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[News] New AmigaOne motherboard picturesANN.lu
Posted on 25-May-2001 07:48 GMT by Christophe Decanini20 comments
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Last week we (Adam Carrano from APS, Ben Yoris from Hyperion and I) had the pleasure to meet Alan Redhouse and his wife in the south of France. Of course we took some pictures that we are happy to show you here.
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 1 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Elwood on 24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Cooool !!!
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 2 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Floyd Dameron on 24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
To save the Amiga, it will take a new Amiga. AmigaOne may be just the ticket, even though it is based on PC tech.
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 3 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Carl Mohlin on 24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Problem: I can't see any news on this board compared to the earlier shown pictures.
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 4 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Bill Toner on 24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (Floyd Dameron):
What's wrong with using PC tech? This is actually going to make life somewhat
easier on us, now that no one makes Zorro3 specific peripherals anymore. It also
makes things somewhat easier on our pocketbooks regarding upgrades, compared to the
traditional 10x price increase for Zorro stuff compared to ISA/PCI equivalents.
Plus, now the brunt of our work is writing drivers, instead of desigining hardware,
also writing drivers, and also production. PCI, AGP, and SDRAM slots are the best
things that could happen to us right now...
Now, if they add HyperTransport support later, DDR SDRAM, and/or other faster/better
industry standards that replace SDR memory, PCI, etc. then that will be great news too,
but settling for very accepted standards which are well supported and products are
relatively affordable (especially compared with historical Amiga hardware prices),
then what's to complain about?
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 5 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Ben Hermans/Hyperion Entertainment on 24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Bill Toner):
People should also remember that Windows and DirectX for instance can swallow up a lot of performance.
Provided the hardware is supported properly, you can do quite a lot more with the same hardware.
Take the Permedia 2 as an example: that chipset is running faster on Amiga thanks to the hard work of the Hans-Joerg and Thomas Frieden than on any Wintel box you will find.
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 6 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Troels Ersking on 25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Ben Hermans/Hyperion Entertainment):
To get optimal performance requires the drivers to be really good and I bet they won't be if people wants 20 diffrent Gfx cards.
I rather have 2-3 choices (Matrox 550-450, a cheap S3Virge and maybe a Kyro) that I know will use the cards to it's fullest than buy a expensive superfast geforce3 that isn't supported well enough.
Problem is that people still wonders why there is no support of geforceXXX mentioned anywhere and as they have heard from the PC world "this is the best card".
Lots of people forget how they use their computer, how much time they spend using it on diffrent tasks. I know that 3D gaming doesn't take up more than 5% of my time at the computer so I have no problem to live without Nvidia.
What I need is good 2D quality aswell as beeing able to (once in a while) play a 3D game at decent framerates, Matrox would offer that to me.
One question: The Matrox cards seems to have lots of special features on the PC, how much of these will be supported (everything and a little bit more?) on the Amiga?
Regards
Troels Ersking
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 7 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Troels Ersking on 25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Ben Hermans/Hyperion Entertainment):
To get optimal performance requires the drivers to be really good and I bet they won't be if people wants 20 diffrent Gfx cards.
I rather have 2-3 choices (Matrox 550-450, a cheap S3Virge and maybe a Kyro) that I know will use the cards to it's fullest than buy a expensive superfast geforce3 that isn't supported well enough.
Problem is that people still wonders why there is no support of geforceXXX mentioned anywhere and as they have heard from the PC world "this is the best card".
Lots of people forget how they use their computer, how much time they spend using it on diffrent tasks. I know that 3D gaming doesn't take up more than 5% of my time at the computer so I have no problem to live without Nvidia.
What I need is good 2D quality aswell as beeing able to (once in a while) play a 3D game at decent framerates, Matrox would offer that to me.
One question: The Matrox cards seems to have lots of special features on the PC, how much of these will be supported (everything and a little bit more?) on the Amiga?
Regards
Troels Ersking
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 8 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Troels Ersking on 25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Ben Hermans/Hyperion Entertainment):
To get optimal performance requires the drivers to be really good and I bet they won't be if people wants 20 diffrent Gfx cards.
I rather have 2-3 choices (Matrox 550-450, a cheap S3Virge and maybe a Kyro) that I know will use the cards to it's fullest than buy a expensive superfast geforce3 that isn't supported well enough.
Problem is that people still wonders why there is no support of geforceXXX mentioned anywhere and as they have heard from the PC world "this is the best card".
Lots of people forget how they use their computer, how much time they spend using it on diffrent tasks. I know that 3D gaming doesn't take up more than 5% of my time at the computer so I have no problem to live without Nvidia.
What I need is good 2D quality aswell as beeing able to (once in a while) play a 3D game at decent framerates, Matrox would offer that to me.
One question: The Matrox cards seems to have lots of special features on the PC, how much of these will be supported (everything and a little bit more?) on the Amiga?
