HKvalhe's Spooky X5000 2 Years Anniversary

AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 3

Welcome to another new X5000 blog from me after a long while. To keep things simple and as short as possible, I should mention that my X5000/20 has had a spooky time after the installation of the new Update 3 for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition. I will cover it all in this blog the progress and what has been done to make my system works as much as supposed to. Keep on reading and explore the snapshots provided. I even installed the beautiful DualPNG icons called Infinite Icons!

Update 3 was released during the end of October 2025, just in time for it to be presentated at the AmiWest 2025 the first weekend of November 2025. Update 3 for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition came as a great surprise and it improves a lot of things for our PPC Amiga systems. Faster internet, better USB stack, full DMA support, support for 4k display, over 196 bug fixes and much improved stability. These are just the couple of things improving the AmigaOS4. Of course, it's not completely perfect but a great improvement and much expected one. Update 3 should be installed over a fresh Update 2 installment. You can easily update to Update 3 right away from your previous Update 2 setup.

Spooky Update 3 experience with my AmigaOne X5000 system

Setting up partitions in MediaToolbox

During the first installment of the new Update 3 of AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, my X5000/20 could not get into the OS. The problem was that I had to remove the Polaris 10 graphic board using the RadeonRX driver and then reconnect it again to the motherboard. That actually solved the issue with accessing the Update 3 setup. Very odd, but it solved the display issue at least.

As soon as I got access to my setup, I quickly followed the X5000 USB Recovery Manual downloaded from the net and followed the procedure step by step, in order to make a fully working X5000 Recovery USB stick based on the X5000 ISO file from Hyperion Entertainment. The program DiskImageGUI was used to install the ISO file to a USB pen but you can also use RawDisk that is part of AmigaOS4. See the following snapshot of RawDisk.

RawDisk - Native app to read ISO files

Without getting too technical, setting up a fully working X5000 Recovery USB went successfully. The USB stick became really useful when I the days after the first installment of the Update 3 experienced a corrupted boot partition on one of my 2 internal SSDs. Something related to a faulty RDB file on the boot partition. I later discovered that I had incorrectly added the SLB boot file that was made for SAM460. The X5000 doesn't need that but only to set a boot partition.

To get straight to the point where I am now. What I had to do was to move the backup of my whole setup, apps and games to the other SSD, then carefully starting the process of erasing all datas on the main SSD (without losing my backups, of course), giving a new proper information, then setting up the partitions, as seen on the snapshot of the MediaToolbox. The following things were done very carefully, like these:

*DH0 using SFS2 from Enhancer (Block size 512, buffer 5000 for maximum speed)

*DH1 using SFS2 from Enhancer (Block size 512, buffer 5000 for maximum speed)

*DH2 using SFS2 from Enhancer (Block size 512, buffer 5000 for maximum speed)

*DH3 using SFS2 from Enhancer (Block size 512, buffer 5000 for maximum speed)

Important notice! When creating partitions, they should NEVER be called HD0, HD1, HD2 and HD3, or such! I happened to notice that the setup with SFS2 didn't like that and the names could be messed up looking as something like "HD0nyyyyyyy", for instance, so PLEASE, NEVER DO THAT!!! Let AmigaOS call them by the normal name, which are DH0, DH1, DH2 and DH3. It's when you are to FORMAT the partitions, THEN you can pick the names you want to call your partitions. Keep that in mind. This is actually how I SOLVED the issue with a corrupted boot partition. The problem seems to be gone now. A few hangups, but nothing critical. This was the case with the X5000 before the update as well, so quite normal. Most important is that the system now works as supposed to.

The few things that don't work so well with Update 3 at the moment

CANDI doesn't work with Update 3

As most AmigaOS4 users might already have noticed, there are some few problems when running Update 3 of AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition. Mostly related to the previous Enhancer 2.2 stuff already installed on most systems. Allow me to explain what these few problems are, based on my own personal experience with my setup.

The animated wallpaper stuff - CANDI, that is part of the Enhancer bundle from A-EON, doesn't work under Update 3. Of course, that's not really surprising but logical. The upcoming Enhancer 2.3 update will solve these issues. It's actually been held back to ensure it will fully work with Update 3 in mind, so that's a good thing.

