amBX on mac?

[MrJam_HH]

So, while it will not work with OSX apps, it will run Windows programs seamlessly (coherence mode) in OSX. So, if you happen to have a Windows bootcamp partition, this is a rather seamless workaround solution.

* I'm running a Hackint0sh so my 'Bootcamp partition' is actually a separate hard drive with Windows installed. I imagine it would be less of the minor hiccups getting Parallels working with my custom setup. I imagine having Apple hardware with a real Bootcamp partition would be an even easier setup.[/quote]

Sorry, but this is off topic!
AMBX always runed with Bootcamp or Parallels and Windows. But this is not the issue here. What we want - as the topic already says - is: WE WANT A MAC DRIVER, not a driver for since 1998 Beta test software as Windows.
And if Philips is ignoring 25% of personal computer users: their fault.

[MrJam_HH]

so is AMBX dead for MAC? Fair question, if one looks on the board right here ...
Cheers, Wolf

[Froglet]

I think it has been clearly stated before in many places on this forum that Philips no longer supports these products on any platform. So there is no prospect of them ever providing a Mac driver.

To be fair they never said they would or made any suggestion that their lights worked on a Mac even when they did provide support.

At present MadCatz do not have plans for a Mac version of their product but as their support is still live they may choose to do so in the future and you can always contact them to suggest it.


We hope in the future to sign up hardware partners who will bring Mac lighting products to the market. We would then also provide Mac native versions of amBX.

[MrJam_HH]

[quote="Froglet"]I think it has been clearly stated before in many places on this forum that Philips no longer supports these products on any platform. So there is no prospect of them ever providing a Mac driver.


well, as we all know the support from Philips and AMBX was always lousy regarding MAC. So I think it is quite clear that regarding this topic AMBX on MAC the here present community NEVER expected that something will come from theses two companies. But maybe some private developer will read this and wants to develop something on the only serious private computing platform --> MAC. Lots of people are sick of being beta testers for Microsoft - we just want to use our computers and do not want to be forced to edit the registry for making it work properly. And the upcoming disaster with Windows 8: I do not want to be part of it.
So this Forum posts are just for one purpose: to find some private person who would like to make a driver for AMBX from Philips. I personally love this stuff and would like to use it on MAC!!
So dear AMBX: please do not feel guilty of something. We know that Philips is not the MAC friendliest company. So don´t worry. Something will be worked out, but not by you as far as I understood it. But you are missing a big comercial chance here because lots of restaurants, bars, discos are using your stuff ... but lots of them would love to have a solution MAC based.

Speaking of MadCatz: they developed a driver for their R.A.T mice for MACs and these drivers are pretty cool. I use the mouse not for gaming but as a professional consultant and the programmable buttons help me a lot. Why these guys do not do the same with their AMBX solution. Gaming on Mac is fun too.

[Froglet]

We know that this is something that many people would like, we agree that Mac users should be able to enjoy the amBX lighting experience.

Technically, legally no one other than Philips can write a driver for their hardware as it uses licensed technology to which they have sole rights. But I suspect that if this was resolved by a non-commercial party no one will be particularly concerned so you never know.

Unfortunately there is little chance for anyone to make any money from this - as Philips no longer make or sell new kits and I suspect few people would pay for a driver. So we aren't really missing a commercial opportunity - though to be honest if we could make it happen easily we'd do it anyhow.

So the best chance is either persuading MadCatz (which is something we have already suggested to them... but if there are enough people asking them it may happen sooner) or us finding a company that makes Mac products who'd like to bring new lights to the market.

If we have success on either front we will of course let you know and it will have our complete support from amBX.

If there is anyone out there interested in developing a Mac based lighting product for amBX drop me a PM and we'd be delighted to discuss that!

[djmirage]

First, my apologies for the lack of updates on the software. I realise the hardware is outdated by now, so the userbase might not be that big anymore.
I started working on a mac only app now, still have to write the usb/communication code, but I started with the screen capturing and analysing code. A little debug application I wrote:


Rendering the preview at 30fps takes about 30% cpu usage at my mac (most part is converting the captured CGImageRef to a displayable NSImage). If one presses the capture button it triggers the (very slow) method of calculating the colours for the lights (which are shown in the 5 boxes at the bottom corresponding to the 5 lights from left to right).
I have a few more days of holiday, so I might create something usable, or I might not. I need the application to be a lot quicker, so I'm going to try the new (10.8 Mountain Lion only) CGDisplayStream API. Might want to try the calculation rects to be rendered as 1x1 textures on the gpu as well so I just need 5 commands to grab the colours in software. Most of this is new for me, so a lot of figuring out of whats quick and whichs commands to use.

