AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition for classic

[DarrenHD]

is this beta available only to betatesters or are any classic users entitled to it ? I dont think I have it since benchmarking with 3D simply fails or dont launch at all (and I did all the updates until upd6 and then everything appearing in AmiUpdate).

how would I know whether this 3D driver is installed on my system ? no 3D game (quake, quake2) seems to benefit from it on my A1200PPC

As far as i remember it was released with AmigaOS 4.1 Classic, either out of the box, or via a subsequent update.

There should be a W3D_Permedia2 driver in sys:libs/warp3d/hwdrivers

Check for that. Then you could try CubeBM.lha from OS4depot, or download the Warp3D 4.2 package from Aminet and run the gears_ppc_window demo it should work.

Darren

[Lio]

Thanks for your answer (you are the only one in the dev team apparently taking care of my request (or at least giving me answers) which is disappointing from a user/customer POV)

Indeed I have W3D_permedia.library in Warp3D/HWdrivers and I also have Avenger, Napalm R200 and Radeon.

I tried CubeBM and the window closes immediately
strangely enough I launched snoopy and then cubeBM and suddenly the window appears (and stays) with the rotating cube.
after reboot, it is working right away, go figure !!!
so I got 2039 frames in 13.1 sec (329 fps/159 fps with swap)

gears_ppc is also working (with gltiches when pressing F to get the fps), the screen, window gave 30 fps vs 35 fps for window_small.

Quake 2.40 in 640x480 clut8 gave graphical glitches (jumping screen) and 6.4fps with timedemo demo1.dem
Quake2 in 640x480 with degraded sound (11025) gave a timerefresh of 6.1fps right a the start vs 5.6fps in software mode with the same resolution/settings !

ok so the good thing is that the 3D driver is indeed present and working but the bad thing is that 3D games do not benefit from it...

[DarrenHD]

Thanks for your answer (you are the only one in the dev team apparently taking care of my request (or at least giving me answers) which is disappointing from a user/customer POV)

Indeed I have W3D_permedia.library in Warp3D/HWdrivers and I also have Avenger, Napalm R200 and Radeon.

I tried CubeBM and the window closes immediately
strangely enough I launched snoopy and then cubeBM and suddenly the window appears (and stays) with the rotating cube.
after reboot, it is working right away, go figure !!!
so I got 2039 frames in 13.1 sec (329 fps/159 fps with swap)

gears_ppc is also working (with gltiches when pressing F to get the fps), the screen, window gave 30 fps vs 35 fps for window_small.

Quake 2.40 in 640x480 clut8 gave graphical glitches (jumping screen) and 6.4fps with timedemo demo1.dem
Quake2 in 640x480 with degraded sound (11025) gave a timerefresh of 6.1fps right a the start vs 5.6fps in software mode with the same resolution/settings !

ok so the good thing is that the 3D driver is indeed present and working but the bad thing is that 3D games do not benefit from it...

I have attached the release notes for you - there are some variables you can set that may help. Also note that the permedia2 only has 8MB memory, so if you start some 3D game, try to have as much video memory free first, that will help.

Darren

Permedia 2 Warp 3D Driver (BETA) release notes, March 2011.

The following is information on the Permedia 2 Warp 3D Driver included with AmigaOS 4.1 Classic. The current driver is in beta. Please use at your own risk.
It supports the BlizzardVision PPC and CyberVision PPC graphics cards. PCI based Permedia 2 cards may work but have not been tested.

Installation:

The AmigaOS 4.1 Classic Installation will ask you if you wish to install the Beta driver if you have a CyberVision PPC or BlizzardVision PPC graphics card. It will copy:

W3D_Picasso96.library to Libs/Warp3D/GFXDrivers/

W3D_Permedia2.library to Libs/Warp3D/HWDrivers/

What is currently implemented:

Warp3D V1-V3 functions:

Drawing:
* W3D_DrawPoint
* W3D_DrawLine
* W3D_DrawLineStrip
* W3D_DrawLineLoop
* W3D_DrawTriangle
* W3D_DrawTriFan
* W3D_DrawTriStrip
* W3D_DrawTriangleV
* W3D_DrawTriFanV
* W3D_DrawTriStripV