Things should be much better for PPC Amiga systems like the X5000 when the standalone, bootable Enhancer V54 OS replacement is released. Why a new standalone AmigaOS replacement, you think? The explanation is quite simply. Hyperion Entertainment doesn't own or have any license to use the RadeonRX driver, which A-EON and AmigaKit own, and which you need to run Warp2D Nova and Warp3D Nova, both being part of Enhancer. That's why the process of updating AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on PPC Amigas with Polaris graphic board is a "pain-in-the-arse". The standalone Enhancer V54 will not have those problems. Trust me.

ScummVM 2.9.0 ELF library issue

The ScummVM adventure interpreter version 2.9 does work without problems. But when quitting the program, an error message related to the new ELF library installed from Update 3 happens, which the other snapshot will show you. This is not really a critical problem. It only means waiting for a new version of ScummVM, and it will have been compiled especially with those new updates in mind, so don't worry.

I can play those ScummVM games without problems, despite the issue with quitting it. The other games work. BlobWars, the WHDLoad games in latest RunInUAE and the FPS game Wolfenstein - Return To Castle. They all work like a charm. Smooth and beautiful. I love it.

ScummVM needs Update 3 support

Despite those minor little problems, I can run all my programs and games. I will show you the other programs I tested that work with Update 3.

Take a close look on the snapshots covering the different programs and tools I tested working.

Amiga programs that work under AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 3

ADRipper - AudioCD ripper for AmigaOS4

ADRipper is an old, interesting program that actually seems to work quite well under Update 3. The program allows you to rip Audio CDs into different formats like MP3 and FLAC. Very useful. I tend to use it now and then. Happy to know that it works without problems. Another similar program I have, is also FryingPan. Another program based on MUI that allows you to burn CDs or DVDs, for that matter. These programs really work, according to my own personal test covered in this Amiga blog.

I'm eager to start up with different Amiga projects again, like music and drawing. Maybe even be writing some stuffs to help others and create a PDF manual or something like that. One step at the time, but I'm eager to start working with new Amiga music again. Been quite sometime since.

Latest AmiCygnix works under Update 3

AmiCygnix is a very interesting way of running LInux applications under AmigaOS4. These can even be run standalone. I especially use GIMP to edit photos and covers. Sometimes, I even write stuff with AbiWord, a Linux based word processing application. Very useful to have on your AmigaOS4 system if you want to do some serious office work or other important things that the native AmigaOS4 apps are still not doing for the very moment. These will improve in time but where there are certain limitations with the native AmigaOS4 applications, a solution like AmiCygnix comes quite in handy.

GIMP - the Open Source Photoshop clone

GIMP is a brilliant open source Photoshop clone where you can edit and manipulate photos and images. With plugins like Beauty, you can add many wonderful effects like HDR and truly improve the quality! You can turn a colored image into a black'n'white image, and you can add borders to your photos, to make them look more like photos you want to hang up on the wall. Extremely powerful and useful! I use it qute often, and it works very smooth and stable under Update 3 on my X5000. The snapshot says it all, and if you're a hobby photographer as I am, then you will truly enjoy the fun of using GIMP.

AmiFTP - To upload stuff to Aminet

AmiFTP is another useful application I run on my X5000 setup. Especially when uploading my Amiga music to Aminet. This program seen on the snapshot to the right does a very simple way of uploading stuff to Aminet. Works like a charm.

You can pick up AmiFTP on OS4Depot and install it right away on your AmigaOS4 system. But you need to configure it to locate the Aminet site for uploading stuff, according to Aminet's own rules for use of FTP and uploading things.

Other stuffs I use are tools like FlipPaper - A MUI based wallpaper editor to display multiple of beautiful wallpapers, instead of using CANDI. I always use FlipPaper and it works without problems on my X5000 Update 3 setup.

eGame - a MUI based game launcher

eGame - a MUI based game launcher is another, very useful application to run several Amiga games right away. Even those WHDLoad games. One simple click and they run right away. Works perfectly well under Updater 3 on my AmigaOne X5000.

