AmigaOne 500 10th Anniversary

10 happy years with SAM460ex!

Welcome to my new Amiga blog update since 2021! This time celebrating the 10th anniversary with my AmigaOne 500 aka SAM460ex!

As probably already known, my SAM460ex was during Christmas 2021 updated with a new RadeonHD 7750 Verde PCIe graphic board, in order to use Warp3D NOVA and OpenGL ES from A-EON's Enhancer bundle that has now been updated to version 2.2, which was a FREE update over version 2.1. A very welcome update!

Wow, 10 years using the SAM460ex! It has never let me down at once, and has run pretty stable since 2012. We are now into 2022! Of course, my SAM460ex had many updates and has only improved since then. So yes, I'm very happy with it.

Unfortunately, the blog itself had to be written on a PC browser like Microsoft Edge, as modern Amiga browsers like Odyssey already are "outdated" to handle such blog sites. But it's believed that Odyssey on Amiga will be updated again to handle blog sites like this one, or AmigaOS4 gets a new browser, like Wayfarer on the MorphOS platform. Now that AmigaOS4 is getting better 3D support and general performance increase, everything is possible.

Enhancer 2.2 is the pathway to System 54 OS

Enhancer 2.2 available in Updater!

Enhancer 2.2 is the latest version of A-EON's own Workbench Enhancer, replacing just about every outdated components originally done by Hyperion Entertainment, and replaced with A-EON's own components, as well as adding a lot of new features that are a great welcome!

Version 2.2 is FREE for those with version 2.1. It might seem like a small update, but in reality it's a great improvement over version 2.1, but also adds something new. Allow me to explain.

Warp3D NOVA has now gone version 54 already, even before the release of A-EON's own System 54 OS replacement over AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition. Warp3D NOVA version 54 was originally meant for System 54 OS to form the basic version, but now has been chosen to be the basic version for Enhancer 2.2 instead.

In addition, the OpenGL ES wrapper has been updated to version 3.3. For the very first time, the Video Hardware Acceleration support has been ADDED for RadeonHD drivers as well, while getting a version update to 1.1. We expect to see the RadeonHD v5 drivers coming soon to buy, making full use of these features! For RadeonRX drivers running the Polaris chipset, the support for GART has been included for further optimized 3D features, which is very interesting and something we have never seen before on the Amiga platform!

My SAM460ex Enhancer 2.2 setup!

GART allows a 3D graphic processor known as GPU to have a direct access to VRAM. The video RAM on a graphic board. Such a feature would give full performance of the GPU and will have a huge impact on applications, OS and of course, games! This is going to be HOT!

With these great improvements to the 3D field on the Amiga, applications like ScummVM to use Warp3D NOVA and OpenGL ES with Shaders, including games port and new releases of 3D Amiga games, these give a strong sign that A-EON is taking 3D graphic and overall graphic features very seriously on the Amiga! It's of course nothing revolutionary or mainstreaming, but meaning that Amiga at least could be considered as a SERIOUS platform.

Lots of SCUMMS to play with

Just recently, ScummVM for AmigaOS4 has been updated to version 2.6.0 and released with massive improvements, more adventure games to play, and now brings something important! I will do my best to explain this.

Thanks to developers like Kas1e and Roman, ScummVM version 2.6.0 for AmigaOS4 is the FIRST version using the OpenGL ES wrapper with Shaders support! Normal 2D adventure games will look better and more colourful, as well as getting support for 3D adventure games like Grim Fandango, Escape from Monkey Island, Larry 7 Love For Sail, Alpha Polaris, FBI Art Of Murders, The Longest Journey and more. They are not properly supported yet, but these supports are coming, so don't worry! ;)

Rosemary - a 3D Wintermute adventure

I decided to try some of the new 3D adventure games to run in ScummVM. The first was the Wintermute based 3D Cartoon adventure called Rosemary. The game is similar in design to the Broken Sword series from Revolution Software.

As you can see from the screenshot to the left here, the game does work in ScummVM 2.6.0, but also leaves a message of not being fully supported yet, but this is coming. It doesn't make use of the Video Hardware Acceleration or any improvements from the latest OpenGL ES wrapper from Enhancer bundle. Performance is rather slow, but the game is working. The support will be better in next version of ScummVM.

Larry 7 Love For Sail works in ScummVM!

Larry 7 Love For Sail is another 3D Cartoon based adventure game I was happy to try on my SAM460ex under the AmigaOS4 version of ScummVM v2.6.0. This version works very well and I find it very funny to play! Larry Laffer is always looking for women in several wrong places all around the world, and he's always getting into trouble, no matter what he does! A must-have to play. You never get tired of Larry! I grew up with games like Leisure Suit Larry.

Other adventure games working very well are Laura Bow 2 - The Dagger Of Amon Ra and Police Quest 4 Open Season. These are normal 2D adventures, while Police Quest 4 looks more like a computer generated video game to control. Very exiciting to play, as with many!

