A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4

[takemehomegrandma]

@TrevorDick

You should be complimented for trying to advance the OS4 platform on your own this way, but isn't graphic drivers really one of those fundamental things that should be handled by the OS really, and not depending on external, third party entities? AFAIK both "available" OS4 systems have PCI-e graphics, and if I understood this correctly, the graphic driver part of OS4 (at least for the "newish", PCI-e enabled HW that is "available" today) is all handled by *you* in practice, and not by those who is presumably developing the OS? And you will be *selling* upgrades for those OS4 users that have Sam 460's and wanting to enjoy the benefits of more modern graphic cards?

[takemehomegrandma]

@ itix

That was not my point really. Surely graphics drivers was part of OS4 before, i.e. not distributed or sold separately? At least that's what I recall personally. But more importantly - *shouldn't* they be part of the OS? Isn't one of the main tasks of an OS to provide a bridge between the HW and SW apps? Sure, I guess it's like Amigakit says, "sometimes it's better to get the job done quickly", and obviously the OS4 team doesn't consider things like graphics drivers to be important enough for them to care, but if so, what is...?

[takemehomegrandma]

I know what you mean but it depends how you want to see it. A-eon is a 3rd party manufacturer so they provide drivers for their hardware. Or in other words, Hyperion wasnt interested. Who cares. Certainly I dont.

Sure I get that, but both OS4 systems have PCI-e graphics, which obviously isn't (and won't be) a feature supported by OS4 itself. I definitely think this is worth noticing, since graphics is a fundamental component in a desktop system. Not that I personally care either, it's not like I'm going to buy into OS4 anytime soon...

[takemehomegrandma]

MOS is superior to OS 4 as software, no doubt about it,

...and as a system as a whole (OS with HW).

there is no doubt X1000 is way better system then any current MOS.

Way better? No doubt? :lol:

It costs $3,000+ and we could have stopped there really, since there would be no need to go further in comparisons after that nuclear bomb argument. But since you seem to have some comprehension issues - it's 2005 performance, the 1/20 priced Mac's running MorphOS beats it in tests, the X1000 could probably go into Guinness Book of Records as the worst bang for the buck ratio hardware in 2012. The X1000 is killing OS4, and it's funny that you are so blind you can't even see it. I'm glad they're not letting MorphOS get dragged down as well. Going the mainstream way was the right way to go, we know that now.

I dont say there are no spare parts (how long is questionable) but that there is no customer care (e.g. someone that will do all the work not only sell parts) and no matter how cheap its risky cause repairs are rip off. You mentioned Apple customer care, truth is there is none. I asked Apple Serbia, they can just sell me mouse for extreme price.

Risk? Well, the parties behind X1000 (Eon and Amigakit) can't even afford to make the product available in a proper way, they have pre-orders, pre-payments, and delivery times up to a half year. These are the financial "muscles" issuing your "warranty", for a system using a limited amount of left-overs of a dead-end CPU. What if if for some reason the warranty issues starts stacking up? What if something similar to MAI/Articia S arises? There is no way they could replace/fix all boards like Genesi did with the April fix, they can't even afford to make their product available in the normal way! The only way for them would be to do like the previous AmigaOne company did, make a tantrum post at AW.net, take their money, and leave forever. Afraid of your Mac breaks down? Just get spare one, and you still have paid only 2/20th of the X1000 price. That's how "risky" Mac's are. There are hordes of them, they costs virtually nothing, they perform like an X1000, and if one breaks down, get another. It's mainstream HW.

as you like it, but OS with no new hardware will also be seen as dead.
Think about that.

PPC *is* dead!

SInce no G5 MOS, this is G5 system.

The only thing about X1000 that is "G5" is that it's 64-bit (something OS4 can't utilize anyway); otherwise it performs like G4 macs.

Ignore facts, but X1000 is great system, and its just hurting MOS that MOS doesnt support it. Rethink it, most of X1000 users could love to have faster AmigaOS derivative, knowing it was first PPC AmigaOS ever.

