So I was researching the RadeonHD driver history and trying to find info on how to buy it, what it supports and why there is another external driver again.

As usual, all I've found is confusion again, so looks like things are back where they were a few years back when I first researched what was needed for updated drivers.

So there is OEM in OS4 FE. Above that there is a v1, v2, and v3. With now a v5.

As some stage RadeonHD v1 and v2 was available on AmiStore along with Warp 3D drivers. And this is where my confusion set in. The FE OEM driver became abandoned and obsolete. But what did we need to use a more modern video card? Or indeed any card since the FE driver was a downgrade. Indeed, even today, I can find no specific list of what the OEM driver supports.

At the time of Enhancer 1.5 release the v1-v3 drivers could be purchased and included as part of Enhancer editions with Plus including 3D drivers. This didn't explain the history of RadeonHD and Warp 3D. Nor what Radiance was and if it came out. I can find no info on this apart from talk about it but what was Radiance? Enhancer Plus made it easy to get all RadeonHD drivers. But the older Radeon and Warp 3D drivers remained on AmiStore. Were they not rendered obsolete?

Right now there is a new v5 driver out on disc and soon digital. But where is v4!? What happened to the missing link?

It gets better. Or worse. In addition there was a Graphics Upgrade in the Enhancer 1.x era which upgraded the driver included with Enhancer to v3 and included RX driver. Which was said to be part of the upcoming Enhancer 2. And also providing a license for Enhancer 2 when available. I didn't see if it needed a particular edition or not.

But, there are conflicting reports. According to the Enhancer wiki RadeonHD v3 (and RadeonRX v1) are included in the latest version here:
http://wiki.amiga.org/index.php?title=Enhancer_Software

However, according to the product page, currently the only place to buy it, it has RadeonHD v2.18:
http://amigakit.amiga.store/enhancer-software-release-p-1278.html

Seems this detail missed an update. Surely it has a v3 version? Wouldn't make sense if your driver was downgraded with a new Enhancer.

On here is the RadeonHD driver product page:
https://amigakit.amiga.store/radeonhd-driver-version-p-1107.html

The official compatibility list links to the old list on Hans site which is a mix of versions and most would predate Enhancer as well as recent releases of RadeonHD. The wiki however has a more clear and simpler list:
http://wiki.amiga.org/index.php?title=RadeonHD

There is also an elephant in the room. Whilst it's good to see contuining developments on the RadeonHD driver, isn't it end of life and RadeonRX is where it's at? Most OS4 platforms sans the X1000 support RX cards. The HD cards are market obsolete and even finding new RX cards supported would be a struggle now. Also, according to notes, with v5 HD driver may lack soft reboot support for some cards but doesn't list what they are. This is what I consider to be a major OS4 feature being able to soft reboot. Especially on the X1000 where boot speed is slow. I wouldn't want to buy the latest driver and find I can't press Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga any more (or what it maps too).

So, I've brought up a lot of queries here. And summarised the situation as much as I can. Can the RadeonHD driver confusion ever be resolved?

@Hypex

Hello

The OEM driver in OS4.1 FE is very basic. It has no hardware acceleration and does not support higher screen modes or Warp3D Nova. It should only be considered as an emergency boot driver. It is not for general day to day use.

The only reason it is included is that Hyperion were not able to pay for a licenced full driver at the time so they had the royalty free of cost version under licence agreement. If they had opted for the full RadeonHD to be included it would have likely meant a higher consumer price for OS4.1FE at the time. Instead they slashed OS4.1's regular 100 Euro price and sold it at the fire sale price of 29 Euro. From that moment on OS4.1 could never have any meaningful development due to the lack of investment from sales. This is a major reason the Enhancer Software was created to fill the development void.

RadeonHD driver versions 1, 2, 3 and now 5 are commercially developed and have had many $$$$$ of development costs pumped into them over the last decade.

The now discontinued Enhancer Software Plus V1.x contains the RadeonHD V2 driver. The new Enhancer Software V2.x contains the RadeonHD V3.7 driver.

The V5 is likely to end of the line. It will most probably have minor updates but there is no sense making V6.

The official wiki for the RadeonHD driver is here: http://wiki.amiga.org/radeonhd

If you want any additional information added then I will be happy to amend the page.

Last edited by amigakit on 23-Sep-2022 at 04:02 PM.
Last edited by amigakit on 23-Sep-2022 at 04:01 PM.
Last edited by amigakit on 23-Sep-2022 at 03:40 PM.
Last edited by amigakit on 23-Sep-2022 at 03:38 PM.
Last edited by amigakit on 23-Sep-2022 at 03:36 PM.

