I am pleased to announce that compositing for R5xx based cards (Radeon X1000 series) is now done. This marks a major milestone in the development of the RadeonHD.chip driver. Namely, full 2D graphics acceleration is implemented for an entire series of graphics cards. The screenshot below shows  Workbench with compositing effects enabled being displayed by a Radeon X1550 graphics card. As you can see, the errors that were present in the previous screenshot are now gone (the development log entry containing the previous screenshot is included in the image below for comparison).

It has been a while since I posted an update about this RadeonHD driver for Amiga OS 4.x project. At present I am still working on implementing compositing for R5xx chipsets (Radeon X1000 series cards) but, there is progress. The screenshot shown below (and the thumbnail image to the left) was captured from a Radeon X1550 PCI card when running Amiga OS 4.1 with compositing enabled. As you can see, basic compositing is operational.

This morning ACube Systems released UBoot updates for their SAM 440ep and SAM 440-flex motherboards. These updates include fixes that allow Radeon X1000 series and higher (e.g., Radeon HD 2400) cards to work with the SAM 440ep. Previously, the SAM 440ep's UBoot failed to detect the card properly, meaning that SAM 440ep owners could not use the RadeonHD graphics card driver for Amiga OS 4.x that I am developing.

A few days ago it was announced at Pianeta Amiga 2009 in Empoli, Italy, that Amiga OS 4.x will soon support obtaining monitor resolutions automatically via the Display Data Channel (DDC) (see this report on the show). Now that this has been made public, I can announce that the RadeonHD.chip driver has DDC support too. In fact, it has been supported since February of this year.

I had hoped that AMD would hold off with producing a new generation graphics card but, a few days ago, they released two new cards, the Radeon HD 5850 and 5870. This is based on the next generation RV880 chipset. The Radeon HD 4000 series was based on R7xx chipsets. The 5800 series of cards pushes graphics performance and computational possibilites yet another step forward. AMD have listed OpenCL support as coming in 2010 (for platforms that they write drivers for themselves), which is good news for people like me who do non-3D computationally intensive work.

After days of persistent effort, the VGA output on Radeon HD 4350 that eXec magazine donated to me is finally working on Amiga OS 4.x. This is the first time that a current generation graphics card is working on Amiga OS 4.x. Granted, there is no hardware acceleration yet, but the start is there. The problem was small, but very hard to find. To give people an idea of how frustrating driver development can be, here is the whole saga.

I would like to thank everyone who have donated generously to the RadeonHD driver for Amiga OS 4.x project over the last few weeks. All donations small and large were most appreciated, and shows the level of interest in this project. Some people even donated over $100 NZ ($50). Rest assured that I will work hard (time permitting) toward developing a releasable driver. A special thank you to the eXec magazine in Poland for their donation of a Radeon HD 4350 PCI card, and for their campaign to support this project.

The driver has progressed to the stage at which it is ready for testing by a wider group of users. Amiga OS 4.x beta testers have already had access to an early beta. However, very few people have RadeonHD graphics cards, and more testers are needed. To that end, I am accepting applications to beta test the RadeonHD.chip driver.

The poll that was run asking for input as to what should be developed next has now been closed. 151 votes were cast, of which 85 (56%) were for R5xx compositing and 66 (44%) were for R6xx blitter hardware acceleration. Given these results, R5xx compositing will be developed next.

This is just a quick post to the RadeonHD development log in order to point people to the poll regarding what should be developed next. Basically the choice is between finishing off 2D support for R5xx based cards (i.e., Radeon X1000 series) in the form of hardware compositing, or starting on 2D blitter support for R6xx based cards (i.e., Radeon HD 2000 and 3000 series). This is your chance to have a direct input on what happens next. Please note that R5xx chipset compositing will be completed eventually regardless of which option is chosen; the results of the poll will change what order things are implemented.