It's not better than what MorphOS already supports at a fraction of the price, it will never have more than a hundred users or two, and all these are OS4 fanatics (the only ones who would even *consider* paying $3,000+ for something like this) who *never* would be interested in MorphOS. Anyone really interested in MorphOS can *easily* get a MorphOS system, at *change money* in comparison. X1000 is utterly redundant to MorphOS. Get over it!

No need for PM to you, PM if you believe this is propaganda

His request to take the discussion to PM instead, was in order to keep this thread on topic, which you obviously refused. OK, have it your way...

[takemehomegrandma]

@vox

There are obviously lots of things you simply don't understand (or don't *want* to understand), and you are also outright wrong in many of your statements above. But I won't be part of taking this thread further off topic. It doesn't matter anyway. You will see yourself, in due course. It's inevitable.

[takemehomegrandma]

LOL. How can it go any further off topic?  :confused:

Perhaps by making pointless meta-posts about how much off topic a thread is, like you just did?

:rolleyes:

Discussions always tends to wander off at some point, but in this case, first off topic post was post #23 (by Vox, completely unnecessary IMHO), and 12 more from that (until *your* post, and my reply to your post) isn't that bad really in a 42 posts thread.

[takemehomegrandma]

Please guys... Given that all moderators have finally been driven away from a.org by the insanity and questionable behaviour of the two site admins, we all need stick with a few basic rules to keep discussion civil.

There's really no valid reason to answer a posting from takemehomegrandma. Really.

WTF?!

Have you been drinking heavily before posting? Or are you hearing voices in your head? You clearly see things that aren't there, yet you come bursting out like this? I mean WTF, get a hold of yourself, or at least please sober up before going near the keyboard again!

:rolleyes:

[takemehomegrandma]

after long discussions seems to be clear...

the drivers are 2D drivers for newer graphiccards and will be part of 4.2. and are available before by either being a-eon customer or pay a fee. It are 2D drivers and not 3D. It would all been a little more easy when it would be clear what drivers exactly are part of AOS 4.2. (and when it will be available).

If all drivers for all these cards will be part of OS4.2, then why didn't they simply say so from the beginning? Then those Sam users and everyone else causing those 9+ pages of comments in the AW.net news item, as well as that 4 page "pay for drivers" thread, would have been calmed, and the hole issue been disarmed? Are they are making up things as they go?

:confused:

[takemehomegrandma]

I dont see any reason why Hyperion should support any 3rd party hardware without getting paid.

However, they *are* getting paid, aren't they?

AFAIK, Hyperion set their price tags themselves, it's from them the whole OS4 business stems, it's them who grants "AmigaOne" systems rights, and "AmigaOS" systems rights, entirely according to their rules and fees, absolute power.

"3rd party hardware"? What?! It's the only two "available" OS4 computers, in direct license/partnership with Hyperion, it's simply what OS4 runs on, it is the *official OS4 platform*! It's not something alien, something unrelated, some rudimentary unofficial third party gizmo that lacks relevance; we are talking graphics for the official "AmigaOne" OS4 computers! And AFAIK, Hyperion have at least claimed to pay for development before, so what changed? Hyperion is still here? Or is it Dickinson & Leaman now?

I also think people who speaks about Microsoft, ATI and nVidia etc in this OS4 contexts is slightly confused. There are no similarities, not anywhere.

[takemehomegrandma]

@vox

This is the second (or third?) confused post about MorphOS from you in this thread!

but remember how better MOS was doing when it had Genesi and Pegasos and Efika boards.

Hmm, yeah right...

(Click image)



So after a quick reality check: Better HW availability has been positive for MorphOS, lower price has been positive for MorphOS, better bang for the buck has been positive for MorphOS, in short: the Mainstream path was positive for MorphOS, not negative! It would have been positive for OS4 as well, but OS4 has chosen to go 180 degrees in the opposite direction: poor HW availability, ridiculous prices, and terrible bang for the buck ratio. MorphOS HW beats A1X1K in performance (or is on par), MorphOS has the ultra small yet powerful Mac Mini, the practically for free e-mac, the expandable and cheap PowerMac, and now the most powerful PPC laptops ever made. MorphOS has truly made the most out of the dying PPC platform. And throughout the last 3 years MorphOS has had almost 1 new registration *every day* on average, which simply *wouldn't have been possible* on Pegasos and Efika. So I'm honestly puzzled why you are so convinced that MorphOS is "suffering" from the Mac route, while OS4 would be "prospering" on Sam and A1X1K?