Z-Buffer:
* All comparison modes
* Read/Write & Read only mode
* W3D_ReadZPixel
* W3D_ReadZSpan
* W3D_WriteZPixel
* W3D_WriteZSpan

Shading:
* Flat
* Gouraud

Blending:
* Alpha blending
* Additive blending (partial support)

Textures:
* A1R5G5B5, R5G6B5, A4R4G4B4, A8R8G8B8 supported in hardware for RGB framebuffers
* All other formats supported with software conversion
* W3D_LINEAR

Other:
* Logic Ops (all modes)
* Chroma testing
* Alpha testing
* Scissoring
* Backface culling
* Dithering

Warp3D V4 functions:

W3D_DrawArray / W3D_DrawElements
* W3D_PRIMITIVE_POINTS
* W3D_PRIMITIVE_LINES
* W3D_PRIMITIVE_LINESTRIP
* W3D_PRIMITIVE_LINELOOP
* W3D_PRIMITIVE_TRIANGLES
* W3D_PRIMITIVE_TRIFAN
* W3D_PRIMITIVE_TRISTRIP

W3D_DrawElements
* W3D_INDEX_UBYTE (for all primitives)
* W3D_INDEX_UWORD (for all primitives)
* W3D_INDEX_ULONG (for all primitives)

Warp3D V5 functions:

W3D_InterleavedArray
W3D_FogCoordinatePointer
W3D_ClearBuffers

What is not included:

* Multitexturing: The hardware does not implement it at any level. This is one of the problems with the current MiniGL which does tend to assume all supported hardware is capable.

* MIP Mapping: Again, not supported in hardware.

* Stencil buffer: The permedia does actually have a stencil buffer, but it is only 1-bit deep and cannot be independently allocated as it is the MSB of the Z-buffer.

* Blending: The permedia only supports basic alpha blending for textured primitives. Alpha values are not interpolated across vertices so support for untextured transparent primitives is limited at best. Additive blending is partially emulated for those titles that are aware of the feature (eg Heretic2).

Special features of the driver:

The driver supports separate "profiles" for different applications. This was added to get around the fact that several old titles require the driver to work in different ways in order to render properly that could not be reconciled.

The driver supports the following global environment vars:

ENV:Warp3D/Permedia2/Dither
When set to "on", this forces all output to be dithered on 15/16-bit framebuffers. Otherwise, the application chooses with W3D_SetState().

ENV:Warp3D/Permedia2/Fog
When set to "linear", an approximation of linear fogging is allowed (actually just uses interpolated as the nearest supported best-fit) and all other fog types are rejected as unsupported. When set to "all", interpolated fogging is used no matter what type is asked for but no error is returned.

ENV:Warp3D/Permedia2/DisableAdditiveBlending
When set to "on", the emulated additive blending (that was introduced the V4) is disabled. This fixes issues with Wipeout2097's exhaust trails but makes Heretic2, Quake3 etc. look awful.

In order to address the problem above, you can create environment variables that are executable specific, which if present, will override any global setting for that executable. To do this, you simply create a subdirectory for the executable. For instance, setting...

ENV:Warp3D/Permedia2/wipeout_demo/DisableAdditiveBlending

... to "on", but leaving it out of the global settings, allows the wipeout_demo to turn off the additive blending support which forces the game to fall back onto the original behaviour where it uses an alpha blended exhaust trail effect.

Known issues of the driver:

There can be unusual graphical corruption during and after an application uses the driver. It isn't clear at this time what the problem is, but it is in the to-do list to figure out.

Wipeout2097 has an irritatingly persistent issue that causes certain polygons to render untextured.

Quake3 must be played in "vertex lighting" mode, if you have the RAM to play it at all, that is. Quake 3 requires >150MB physical ram so it may not work on a A3/4000 system. This is one of the titles that appears to have been adversely affected by the first issue listed above. Aside from that, various fogged areas render white (this occurs where a volumetric fog has a very transparent texture over the surface to add some impression of movement). Also, when loading, the level preview is not visible, only a basic grey noise texture. Both of these issues are the result of the engine not being able to properly cope with hardware that cannot do multiplicative colour blending (you can reproduce both on the PC version with the same card).

