Living the dreamm~ PowerMac G5

[adespoton]

I'm also no expert, but that's my understanding too; G4 adds AltiVec, a proper SMP implementation and a few related instruction extensions, mostly to do with hardware acceleration pipelines. In other words, as far as the instruction set itself goes, AltiVec is the big thing; most of the other changes were to do with how it interfaced with the rest of the hardware.

 

[Link4Electronics]

One interesting finding is that ArchPOWER uses ELFv2 from OpenPOWER Foundation

according to the internet, ELFv2 ABI provides significant performance and efficiency advantages over the ELFv1 ABI on PowerPC64:
No Function Descriptors, Reduced Call Costs, Optimized Parameter Passing, Streamlined Stack Frame, Improved Position-Independent Code (PIC), Optimized Main Modules and Modern Toolchain Support.

I may be wrong but I think Debian PPC64 still uses ELFv1.
Started compiling binaries for PPC32, they're at my repo on github.

Best regards,
Link.

 

[herd]

The G4 is basically a faster G3 with altivec tacked on, isn't it?

I've heard that too.

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/ppc750gx-vs-ppc750gl.39043/post-554049

 

[Powerbase]

Was going to say the same, but the previous G3 versus G4 discussion was already linked.

 

[CC_333]

Interesting! I had forgotten, but I do vaguely remember reading that thread when it was current.

That said, it's now firmly established that, as far as implementation goes, the G4 is more or less a G3 with a 3x faster bus, AltiVec and various other enhancements and improvements. However, is the G4's instruction set otherwise relatively similar to a G3, such that a binary compiled, without AltiVec, for a G4 could run unmodified on a G3?? The reverse (G3 binary running unmodded on a G4) is certainly true.

c

 

[Link4Electronics]

Compiled Aerofoil (glider pro), works fine too

Best regards,
Link.

 

[Link4Electronics]

Yeah, well, brought Altivec and G4, etc., into discussion because I thought would have a problem when compiling 32-bit packages due to platforms that don't have Altivec, but checked "makepkg.conf" file and for powerpc (32-bit) arch in archpower, it doesn't use Altivec as a target, only Linux kernel uses Altivec. So PowerPC packages will work from a PowerPC 604 up to the Nintendo Wii, G3, and G4. The Nintendo Wii U has a special branch called "espresso" since it's based on 750 G3 with SMP but without Altivec.
Posted a new video making some maintenance on G5 and new games running on it.

My plan is to keep pushing this platform on linux, I think it can go further.

Best regards,
Link.