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

 

Amiga Art 2023 Contest Cancellation - The REAL reason

Beautiful X5000 HD Wallpaper

Been a while since I was writing another Amiga blog. Had so much fun with my AmigaOne X5000/20, but also much was happening in my private life as well, which I won't cover here. 2024 has been a remarkable, challenging year, and now we're into 2025 being a new year. It will also mark the Amiga's 40th Anniversary in July 23th this year.

Where to start? I should probably start with the reason why I value 2025 as a new beginning for me in many ways, most noticeably with Amiga.

Amiga Art 2023 Contest Cancellation - The REAL reason 

Amiga Art 2023 that never happened

Most of you are probably well informed about what happened with the Amiga Art 2023 Contest? A contest that was supposed to be one of the greatest. Was supposed to be reviewed around December 2023, but it never actual happened.

Before explaining the real reason, let me remind all of you that many contributed to the 2023 contest. Not for the sake of winning but to be part of something great. To see own art being displayed as well as being impressed by others' creations. When the contest was cancelled, it left many contributors with great frustration.

The part about the 2023 contest is not a personal attack of the author behind. It's not even about the man or how great he used to be. It's simply about the cancellation of the Amiga Art 2023 Contest and what led to the cancellation to happen. The real reason that was never told.

It's true that lots of unexpected life events happened to the author. Both good and bad things, and those were fairly understandable. All contributors respected that. Even I did, but these were only half the truth of what really happened to the 2023 contest. Allow me to explain.

There was never a proper communication with the Amiga Art group on Facebook regarding the aftermatch with the Amiga Art 2023 Contest. Despite the life events that happened around the first 3-5 months of 2024, there was still more than a half year away of 2024 to try find a solution to review the results of the Amiga Art 2023 Contest one way or another on YouTube.

That never happened. No communication with the group, not even an official admit of failure. You might wonder why bothering? Because when arranging something big, even if it was only meant to be a labour of love, it involves a lot of responsibility and promises to keep. Because there was made promises of great prizes to win and the 2023 contest WAS supposed to be one of the greatest the author had done from 2019 to 2022 so far. So even that the contest was not important, the author still had the full responsibility and he failed his own contest.

I know this myself from my own personal experience. My first contribution to an Amiga Art Contest was 2022, winning the second place in Amiga Music. My song was Last Ninja 4 Level 6 - The Plane Crash. I hoped to win a small prize for my second place back then, but it never happened. I remember when I asked the author about the prize, he told me that the person who was to send out the prizes, disappeared, and he further added that I had to accept it and let go. In the end, I was forced to let go of it, and instead contributed a lot of Amiga music, pixel art and photos for the 2023 Contest. A contest that failed greatly to happened, and it's not the life events being the real problem behind, but how the author simply chose to drop the 2023 contest, as he didn't really care about it at all. That's the impression he gave me.

However, I do admit that I pestered the author about the 2023 contest for months, but even if I didn't. other people would. The author would still have made the choice to cancel the 2023 contest, regardless of my own or others' actions. Many in the Amiga Art group on Facebook offered to help the author for months to make the 2023 contest a reality, and even tried to give him constructive feedback related to the failure with the 2023 contest. The real truth? The author couldn't handle it all and DECLINED all offer for help, resulting in the Amiga Art 2023 Contest to be DEAD and BURIED for good. A choice he made fully by own will and which has consequences. It was said that writing or speaking about this wouldn't accomplish things, but the truth does. The real truth is what matters here, and it's time for everyone to know the truth.

One would have thought that those life events would justify the situation, but to know that the author had a little more than half a year left of the 2024 to review the Amiga Art 2023 Contest and chose willingly NOT to bring up the contest, could only mean one thing. That the author simply doesn't care about his own contests, giving people false hope and dreams, and making promises he can't keep. Instead, he's pretending he didn't fail a contest and that everything is just fine, making YouTube reviews of old retro hardware instead. What's the logic with that? There's no logic in that. It's not even a normal situation but a weird one. But done is done. The damage that happened as a result of the author's failure to review the Amiga Art 2023 Contest cannot be undone. A new contest cannot undo that damage at all. People will always remember Amiga Art 2023 Contest as a failure that should never happen.

There are some small rumours about an Amiga Art 2025. It might happen, but most likely not become what the author hopes for. Many past contributors, noticeably those of us who contributed for the 2023 contest, became so frustrated about it that we stopped caring about any contest at all. As for a possible 2025 contest, most from the Amiga Art group on Facebook revealed that they are NOT going to join another contest by the same author. Simply because of what happened to the 2023 contest. Even if there should be a 2025 contest, the author himself is likely to be greatly disappointed not to see so many contributions at all. It will be a poor experience the author would have to live with, as he can only blame himself for that.

I might if possible send a small 2025 contribution of 5 Amiga pixel art, photos and music, creating my own legacy that way. Because I want the 2025 contest to be my LAST contribution for Amiga Art and then be completely done with it.

Now you all know the REAL truth about the Amiga Art 2023 Contest and what actually led to the contest being fully abanded and never reviewed for anyone to see. Life events was only half of the reason, but the real reason was an own will to cancel it, simply because the author couldn't handle it all and would never admit that in public. This is the whole truth behind it all.