The old FPS shooter game - Wolfenstein Return To Castle, works very smoothly under Update 3 on my X5000, especially if you have a Polaris graphic board supporting Warp2D/Warp3D Nova. The upcoming Enhancer 2.3 will bring even faster speeds with Warp2D/Warp3D Nova! I'm truly looking forward to that. It should be very interesting.

But now it's time to cover up the work I do on my X5000 Update 3 setup. The programs I use to work with my Amiga music and drawing, a the programs I use to write and send emails and browsing the net.

Hopefully a peaceful return to Amiga projects with my Update 3 setup

A dark theme OctaMED SoundStudio

As you can see from the snapshot, the good old OctaMED SoundStudio v1.0.3c, the NSM patched version, works even better under Update 3 of AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on my AmigaOne X5000 system. You have to use the AHI tool called TheMaestrix in order to get audio from your AHI soundcard in the music program.

I would have hoped that the new OctaMED V8 that is part of those ARM based A600GS, A1200NG and the upcoming A4000NG systems, would be ported to AmigaOS4 PPC Amiga systems. Hopefully, that might happen in a forseable future. But for now, the good old OctaMED SoundStudio still has a lot of power and flexibility to create excellent music. My X5000/20 system is more than capable of doing multi-channel Amiga music. As you already know, I have done a good couple of 16-channel Amiga music in OctaMED SoundStudio, thanks to the true power of the AmigaOne X5000. Wonder how well it will work with the new Mirari PPC Amiga system I hope to get around Christmas.

PPaint 7.3c PPC version under Update 3

When drawing and preparing Amiga Covers for my Amiga music, I use the PPC native version of PPaint, currently version 7.3c, on my X5000. Works perfectly under Update 3. Very fast and reliable. I use it most of the time and you can draw up to 256 colors. Full support for RTG.

The other alternative graphic program I tend to use now and then, is the open source 256 color paint program - Grafx2. Version 2.9 was ported not so many months ago and is currently the smoothest version of it. Works very well on my X5000 Update 3 setup. Very useful if you plan to create graphic for games other than the Amiga.

CodeAudio - The music file converter

In order to make my Amiga music available to YouTube, I then have to convert ordinary Amiga music modules to MP3. Sometimes to FLAC for my own personal listening but MP3 for YouTube through the site TunesToTube. CodeAudio is a registered product with a key for full access to all of its features. Something that the snapshot should show you. On the snapshot, you see the process of converting an AIFF file created with OctaMED SoundStudio, converted to both MP3 and FLAC with CodeAudio. In this case seen from the snapshot, to a FLAC file. Cool, eh?

Sometimes, I even use RAVE - a new AmigaOS4 native sample editor to either improve some samples or to save them in other formats. RAVE has support for 24 bit and 32 bit samples as well! A rare thing in Amiga land, but fully possible! Of course, for using samples in OctaMED SoundStudio, only 16 bit can be used. That's quite ok, really, because you can get stunning results with 16 bit, if you know what to do. No problem.

RAVE - a modern native sample editor

The overall conclusion review

Well, we have came to the end of my Amiga blog for now, covering the most important things I have been doing lately. I spent nearly a week in ensuring that my X5000 Update 3 setup was working as supposed to and it does. Not everything is perfect. Now and then, the system hangs up but at least, no corruption of the boot partition or anything critical, and that's the most important thing. I still want to give as short and fair conclusion as possible, based on my own personal experience and how I see things with it.

Not everything is completely hopeless. The AmiWest 2025 revealed many interesting things and was indeed the best Amiga show for years. Probably the greatest yet. Mirari PPC Amiga is coming. The new ExecSG Multicore kernel is progressing very well and close to completion, which will also be ported to Mirari, as well as AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 3 and Enhancer 2.3, which is currently held back to meet the full support of Update 3.

Enhancer V54 - the standalone, bootable with full recovery AmigaOS4 alternative, is another very interesting product to be released in not too distant future. If you have a Polaris based graphic board based on RadeonRX driver, then Enhancer V54 OS would be your best choice.

The answer to that is simple because Hyperion Entertainment doesn't own any rights or license for the RadeonRX driver. A-EON and AmigaKit do. Also bear in mind that in order to use Warp2D Nova and Warp3D Nova, you need Enhancer. It's unfortunately as simple as that. At least until AmigaOS 4.2 from Hyperion Entertainment is a reality, whenever and however it appears to be. That remains to be seen, but until then, Enhancer is your best choice, really.