Regards
Troels Ersking
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 9 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Björn Hagström on 25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
When getting home after 8 or more hours of hard programming at work I use
my computer mostly for games. And I want performance when I do that :)
Even if I only played for 5% of the time I was actively using it I'd
want the performance when doing so.
But the choice is simple for me, I'll play games where I get the best
performance since I'll have both a top notch winamd PC and an AmigaOne.
And by performance I don't mean a 5% better image quality for the price of
getting 30fps instead of 60fps in resolutions like 1280*1024 32bit and above.
But anyway, the Amiga(One) won't get into mainstream desktop gaming area any
time soon. So the raw performance doesn't really matter at this stage. The
main bulk of todays hardcore gamers (Ie the people holding the most cash for
the games companies) aren't going to be interrested in the few (ported) games
this platform will get during the next few years to justify a switch from
todays mainstream desktop platform. A desktop platform that will be supported
by the leading games companies for years to come.
Even if the AmigaOne had the most absolute superior hardware on the market,
there still wouldn't be any shift in focus of the desktop gaming industry.
A head on fight with the WinPC world won't work, unless you have the budget
of microsoft ;) It's better to focus on getting things going and work the
way up than trying to be at the top from the beginning. There simply won't
be enough support in the industry at large to support the latter.
And remember that when (or if) the Amiga platform gets its pace up, NVidia
may not even be the 'king' anymore. And in the shadow of the demise of 3Dfx,
NVidia stepping down from the throne if a far smaller step than revolutionising
the market with a totally new platform.
/Björn
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 10 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 26-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Björn Hagström):
Just remember there are other Amiga users who use the Amiga for DTP,
graphics, programming, music, etc. and never play games.
For these, the main requirement is a sharp high quality image on a
large monitor - just what the Matrox cards are good at.
The performance issue that concerns me is how well it will work with
SCSI drives.
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 11 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Björn Hagström on 26-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Don Cox):
Yes absolutely, if you want to go outside the games discussion.
And as I said, the Amiga won't be a main player in the games
industry for some time to come. It's better to start by focusing
on other sides of the market. And start from a more overall good
value in performance than just high value perfomance for games.
Choices will come later anyway.
/Björn
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 12 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by victor # on 26-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Björn Hagström):
Just note that Amiga != specific HW anymore.. OK, the AOS4 'bonds' to the A1's (for some time, then A2, A3..?), but, I think - it would make sense that if - coming games will mostly run under the DE (also part of OS4.2), so going to run on any HW the DE runs on. (I hope the performance will permit it.)
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 13 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Björn Hagström on 27-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (victor #):
Yes I know. I guess I'll have to quote myself as usual,
"Choices will come later anyway."
/Björn
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 14 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Thomas on 28-May-2001 22:00 GMT
It's always amazing to see how many Amiga users reacts when new h/w specs are released. God damn! Today you use a machine older than your grandmother, and still you guys are complaining about the hardware of Amiga One..
Don't you hear how stupid "I don't want 20 different graphics cards" sounds?
I guess guys saysing things like that are better off using the old AGA-chipset.
/Thomas
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 15 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Brian Hoskins (Wales) on 28-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Elwood):
I dont know about u lot, but Amiga One has launched a whole new explosion of confusion for me. Is the Amiga One a COMPLETELY new machine, or is it still reliant on an A1200 board? Presently, the addition of a PPC board to a basic 1200 machine means that the OS runs on the 68series micro and highly involved work is then deligated to the ultra fast PPC board for processing, which as a result substantially improves the speed of your machine. However,as I understand it, the new OS4 is being completely ported to PPC where it will be used on the Amiga One, so does this mean we dont need our 68x anymore? If this is true, then perhaps we will see future developments direct towards dual processor technology, whereby we cud be running dual PPC processors in our machines! That would be a neat idea, offering significant performance levels in terms of processor speed, even in comparison to the PC which doesn't seem to have gained much support for Dual-pro (I think this is becoz Windows is incapable of running under it, and the 86x series of processors poses limitations on this idea). Anyway, if anyone can clear up a few confused issues I have on this topic, please feel free to reply to this comment and bring me up to speed. Cheers guys, keep the Amiga support going :o)
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 16 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by ehaines on 28-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (Brian Hoskins (Wales)):
> Is the Amiga One a COMPLETELY new machine,
Yes.
> or is it still reliant on an A1200 board?
Think of the A1200 as an optional expansion board, used to get more
compatibility with old stuff. Although I think OS4.0 will still need
the A1200 for a few things, but OS4.2 is supposed to be completely
hardware independent.
> Presently, the addition of
> a PPC board to a basic 1200 machine means that the OS runs on the
> 68series micro and highly involved work is then deligated to the
> ultra fast PPC board for processing, which as a result substantially
> improves the speed of your machine.
Except for those nasty context switches.
> However,as I understand it, the
> new OS4 is being completely ported to PPC where it will be used on
> the Amiga One, so does this mean we dont need our 68x anymore?
Yes. Finally....