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@amigakit

Thanks for the clarification. I'll be upgrading on my X5000 soon.

_________________
Sent from my Quantum Computer.

@Hypex

Quote:

with v5 HD driver may lack soft reboot support for some cards but doesn't list what they are. This is what I consider to be a major OS4 feature being able to soft reboot. Especially on the X1000 where boot speed is slow. I wouldn't want to buy the latest driver and find I can't press Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga any more (or what it maps too).

I created a dual boot setup, so I can select v5 or v3 driver.

For warm boot feature,
(I hope Hans can solve warm boot problem.)

In CFE, you need to change the boot option from amigaboot_quiet Y to N,
this will enable the amigaboot selector.

i create two boot options in UBOOT, so qucik boot into v3, as thats my first option.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 24-Sep-2022 at 03:58 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 24-Sep-2022 at 03:47 PM.

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@amigakit

Hello and thanks for your answers. A few follow up questions. And some comments.

Quote:

The OEM driver in OS4.1 FE is very basic. It has no hardware acceleration and does not support higher screen modes or Warp3D Nova. It should only be considered as an emergency boot driver. It is not for general day to day use.

That's what I found when I installed OS4.1 FE on my X1000. My existing volume was fine for resolution. But in FE it had crippled it.

Quote:

The only reason it is included is that Hyperion were not able to pay for a licenced full driver at the time so they had the royalty free of cost version under licence agreement. If they had opted for the full RadeonHD to be included it would have likely meant a higher consumer price for OS4.1FE at the time. Instead they slashed OS4.1's regular 100 Euro price and sold it at the fire sale price of 29 Euro. From that moment on OS4.1 could never have any meaningful development due to the lack of investment from sales. This is a major reason the Enhancer Software was created to fill the development void.

I noticed FE was cheaper than usual so knew it was cut back somewhere. The Radeon driver showed how and then there was previously included and working software which was now broken. But still included which implied buggy versions had been included that slipped past testing.

The OEM driver would have been fine for survival purposes. But it has another crippling factor. It doesn't work with later 6000 series or whatever the failed models are. This means users must leave old cards for emergency boot. Or hack a new boot ISO using the full driver. And OS4 lacks a utility like the OS3.9 emergency floppy creator so this makes it harder for users. I haven't seen a clean guide on creating it though I know what's involved.

Quote:

RadeonHD driver versions 1, 2, 3 and now 5 are commercially developed and have had many $$$$$ of development costs pumped into them over the last decade.

I don't think anyone really has any problem to financially supporting development. I think a problem is it isn't under one banner and on one working OS4 media. It's just too complicated now needing to buy this and that and patch it all together on the system. A friend wants to get his X1000 up to date and working but sees it all as so complicated including the X1000. And the Radeon situation as confusing!

Quote:

The V5 is likely to end of the line. It will most probably have minor updates but there is no sense making V6.

But what happened to V4? It looks like Windows 10 where Windows 9 went missing. There's no sense in the version jump.

In fact, given there are usually progressively increasing versions, v1 and v2 still being on market when v3 was out doesn't make sense either. This adds another confusion. Why are there multiple versions on sale simultaneously? They are called versions and not editions so that made no sense either.

Quote:

The now discontinued Enhancer Software Plus V1.x contains the RadeonHD V2 driver. The new Enhancer Software V2.x contains the RadeonHD V3.7 driver.

So the details on the AmigaKit product page are out of date and need updating then?

And also, with V2, I see a decision was made to drop varying editions and provide one product.

Quote:

The now discontinued Enhancer Software Plus V1.x contains the RadeonHD V2 driver. The new Enhancer Software V2.x contains the RadeonHD V3.7 driver.

Yes it redirects to the same link I posted.

@NutsAboutAmiga

Yes I always have the boot selector active. Would be a long time since I had only one Workbench. Also it's easier on the X1000 as well with AmigaBoot since it can dynamically build a boot menu.

What other machine do you have with UBoot? Without AmigaBoot that's slightly more complicated. Getting Workbench volumes booted with matching Kickstart and able to transparently update components.

@Hypex

Im still having issues with my X1000 which just put me off putting more money into at the moment. I wish I knew for sure what is causing my random rests.

Im pleased that its still getting supported and have fast video playback is cool, although it was ok with DVD quality video 720 x 480, which is what I mostly played on the system anyway.

it is a shame that AmigaOS4 is now basiclly spilt between compaines. I feel this only hurts the platform and makes it harder for end user.

Plus what did happen to Radeon V4?