FryingPan - MUI based plate burner

This ends my Amiga blog for now. I hope you find this blog very intuitive, helpful and a joy to read. It's a bit long to read but should be very helpful for those who need it. For others, just plain joy and excitment to read. Thank you.

See you in another blog in not too distant future. Remember, the Amiga makes it possible.

Written by

Helge Kvalheim

Odyssey 1.23r5 - soon version 3

YAM - The most faitful Amiga mailer

FlipPaper - MUI wallpaper editor

 

PPC Amiga getting even better

X5000 Demonic Workbench style

Hello again, fellow Amigans. Writing a new Amiga blog after some months of silence. Lots of work has gone into new Amiga music, pixel art and updating my X5000 with new files and libraries. So what are we going to talk about in this new blog? There are some new, interesting stuffs I want to share with the Amiga community in my blog, so keep reading and be entertained as well. I was inspired by the video blog of Tim Grooms, where he was also explaining this new mystical Mirari PPC Amiga hardware. Therefore, I thought I could write my own Amiga blog about that and what this all means to Amigans.

Mirari PPC Amiga - A new low cost PPC Amiga hardware

Mirari - A new low cost PPC Amiga

What is Mirari, you might ask? This mystical news about another new PPC Amiga comes as a great surprise to everyone in the Amiga community, right out of the blue. Nobody expected this to happen and suddenly, this news is going really HOT in Amigaland these days. But it's definitely a great welcome!

A few weeks ago, the nickname "Mirari" was revealed from an own link at the Amigans site. I can hear you scream again "What IS Mirari, really?!". Don't worry, I will explain.

Mirari seems to be a brand new low cost PPC Amiga, developed with running both AmigaOS4 and MorphOS in mind. According to the website, it has already been demonstrated to run a PPC Linux distribution quite fine without any issues.

The Mirari PPC specifications

Mirari PPC Amiga hardware is quite identical to the X5000 in terms of specifications, but intended to be a low cost solution for those who can't afford the AmigaOne X5000 but also want to use new Amiga technology supported as well.

The CPU of Mirari is a quad-core, T5040 variant with Altivec 2.0 support at 1.8Ghz. Otherwise, much the same stuffs as the X5000 in terms of DDR3 memory support, but also surprisingly supporting DDR4 memory as well. The rest of the hardware specifications are quite identical to the X5000, but with some new additional stuffs that I will cover right below here in this blog. Keep reading, this is interesting. Mirari is said to include a new UBoot BIOS made in 2024. The X5000 might also get a new UBoot BIOS update, with support for NVMe SSD and USB3.

Altivec:    Altivec is a 128-bit vector unit quite useful for multimedia purposes. Seeing the return of Altivec support is a great welcome. The X5000 CPU doesn't feature Altivec support, but Mirari's PPC CPU will do.

NVMe:    Mirari will feature support for this new groundbreaking technology found in NVMe SSD disks. This allows Amiga users, for the very first time in history, to boot into their AmigaOS setup at lighting fast speed with immerdiately respons. Same with reading and writing of data transfer. Mirari will come with NVMe SSD as a standard. The X5000 can easily add this on a NVMe-to-PCIe adapter to one of the PCIe slots on it.

X5000 actually has USB3 ports

USB3:    Now this is quite interesting. As you all know, there's no current USB3 driver in any AmigaOS, but rumours say that we can expect to see new USB3 drivers for Amiga soon. 

This is likely to be included in Hyperion Entertainment's upcoming AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 3, and the upcoming Enhancer 2.3 from A-EON Technology is also likely to include support for USB3.

