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Quite a lot of PPC only software exists for PPC accelerated classic Amigas, such as Productivity software, Utilities, Demos and some games, but what software is currently available or in development exclusively for Amiga OS4?
If you know the details of some then please post the details and any links here. :thumbs:
Recently i've started to see how usefull OS4 is by trying software thats out there that can be used instead of using a PC. So as one of the most commonly used programmes used after web browser is wordprocessing i thought i'd try one for OS4. As there are no commercial software out there it had to be shareware so i DL'd Abiword which also includes a web browser. then i DL'd the update to Abiword. Then i had to download x11 as Abiword needs this to work. Then i DL'd the x11 update. Thats about 200 MB worth of downloads which considering the size of classic wordprocessing software is a lot. So i run Abiword only to find that x11 and cygnix are another OS which loads before abiword (I didn't know this as i'm not very knowledgable about all the seperate OS's there are out there) only to find that whilst x11 loads and works abiword doesn't and just causes a crash. Now even if Abiword did work then this is the most convoluted way i've ever known for getting one piece of software to work. Imagine if to get Word to work from windows it started Unix. I know that the easiest way to get software to run on different systems is just to port but to port the OS as well just for one piece of software??? It'd be quicker just to go through the code and rewrite it for the OS the machine you want it to run on uses.
I'm dreading testing other pieces of software for OS4 now.
That does sound very mad. As you say, why launch another complete OS just to run a single word processing application. Surely there is a decent native OS4 word processor by now? Or has OS4 popularity ended up being so enthusiast only that software development for the "new" OS has become completely reliant on back room coders.
There is also Cinnamon Writer which describes itself as a WYSIWIG editor so whilst not a WP it has some similarity but to be honest most software is enthusiasts and back room coders. TBH i think the enthusiasm for OS4 died even before classic came out. In fact the only commercial software that is not games that i can find for OS4 is Hollywood3.1 and Hollywood Designer which are out for OS3, WarpOS and MorphOS as well.
It is such a shame, but it was to be expected. When OS4 was first announced there was a huge buzz in the community and the still interested commercial developers at the time, and nearly as much when the first Amiga One's and the beta of OS4 were released. But the length of time between then and now has been so long that the user base has dropped significantly and we have ended up with OS4 being a dated enthusiast only OS for existing fans of the original Amiga. Sad to see, but times, technology and users move on.
If you want an AmigaONE theres this brand new one on ebay thats pick up only but still, it looks nice. (Yes i have no taste.)
Looks nice. I wonder what the actual reserved price is? :hmmm:
Regarding the case. I have one that is the same make, but a slightly different model, that I use for one of my PCs. It has the same front buttons and drive covers, and for an inexpensive case it is well made and easy to get into and work with.
There is some freeware/sharware stuff that is OS4 only.
Pointrider a powerpoint viewer (Not available under OS3xxx.)
Mplayer a video player that can show flv as well as the usual codecs
DVPlayer does the above minus flv.
Nothing available for OS3xxx can play flv as well as a lot of the wmv types.
OWB The only Amiga browser capable of correctly displaying CSS.
There are other bits of software that are OS4 only but have an alternative under OS3xxx.
There are a few games that are OS4 only as well.
I had no problems running AbiWord although it's slow on my system.
Will have a look what else I have been using when I get the chance, but will have to get my miggy fixed first.
I know there is plenty of freeware/shareware out there for os4 but what i was saying is there is very little commercial software out there for os4 and how shoddy some of the free stuff is like abiword.
@OS4 users
When you get time could you both add the software you are listing in the software directory? And as you have working copies of OS4 it would made screenshots possible too. ;)
Will have to be careful taking screen shots of the video players.
Don't think I have anything to display that is erm SFW;).
I forgot about Digital Universe the followup to Digital Almanac. I've downloaded and tested the demo and although the recommended spec is G4 800 it works much fater than DA ever did on mine and it looks good. Limited audience though.