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@Hypex

Quote:

I noticed FE was cheaper than usual so knew it was cut back somewhere. The Radeon driver showed how and then there was previously included and working software which was now broken. But still included which implied buggy versions had been included that slipped past testing.

Hyperion have never had any licence to include RadeonHD other than the Lite version in OS4. This is because they did not fund it's development or pay a licence fee.


@Hypex

Quote:

The OEM driver would have been fine for survival purposes. But it has another crippling factor. It doesn't work with later 6000 series or whatever the failed models are.

@AmigaNG
Quote:

it is a shame that AmigaOS4 is now basiclly spilt between compaines. I feel this only hurts the platform and makes it harder for end user.

The original RadeonHD Lite driver was negotiated with Hyperion Management in a 2015 meeting in London.

In the ensuing time after that meeting, Hyperion got into financially difficulties, resulting in bankruptcy proceedings. Everytime we contacted the Hyperion Management, the message was the same: they could not conduct business due to the bankruptcy. It left A-EON in a very difficult position. They did not even forewarn A-EON about this problem and it only become known by rumours.

Then after this Hyperion Management left one by one. Today there is no management team as far as we are aware steering the Hyperion ship. It's akin to the Marie Celeste.

For these reasons, and many others, it has been near impossible to do any licence agreement with Hyperion.

Quote:

This means users must leave old cards for emergency boot. Or hack a new boot ISO using the full driver. And OS4 lacks a utility like the OS3.9 emergency floppy creator so this makes it harder for users. I haven't seen a clean guide on creating it though I know what's involved.

X5000's users were offered an Emergency Boot USB with their machine from selected dealers. This free USB media was offered in the interest of customer service: http://wiki.amiga.org/index.php?title=X5000_Emergency_Boot_USB


Quote:

But what happened to V4? It looks like Windows 10 where Windows 9 went missing. There's no sense in the version jump. In fact, given there are usually progressively increasing versions, v1 and v2 still being on market when v3 was out doesn't make sense either. This adds another confusion. Why are there multiple versions on sale simultaneously? They are called versions and not editions so that made no sense either.

Version 4 was an internal release adding Video Acceleration support. We then decided to proceed with GART support and it was bumped again for Version 5.

V1 and V2 are not on the market at all. They are both discontinued - see official Wiki here: http://wiki.amiga.org/radeonhd

Last edited by amigakit on 26-Sep-2022 at 06:45 PM.
Last edited by amigakit on 26-Sep-2022 at 06:43 PM.

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@amigang

My X1000 has a been a lot more stable since I replaced the RAM modules which tend to degrade over time in PPC boards. I find they need to be pulled every few years and contacts checked. In the least pulling out and putting in can sometimes be enough. I also replaced my SATA cables with clip ons to be more secure. And replaced the battery.

Before this I was getting strange behaviour and especially before I replaced the battery. Things like the power button failed to turn off. Crashes in CFE on boot. Missing HDD in CFE and random read errors on Workbench. You name it.

As to the missing V4 looks like it was planned with an internal version in testing but then skipped in the final release. Given it could still have been released as a V4 since V3 was before it I still don't see the sense in calling it V5. V4 was announced and there was nothing released AFAIK so it's a bit odd.

https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=132328#forumpost132328

EDIT:
Forgot to mention that Update2 conflicts with my R7 250. And since installing it I got freezes on boot and other things breaking down. Somehow related to compositing and interrupts. There was the usual advice of something must be wrong with my OS4 volume or I need to replace the whole HDD and reinstall from scratch. Which doesn't help when the hardware works fine before the software update and a fresh install into a new partition breaks when Update is applied. I also swapped in a 5450 and it worked fine with the updated volume. So I wonder how it is my system software that is broken as implied when it works with another Radeon card.

Last edited by Hypex on 28-Sep-2022 at 06:36 AM.

@amigakit

Quote:

In the ensuing time after that meeting, Hyperion got into financially difficulties, resulting in bankruptcy proceedings. Everytime we contacted the Hyperion Management, the message was the same: they could not conduct business due to the bankruptcy. It left A-EON in a very difficult position. They did not even forewarn A-EON about this problem and it only become known by rumours.

Overly condensed, heavily filtered and biased description of several years since said meeting, trying to put all blame on one side. Unfortunately not really surprising and well known behaviour of you, I must say.

Suffice to say, the other attendees of said meeting have quite a different (and much more detailed) recollection of what actually happened, why and caused by whose involved party doings.

Just like on the schoolyard (or anywhere else in the world): it takes two, sometimes even more. But (part of) the story is always told by the more chatty parties and just has to get repeated often enough to become whole truth.