The interesting thing here is that not only does Mirari come with USB3 ports, but the X5000 actually has USB3 ports as standard. No kidding! On the X5000, those USB3 ports are present on top of the cabinet. For now, USB3 cannot be used on the X5000, due to the current lack of proper support for it (but it's coming). Instead, X5000 users like myself had to get what we call an USB3-to-USB2-adapter to use them as USB2 instead. This is not a problem but you don't want to download MP4 and other big video files using USB2. You want to use USB3 for much improved speed and stability. However, at present, you can use memory cards that are usually provided with digital cameras, as the transfer performance is quite good. A 32GB memory card should do the job quite well, while waiting for USB3 support to happen for the Amiga. But as soon as USB3 support happens, X5000 users like myself can remove the USB3-to-USB2-adapter and use the USB ports as they truly are. As USB3.

The team behind Mirari PPC Amiga

Supporting NVMe SSD and USB3 are truly great things to see for the Amiga. To actually boot right into our AmigaOS immerdiately in only a fraction of a second (sort of). No more waiting to get into our beloved AmigaOS setup. No more slow reading and writing of files in terms of download, upload and copying files. They will all happen immerdiately, and this is the whole point with NVMe SSD. Also when running applications and games. They will just start right away and you can get to work and play as smoothly as ever.

USB3 support will be a great boost for the Amiga as well. We all transfer files and stuffs from our Amigas to other systems, using USB sticks. But to download big video files as MP4 with USB2 speed is simply not ideal. However, you can use memory cards used with digital cameras to gain the acceptable performance. But USB3 support would mean getting the great speed of transfer that USB3 provides, which will make life a lot easier for Amiga users in terms of speed and stability.

It's likely that we get to see the USB3 support expected to be included in Hyperion Entertainment's upcoming AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 3. A-EON's upcoming Enhancer 2.3 FREE update, might also possible include support for USB3. At least, NVMe SSD support will be present, according to rumours. Both are rumoured to be released during summer 2025. Perhaps around the time of the Amiga's 40th Anniversary? Amiga is actually celebrating its' 40th birthday July 23th. I'm pretty sure that summer time will be quite interesting for the Amiga.

It might interest you to read that Trevor Dickinson is one of the names revealed from the team behind the Mirari project, as he is actually financing the project.

Whenever NVMe SSD and USB3 support happen, my X5000 will be prepared to use these new additions. I hope to get myself a 2TB NVMe SSD, and I certainly hope that I can use those USB ports as USB3, when the Amiga driver is present.

I might possible add a great PPC Linux OS to my X5000 early 2026 and make my X5000 dual boot into AmigaOS4 and PPC Linux. A Ubuntu distribution should be pretty good. I would love to use my X5000 more for daily use as a serious system.

Some new ScummVM games added to my X5000 system

A Golden Wake - 1950s adventure

Few months ago, I bought some more adventure games to my X5000 to run in latest ScummVM 2.9.0 installment. I will list them up here below. These are:

*A Golden Wake (1950s inspired)

*Shivah (Jewish adventure game)

*Teen Agent (FREE adventure game)

*Whispers Of A Machine (Sci-fi adventure with AI elements)

Golden Wake is a cool adventure game inspired of the 1950s Miami life style of rich people buying properties and running a business. The graphic is beautiful and smooth. The music plays really nice. It runs quite smoothly on my X5000 with latest ScummVM 2.9.0. A great game worth playing. I bought it from GOG at a cheap price of 20 NOK or something. Saved me a lot of money, so I'm very happy.

A Jewish short adventure game

Shivah is a short but a great looking, very interesting detective adventure game of sort, as you play as a rabbi getting involved in a murder case of an old friend.

The game is pretty cool but I find it a bit too short to play. It's still a great game. Another one I picked up from GOG at a very cheap price. A worthy addition to the collection of ScummVM adventure games.

When the next update to ScummVM appears, hopefully sometime in summer of 2025, it will be possible to play, not only more Nancy Drew based adventure games but also adventure games like "Willy Beamish" and "Heart Of China".

Teen Agent - FREE adventure game

Teen Agent is another cool adventure game that I actually picked up for FREE from GOG. Beautiful graphic and cool music. Haven't played it through yet but I must try to play the game. The plot seems to have something to do with a robbery. You should pick up the game, if you're lucky to get it for FREE, like I did.

However, I also have the first 2 Syberia adventure games but still awaiting Shaders support for those games. I will add them as soon as Shaders support is provided for these Syberia games. Syberia is a great looking, big adventure game of mystery, crime and detective work. The kind of adventure I really love to play.