This ends this blog for now. I wish you all the best for 2025. Keep being creative with the Amiga, and remember the Amiga's 40th Anniversary in July 23th this year.

Written by

Helge Kvalheim (HKvalhe)

 

My new X5000 1 year Anniversary

               My first year with AmigaOne X5000 system! 

Still looking great at age 49

Haven't been blogging for about 2 years and much has happened since then, so I thought it would probably be about time to write a new blog in 2024. So what is really new since 2022?

I got my new AmigaOne X5000 - A 64bit PPC Dual Core (P5020 Freescale) model based on Freescale P5020 CPU. Actually got this X5000 from a Norwegian good friend of mine at Christmas 2022. Got it up and running in August 2023, after upgrading and updating the system. This is how my new X5000 system from A-EON look like.

The CPU is a 64bit Dual Core version running at 2Ghz! Pretty fast and extremely powerful! I would never be able to afford such a system myself, so I was very lucky to get one as a gift from my Norwegian good friend (thanks, Pål!)! In addition to the CPU, I got the memory upgraded to 8GB of ultra fast DDR3 RAM, 2 internal SSDs, one at 256GB and the other at 480GB, giving plenty of space in my system. Also have a 4GB GDDR6 Sapphire Radeon RX 580 GPU card based on Polaris 10 chipset, supported by Warp3D NOVA system in Enhancer 2.2, that runs on my AmigaOne X5000, along with latest AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 2. Last but not least, I also have the 24bit ESI@Juli XTe PCIe audio MIDI card connected. Works like a charm using 32-bit HIFI Stereo++ mode at 96Hz with all the 128 channels! The ultimate sound card to have! Especially if you're into music.

My cool new AmigaOne X5000/20

The X5000 is the best and the most powerful Amiga system I ever had! I also have the old SAM460ex, which I had for 12 years now and will be a backup system if something happens to my X5000 or the X5000 needs upgrading or something I cannot fix. But in general, my X5000 now serves as my main Amiga system to use, while the PC I had since 2019, running Windows 11, is also used in situations where the Amiga can't. I'm actually writing this blog on my Win11 PC. The Amiga browser is a bit outdated to handle this blog site properly, so had to write the blog on the PC. It's not that bad, really. I was able to bring down all my snapshots taken on the Amiga, down onto a SD memory card at 32GB and it showed up nicely on the PC without problems. Very useful! I will explain more about that in a minute, don't worry. Enjoy the pictures while you read.

The X5000 motherboard

One of the cool stuffs I bought for my X5000 is a SD memory card USB pen reader. Since I love to take photos and edit them on the Amiga, a SD card reader is very useful. I also have an additional 32GB SD memory card that I use for file transfer between the Amiga and the PC.

As an example, I took a couple of screengrabs on the X5000 covering stuffs I do and use, then formatted the SD card on the X5000, named it Downloads and moved those snapshots onto the SD card. Plugged it into the PC and it showed up right away! Very handy and so easy to use! 32GB on the SD is more than enough to bring up most files you need between Amiga and PC.

USB based SD card reader on X5000

Speaking of using a SD card. It's actually a lot faster to use when transfering files. I happen to use the 32GB SD card to download games I want to play on the X5000. Either new adventure games I buy from the GOG site using the PC, from where I can just bring down the game files to the SD card and bring them up to my X5000.

Another thing I can use it for is to transfer samples I record with my new Xiaomi Redmi 13c mobile to the SD card, so that I can edit them with Audacity on PC and further finetune them on my X5000 for use in OctaMED SoundStudio.

WarpView on X5000 reading SD card

    The cool stuffs I do on my X5000

Now it's time to cover up the cool stuffs I do on my X5000. When I don't work with music and painting, I either play the 3D FPS game "Return To Castle Wolfenstein" or different adventure games in ScummVM 2.8.1, being the latest.

Unfortunately, the Broken Sword games got some cracked audio after the ScummVM update to 2.8.1. They worked just fine from version 2.7.1. Probably changed some game codes for those games in ScummVM 2.8.1. Hope these will be fixed again for the next version of ScummVM for AmigaOS4. But all other games run as they should with no audio issue. I especially love the 3D adventure game "The Longest Journey" and also bought myself the 2 first games called Syberia. Currently, only the Mac version of these work, so need to find someone to help me download the Mac version or rather wait for the normal Windows version to be supported in next version of ScummVM.

Black styled OctaMED SoundStudio

As you all know, I use the NSM patched version of OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c on my X5000 to compose my music. Because AmigaOne systems don't have Paula soundchip from the Classic Amiga, an AHI-compatible audio card or chip has to be used. In this case, I use an AHI audio tool called TheMaestrix, that tricks the old OMSS into thinking my ESI@Juli XTe PCIe audio MIDI card is an old 16bit Maestro Pro soundcard, and using the Mix mode in OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c to compose music, up to 64 independent, panned stereo channels with support for Echo and Cross Echo! All in glorious 16 bit quality!

