Good information at MacNN: “A PDF slideshow used at Siggraph 2002, written by Peter Graffagnino of Apple, provides information on Quartz Extreme. It will be available with Jaguar (10.2) on August 24th, and is the first OpenGL-based windowing system. It will feature true system integration (Quartz2D on a texture, Video on a texture), improved texture upload performance, programmable shaders, many new extensions, and new tools.“. Read more to check out if your Mac can support Quartz Extreme.The Quartz Extreme functionality is only supported by the following video GPUs: nVidia GeForce 2MX/3/4MX/4Ti or any ATi Radeon and ATi Radeon Mobility GPU.
A minimum of 16MB VRAM is required for lower resolutions (up to 1024×768), more VRAM you will need for higher resolutions. The more graphics memory the better, especially if you have many windows open at the same time, even if they are minimized.
Due to the needs of this kind of technology, the board needs to be at least an AGP 2x (AGP 4x recommended). PCI can not be supported because of its bandwidth constrains: PCI only does 133MB/s while the minimum needed by the technology, AGP 2x, does 533MB/s and AGP 4x does 1066MB/s.
The ATi RagePRO/128/Ultra as found in the older G4s/Cubes/Classic-iMacs, any iBooks purchased before 2 months ago or any other Mac that do not match exactly the above configurations, will not be supported by Quartz Extreme.
Especially if you own a G4, MacOSX 10.2 Jaguar has optimizations that will make your desktop almost twice as responsive when compared to OSX 10.1.5, even if you do not have a Quartz Extreme capable graphics board. With QE enabled, performance goes up to three times faster than the current 2D-only desktops (provided that the resolution is not ultra high and not a zillion of windows are open or even minimized).
I have the Quartz Debugger active and it shows window compression looks like it is active by default now. I have 40 windows open and 3 apps now. Most windows are using about 78Kb. It doesn’t run dynamically to tell how the information is moving though so this I guess isn’t much help other than to spark theories I guess. Compression like you say looks like the key to it, I’d have to say as well.
Thought you might like to check this out as well. I haven’t found the PDF yet, but might have more info for the curious as well.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/26495.html
1) Apple never rendered 1.5-2 years Macs obsolete.
They did. Could you take advantage of QE with a Cube? Or a PowerMac G3? Hardly.
That’s just plain wrong. There are very many people using reall “old” Macs.
I know people who uses 11 (or is it 12?) year old PCs, doesn’t mean it isn’t obsolete.
Something you can’t really say about WinXP… My Mac is 4 years old and runs OS X beautifully…
My cousin PC is 4.5 years old, and runs XP beautifully. Besides, maybe your Mac is a PowerMac, I wouldn’t know. But as for my friend’s three year old iMac, even with a memory upgrade, for him, OS X is out of the question. Though he is quite happy with OS 9 (he upgraded to it).
Actually, you’re right. According to the Slideshow, what’s happening is that each window is being stored as a texture in local memory and being uploaded to the GFX card when its needed. This is so drawing to the window is still fast (doesn’t have to go over the AGP bus). However, I doubt they can use mip-mapping. The 3D card will automatically interpolate between mipmap levels, which will make for some nasty looking windows. Although, there is one cool thing nobody has brought up. With QE OpenGL, you can render accelerated graphics to a texture. People have been wanting to do this for awhile, but its only so far been available in Direct3D. Rendering to a texture allows you to get all sorts of cool effects in 3D scenes.
Eugenia, you didn’t waste your afternoon. This has been a fascinating discussion and I know I’ve learned a lot. I guess the question, as far as OS X is concerned, is what exactly has Apple done? I mean that, it sounds as if they may have also done something else beyond the parameters of the discussion. What, I don’t know <g>.
>>1) Apple never rendered 1.5-2 years Macs obsolete.
>They did. Could you take advantage of QE with a Cube? Or a PowerMac G3? Hardly.
Yes! My iMac’s not using Quartz Extrene right now, hasn’t since I gotten it. And I just haven’t been about to use my Mac well at all!
Seriously, one of the things that has to be emphasied is that your Mac will still work fine WITHOUT Quartz Extreme. We have sound cards out now that support surround sound, as well as programs that make use of it. Does this mean those of us with two speakers are obsolete? As far as I’ve seen, not having Quartz Extreme only means you’re not going to get quite as much of a performance boost (if you trust Apple’s published specs you’re STILL getting a hefty boost), and probably won’t have the impressive things like transparency over DVDs. The computer will still be capable of running all of the game software and performing just fine. As for the cubes and Power Mac G3’s. Aside from needing a special shaped card for the Cube, you CAN get a new graphics card for those machines without too much hassle.
My mac is 3 years old(B/W G3)… and I use Mac OS X on a daily basis, it works fine, great even and I don’t think Apple has rendered my mac useless, quite the opposite, with mac os X /i can do things I couldn’t before…just my 2 cents
i finally grabbed my old beige G3/233 (circa 1998) out of the closet and upgraded it to 10.1.5 and the difference in speed from where i left it (X Beta1) is definitely noticeable. X has gotten at least 2x faster overall since it’s release (granted, it was a dog). most beta reports i’ve read about jaguar say that everyone is seeing 20-40% speedups across the board, even for old non-QE machines. so give apple a break every once in a while. that machine, practically 5 years old now, is still very much useable, doing everything in OS X at a perfectly workable speed.
I just noticed something. Most of the pro-Mac posts here are from people who actually use Macs. Most of the anti-Mac posts are from people who don’t use them, and are hazily speculating on the basis of “what they’ve heard,” or what “stands to reason.”
For the record, OS X 10.1.5 works great on my 2-year-old, 350 MHz, 128M RAM iMac, the cheapest and slowest machine Apple released in 2000. I expect 10.2 will work even faster and nicer.
Most of the Mac criticism on this site is rooted in ignorance and bias. Unless you’ve actually worked with a Mac recently, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
I have to use Macs every day for work. And I’ve give them the boot in a heartbeat for a good PC.
They are slow, spastic, and barely able to run OS 9 much less the bloatware that is OS X.
Sure, if I had the giant coin, I could purchase dual 1Ghz machines for half the people in my office. Or I could purchase 2.53Ghz P4’s for everyone in my office.
For the dollar, Mac gives you poor performance. And to get any sort of reasonable speed, it is simply too much money.
I’ve never seen any old Mac that is fun to use with OS X. Even the new Macs, you need mucho RAM. Just go to the Apple Store in Palo Alto where Steve Jobs lives. The machines that don’t have a lot of memory don’t run OS X well.
You don’t have to be a Pinto owner to know there are problems with it.
#m