Let's see where this takes us.

[Froglet]

Well actually we are looking into options for Mac but it depends on the plans of our hardware partners for release of lights. So feel free to encourage MadCatz to support products with Mac drivers.

In the meantime we do have plans to provide interfaces that will run on your MacOs and iOs devices - they will still need a PC for the lights to be plugged into (and running their drivers) but will let you control them from other devices.

Keep watching this space as a lot is planned for coming few months.

[djmirage]

I assume you're not free to talk details, but I guess that "ambilight" functionality isn't one of the coming features natively on os x? Otherwise I would be wasting my spare time on this. I had great success using the 10.8 only API in my test case.

I also started a lua module which I use in one of my games. Developers could use this in the popular "löve2d" engine (which I use myself). I still need to work on this to get compatability on Windows, or maybe I'll just won't support Windows for now.

[Froglet]

Sorry, not quite yet - but soon.

As you say it won't include native Mac support until we can persuade a hardware partner to develop a Mac driver for their lights, that could be MadCatz or another party and discussions are ongoing. Things are definitely swinging back toward the Mac users market for peripherals and so that makes it a lot more likely that a partner will come on board.

So you are certainly not wasting your time and keep us posted - when we have developments that can either help or provide the features you need 'officially' I'll make sure to update the forum as soon as I can.

[Moofnor]

I'm quite happy right now!
For the last 1,5 year, once in a couple of months I've been reading this topic, just hoping for any updates.
And after all this time, it looks like there's some progress!

I haven't read back the whole story yet, but I like what I read so far.
So keep up the work guys!

[nymphe]

This is indeed great news. I am still using my ambx set on my mac and wait for any activities. Please share every kind of beta/alpha version with us.

Thank you very much for your effort.

[gryph]

Hi. I wrote a simple (python) library to directly control the Madcatz Cyborg Gaming lights using libusb. I'm a linux user myself, but I had an old mac mini (os x 10.6.8 ) lying around and when I stumbled upon this thread I thought I'd give it a try and see if it works... it does

So, if anyone wants to play around with this and/or use the code in your own projects, feel free:

Project on Github

Short version how I got the madcatz lights running on mac:

* installed gcc compiler
* installed libusb ( configure / make / sudo make install )
* installed pyusb 1.0 (git clone / sudo python setup.py install)
* downloaded library ( git clone git@github.com:gryphius/pycyborg.git )

Code: Select all

cd pycyborg
./identify.py

-> lights flashing

If you'd like to write your own controller without using python you could probably benefit from my reverse engineering of the usb protocol. some of it is documented here, I'll try to update it with the missing pieces I didn't document yet (but they are available in the python source)

[Kryss2k]

I think amBX may need to broaden their user base as there is a system in the Kickstarter that works on Windows, Mac and Linux and although I'm not going to name it the system may end up cheaper as well... of course amBX does have the scripting on it's side whereas the opposing system only reacts to the image on the screen.

I was almost tempted to grab one of the other systems to run on a Raspberry Pi or my tablet and my TV

[Froglet]

We are expecting these new generation of LED light products to really kick-start (sorry about the pun) the market and it is our intention for amBX to embrace them, we hope to support their interfaces once they are available. My impression is that initially they may be a little more expensive than the Cyborg product but hopefully all such lights will become cheaper and more ubiquitous. It is our understanding that the first of these products will be available later this year.

As this product for example could be linked to a Mac etc. it will mean that we will look again at multi-platform support.

More news on this later in the year.

[Kryss2k]

I'd love to see a new lease of life on all the ambient lighting products but from what I've seen/read the amBX system does things that none of the others do (via scripting) and that is why I've always preferred it over the other systems...

I'm really hoping that companies see that there is a market for these things as there are quite a few systems like this and that will hopefully draw them to amBX due to the scripting bonuses. Of course I stand by what I said in my previous post - you'd probably have to make a more universal system and it's a shame that Philips retain rights preventing companies from making a system that works via an HDMI pass through method as that would be great...

Also since a PS3 amBX system never materialised are there any plans to work on the PS4?
And unfortunately I've all but given up hope of ever seeing the MadCatz amBX keyboard