A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

Over the Rainbow

Cardiff, 25th June 2012

A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4

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/

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

@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?

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

The driver for SAM460ex was developed by Ross through Acube.
Submitted back to OS4 team for beta testing. I don't understand what you're trying to illustrate. Private contractor either way.

#6

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

@TakeMeHomeGrandma

Sometimes it is better to get the job done quickly so as not to hold up any other projects in the pipeline.

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

@tmhgm

In fact, I just recall that other Radeon drivers were also outsourced to some other subcontractor. A company called Forefront technologies or something like that. Apparently Hyperion was not willing to pay what Hans asked and they are released separately.

It is not really surprising because Picasso96 was licensed from another company.

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

Exactly. From 2003:

It clearly says Forefront's ATI Radeon driver, not Hyperion's driver.

#6

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

Purchase driver updates, you've got to be kidding me. One shouldn't have to pay for drivers.

Insanity, of course there will be people doing it.

I'll be giving Amiga NG a wide berth.

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

@ 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...?

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

@lurch

The driver development took many hundreds of man hours. Programmers need to be paid and the cost needs to be accounted for.

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

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.

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

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... ;)

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

Drivers are free from the manufacturers of peripherals because they want you to use their hardware. Radeon doesn't make Amiga drivers.

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

if the guy doing the work wants paid for his effort then deal with it. if you don't like his price then do without. we don't have the advantage of building this cost into the hardware purchase price like amd and nvidia do. also realize that ms does not write drivers, amd and nvidia do. if we have someone willing to do it all for free then lucky us.

have they even given a price yet?

the forefront driver was not a charity project either. you'd have to ask Joshua how much we got overall, but i certainly don't feel rich for it. Joshua did more of the programming so deserves more of the $$. i personally got a dinner and reimbursed for a prometheus card, full stop. i bought my xe. i bought my collection of radeons. i bought my csppc card. i wouldn't expect to pay a lot for a graphics driver (and never bought cybergraphics for my picassoiv as it was too expensive for a driver) but it's nice to get a little help toward all that hardware to buy.

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

I think it's £29, which given the sheer amount of work Hans has done, is a very fair price.

What I don't understand is why people are saying the drivers should be part of the OS, as though they are in other OS!? Microsoft do not write graphics card drivers - of course not, the manufacturers do. Are drivers free on the PC? Again, of course not - they're included in the price of the hardware so it's invisible. Yet somehow some people think Hyperion should write drivers for all the graphics card - yet they can't possibly do that at the same time as develop the OS, given the size of the company.

What an OS maker should do isn't write the driver, but they should provide the API, which is what Hyperion do. Writing the API allows the graphics card manufacturer - or in this case, A-Eon, because AMD aren't going to do it - to support the cards.

In this case, if you don't want the latest graphics support, you don't need these drivers, you can stick with the current ones. And new systems from A-Eon come with the new drivers included anyway. So it's not costing anyone anything unless they happen to want the latest card support.

The alternative is simple - no support for later graphics cards at all. I think I prefer this option somehow. :)

Re: A-EON Technology secures graphic card support for AmigaOS 4
 

Communications about this whole matter could have been handled better, preferably as a joint statement from all involved parties, and with detailed and unambiguous explanations for all paths users might take.

Now it's just extremely confusing, and leaves a lot of room for misinterpretations.