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hardware OS4   hardware OS4 : A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
   posted by TrevorDick on 24-Jun-2012 11:24:28 (31630 reads)
Over the Rainbow

Cardiff, 25th June 2012

A-EON Technology is pleased to announce that it has signed a new development agreement with premier AmigaOS graphics specialist Hans de Ruiter which ensures the future compatibility of AmigaOS 4 with the latest RadeonHD graphics cards. In addition to the HD4000 (R700) graphics drivers released with the AmigaONE X1000 “First Contact” system, we have now contracted Hans to create a series of drivers for the RadeonHD family. This also includes support for Evergreen, Northern Islands and the recently released Southern Islands HD7000 series. These new drivers, which are exclusively licensed to A-EON Technology, will support the X1300-1950, 5000, 6000 & 7000 series RadeonHD graphics cards and provide AmigaOS 4 with access to the latest in graphic card technology.


Trevor Dickinson commented, “This is a major boost for the AmigaOS and is the first time that these modern graphics cards have been supported on non x86 systems. Hans has already released several updates to his RadeonHD driver and support for Evergreen and Northern Islands cards is already up to the standard of the R700 drivers released with the AmigaONE X1000. He has also made excellent progress with drivers for AMD's Southern Islands cards. Hans de Ruiter replied, "I was initially disappointed when supply of Radeon HD 4000 series became scarce but now I'm proud of what has been achieved. The RadeonHD driver once again supports some of the latest cards available." His comments were echoed by a long time AmigaOS 4 developer and A1-X1000 beta tester who stated, "Looks like OS4 won't have to worry about availability of compatible graphics cards anytime soon". We can only agree.

The AMD RadeonHD series to be supported include:-

X1300-1950 - R520 chipset
HD4000 - R700 series
HD5000 - Evergreen series – first released in September 2009
HD6000 - Northern Island series – first released in October 2010
HD7000 - Southern Island series – latest RadeonHD cards released in January 2012

Although the RadeonHD driver is exclusively licensed to A-EON Technology for AmigaOS 4, owners of ACube's "Next Generation Amiga" systems need not despair. They will be able to purchase RadeonHD driver updates via the A-EON Technology website for their Sam460 and AmigaOne 500 systems. AmigaKit will also be offering RadeonHD graphics cards and driver bundles. Please visit the AmigaKit website for more details. Customers who purchase the new driver will qualify for free upgrades, up to and including version 1.0 of the RadeonHD driver. Registered AmigaONE X1000 "First Contact" customers will be able download driver updates free of charge from the A-EON Technology website.

About Hans de Ruiter & HDRLab: Hans de Ruiter is an electrical & electronic engineer and leading AmigaOS developer and Amiga enthusiast. His website - HDRLab - details various projects, many of which are AmigaOS related. The biggest of these is the RadeonHD driver for AmigaOS, an ambitious project that aims to deliver modern graphics capabilities for the AmigaOS platform.

About AmigaOS: The AmigaOS dates back to 1985 with the introduction of the landmark Amiga 1000. Today, under the guidance and control of Hyperion Entertainment, AmigaOS has evolved into a modern operating system without losing that intrinsic "Amiga" look and feel.

About the AmigaONE X1000: The AmigaONE X1000 is not like other computers. It is a culmination of efforts by real Amiga enthusiasts and developers to create powerful, modern desktop hardware for the AmigaOS. It is the natural evolution of the Amiga's PowerPC lineage and is based on the PA-Semi Dual-core PA6T-1682M CPU and includes Xena, a "Software Defined Silicon" co-processor. Above all it runs the latest version of the AmigaOS.

AboutAmigaKit: AmigaKit is a trading division of Leaman Computing Ltd based in Cardiff, UK. It acquired the stock of Eyetech Group Ltd in 2006 and quickly established itself as a world-wide market leader in the retail and distribution of Amiga hardware and software. A-EON Technology appointed AmigaKit as its primary distributor for all its AmigaONE products.