Edit: Maybe you want to discuss our different recollections on Amiga37? Could get interesting ;)

Last edited by Cyborg on 29-Sep-2022 at 07:20 AM.

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@Cyborg: actually and at least amigakit gave some information. Publicly.

Why don't you do the same to give your opinion about that?

@cdimauro

I'm not sure which information you actually are after. But I consider publicly blaming and dirty laundry washing bad manners to put it mildly. I always tried hard to keep my mouth shut and clarify things directly (true, I also am no saint and didn't always succeed), but I won't let false or at least highly misleading statements uncommented, if they reach a certain level.

But hey, maybe I should at some point just write a book like others did in the past, with my memories and recollections and archive excerpts

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"In the beginning was CAOS.."
-- Andy Finkel, 1988 (ViewPort article, Oct. 1993)

@Cyborg

Quote:

But hey, maybe I should at some point just write a book like others did in the past, with my memories and recollections and archive excerpt

Please, please do. I promise you terrific sales.

-- eliyahu

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@eliyahu

No doubt, drama sells better then software.

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@amigakit

Quote:

Hyperion have never had any licence to include RadeonHD other than the Lite version in OS4. This is because they did not fund it's development or pay a licence fee.

And now the Lite version included with FE has lapsed.

Quote:

X5000's users were offered an Emergency Boot USB with their machine from selected dealers. This free USB media was offered in the interest of customer service: http://wiki.amiga.org/index.php?title=X5000_Emergency_Boot_USB

That's fine for X5000 users. But it breaks if an X5000 user doesn't have the USB stick. And breaks for every other system that lacks a way to easily create a booter on any medium and cannot boot off USB as standard. I've even read on Hyperion forum that having a boot image or iso image doesn't help as RawDisk is too complicated to simply write a USB image. Which would explain why since years the advice has been to write an OS4 boot image on Windows despite RawDisk being the elephant in the room. So it looks like a specific USB image writer is needed that just works, for USB, at least.

Quote:

Version 4 was an internal release adding Video Acceleration support. We then decided to proceed with GART support and it was bumped again for Version 5.

Still, it looks odd. Since a V4 as announced could also have the VA support. Perhaps there can still be a V4 prequel. V5 has reportedly problems on Sam hardware.

Quote:

V1 and V2 are not on the market at all. They are both discontinued - see official Wiki here: http://wiki.amiga.org/radeonhd

Actually, I meant in past tense, when Enhancer 1.x was current, V1 and V2 were still purchasable. But, V1 and V2 are still technically on the market, since they can both be bought from AmiStore. Still good if someone just needs a reasonably priced Radeon driver.

Also, Warp 3D-SI is still on AmiStore. But, is it made obsolete by Warp 3D Nova? This brings back a confusion I had about 3D drivers.

If the latest Enhancer replaces all of these and renders them obsolete it would be good to know. Also, I managed to find another bug in AmiStore. When looking at software an Enhancer "box" had MACE as the picture. And then later it froze on me. Need to check again for specifics. I always manage to find some glitch by just clicking on something.

@Hypex


It is possible to make an emergency boot disk by copying the contents of the System directory on the AmigaOS 41. FE iso to a bootable USB Drive. Works for Sams and X5000 machines.

More recent graphics card drivers versions and the SFS file systems can also be added to the kickstart as needed .

https://forum.hyperion-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?p=55965#p55965

Last edited by Spectre660 on 01-Oct-2022 at 03:18 PM.

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@Cyborg

Quote:

Cyborg wrote: @cdimauro I'm not sure which information you actually are after. But I consider publicly blaming and dirty laundry washing bad manners to put it mildly. I always tried hard to keep my mouth shut and clarify things directly (true, I also am no saint and didn't always succeed), but I won't let false or at least highly misleading statements uncommented, if they reach a certain level.

Well, if the statements were false or misleading, then you cold provide facts the prove it.
Quote:

But hey, maybe I should at some point just write a book like others did in the past, with my memories and recollections and archive excerpts

That would be much better and appreciated.

@Spectre660

Still a bit fiddly though. Not as straightforward as the OS3.9 emergency boot creator. Which does the same kind of thing. An XE and X1000 can be configured to boot off USB. But a disc would faster than fiddling with firmware.

@Hypex

The Driver situation has outstripped the new ISO creation pace.

It is possible to use the same process to make a custom ISO though.
Copy the contents the System directory of the installer ISO and make the modifications then
create a new ISO image .

Last edited by Spectre660 on 02-Oct-2022 at 03:08 PM.

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@Spectre660

Quote:

It is possible to use the same process to make a custom ISO though.

Yes. I've done the same in the past.