Joerg Strohmayer has come up with an excellent piece of software. WarpOSEmu. It allows OS4 users to use most WarpOS software not by emulating but by creating a new powerpc.library that is optimised for PPC systems. I've tested it and Simon the Sorcerer II runs how it should and once i've got a few kinks worked out the so should Payback and then i'll try The Feeble Files.
@Harrison
I've done some screenshots but as i can only use Sgrab then some of the OS4 stuff is difficult to get grabs of. I'll upload them to the ftp.
Now fixed my Miggy.
Will get on it.
Great. I look forward to the screenshots. :)
I've uploaded some screen shots of Reminisence (Flashback for OS4), Exult (Ultima 7 for OS4) and Digital Universe Demo.
As WarpOSemu and Warp3d generally get upset at each other when bad coding is used i recommend taking the HWdrivers out of the warp3d directory in libs at first to test the software. by doing this i gat Payback to work almost happily but most definitely faster and quite frankly utterly usable.
I've now tried Feeble Files (Created by the same people behind STS but with less humour and painfully slow on a CV64/3D) and Wipeout on OS4. Feeble file doesn't benefit from being run on a PPC only filesystem and Wipeout is a pain in the arse. I've managed to get it running under 3.9 and warpos for the first time ever but it's horribly slow with my graphics card and because i know very little about P96 i don't know how to use 15bit screen modes and i also don't know how to create custom screen resolutions so i've not been able to get it running on OS4
Ive also now tested Earth 2140 which has no benefits and Nightlong which is much faster in the higher screenmodes. Bizaarly i've was messing around with STSII and managed to get it running at a superb speed windowed under workbench so i've done some screenshots and have uploaded them to the ftp.
I've been in contact with Bill Eaves the developer for Digital Universe who is going to supply us with some screenshots of the full version for the website. He also informs me that DU is being updated to 1.6 very soon and is working on version 2.
Nice one. :thumbs:
As i managed to contact Bill Eaves through the ImageFX forum I'll see if there is anyone on there who can help me with creating an entry for ImageFX. It's quite strange as a few of the people on there are using IFX with UAE when the PC must have better and more intuitive programmes. The good thing though is it looks like quite a few are using A1's for IFX (Albiet with a few problems).
After some consideration i'm going to ask Bill Eaves if he wants a OS4 classic beta tester to see what DU can and cannot pull off on a Classic Amiga.
Someone has released a nice little utility for OS4 which allows you to change the type of 68kCPU that is reported on OS4. As the type of CPU shown as emulated is usually the 020 but the true emulated speed is much faster (on mine the emulated speed is about the same as my 040 25mhz according to sysspeed) this can be quite usefull.
Sounds useful.
How good is the emulation of 68k in OS4? Are most 68K applications tricked into running correctly? Or is it trial and error?
When it works it's generally around 040+ speed and usually you can work round any DSI errors but it's about the same as trying to get older software on an AGA machine.
Oh OK. So pretty good then if getting software to run on my A4000 is anything to go by.
The greatest problem is getting games to work but that was vastly improved when they created the WarpOs emulator. And DOPUS Magellen doesn't work but i never used that too much anyway.
Getting older games to work was a problem for AGA machines too though.
Which filemanager do you use for OS4, Buleste? Is there a version of Filemaster for it?
I don't use any file manger at all for either OS. DOPUS Magellen II is probably my least used piece of software i ever bought. I'm not sure if there is one for OS4 either. I know DOPUS4 was ported to MorphOS but nothing has been done for OS4.
DOpus4 was and still is the best on the Amiga. Now that it is open source someone should port it to OS4. They have had since at lease as far back as 2003 to work on a port so it is odd that no one has bothered. The developer of the open source version even mentioned AOS4 on his DOpus 4 site, but sadly he stopped work on the open source project in 2004.
There is an Opus4 version for OS4 already.
The dev has been busy but there is more to come.
Opus5 also works under OS4 but isn't native.