Web links:

HDR Labs - http://hdrlab.org.nz/
A-EON Technology - http://www.a-eon.com/
AmigaKit - http://ww.amigakit.com/
AmigaOS - http://www.amigaos.net/
AMD RadeonHD - http://www.amd.com/
    

STORYID: 6419
Related Links
· More about hardware OS4
· News by TrevorDick


Most read story about hardware OS4
20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech

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PosterThread
RodTerl 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 11:53:44
#1 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 6-Sep-2004
Posts: 589
From: Rossendale

Excellent news, given how cheap the absolte bottom end cards are, and their capabilities.

Trouble is, I notice that the bottom end board available from the local shop, the HD5450, has HD decode, transcode, And audio over HDMI. Are these totally seperate from the 2D, 3D and Open CL graphics set up and calls, or in the addendums of the driver definitions of the cards?

If the stream processors on the GPUs are 32 bit GPGPU, are they ARM compatible, or a particular other architecture, which means that once drivers are available, AOS functions can be ported to GPU cores also?

I thought AOS was multithreaded from many years ago, as in any thread requiring resources not available, would wait while another threa ran? The 040, 060 Bus snoop and copyback etc functions dealt with comon memory access?

I really hope Hans is successful, it will be intresting seeing what may be the origional Amiga style integrated hardware, software system base once more.


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Tomppeli 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 11:54:17
#2 ]
Super Member
Joined: 18-Jun-2004
Posts: 1652
From: Home land of Santa, sauna, sisu and salmiakki

Congratulations ! This is a "bomb" to the whole community, I think.


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Phantom 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:12:47
#3 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 2-Aug-2007
Posts: 2047
From: Unknown

Fabulous news for Amiga owners.


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pavlor 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:16:16
#4 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 10-Jul-2005
Posts: 9636
From: Unknown

Sounds good!

I only hope price of drivers will be right.

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amigakit 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:19:54
#5 ]
Amiga Kit
Joined: 28-Jun-2004
Posts: 2595
From: www.amigakit.com

Customers who own an AmigaOne X1000 First Contact system will receive drivers free of charge.

Non=A-EON customers can order the drivers here:

http://www.a-eon.com/?page=radeonhd


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pavlor 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:25:07
#6 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 10-Jul-2005
Posts: 9636
From: Unknown

29 GBP?

That is fair price.

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zerohero 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:30:25
#7 ]
Team Member
Joined: 4-May-2004
Posts: 2524
From: Uddevalla, Sweden

May I just question the idea of charging money for a GFX driver? Isn't something like this kind of expected within an OS? This is turning into one expensive hobby...


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fishy_fis 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:39:36
#8 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 29-Mar-2004
Posts: 2168
From: Australia

Congrats to OS4.x people for when these arrive, but at the risk of sounding negative,...... you have to *pay* for drivers? This has to be pretty anomolous in the desktop OS world. Surely these sorts of costs should be covered by the price of the OS itself? OS4.x people already have to pay through the teeth and now they have to pay for drivers too? (drivers I was under the impression were at least partway based on other open source efforts (gallium)).

Time and time again OS4.x displays that it's bitten off more than it can chew. I wish those involved all the best, but despite slowly moving forward I cant help but see the brand name variation on the modern amiga as more and more of a farce and time goes on.

Being that this is the amiga world, Im sure some people will be offended by my opinion here even though it's an honest opinion and not an attempt at trolling, but such is life.

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WolfToTheMoon 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:39:49
#9 ]
Super Member
Joined: 2-Sep-2010
Posts: 1408
From: CRO

It seems that OS4 users will have to pay for developing drivers now... I guess that's better than having no drivers.


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amigakit 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:44:25
#10 ]
Amiga Kit
Joined: 28-Jun-2004
Posts: 2595
From: www.amigakit.com

A-EON customers do not pay for these drivers. A-EON required these drivers for the new A-EON hardware developed so invested in the project.

It costs huge amounts of money to develop these drivers for the niche AmigaOS market. The programmers have to be paid so they can pay their day to day bills.

Having full RadeonHD support is a monumentus event for AmigaOS and it took many man-hours to get there. These are not open-source drivers simply ported across- they are drivers developed from scratch specifically for AmigaOS 4.

Last edited by amigakit on 24-Jun-2012 at 12:47 PM.
Last edited by amigakit on 24-Jun-2012 at 12:45 PM.


