RadeonHD V.5 driver

@MichaelMerkel

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For several years now, this website has been quite vocal telling AmigaKit that their product policy is a mess, but they just won't listen

@trixie

All about development cost recovery ? .

A bigger market may have allowed the new Radeon HD V5.x
development costs to be recovered from new sales of Enhancer 2.2 if it had been included as part of the package.
But not likely with the current AmigaOS 4.1 market and RadeonHD user base .

The new high development cost component released as a single item is probably the only thing that makes financial sense currently .

@Spectre660

funded by peaple buying the wrong things, and then having to buy something else.

@LiveForIt

Good thing we beta testers are not griping for recovery of the funds for all the various graphics cards we have purchased over the years to use for beta testing . imagine . funds out of our own pockets. .

But sometimes good stuff come out of our un recovered expenditure . Not only along the AmigaOS 4.1 front.

The dual card Multi boot X5000 configurations.
First AmigaOS 4.1 and Linux and now working with AmigaOS 4.1 and Morphos due to the MOrphOS devs for example.

How about the multiple Emotion licenses so I could test the VA acceleration on multiple Amigas and make sure that the Emotion devs got their just dues for their great work .

@LiveForIt

I notice that many people do not do thorough research prior
to the fact. many questions are posted after the fact .

Hardware accelerated video decoding for Radeon RX graphics cards is not possible without drivers that are only sold as part of the Enhancer 2.x . This gives fully accelerated video playback up to 4k.

Hardware accelerated video decoding for Radeon SI graphics cards
is only possible with the the Radeon HD v5.x driver sold as a separate product plus the VA driver available as part of the Enhancer 2.2 (Which is a free upgrade for Enhancer 2.0 or Enhancer 2.1 owners ). This currently gives fully accelerated video playback up to 720p . 1080p was the max target but it does not seem to be working up to now .

From a users view...

Put RadeonHD, RadeonRX, VA and W3DNova in one RTG package. This makes more sense than the current solution. Currently its a mess for users.

But on the other side this might would mean nobody will buy this Enhancer thingy anymore. There are a lot of people who just bought it to get the needed libraries and don't use the rest anyway.

RadeonHD.chip is a game changer for 720p playback in SAM and X1000.
Hacking an RX card into an X1000 is an option, but the loss of CFE and easy switching of boot drive/media is a major pain.
I would encourage any purchaser of ESP2.x who uses an SI GPU to get the RadeonHD.Chip v5 driver.

@DJBase

I am sure that it would be possible .

You could state the most that you would be willing to pay
for such a bundle and see what happens.

A-Eon may just need to put on their pricing
thinking cap to do it .

Not sure if every one would be happy with final prices of such
bundles though .

Hope we don't end up with an exclusive Radeon HD5.x/Novabridge package option.

@Spectre660

I won't be surprised if this will happen in any form.

@DJBase

One can always make a case.
But please remember to make it politely and respectfully .

@MichaelMerkel

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The latest RadeonRX.chip is v2. Being a newer driver, it doesn't have as many versions as the older RadeonHD.

Hans

I ordered new RadeonHD V5. Somebody have to pay it.
If it will be free of charge, there will be no modern drivers.
Thank you Hans.

Yes, we can discuss if price of development of this driver have to be included with other packages, or sell it alone, or have have several different packages...
I know, it is not common among other OSes, but is clear, that developers have to be payed somehow.
For me new HD driver for Southern Island is very good thing. And I like if it will works also with Sam440ep-flex - because this old AmigaNG is really good with SouthernIsland card.

And regarding the cost - it is not small price, but on the other way I have my basement full of PSUs, graphics cards, RAMs, disks, cables, reductions, measuring tools and all other computer and network stuff... ( Rest of the space in cabinets is filled by my dress and shoes )
If I calculated price all of this... Terrible!

There is only one way how to have cheap drivers - larger AmigaNG user base. And everyone can help here...

@MichaelMerkel

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"official compatibility list" is a link. Click it and it takes you to Hans' web site. The list there is kind of dated though, and isn't specific to the V5 driver.

@sailor

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No one is disputing, or has ever disputed, that things have to be paid for and that developers need to get their due. It goes without saying.

The problem is that users are apparently confused about what to buy and what they get for their money. Threads like this one pop up several times a year asking about features, requirements, discounts and upgrade paths. AmigaKit has a website, a wiki and a blog; so how come the driver developer himself needs to step in to explain things? This is all very wrong.

@hans

The naming is all very confusing. But can it be stated that the RaedonHD.chip is for Southern Island cards and the ReadonRX.chio for Polaris cards?

@MigthyMax

Yes that is correct.
Worth also noting that the RadeonRX.chip and RadeonHD.chip 3.7 driver is INCLUDED as part of ESP2.2 This is because ESP needs those drivers for components in ESP to function.

