MicroA1 and 3D?

[Johan Samuelsson]

Hello boys!

Hmm.. I some questions about the MicroA1, there won't be an AGP slot right? And the onboard graphics is something like a Radeon 7000, with very poor 3D support, right? So, there is no way to add a GFX card with decent 3D support? If this is the case, then, I really see much less chanses for the MicroA1 to be the successor of the A1200 in modern times. No one wants an A1 without 3D abilities if he wants to make demos or something. Someone please tell me I am all wrong here!

[Wolfe]

Seeing how OS 4 and the MicroA1 are not yet ready for prime time, i'd say its a little early to tell.  Besides, eventually 3D drivers will be available.

[lempkee]

spotup: where did you get thoose specs from? , last i heard from eyetech he said " the radeon model is not decided yet" , also hyperion have promised radeon support for it!.

anyway i dont see this as a problem anyway , its a entry level system also tell me 1 product that will come to a1 which will need an 9200 radeon or 8500 ...

64mb gfx memory is the lowst i will accept, 128 is something i would prefer , and 256 for system ram..

also the a1 has a pci bus, put a riser on this and add a voodoo3 on it and you have the endian modes needed incase the radeon driver aint done yet etc, but then again i doubt u will get os4 on the microa1 before radeon driver is completed..

i really dont see a problem here at all, there will be support for 3d and it allready support voodoo via warp3d, and as far as specs goes , eyetech promised more info later and thoose proto specs given out earlier was said to be altered abit.

cheers

[Johan Samuelsson]

Hmm.. noone of you really had any aswers to my original question. Drivers and stuff is not what I asked about. The MicroA1 will come with an onboard ATI chip right? These small graphics cards are stripped versions of big cards. To be able to get it that small, you have to strip out some feats. Often 3D. What is bothering me is, as eyetech seems to be marketing these babies towards the embedded market, they might not add possibilities to add another real gfxcard? As the onboard gfxcard wont do in the long run...

And yes, I know that there wont be drivers and a 3D API that will blow us away with the release of 4.0, but I am thinking ahead here...

[Johan Samuelsson]

Oh.. and then it's this STUPID STUPID name!
MicroA1!?!?!? Are Eyetech ashamed of the Amiga name, as they are aiming at customers outside the Amiga comunity? Why not keep the original name then? It is a teron board anyway...

This is like apple calling their new Mac, M1, and that is something they would NEVER do, as the brand is worth a lot.

MicroA1? Please... it sounds so unapealing, geeky, boring... baah... yuck! yuck! yuck!

And it demands an explanation everytime you mention it..


-MicroA1?

-Yea! It is the littlesister to the new AmigaOne!

-Oh... Weird name, silly me, I didn't know it was an Amiga or a computer even.
 

[bloodline]

Eyetech only have a licence for the Name "AmigaONE"... so I suppose they are getting people used to the name A1 to make an easy transition to A2 (Since they can't call any machines AmigaTWO).... I really don't know..

[zee4]

MicroA1!?!?!? Are Eyetech ashamed of the Amiga name

At least they won't be accused of belonging to some "The Cult of the Name"

As far as specs, all Eyetech has said, AFAIK, is that it will likely use a low-cost ATI Radeon card, i.e. no specific model was announced. Given that this board isn't due out for a few months at least, it might turn out to be quite good, certainly good enough for most current games. If you want the lastest/greatest you'll still be able to buy a full AmigaOne board with AGP slots.

Zoltan

[Crumb]

@SpotUP:
I've heard that a Radeon7000 is actually faster than a Radeon 9200... well, I'm not sure, but with the Radeon9200SE model it may be true.

The prototypes produced use a R7000 with 32MB, these chips are faster than my Peggy's voodoo3500. And my Pegasos runs Warp3D very smoothly, so I guess that the Radeon will do its job OK.

Haven't you noticed the PCI slot(s)? You can add PCI cards if you think that a R7000 is not enough for you.

I agree with you in that they should use other name for the mini-itx board.

AmigaOne Lite sounds better to me and confuses less the potential users.

Why they haven't labelled AmigaOne as Amiga 5000 for example? or PowerAmiga...
PowerAmiga sounds well...

mmm or as somebody suggested they may use clever marketing like AMD...
Compare the RC5 speed of a G4 with a P4 for example and if the G4/800 cracks as many keys as a P4/2200 (this is an example, I haven't checked the real values) name it PowerAmiga 2200+
:-P

[JetRacer]

Since nothing is set is stone, it's impossible to answer.

However, the graphics will most probably be a part of the chipset not a separate board. If you're lucky then you will still be able to use the AGP. This is common on similar x86 mobos.

I managed to find the closeup of the A1 micro mobo at seal only to discover that the mobo was mounted upsidedown. cr4p!

Personally, I think the mobo will sell bigtime within the community. It will be cheap, have support and is an all-in-one. If Eyetech are smart enough to go on a PPC Linux advertizing spree aswell then they could cash in both communities. If so, we could look forward to some really nice and affordable hardware in the future. But I doubt that they have what it takes to pull that off.