Whispers Of A Machine - AI related

Whispers Of A Machine is another excellent game I bought from GOG at a pretty low price. Around 20 NOK, if I'm not mistaken. The game is a sci-fiction detective adventure where AI is a threat the young lady has to investigate. The story becomes more interesting and revealing as the player progress.

The game provides 3 different augmentations to choose. These are Empathy, Analyze and Assertive.

Empathic would mean playing on the good feelings of the detective, being sympathic and supportive against people. Assertive would mean being cold and arrogant, and with pure logic, people will not being very helpful if being assertive.

Analytical might be the most interesting augmentation to choose in the game. It's a more neutral attitude but also more focus on the detective work using those special abilities from those implants the lady detective has, which is pretty cool.

Overall, the graphic and the music are both excellent. Graphic is beautiful but movement is a bit slow in ScummVM 2.9.0, even on my X5000. I guess it's because the support for the game is quite new. This might hopefully improve. The music plays truly beautiful through the whole game and changes as things become more dramatic. It's very much like a movie. A great game to play, so pick it up at a low price as possible and add it to your ScummVM collection. I sure did.

Well, this covers the whole blog for now. I hope you find it very interesting and inspiring to read. I will create another blog in summer that covers more of my musical Amiga work, with beautiful pixel art of covers. Perhaps those interesting updates revealed in the blog will appear and I get to upgrade my X5000 by then? The time will show but it should all be very interesting. Thank you for reading.

Until next time, let the Amiga be with you always and truly enjoy what it does.

Written by

Helge Kvalheim (HKvalhe) from Norway

 

Happy New Amiga Year 2025

Beautiful view for my AmigaOne X5000

Happy new Amiga year 2025 everyone! Amiga will be celebrating its' 40th anniversary 23th of July. 2025 has just begun, so lots of exciting things are going to happen. In this blog, I will cover up my recent stuff I do with my AmigaOne X5000/20 system, which I've had for a little more than a year now. I'm very happy with my X5000. It's extremely powerful and very fast. It's my main Amiga now.

Last year 2024 has been a turbulent year of challenges. After the summer of 2024, I received what I thought would be a unique offer to compose Amiga music for a couple of game projects (or so I thought). A request I received from a person who appeared to be a false person using AI to manipulate false projects. One of the game projects I was supposed to compose music for was the "Taylor's Tater Terror".

Taylor's Tater Terror was meant to be an ambitious game project to honor the deceased person - Taylor Calk, whom tragically passed away in January 2023. His father, Jack Calk, was to finance the project and the person who was to lead the project, was the false person I mentioned earlier.

There was much back and fort with the false project leader coming up with several crazy ideas at the same time, using AI to create several false projects and spamming Facebook with a couple of fake groups and concepts. In November 2024, Jack Calk himself contacted me about the project leader and told me that the "Taylor's Tater Terror" project was off the table, and all ties to the false project leader were severed and that I should do the same, which I did. Blocked the false project leader and cut off all connections I had with the guy. Yeah, shit can happen, but fortunately, we all learn from it. I moved on focusing on my own Amiga art and music instead. I might even have some of my own ideas for some game projects when I'm motivated to do them.

Two new Amiga groups on Facebook - Personal Paint and Amiga Art Gallery

Amiga Art Gallery on Facebook

One of the first things I decided to do when 2025 kicked in was to create 2 new Amiga groups on Facebook. One official and one private group.

Personal Paint is an official Facebook group I created. Since there was no group about Personal Paint, I decided to create one. This group will cover everything that has to do with Personal Paint for the Amiga. Tutorials have already been brought to the group, so that it will be easier to learn the use of the program and its' features. The group is quite new but growing well. I think Amiga users will find the group to be very inspiring and useful. Everyone using Personal Paint on Amiga or want to learn about it are welcome to join this group on Facebook.