[takemehomegrandma]

Looks like this Storm in a teacup is over.

http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=news

The decent thing to do!

This should have been done from the beginning, and Piru was right (again), this whole matter could have been handled better to avoid the unnecessary confusion.

[takemehomegrandma]

@Karlos

It's 2012. Overlays are pretty much obsolete.
...
...
...

There is talk of overlay in SO many threads, there is a current discussion on Amigaworld.net that details some valid points.

I'll paste the original posts (credit Amigaworld.net):

Crumb said:

The current problem is that current software uses overlay and current drivers for PCIe cards don´t provide it and probably won´t for a very long time. With advanced GPUs it´s even possible to develop a video player that decodes the stream without relying much in the cpu but doesn´t mean you have that kind of player and that kind of drivers.

If Hans has need years to finish basic drivers with only 2D acceleration you can guess he´ll need many more years to implement proper 3D acceleration.

The problem is not so much HOW overlay is implemented but if it IS implemented. If there´s no form of overlay API compatibility that will only lead to poor performance on video playback.

Of course having both overlay and overlay emulation using a texture is better but saying "bah! overlay is obsolete" makes me wonder why you are still using obsolete OSes that can´t even play videos properly (and that only use one core and that lack memory protection).

PS: Just in case you have not understood it: rejecting overlay means you won´t be able to watch videos properly in your Sam460 for many years because 3d support won´t come anytime soon, and after 3d support they would have to emulate overlay and even with that emulation it would be slower than real overlay.

Let´s see current situation:
-no 3d drivers for PCIe cards, years spent on developing simple 2d drivers
-no overlay emulation using textures
-no real overlay
-no compromise nor timeframe for 3d drivers
-no compromise nor timeframe for overlay emulation using 3d drivers

so It´s very funny you talk about playing DVDs and watching flash videos when current systems are totally unable to do that. I wonder if users really use the OS or just spend the day dreaming about new features.

Putting in man-hours to support overlay now just doesn't make sense.

Putting man hours developing 2d drivers for cards that won´t allow you to run 3d apps nor videos makes me wonder why would anyone want to buy something different than R9200/256MB.

Following the logic of those praising Hans words I wonder why you don´t shout "using cpu to play videos is obsolete, we´ll use GPU to play videos" and wait for years until some linux player is released.

Tomas said:

I am no developer or expert, but no overlay will afaik result in no vsync in videos as well. So I would say that it is pretty important if that is the case.
And from experience no overlay also severely reduces video quality due to not having proper scaling.

Nikosidis said:

Gallium 3D is far behind in both support and performance. I read somewhere that they are working on hardware video accelleration, but as far as I know it is not working as it supposed to yet.

Crumb said:

Overlay is obsolete

really? that´s why all OS4 players use OpenGL to output graphics? oh wait! all OS4 players (DvPlayer, MPlayer, AMP2...) use Overlay in order to play videos with decent performance. Then I´m sorry for poor OS4 PCie users who believed all the propaganda that have to use drivers so primitive that don´t even provide a way to play videos smoothly. If overlay is obsolete then all AmigaOS4 players are too. BTW, using a 3d texture is also obsolete since the video stream can be decoded by the gpu instead of the cpu. AmigaOS4 PCIe drivers don´t support any video acceleration, that´s sad as Amiga used to be a superb platform for multimedia.

the fact that new cards don't suport overlay

The fact is that OS4 drivers don´t support any video acceleration, not that newer cards don´t include overlay or any alternative way to produce the same result.

Modern OSes also support multicore and have memory protection, that should give you a clue about how ridiculous it sounds that an user of a computer that is unable to play videos smoothly claims "overlay" is obsolete.

It seems you don´t understand that the problem is not HOW overlay is implemented but that it is not supported at all and all AmigaOS4 players include overlay support but don´t output using vapourware gallium nor vaporware gpu stream decoding. OS4 players use P96 PIP api, in case you don´t know it.