Laura Bow 2 - The Dagger Of Amon Ra

If the first Laura Bow game didn't scare you enough, then I'm pretty sure Laura Bow 2 will be no exception. It has a Nancy Drew feel to the game, investigating a serie of mystical murders. Another great game worth playing in ScummVM!

Laura Bow is one of my favourites, as I really enjoy adventure games solving mystery and murders as well. 3D adventure games like these will be the MOST interesting to play in ScummVM, thanks to 3D support, so I'm really looking forward to proper support for these awesome 3D games I mentioned earlier here!

Police Quest 4 Open Season allows you to act and think very much like a real cop. You will meet situations where you have to use your police note book and always write down what happens in every situation. It's not like when we played as Sonny Bond from the 3 first Police Quest games. This time, you play as a different, experienced crime investigator. A mixture of Miami Vice and FBI stuffs, perhaps? I think so.

Police Quest 4 Open Season

As a kid, I used to dream about being a detective or a cop, so in games like Police Quest, you do get the chance of thinking and acting like a cop, solving different crime and murders. The more advanced these games are, more fun they are to play for hours! Who need XBox or Playstation when we can play those cool adventure games?

Most adventure games are FREEWARE and easy to download, while the bigger adventure games like Alpha Polaris, mostly have to be bought from sites like COG or Steam. I don't use either of these sites. My hope is to find some used, high advanced games supported by ScummVM to buy cheap, from Finn.no, for example, as I live in Norway. I will try my best.

Project Last Ninja 4 - Painting covers and making Amiga music

OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c in action!

These days, I am doing a lot of Amiga music for the fictional Amiga game - Last Ninja 4. My theory is that the last Ninja has moved in time to 6 levels of Phillipines, to learn about his past and what happened to his parents, as well as a very surprising reveal I don't want to spoil! The other 7 levels are based on Brisbane, if we are to follow my ideas for such a fictional sequel. That's why I am doing this Last Ninja 4 project, both with music and painting cool music level covers.

The program I use to record Amiga music, is of course the NSM patched version of OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c for the Amiga. The NSM patch makes the old music tracker 200.000 times more effective than in its original form, as the NSM patch has been written in Assembler, while the general features of the patch have been written in C. A huge improvement, indeed!

LN4 Lv5 The Airport Cover done in PPaint 

In order to use OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c with an AmigaOS4 system, I have to use the latest PPC native version of TheMaestrix AHI tool. This allows me to make my AmigaOS4 system think I'm using a Maestro Pro 16-bit soundcard, while my audio card is actually a 24-bit ESI@Juli XTe PCIe audio card with MIDI support! TheMaestrix tool is very useful and allows me to use the music program just fine! Already did 5 Amiga mods for the fictional Amiga game - Last Ninja 4. The Airport been the latest.

Judging by the painting, the Airport cover was drawn by myself with the PPC native version of Personal Paint 7.3c (shortly dubbed PPaint). I have really got used to the paint program and find it very easy to understand and use. Already painted 5 covers of the fictional LN4 game and I am about to start with the 6th level, called "The Plane Crash". Exciting, isn't it? It sure is!

Blobwars Attribution - The sequel

Blobwars Attribution for AmigaOS4!

Blobwars Attribution is a new sequel to the famous Linux platformer  Blobwars. The sequel has just recently made its way to AmigaOS4, ported to use the SDL2 graphic layer the game is based on. It was originally made for Linux and been ported to AmigaOS4, just like the first one.

The plot takes Blob 5 years after the defeat of Golwart or what the enemy was called. New amazing levels, more blood and nicer music, but without support for Warp3D NOVA or/with OpenGL ES wrapper with Shaders and Video Hardware Acceleration, the performance is a bit slow in 1920x1080 mode, at least when playing the game on a SAM460ex, like mine here.

Otherwise, the game is really good and cool. You must download the Linux based files of the game from the developers site, and pick up the AmigaOS4 version of the main game file from OS4Depot.net. The rest should be easy. It's great to see such games coming to AmigaOS4!

Well, this ends the blog for now on. I should probably tell that I also have an AmigaOne X5000/20 model waiting to be used, but before the end of August 2022, my X5000 is to get a memory upgrade to a total of 16GB of DDR3 RAM (8GB on both sockets), unbuffered 240-pins DDR3 DIMMS at either 1333Mhz or a total 1600Mhz. In addition, I will get an Emergency OS solution for my X5000, as my machine was custom made by a friend of mine, and wasn't provided with an Emergency OS solution. This is easy to pick up from Hyperion Entertainment site by logging into my account and download the file. So there's nothing to worry about.

Hopefully in my next Amiga blog, I will be writing about my AmigaOne X5000 instead ;) 

Thanks for reading the blog and enjoy your Amiga if you have one or are to get one, and remember this. AMIGA IS ALL ABOUT HAVING FUN! Nothing else matters!

Blog written by

Helge Kvalheim, Norway