> Food for thought: ATI goes out of business. [...] Aint like this hasn't
> happened to us before.

Actually, this happened to ATI 8.5 years ago :-)

Quote:
In my opinion, it's not as bad as what you already told them before, "No, any of your existing X86 systems won't work, you need a supported PowerPC system!"

Quote:
...and that would be the only "valid" target. For every other nvidia-ppc-mac, you can simply upgrade to an already supported ATI gfx card.

And yes, I know it's not that easy for you to flash the gfx card, so find someone who can do that for you. As simple as that.

And as was already corrected several times, nouveau is not a nvidia project, but reverse-engineered community project.

There, however, is some next-to-useless official open source "2D-only" driver, no idea what cards it supports etc. and afaik, it's partly obfuscated too.

+1 to priorize improving support for CURRENTLY supported models before wasting time and effort on anything like this.

Quote:
The same could happen for nvidia too.

More food for thought:
all of our current hardware base went out of business years ago. I wouldn't really worry about something like gfx card - most compatible macs have "MorphOS compatible" one, and the rest can use re-flashed "normal" versions (excluding those who got "wrong" PowerBook model for free)

I was thinking of the future also.
Do we just wait for one of the two video companies to go bust and then do something?
If your going to go ARM have you looked to see if their using ATI or mostly nvidia?

i don't understand why people are so insanely eager to have ARM support?
are we all gonna run MorphOS on our phones now?
support for more powerful hw should be top priority?
btw, isent ATI owned by AMD now ? ;P

X

Quote:

Neither.

The two biggest licensors of GPU cores for the ARM architecture are ARM Ltd. (Mali series of GPUs) and Imagination Technologies (PowerVR series of GPUs). Most ARM-based consumer electronics products use GPU cores from either of the two companies.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that discrete graphics chips represent only a relatively tiny subset of the total market for GPUs nowadays. Thanks to its CPUs featuring integrated GPUs, Intel outsells both AMD and nVidia by a very, very large margin (with close to 70% market share).

Put differently, the most commonly used GPUs today are neither provided by AMD nor nVidia (in silicon or via license). So, it is certainly questionable whether adding support for nVidia GPUs would necessarily help to "future-proof" any particular OS.

> If your going to go ARM have you looked to see if their using ATI or mostly nvidia?

As I told you in my previous posting, ATI is long gone. AMD GPUs may be used in AMD's future ARM SoCs. Nvidia GPUs are used in Nvidia's current ARM SoCs (Tegra). GPUs used in all other ARM SoCs are ARM Mali, ImgTec PowerVR, Vivante GC, Qualcomm Adreno or Broadcom VideoCore.

http://stats.unity3d.com/mobile/gpu.html

Quote:

Supporting some potentially obscure GPU now because it might still be in use on some ARM devices if MorphOS gets ported to ARM in the distant future, regardless if it's usable at all with current MorphOS systems (as on many ARM systems, it's built-in).

Now that is the best reasoning this far

Also, regardless of whether or not "ATI goes bust" (like they already did, kind of, part of AMD nowadays), the best (performance & support) models haven't been manufactured in a looong time...

I guess the same goes for whatever nvidia's are found in PPC macs (but since the only "non-upgradeable" is in specific PowerBook model, you won't have to worry about that either, if it breaks, you cannot do anything about that really)

[ Edited by Jupp3 24.01.2015 - 16:25 ]

> Supporting some potentially obscure GPU now [...], regardless if it's usable
> at all with current MorphOS systems

As far as I understand the Nvidia advocates in this thread, they are talking about GPUs that would be usable with current MorphOS systems.

> the only "non-upgradeable" is in specific PowerBook model

It's the 12" models of all PowerBook G4 Aluminium generations (and the 17" model of the oldest generation). And all iMac G4 and some iMac G5 have Nvidia GPU as well.

@WilleyCoyote
... add PCIe G5-PMac to that list (if they ever get supported) as Radeons aren't that common in those.

Quote:
Yes, but PowerBooks are only systems, where you can't (relatively) simply swap the gfx card to the supported one.

I know it's technically many "models", but 12" is the common nominator. If you get one for free, you're fucked. If you bought one, you failed to do any research in advance. And in that case, you probably got an X86 system instead

> add PCIe G5-PMac to that list

No, as they are not "non-upgradeable", which is what the "list" is about.

> PowerBooks are only systems, where you can't (relatively) simply swap the gfx card
> to the supported one.

No, you can't swap the iMac GPU either.

> 12" is the common nominator.

Except the 17" one.

Quote:
I stand corrected.

Quote:

afaik, if you specifically want a 17" model, you can get it with (or without) Radeon. If you want a compatible 12" PowerBook, tough luck.

Quote:

Too much work for such a limited gain.
Especially with iBooks in that size range.

Personally, I'd rather see the focus on PCI-e capable systems and bios emulation.
Then we could use more advanced Radeons.

@ Jim

that's it. we will need PCIe support for future hardware anyway. No mater if PPC, x86, x64, ARM ... And we can use it in G5 already if there comes support. Then you can build in Radeons that are 10x faster than then old AGP and PCI cards without a whole new driver architecture for Nvidias. See how much it improved in OS4 with PCIe Radeons. It is a shame that they are so much better reagarding GPU support than we are.

Quote:

8-D

Quote:

Most personal computers sold today do not include discrete graphic chips but feature GPU cores that are integrated with the CPU as part of a System-on-Chip package.

This trend is not expected to be reversed. Quite the opposite.

Game consoles are affected by this as well. Sony´s PS4 and Microsoft´s XBox One use System-on-Chip designs that AMD calls "APUs", which combine x64 CPU and Radeon GPU cores in a single chip package.

> Sony´s PS4 and Microsoft´s XBox One use System-on-Chip designs that [...] combine
> x64 CPU and Radeon GPU cores in a single chip package.

Just to add that this was already the case with later models of the PPC-based XBox 360.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=321

Quote:

Personally, as my two last build used Intel cpus (which frankly don't have the greatest built in gpus), I've still added graphics cards.

But if we ever did move to X86, AMD's Socs would do nicely.

Right now, our potential choices amongst PPC Socs would still require a discrete graphics card.

And ARM processors feature a variety of different built in gpus (all of which are poorly documented).

So, at this point, continuing to focus on Radeon support makes sense.

Quote:
It's not only the Intel GPU's, it's also their drivers.

I find it funny how the most closed (nvidia) linux drivers are the best and the most open (intel) are the absolutely worst...

Many years back they were just horrible, either crashing the whole system randomly, just drawing something completely wrong or something in-between. I guess they must have improved a bit, but still a long way to the top...

Quote:

I am not so happy about it.

Quote:

The point is not about what is included from the start but what can be included or changed by the user very easy to define a common hardware base. It is so much easier for the team to focus on one modern generation that will be available for many years, let's say to offer support for Radeon R7 on PCIe than to change it all the time because of changing motherboards with other integrated graphics.

Quote:

Could you please name a single GFX card that fills the following criteria:

-Is supported at least "somehow" on OS4 (counting 2D-only drivers that lack even overlay support)

And neither of the following are true:

-Is supported better by MorphOS

or:

-On a hardware platform currently supported by MorphOS, the gfx card can be simply swapped to another (potentially "worse") one (with or without reflash), that will work better than the "better" card currently does on OS4.

Quote:

I was just laughing, see Jupp's post.