Amiga Art Gallery is a private Facebook group I also created. Like a digital gallery where any kind of Amiga art, being pixel art, animation, video, 3D, morphing, raytracing, music and MIDI, can be uploaded and shared with everyone in the private gallery. Amiga Art Gallery is NOT to be compared with the group Amiga Art or the author behind Amiga Art. The real difference with Amiga Art Gallery is that we do NOT focus on contests, and we never break promises we can't keep, which was the case with the author behind Amiga Art, but that's not the reason why Amiga Art Gallery was created. Amiga Art Gallery was created to give all Amiga users full control and freedom of their own Amiga art. No deadline, no restrictions. Just their own limitation of creativity. More importantly, we do NOT accept AI generated images, because we want Amiga users to use their human talent and creativity to their maximum. We want REAL stuff, not fake stuff, so this is very important to keep in mind. The gallery is already growing very nicely. A fine gallery I believe Amiga users will find pleasure to join. Very promising.

New Amiga music in 2025 - Starting first with the project Pray For LA

OctaMED SoundStudio still going strong

Those of you who have followed my Amiga music work in the Amiga community know that I have composed Amiga music for many years now. I started in 2018 for real and have just vastly improved since then. In late 2024, after the cancellation of the Taylor's Tater Terror project that never happened, I composed Amiga Metal Rock music. A style I never thought I would do, but I did. As a start, it was quite challenging but I found it really enjoyable when I got into it, ending up with 3 great Amiga Metal Rock tracks already. These are Broken System, Devil's Torture and Santa Zombie. All part of a 10-song Amiga Metal Rock album titled "Frozen Hell". A fourth track is planned but not quite yet.

Pray For LA - An Amiga Charity song 

The most important Amiga music project I want to do, is an urgent release of an Amiga Charity song titled Pray For LA. A massive fire that turned most of the California into an apocalyptic scenario, resulting in lost of several lives and multiple luxury properties burnt down to ashes. Many who managed to evacuate lost their home and other valuable properties. Probably forever. It's really heartbreaking and I'm speechless. I really feel with those who are suffering, so I want to give something in thought of these people. A Charity song composed on the Amiga. It will be deeply emotional but also a beautiful one. LA needs all the love, hope, care, help and support needed to rise from the ashes again. To make people safe and well again. To know that there's always hope and always people who care. The song should be ready by the end of the week already and will be my first 2025 release.

Turning Amiga music into studio quality FLAC 

Compressing files with Archiver

In 2025 I'm doing some additional changes in term of my Amiga music projects, including studio quality FLAC version of several of my best Amiga songs I composed during the years 2018 up to recent time. The MP3 versions are on YouTube but the FLAC versions will be uploaded to Aminet, as well as several of my Amiga groups on Facebook, being Amiga Art Gallery, MED Music and Amiga Music Mods. There's always a FREE solution like those mentioned here. The Archiver from A-EON's Enhancer bundle can also compress files in several formats. One of the most useful formats is the 7z format based on the BZIP2 sources, if I'm not mistaken. As seen from the snapshot here, Archiver is quite capable of compressing 7z files with ease.

Uploading files to Aminet through a FTP

Uploading files or archives to Aminet cannot be done directly from its' site. Instead you need a FTP program like AmiFTP. The version of AmiFTP seen from the snapshot is the AmigaOS4 version which works very well.

This is how I always upload my Amiga music to Aminet, using AmiFTP. It's quite simple to set up and use. After the first few times, you really get quite used to how the program works. It's fast and very efficient. On my X5000 it really flies.

When you setup AmiFTP for the first time, it might remind you a bit of IRC. Aminet is not the only destination you can set. There might be others you can set as well. But we focus on Aminet, since you can't upload directly to Aminet without using a standalone FTP like AmiFTP.

ScummVM 2.9.0 and new games on X5000

Super Star Blast - New Space Shooter 

During Christmas 2024 I received a nice present from my Norwegian Amiga friend - Pål Ringkilen. The game is Super Star Blast. A space shooter with incredible nice graphic, animation, music and sound. You need the Warp3D NOVA driver from latest A-EON's Enhancer bundle which I have on my X5000. The RadeonRX driver makes the game pretty smooth on my X5000/20 model. Thank you so much, Pål! A really nice present! Very happy I received it and quite enjoyable! But it doesn't stop here when it comes to gaming.

Latest ScummVM 2.9.0 on my X5000

ScummVM 2.9.0 was released before Christmas 2024. Another great gift for the Amiga community. Version 2.9.0 has a lot of improvements and support for several new games like Timbleweed Park and support for the first 2 Syberia games. The latter games need Shader support, but these will appear as well.

Latest version of ScummVM works like a charm on my AmigaOne X5000/20 model, using OpenGL shaders. You definitely need Warp3D NOVA, RadeonRX driver and SDL2. ScummVM 2.9.0 is based on SDL2 and CLIB4 build, as I understand from its' documentation. The 3D driver is important if you want to play the more advanced 3D adventure games like The Longest Journey, Grim Fandango and soon those first 2 Syberia games. But advanced 3D adventure gaming is not the only exciting thing with latest ScummVM. In version 2.9.0, you can also play adventure games created by AGD Interactive. A software company which has done REMAKE versions of adventure games like King Quest 1-3, Space Quest 2 and Quest For Glory 2. I just happened to download and install all these remake versions in ScummVM 2.9.0 on my X5000.

Space Quest 2 Remake on my X5000

The cool thing about those remake versions created by AGD Interactive is that they were done in 256 colors with a resolution of 320x256. The graphic quality of these games are incredible beautiful and sharp. One would wonder why the Amiga version of several well known adventure games never were done with 256 colors, except from Universe and Simon The Sorcerer.

Universe is another adventure game. Probably not supported by ScummVM yet but was made with 256 colors using Copper technique, in which the game can be run on a normal Amiga 500, displaying all that 256 color from the game! That's pretty impressive for an adventure game!

King Quest Remake on my X5000

AGD Interactive has done a truly impressive work in remastering several of the iconic Sierra games, with 256 beautiful, high quality colors from a resolution of 320x256. Sound and music are now fully digital and very pleasant to listen to.

The snapshot here displays the first King Quest Remake in ScummVM 2.9.0 on my X5000, but you can see the other snapshots at the end of this blog. They're included as well in this blog.

Other exciting remake versions are Space Quest 2 Remake and Quest For Glory 2 Remake also in 256 colors with 320x256 resolution to play.

The only game that doesn't play so well in ScummVM since version 2.8.0 and 2.8.1, and this is even present in 2.9.0, is the old adventure game Broken Sword 1 from Revolution Software. There seems to be an audio issue in multiple scenes when trying to run Broken Sword 1 with latest ScummVM build. This bug has been reported to the ScummVM Bug Tracker, so hopefully the audio issue of Broken Sword 1 under latest ScummVM will finally be solved. But for now, the game is pointless to play and as so, I removed it from my ScummVM setup for now. All other ScummvM games have fully working audio. Fortunately, you can play Broken Sword 2.5 - the fanmade version that seems to be what the first Broken Sword game could have been. It's not that bad, really.

Simon The Sorcerer - 256 color version

Simon The Sorcerer is another graphic adventure game that truly impress. The snapshot here shows the Amiga AGA version in 256 colors! Yes, you read it right! 256 true AGA colors! The game was also released for normal non-AGA Amigas like the Amiga 500, using 64 colors. Simon The Sorcerer is one of few graphic adventure games that used more than 32 colors.

Using 256 colors for an adventure game adds a lot to the scene, especially in term of background and more details to the surrounding. I hope new Amiga adventure games can be created with 256 colors, when done so well like in Simon The Sorcerer. It shows how possible it really is.

Flight Of The Amazon Queen on X5000

Flight Of The Amazon Queen is another cool graphic adventure. What many might not be aware of is the fact that the game was originally created on an Amiga 1200 using the iconic paint program Deluxe Paint and the AMOS programming language. The game is based on 32 colors that were nicely painted as well.

The version I run in latest ScummVM is the 256 colors Talkie version for DOS. Graphically it looks better than the Amiga version. The only little minus is that the Amiga version has better music than the DOS version of the game. Nonetheless, the game is truly enjoyable to play.

Well, this covers just about everything I do these days on my AmigaOne X5000/20 system. Thank you for reading my blog. Hope you enjoy it.

HAPPY NEW AMIGA YEAR 2025!!!

Written by

Helge Kvalheim

King Quest 2 Remake on my X5000

King Quest 3 Redux on my X5000

Quest For Glory 2 Remake on my X5000