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 17 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Brian Hoskins on 29-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (ehaines):
Ahhh, so the 1200 can be attached to the Amiga One board so that existing 68series applications can use it to access the A1200 boards hardware then? I see now. So really, you could buy a fully functional Amiga One system, and use it without the A1200 board at all!!! I suppose you could still run existing applications through emulation aswel eh?
OS4 is pretty much a stepping stone towards a complete PPC controlled OS then? That will be very nice. What are your views on a dual PPC solution? That would give massive speed advantages wouldn't it? I saw a picture of a prototype OS5 GUI earlier today, and I must say it's looking very tidy indeed. I only hope it is as efficient as our current OS, afterall an Operating System is a working environment (sum1 best tell microsoft that - I dont think they realise) and efficient operation of the OS is essential for good computer speed. Thanks for your reply, thats cleared up a few things for me.
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 18 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by ehaines on 29-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 17 (Brian Hoskins):
> Ahhh, so the 1200 can be attached to the Amiga One board so that
> existing 68series applications can use it to access the A1200 boards
> hardware then?
Yes, such as programs that insist on AGA or the Paula sound chip,
rather than using RTG or AHI.
> I see now. So really, you could buy a fully
> functional Amiga One system, and use it without the A1200 board at
> all!!! I suppose you could still run existing applications through
> emulation aswel eh?
Yep, much like Powermacs run old 68K Mac software. Any well-behaved
programs should run fine sans A1200. Will there be more emulation in
the future I wonder, such as AGA emulation or Paula emulation? I hope
so, otherwise I'll have to fool around with scandoublers and monitor
switchers...my PicassoIV has spoiled me in that regard.
> OS4 is pretty much a stepping stone towards a
> complete PPC controlled OS then? That will be very nice. What are
> your views on a dual PPC solution? That would give massive speed
> advantages wouldn't it?
Theoretically. AmigaOS as it is now can't use more then one CPU, but
AmigaDE does (apparently it automatically uses as many CPUs as it can
find, even if they are of different types). When the two are merged
(4.5?) then maybe we'll start seeing some multi-CPU systems.
> I saw a picture of a prototype OS5 GUI
> earlier today, and I must say it's looking very tidy indeed.
I'd ignore it; it's not from Amiga so it's meaningless. It'll be over
a year before we start seeing anything to do with OS5 at all.
> I only
> hope it is as efficient as our current OS, afterall an Operating
> System is a working environment (sum1 best tell microsoft that - I
> dont think they realise) and efficient operation of the OS is
> essential for good computer speed.
True; I'm pretty sure Amiga knows that....
> Thanks for your reply, thats cleared up a few things for me.
Good...I must say the whole situation is still a bit confusing. :)
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 19 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Brian Hoskins on 29-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (ehaines):
On the subject of confusion, there are various figures bouncing around at the moment concerning the price of the new Amiga One. I have heard figures of £300 AND £500 floating around, but when I checked this with Eyetech, I found that they havent released any official prices regarding the machine at all yet, so its all up in the air. Even if we assume it'll be around the lower of those two prices, we're still talking £300 JUST for a mother board!! I suppose a new Amiga was always going to be expensive, but I'm not so sure the current user base will be willing to fork out 300 hard earned quid for just a mother board, when similar money could buy you almost a complete high performance system over in PC land.
Also, you have the quite substantial problem of convincing those Amiga users who've already spent a small fortune mutating their 68 series A1200/4000 computers into modern(ish) high performance machines, that they now ought to ditch pretty much the whole lot, and start again with an Amiga One!! Anyway, I'm sitting tight for the moment, waiting to see prices and a proper spec list with package options, and then I'm going to make a decision. Since my A1200 has very few mods, I think I'll probably end up taking a gamble and starting fresh with an Amiga One (and connecting my A1200 to it). All the best, hope things work out for you, Brian Hoskins.
New AmigaOne motherboard pictures : Comment 20 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by ehaines on 31-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (Brian Hoskins):
> Even if we assume it'll be
> around the lower of those two prices, we're still talking £300 JUST
> for a mother board!! I suppose a new Amiga was always going to be
> expensive, but I'm not so sure the current user base will be willing
> to fork out 300 hard earned quid for just a mother board,
I'd pay $300 no problem, though £300 seems a little high. How many
people paid $700-$1200 just for a PPC card? <raises hand>
> when
> similar money could buy you almost a complete high performance
> system over in PC land.
More like la-la land. :) A real complete high performance
system is still well over £800. We're not talking about PC though....
> Also, you have the quite substantial
> problem of convincing those Amiga users who've already spent a small
> fortune mutating their 68 series A1200/4000 computers into
> modern(ish) high performance machines, that they now ought to ditch
> pretty much the whole lot, and start again with an Amiga One!!
I'm already convinced. :) What's with the "start again" idea anyway?
I get to keep everything except my PPC card and graphics card, no big
loss there, since they'll be replaced with better/faster/cheaper PPC
and graphics anyway.
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