New OctaMED V8 with AHI support

It came as a big surprise earlier in 2024 that a brand new OctaMED SoundStudio v8 for the Amiga, would be released now in autumn! For the very first time since 1997. It will support AHI and MIDI as a start, which is pretty impressive! The new A600GS 68k-compatible ARM based Amiga system, that reminds very much about Raspberry, will be the first to use the new version out of the box, optimized to use the ARM technology of the A600GS system natively.

The ordinary 68k version of the new OctaMED V8 will also be released at the same time as the A600GS this autumn, both as a boxed version from AmigaKit and as a digital bought download from AmiStore app. The PPC version might come a few months after that, according to reliable sources from AmigaKit themselves.

A600GS cool bundle

While waiting, the old OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c with TheMaestrix AHI tool still works very well for my Amiga music projects. I have done Amiga music actively since 2018. That's 6 years.

These days, I'm working on a 12-song Amiga Summer & Chill collection. The first release after the completion of my new Last Ninja 3 Amiga music, the first of 12 of these summer tracks is "Rock Me Baby", recently released. It's a 16bit 4ch mixture of Blues, Jazz and Rock. It got a pretty good score on YouTube. Go to my YouTube channel HKvalhe and look for it.

Latest AmigaAMP with rotating Boing Ball

When not composing music, I listen to my own Amiga music through latest AmigaAMP that is version 3.34. AmigaAMP has full support for AHI and several formats like MP3, FLAC, OGG, MOD, S3M and even XM, meaning you can listen to several Amiga music modules with AmigaAMP as well. The sound quality is simply brilliant when using AmigaAMP. The skin I use for AmigaAMP is the new silver skin with rotating Amiga Boing Ball, which I think is pretty cool and looks very modern on my AmigaOne X5000.

DAPlayer on the X5000

DAPlayer is another very useful music player that works much the same way as AmigaAMP. Supports many different formats and plays MIDI as well. I mostly use this for playing MIDI songs. Otherwise, I stick to AmigaAMP for most music.

Improving my Amiga pixel art work

Pixel art is another thing I happen to do more and more, since I won the second place in Amiga Music during the Amiga Art 2022 Contest. I also contributed a lot of my art and music to the 2023 Contest, but have yet to see the results, after 9 months of delay, due to life event issues kicking in.

Grafx2 running on AmigaOne X5000

For 9 months now, I became very frustrated not to see the results of the Amiga Art 2023 Contest. In the end, it didn't help much to try to reason with the arrangers behind Amiga Art Contest, as it was revealed that they're not paid to arrange either a show or a contest. Therefore, I gave up trying to push the subject, and I believe others who contributed to the 2023 Contest also gave it up and stopped bothering with it and moved on.

It's a pity that the Amiga Art 2023 delay caused so much damage that it became a disaster instead, but this is what can happen when you get a 9 months of delay. A normal person, like myself, can tolerate up to 3 months of a delay, not 9. That's just madness and not even normal. But done is done and the damage cannot be undone. Even if we all move on, most will remember the 2023 Contest to be a disappointment and something that should be learnt from, to avoid such unpleasant situations in the future.

We move on. If you see the screenshot above to the left, it displays the open-source pixel paint program "Grafx2", which is also ported to both AmigaOS3 and AmigaOS4. The version displayed is 2.5Wip, but the latest version is 2.9, the latter one being ported by Kas1e. Kas1e has run some tests with the latest 2.9 version, and should be much faster and better than 2.5.

Grafx2 is a pretty good and cool paint program. It has many cool brushes and an impressive smear technic. What makes Grafx2 so cool is that the result of your painting will look the same, no matter what platform you use the program on. Grafx2 is especially good for Lowres pixel art or for creating game related graphic. I look forward for the 2.9 update coming soon.

Improving my Lowres pixel art in PPaint

The screenshot to the right here displays a pixel work I did for the Amiga Cover for the track named "Rock Me Baby", a WIP. The snapshot was taken directly from my AmigaOne X5000. The figure was drawn and painted in 32 color Lowres 320x256 resolution, in the PPC native version of Personal Paint (PPaint) 7.3c.

PPaint is made by Cloanto but A-EON bought the rights to do the latest ports. A new 7.4 version is on the way, already part of the new A600GS system I mentioned earlier. The A600GS version is using the ARM library for optimized performance. The 68k and PPC version will be available both as a box release from AmigaKit and as digital download through AmiStore. Because I have the 7.3c version, I will receive the PPC native 7.4 upgrade for FREE, which is super-cool! PPaint is the paint program I use most of the time. It's very easy to use and it's powerful, especially with its Image Processing features. Also saving an object as a brush in PPaint is very easy as well. This was actually the case seen from the image above.

Rock Me Baby Amiga Cover I made

This covers most of my current stuffs on my AmigaOne X5000 system. I'm very proud and happy to have it, as I truly enjoy the most powerful Amiga system on earth! It serves as my main Amiga system for my creativity work and for playing cool Amiga games. This ends the blog for now, but there will be new blogs later on, so keep your eyes for any future blog from me.

Thank you all for reading my blog. Hope you enjoy it.

Written by

Helge Kvalheim (HKvalhe) from Norway

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