts.

It is nice to do some basic computing on Amiga OS and MorphOS that just flies and that is probably the biggest selling point for me.

tj

[amigasociety]

Piru, what may I ask do you use MorphOS for?

Do you develop for MorphOS?

I take it professionally you use Linux or Windows based systems daily but use MorphOS for hobby only?

tj

[amigasociety]

Well, you could say that. Dropping the word "for" might get you even closer

Even though I have only been on the Amiga forums for a couple years now, I have read enough that I know Piru is pro MorphOS and I figured he either develops for it, or is one of the main folks helping make it happen.  No reason for me to study one persons background over another.

But, curious to know now since he has participated in this thread I started what he uses MorphOS for.  Is it strictly hobby?  Does he use it professionally or everyday computing? Does he instead use Linux or Windows (or something else) for everyday use?

What drove me to buy into a number of the Amiga "based" platforms could very well be why Piru and many others support their favorite platform.

For me, I love the speediness of Amiga OS user experience.  I was also blown away with MorphOS and how speedy its user experience is.  Being a professional Mac person, I love what MorphOS has done for the G4 Apple systems.  I could see me equally using my Mac Mini G4 1.5GHz system for some professional or everyday computing.

TJ

[amigasociety]

@amigasociety

Amiga has not been gaming platform since 1994 but there are few excellent open source games ported from Linux. Battle for Wesnoth and OpenTTD for example, they are one of my favorite games on MorphOS. I know they were ported to OS4 so maybe you want to take a look.

Thanks for the tips.  Will have to check them out. Tj

[amigasociety]

replied here

To elaborate, I've written all sort of things in MorphOS, here's some of the components I've touched over the last 11 years:

Degree of my involvement in each component of course varies. Some things I've written mostly myself, while other contributions are rather minor (bugfixes). The list is awfully incomplete, I  grouped ton of stuff to "various disk based libraries and components".

In short, this is what I use MorphOS for: Developing MorphOS.

Wow, you must have a great passion for MorphOS.  Looks like you have worked hard to make MorphOS a viable Amiga based OS.  

I know from the little time I have spent using 2.7, I really like the Ambient desktop.  So smooth and has a very fresh feel to it.

Tell me though, I take it all that you have done with and for MorphOS has been as a hobby only?  

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

[amigasociety]

Yep. It has been pretty good reference though.


Indeed I do.

Thanks for the honest answer.

Looking forward to when MorphOS 3.0 comes out as I will be diving in more myself to learn as maybe it will also be a good reference for me also.

TJ