RadeonHD.chip 5.xx was an additional development cost incurred by AEON in an attempt to broaden Video Acceleration/GART support for their non X5000 class HW.

@Trixie

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He does not "step in": he is not an external disparate external developer. Hans is a long standing, core member of the same team that I am a part of: Amiga Developer Team. We are all representing the team we work hard for. The Enhancer Software is a project borne exclusively from this one team.


@DJBase
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What about Sensors API, Power Management, Power Prefs, Gadgets for the GUI etc? These are all needed to support the 2D/3D Graphics Sub System that is at the core of the Enhancer Software. Basically thats 85% of the Enhancer Software there.


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Well that maybe your point of view but it is not the consensus of opinion. The other 15% of the Enhancer Software comprises of very useful utilities which majority of users appreciate:

- Archiver
- MultiViewer
- MultiEdit
- X-Dock

Maybe you should give them a try and assess their worth?

One final thing... every time you see a Workbench screenshot posted on a forum by users, take a close look. I would be very suprised if you did not see X-Dock, Clock and Calendar running on their system from the Enhancer Software. If these utilities had no merit in the package and people exclusively bought it for the graphics sub system files, then they would not run remaining 15% of content included in the Enhancer Software.

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I double that. Being able to play video at a good speed on your X1000 is great. And that was something we were asking for a long time before. And thanks to A-Eon and Hans this became a reality and it is currently available.


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I triple on that. I will buy the package, as soon as it becomes available as a download, although I am not going to use it at all.

But the discussion here is not a matter of if we will buy it. I think we all agree here that we want to support developers as much as we can and we speak with our pockets. The discussion is about the whole mess with all these packages A-Eon keeps on bringing without explaining what is needed and when.

And as I wrote elsewhere, wait because NovaBridge is coming. How is this going to be sold? It was announced a year ago that it is ready. What are their plans? My assumption is that it will come with V54 only, which was also announced last year. So people who want it will need to buy V54, whenever this is going to be completed and released. Is their plan to release V54 in 2022/2023/2024/2025? No one knows. So, if this takes a long time and AmigaKit runs out of money, I assume we will see NovaBridge coming into a separate package on its own.

@msteed
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On that, I am afraid I will disagree with you. "Official" means information that comes from the vendor that markets the product, not from the developer of it. Hans'es website is very good and it might be more accurate, but Enhancer and the Radeon drivers are bought from A-Eon and AmigaKit. They have to have accurate and full description of what they deliver and what Gfx cards are supported. You and I bought the product from A-Eon, not from Hans. If Hans sells the Radeon drivers, I would expect him to provide the necessary information.

Unfortunately, A-Eon and AmigaKit don't put a lot of effort into providing the necessary information in one place for everyone to find, clear and easy. They scatter little bits here and there (A-Eon website, wiki, AmigaKit website, product website, AmiStore, Trevor's blog, AmigaFuture, AmigaWorld.net announcements, events presentations etc.) and many times there is a lack of information or wrong information, or inaccurate announcements, bringing confusion to the community on what they need to buy, where and how. In my eyes, this looks like a mess and is not well orchestrated.

Now, why is this happening? Either because they do not have enough time or because they do not see any benefit in doing so? Excuses can be found easily, but the end result is that any new user has to pay thousands of money in hardware and software and spend months reading in forums and communicating with people just to have his machine running well, as it should be.

@amigakit

No, I don't need these ones, sorry.

Oh, hold on, I use AmiDVD as the original one doesn't work anymore. And Updater with its dependencies of course. Without I am unable to get updates. That's it. No calendar, no clock, no XDock, no Sensors API, no Power Management, no Power Prefs or whatever.

@amigakit
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No problem. Let me help you.

- Sensors API include it as well
- Power Management include it as well
- Power Prefs include it as well
- Gadgets for the GUI, those are free available, right? So include them as well

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So, as I see it, the RadeonHD V5 should not be apart from Enhancer v2, because it needs all these components to work. The only reason I see that this became a separate package is to charge it differently.

So, let's pause for a moment and think about it.

What would happen if you would say, here is Enhancer Package v3 that you need to buy it again for 90 money. Those who have already the Enhancer v2 will have 30% discount. A generous discount, do we agree? How much would they need to pay? 63 money, which let me help you, is a little more than what the RadeonHD v5 costs, but still close.

What would you need to do to persuade people to buy it? Just create a blog post on your official blog explaining why there was a need to buy that again, what are the benefits and what people pay. Simple? I hope so.

This way no extra packages would be needed, no extra product codes at your store, no nothing. But the confusion would be a step lower, heading in the right direction, and in my opinion, no one would complain.