Now take your FUD elsewhere.

says the one who claims overlay is obsolete and lacks a computer that can play videos smoothly but shouts that Gallium&Mesa (that are not ported and it seems obvious that they won´t do it in a reasonable time and will leave users with PCIe cards without possibility of playing videos smoothly) will help to fix that.

OSes that support Overlay (or an api compatible alternative) are playing videos smoothly.

Do you know Aesop´s fable about the fox and the grapes? We could make a new version called "the os4 fanatic and the oportunity of playing videos smoothly".

It could start like this: once upon a time, the os4 user "sundown" bought a computer and tried to play an os4 presentation video from a fellow amigan. The video jumped and jumped and couldn´t be played smoothly. He paid for some updated videos and the video still frameskipped and frameskipped. Bah! -said our dear amigan- Overlay is obsolete... who needs to play videos?

Jupp3 said:

Currently, older cards (f.ex. Radeon 9250, Radeon 9200, Radeon 9100 and Radeon 9000, in ascending performance order) offer more features (at least some have 3D support and Overlay, but not sure which ones), and I doubt 2D would be THAT much faster on newer cards, that it would make it better. The only reasons I can see for getting a new model instead:
1)The computer lacks suitable bus to which connect the older card.
2)For some reason, user cannot find suitable old card on ebay etc.

If user gets a new card:
-There's no knowing when there will be some "done-in-GPU" scaling option, be it overlay or anything else.
-I think an (emulated) overlay support should be a lot easier to implement than "full MESA based OpenGL implementation" that's the current aim (temporary solution + compatibility with old programs)
-If user wants to get the best card available for whenever proper drivers (including 3D) become available, there might be lots of better cards available at that time when it finally happens (although some of them probably would need bigger changes to drivers)

As for "other options for scaling", MPlayer already has (at least) 2 OpenGL based video drivers. Not sure if they would need a lot of changes, but assuming it's "all fixed mode OpenGL", it might work even with MiniGL without much changes. Might still have dependencies on X11 etc, never checked.

Also, this is definitely (not made any actual tests, just using common sense) a lot slower than overlay (need to do pixel format conversion (at least without shaders), probably other slowdowns aswell) - but once the frame is in OpenGL texture(s), the scaling is practically free. So if most time would be spent scaling the image, this might be faster and "less worse" than CPU-based scaling.

MorphOS version doesn't have that built in, in any case that wouldn't make ANY sense at all, since all cards that tinygl supports probably also support overlay...

Sorry about posting the quotes, but often people do not follow links and I think this issue has importance to most people here.

start of discussion in case it continues there

[takemehomegrandma]

Spectre660 said:

Results from A Sam440ep-Flex 800 with Radeon HD4800 via PCIE adapter [No Overlay!]

WorkBench:> Programs:Video/DvPlayer/DvPlayer verbose
Media :My Videos/DVDS/Viewed/Limitless {2011} DVDRIP.avi
Video: AVI, 720 x 304, 23.98 fps
Audio: 01 [MP3] 16-bit 44100 Hz, Stereo
Total Nr of Frames: 4358
Nr of Frames played: 1514
Nr of Frames skipped: 2844 (66%)
Total Playback Time: 181.746 seconds
Average Framerate: 23.978 fps
Displayed Framerate: 8.330 fps

Results from Same machine with Radeon 9250 and overlay.

8.WorkBench:> Programs:Video/DvPlayer/DvPlayer verbose
Media :My Videos/DVDS/Viewed/Limitless {2011} DVDRIP.avi
Video: AVI, 720 x 304, 23.98 fps
Audio: 01 [MP3] 16-bit 44100 Hz, Stereo
Total Nr of Frames: 4364
Nr of Frames played: 4364
Nr of Frames skipped: 0 (0%)
Total Playback Time: 182.037 seconds
Average Framerate: 23.973 fps
Displayed Framerate: 23.973 fps

sundown said:

Heres what I get on the x1000 with a Radeon HD 4850, no overlay.