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Derfs 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:46:34
#11 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 789
From: me To: you

Aros had a bounty for gfx drivers, so it's not that different. You could argue they are free, if you have a machine from aeon, but not many do as of now.

Also these are written from scratch, nothing to do with gallium sources.

This only effects sam460 owners, and they have a driver for certain HD cards already (4xxx) just not newer ones.


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TrevorDick 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:47:27
#12 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 30-Dec-2004
Posts: 2678
From: Wellington

You beat me to it:-

"Registered AmigaONE X1000 "First Contact" customers will be able download driver updates free of charge from the A-EON Technology website."

TrevorD


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Rob 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:48:59
#13 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 20-Mar-2003
Posts: 6385
From: S.Wales

@RodTerl

Quote:
Trouble is, I notice that the bottom end board available from the local shop, the HD5450, has HD decode, transcode, And audio over HDMI. Are these totally seperate from the 2D, 3D and Open CL graphics set up and calls, or in the addendums of the driver definitions of the cards?


Hans is writing the 2D drivers from the documentation released by AMD. Unfortunately there is no open documentation the UVD which handles video decoding and there isn't likely to be since it would probably expose the DRM code to the open which would likely result in AMD getting sued.

Of course Hans' drivers are closed source as is Amiga OS4 but I doubt they have any sway in terms of getting documentation under NDA from AMD so we are unlikely to ever see UVD support in Amiga OS4.

It's not all bad news though since the shader units can be used to accelerate video decoding and I believe that such an effort is already under way in Gallium 3D.

Anyway good news that the range of cards supported has expanded since the high end 4000 series cards are difficult to find brand new.

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djrikki 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:49:00
#14 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 22-Jun-2010
Posts: 2077
From: Grimsby, UK

Echoing most recent posts on here...

I assume existing users with the Radeon 4650 in SAM 460ex which was bought as a complete system will continue to receive free updates? And besides, the driver isn't complete yet so why should I have to pay?

There are two things that I am not happy with at the moment, the hardware is capable of video playback at 1920x1080 - so lets see it - also screen capturing - that can be approved in the drivers - so lets see it.

Drivers for existing cards (4650) needs to be completed first.

Clarification required from AmigaKit for existing users.

Last edited by djrikki on 24-Jun-2012 at 12:53 PM.


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pavlor 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:49:34
#15 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 10-Jul-2005
Posts: 9636
From: Unknown

@zerohero

Quote:
May I just question the idea of charging money for a GFX driver?


CGX4 in the good old days?


I assume current R700 driver is still free of charge.

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SOFISTISOFTWARE 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:49:48
#16 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 25-Dec-2003
Posts: 458
From: Latina, Italy

I've just paid for it about 37,16 euro, i hope to receive the new version soon.

Good work Hans.


_________________
Sam 460EX, 2Gb Ram, Radeon R7 250, AmigaOS4.1 FE
A4000 PPC604@233, Mediator
A1200 PPC603@160, Mediator
uA1 G3@800, 512 Mb [sold]

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Spectre660 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:51:04
#17 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 4-Jun-2005
Posts: 3918
From: Unknown

@fishy_fis

The Radeon HD 2D driver was always a private Project.
It looks like with funding from Trevor it has outpaced Amiga OS for the time being.
It looks like we are back to the old Classic days where drivers were developed by the companies that sold or resold the hardware.This is not a bad thing as it lets OS 4.x development focus on core areas and leaves the drivers to other developers.
Things are released as they are finished so we do not have to wait for everything in an OS update.


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Phantom 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:56:28
#18 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 2-Aug-2007
Posts: 2047
From: Unknown

My opinion was to delay such news, and include the new RadeonHD drivers with the release of AmigaOS 4.2.

Other than that, why not free for AmigaOS 4.1 registered customers as well?


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andres 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:56:35
#19 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 3-Nov-2008
Posts: 329
From: Firenze (Italy)

a very good news for X1000 users, and an interesting news for AmigaOne 500 users too...


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eder 
Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaO
Posted on 24-Jun-2012 12:58:45
#20 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 16-Mar-2004
Posts: 280
From: Unknown

Good news

Last edited by eder on 24-Jun-2012 at 12:59 PM.

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