[Lio]

Thanks for your reply, I tried to play with the 3 var you listed but it did not help and the bug in Quake1 is still there

my WB is degraded by default using "zorro/aga gui settings" so the avail video ram is close to 5Mo. I do that because otherwise the reactivity (of amidock for instance) is much worse !

so I guess this AOS4.1 version for classic is totally useless for gaming if you dont have a mediator+voodoo

well at least I put my money where the mouth is and supported the cause, besides being an earlybird amigaone owner.

BTW I put a comment on your site regarding the HW compatibility list : I confirmed that the CW MK2 is working !

[DarrenHD]

Thanks for your reply, I tried to play with the 3 var you listed but it did not help and the bug in Quake1 is still there

my WB is degraded by default using "zorro/aga gui settings" so the avail video ram is close to 5Mo. I do that because otherwise the reactivity (of amidock for instance) is much worse !

so I guess this AOS4.1 version for classic is totally useless for gaming if you dont have a mediator+voodoo

well at least I put my money where the mouth is and supported the cause, besides being an earlybird amigaone owner.

BTW I put a comment on your site regarding the HW compatibility list : I confirmed that the CW MK2 is working !

thanks.

BTW if you tell me what quake, quake2 you are using I can give it a try, I would try it on OS 3.9 first then OS 4.1 Classic. I don't have a bVision but just a CVision....but they should be the same.

Darren

[Lio]

easy : Quake 2 is the one from Hyperion with the installer for AOS4.1 in the download area of Hyperion Intertainement

Quake 1 is the one from clickboom and the exe 2.40 from OS4depot http://os4depot.net/index.php?function= ... /quake.lha

good luck and happy trying !

[Rotzloeffel]

I hope I can install OS4.1 classic from CD out of the box on an Amiga 3000! There was a Type mismatch in the kicklayout for A3000.. is this fixed in the final Version?

[DarrenHD]

I hope I can install OS4.1 classic from CD out of the box on an Amiga 3000! There was a Type mismatch in the kicklayout for A3000.. is this fixed in the final Version?

What was the error? I haven't heard of this before.

[Rotzloeffel]

What was the error? I haven't heard of this before.

There is a wrong path in the Kicklayout-a3000 and the system stops.... As far as I remember by loading pfs-Filessystem! I will have a look this evening...
But definetely the system is unable to load an additional Filesystem

There is a missing letter in this line..... in the the kicklayout so you have to copy the CD on to a HD-Paritition, rename it (CD Name) then you can edit the incorrect line and boot from there and install it...

here is the Bug:

Code: Select all

; More filesystems and related modules
;
MODULE Kickstart/diskcache.library.kmod
MODULE Kickstart/SmartFileSystem
MODULE Kickstat/JXFileSystem
;
; Motherboard hardware modules

.../kickstat/

instead of

.../kickstart/JXFilesystem

but this is NOT what I expected for my 125 Euros I paid for

[DarrenHD]

What was the error? I haven't heard of this before.

There is a wrong path in the Kicklayout-a3000 and the system stops.... As far as I remember by loading pfs-Filessystem! I will have a look this evening...
But definetely the system is unable to load an additional Filesystem

There is a missing letter in this line..... in the the kicklayout so you have to copy the CD on to a HD-Paritition, rename it (CD Name) then you can edit the incorrect line and boot from there and install it...

here is the Bug:

Code: Select all

; More filesystems and related modules
;
MODULE Kickstart/diskcache.library.kmod
MODULE Kickstart/SmartFileSystem
MODULE Kickstat/JXFileSystem
;
; Motherboard hardware modules

.../kickstat/

instead of

.../kickstart/JXFilesystem

but this is NOT what I expected for my 125 Euros I paid for

Ok confirmed. Issue is fixed but it's too late for Final Edition. However, we will likely post a work-around for you on these forums. eg. a new BootFloppy so you can install Ok on your A3000. So check back here soon. Sorry, if I had known about this sooner it would have been fixed sooner. If you reported this earlier and it didn't get back to me I apologize for that.