6.Videos:> work:tools/DvPlayer/DvPlayer verbose
Videos:Red Planet.avi
Video: AVI, 720 x 304, 23.98 fps
Audio: 01 [AC3] 16-bit 48000 Hz, Stereo
Total Nr of Frames: 4294
Nr of Frames played: 4293
Nr of Frames skipped: 1 (1%)
Total Playback Time: 179.028 seconds
Average Framerate: 23.985 fps
Displayed Framerate: 23.980 fps

Conclusion:

It's obvious that not even the X1000, the fastest OS4 machine on the planet, can play DVD-resolution video without frame skipping without overlay (just forget about HD video)! While 1 skipped frame in a 3 minute clip isn't a lot, it still signals that the HW is at its very limits of what is possible! This is really an eye-brow raiser! The impact of having overlay and not having overlay is strikingly obvious when looking at the numbers above, yet they scream "obsolete" at the solution that actually works and exists - a fact which I have to agree with the other posters above - is hilarious! :lol:

As a reference: MorphOS mplayer (with proper overlay of course) does 720p HD on a $150 Mac Mini. *Today*, not in two years. Given the fact that their fastest OS4 machine struggles with DVD resolution (without overlay), this must surely feel like Pure Science Fiction to those OS4 users calling overlay obsolete.

"Obsolete"...

:lol:

[takemehomegrandma]

nikosidis said:

If your native monitor res.. is 1024x768 and you play a video that is in that res.. overlay might not gain you much, but lets say a video or mame game in 320x240 that you scale to fullscreen will bring a huge difference cause with overlay you don't use cpu for scaling the image.

So again!!! What is the point saying that overlay is out and something that does not exist at least not with Gallium3D is in!!!!!!!!!

Someone is playing your minds. It is like some of you take everything written by Hyperion or whatever as the holly truth. I'm not saying that it is a lie that mothern OS don't use overlay anymore, but that is simply not a choise right now for Amiga or alternatives.

Listen up.

I'm a AROS user. We had Gallium 3D For a couple of years now. What I miss most on AROS is video overlay. Got it!!!

[takemehomegrandma]

Jupp3 said:

Proves the point that you can live without overlay or the like with a fast CPU for now .

Good point right there.

I wonder why no-one noticed earier that we don't actually even need this forthcoming "full MESA-based hardware accelerated 3D", as we can just do it all in software instead. There are several working MESA versions on aminet already.

Good point. The guy's X1000 is struggling with a standard DVD resolution because of the lack of overlay, and he comes to the conclusion that overlay isn't needed because everything can be handled by the CPU, that's a big LOL. This is becoming a farce!

:crazy:

Crumb said:

720x304, full screen, thank you, with no overlay.

Impressive! Outstanding! Just like my Efika at 400Mhz with no dma access to HD! Depending on compression used even a CSPPC with Frogger may be able to achieve that.

FYI, people is watching youtube HD videos directly on OWB on MorphOS thanks to overlay, try that on your x1000.

A good point. AFAIK the Efika is using less than 90% of the CPU at full screen DVD resolution playback (mpeg2), it's a "G2" class CPU running at only 400MHz, and it has one or two severe bottlenecks. The fastest OS4 computer, the $3000 X1000, drops frames when doing the same. Probably not the same codec though, I'll give them that, but had the OS4 machine been using overlay, it would have been no problems whatsoever.

Obsolete? Yeah right...


sundown said:

720x304, full screen, thank you, with no overlay. I will admit, a 1080p vid is a different story at the moment.

and

Still be nice to have overlay support, 1080p HDs would probably play without skipping.

Another big LOL there. He just showed a DVD resolution encoded video that during 3 minutes playback actually skipped a frame, and he starts talking about 1080p as it would be like "the next step" and within reach? The guy probably thinks his 720 x 304 res clip equals to 720p HD, which of course it doesn't (it's a standard DVD resolution encoding, with *quite a leap* (to say the least) up to 1280×720, and the 1920x1080 being way off the charts of course).

The X1000 has shown similar CPU performance as the upper G4 Macs. Forget 1080p. 720p should be possible though, with overlay of course!

:lol: