Mac OS X Quicktime, OpenGL Enhancements Coming? [Archive]

MacRumors

Apr 10, 2007, 06:38 PM

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

According to ThinkSecret, Apple is at work overhauling QuickTime and OpenGL components (http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0704qtopengl.html) in Mac OS X in order to improve video and 3D performance. The site's sources reportedly claim that Apple is working hard to make sure that both enhancements are included with Mac OS 10.5 "Leopard", although they caution that the QuickTime enhancements may be pushed back beyond Leopard.

For QuickTime, Apple is reportedly building a new API which would deliver many of the improvements said to be included in the software. "While QuickTime from a end-users perspective is not expected to undergo any substantial improvements, the new API will take years of legacy QuickTime code and replace it with a more modern and efficient architecture to deliver improved performance and maintainability." The site claims that such an API would likely fall under Apple's "Core" mantra ("Core Video").

As for OpenGL, ThinkSecret reports that separate sources claim that substantial improvements are on track for Leopard's implantation of OpenGL which should enable Mac OS X to perform more on par with similarly configured PC systems, especially with respect to games.

Apple has been actively involved in implementing multi-threaded OpenGL (http://www.macrumors.com/2006/12/07/world-of-warcraft-update-and-multithreaded-opengl-in-mac-os-x-10-4-8/), having introduced it in Mac OS 10.4.8 for Intel. PowerPC support for multi-threaded OpenGL should arrive with Leopard.

FF_productions

Apr 10, 2007, 06:41 PM

Sounds good...so when is Leopard coming out?

ghall

Apr 10, 2007, 06:42 PM

About time! :rolleyes:

Eidorian

Apr 10, 2007, 06:42 PM

I hope game developers and porters start to use multithreaded OpenGL. It's a great boost for Macs without a great video card.

trainguy77

Apr 10, 2007, 06:42 PM

I hope game developers and ports start to use multithreaded OpenGL. It's a great boost for Macs without a great video card.

Yeah i hope so too, I want to be able to use all 4 cores get better fps. :D

xUKHCx

Apr 10, 2007, 06:44 PM

Quicktime updates expected. Updates to OpenGL also expected especially since the recently introduced multithreaded OpenGL. All of these are welcome and I hope they bring with them speed.

psychofreak

Apr 10, 2007, 06:54 PM

Mmm...ThinkSecret, I think I would rather trust my 10 year old sister...

aLoC

Apr 10, 2007, 06:58 PM

Video playback is fine in OS X already. 3D could do with a speed boost, to become as fast as DirectX.

Di9it8

Apr 10, 2007, 07:01 PM

Will this mean the video card processing load will be reduced?
Or is OpenGL video card intensive?

Clive At Five

Apr 10, 2007, 07:03 PM

Apple has been actively involved in implementing multi-threaded OpenGL (http://www.macrumors.com/2006/12/07/world-of-warcraft-update-and-multithreaded-opengl-in-mac-os-x-10-4-8/), having introduced it in Mac OS 10.4.8 for Intel. PowerPC support for multi-threaded OpenGL should arrive with Leopard.

How much longer do you think Apple will support the PowerPC?? I realize that newer versions of OS X often INCREASE performance in older machines, but it almost seems they want to ditch the PowerPC... perhaps even more quickly than they did OS 9. I could be wrong though.

Anyone else have 2 cents to share on the issue?

-Clive

Clive At Five

Apr 10, 2007, 07:06 PM

Mmm...ThinkSecret, I think I would rather trust my 10 year old sister...

I would say that ThinkSecret's exclusive reports are among the more accurate I've heard - far more accurate than the analysts we've been hearing from way too often lately.

I remember one MWSF a couple years ago that they nailed right on the head. No one else was even close.

ThinkSecret deserves *some* credit, although their promptness could be improved...

-Clive

ikarus79m

Apr 10, 2007, 07:10 PM

Please, please, PLEEEEEAAAASSSEEEE, fix the annoying H.264 gamma shift bug in Quicktime. I can't deal with that much longer. PLEASE!!!

AoWolf

Apr 10, 2007, 07:10 PM

I would say that ThinkSecret's exclusive reports are among the more accurate I've heard - far more accurate than the analysts we've been hearing from way too often lately.

I remember one MWSF a couple years ago that they nailed right on the head. No one else was even close.

ThinkSecret deserves *some* credit, although their promptness could be improved...

-Clive

For what its worth the Blizzard Entertainment (guys who made WoW) mac team has talked about major OpenGL improvements in 10.5 for some time.

hvfsl

Apr 10, 2007, 07:12 PM

Well as far as I am aware, Quicktime/Mac OS doesn't use all the video decoding features of modern graphics cards, so hopefully the new update will change that.

Eidorian

Apr 10, 2007, 07:14 PM

For what its worth the Blizzard Entertainment (guys who made WoW) mac team has talked about major OpenGL improvements in 10.5 for some time.I believe it is already implemented as well. It's just that they are the only people that are right now.

RedTomato

Apr 10, 2007, 07:14 PM

Will we finally, finally get decent subtitle handling in Quicktime?

(yes subtitles are possible but they're a QT pain in the arse)

This has been one of my greatest shamefaced lacks in OSX compared to Windows. Subtitle handling is not an optional extra, it's pretty much crucial for any kind of serious video work.

I can only dream of what a smooth OSX subtitle creation and user interface would be like, compared to the current clunky but working Windows options.

Rocketman

Apr 10, 2007, 07:15 PM

How much longer do you think Apple will support the PowerPC?? I realize that newer versions of OS X often INCREASE performance in older machines, but it almost seems they want to ditch the PowerPC... perhaps even more quickly than they did OS 9. I could be wrong though.

Anyone else have 2 cents to share on the issue?

-Clive

Apple ditches old stuff just as soon as they have a full-blooded crossover implementation, in this case OS 10.5.

I would bet that 10.6 offers only minimalist support for PowerPC and may leave out PPC on most "innovative" features in that release.

Given DirectX is a requirement for many vertical market apps in the wintel world, it sure would be good if Apple made sure 10.5 supported it so people can have no excuses to not adopt Apple hardware and Parallels.

Rocketman

psychofreak

Apr 10, 2007, 07:15 PM

Well as far as I am aware, Quicktime/Mac OS doesn't use all the video decoding features of modern graphics cards, so hopefully the new update will change that.

Hardware h.264 encoding perhaps...

iJon

Apr 10, 2007, 07:19 PM

All I want is double click full screen viewing, exactly like Windows Media Player.

Once they do that I'll be a happy camper.

jon

aquaibm

Apr 10, 2007, 07:21 PM

It's great! I can't wait!

Eidorian

Apr 10, 2007, 07:21 PM

All I want is double click full screen viewing, exactly like Windows Media Player.

Once they do that I'll be a happy camper.

jonVLC (http://www.videolan.org/) and QTFS (http://macweaver.com/software/quiktimefs/)

therif

Apr 10, 2007, 07:23 PM

Hmmm, Core Video?... Apple Talked about that years ago...

Core Image == Core Video

Quote from their site

Not Just for Still Images

Core Video, joining Core Image in Mac OS X Tiger, delivers a modern foundation for video services, providing a bridge between QuickTime and the GPU for hardware-accelerated video processing. This highly optimized pipeline for video presentation increases performance and reduces CPU load, freeing up resources for other operations.

And Core Video allows developers to apply all the benefits of Core Image to video — blazingly-fast performance of filters and effects, per-pixel accuracy and hardware scalability.

So, I doubt it'll be called Core Video...

Hmm well, we'll see... Let's hope they make (another) improvement :)

guzhogi

Apr 10, 2007, 07:40 PM

How much longer do you think Apple will support the PowerPC?? I realize that newer versions of OS X often INCREASE performance in older machines, but it almost seems they want to ditch the PowerPC... perhaps even more quickly than they did OS 9. I could be wrong though.

Anyone else have 2 cents to share on the issue?

-Clive

I wonder if Apple will pull a M$ and ditch PowerPC in 10.5. Doubt it. But, that might help boost sales of Intel Macs, but probably drive off people who have the newest PowerPCs. I heard they'll drop G3 support. That's kinda good b/c 10.4 on a G3 is DEAD slow. Hate to see what 10.5 would be like. Plus, if they drop G3s, they'll be able to optimize the Mac OS to use the SIMD stuff in their processors (Altivec in G4s & G5s, SSE in Intel).

Only advantage of dropping PowerPC, is more simplified code base. Instead of having to write code for 2 different hardware platforms, they'll just have 1 hardware platform making it easier to write new versions of Mac OS X.

psychofreak

Apr 10, 2007, 07:46 PM

I wonder if Apple will pull a M$ and ditch PowerPC in 10.5. The developer previews run on PPC...

Eric5h5

Apr 10, 2007, 07:47 PM

For what its worth the Blizzard Entertainment (guys who made WoW) mac team has talked about major OpenGL improvements in 10.5 for some time.

In fact they said any new games they release for Mac later this year will require 10.5. I bet that makes Apple happy...otherwise some people would stay on 10.4 (or even 10.3) longer...no doubt there will be some complaints though.

Given DirectX is a requirement for many vertical market apps in the wintel world, it sure would be good if Apple made sure 10.5 supported it so people can have no excuses to not adopt Apple hardware and Parallels.

It's not up to Apple to have 10.5 support DirectX. Microsoft would have to implement it, or at least license it, and the chances of that approach 0%.

--Eric

MonkeyClaw

Apr 10, 2007, 07:49 PM

I don't think they will drop it in 10.5. G3 support, probably, but not G4 and G5 considering that they even still sell PPC referbs. I mean I dunno but I would think that as long as you can still buy a PPC Mac from Apple directly, then they would have to have support in their OS. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that it will be a while before they completely drop the PPC architecture in terms of OS X support.

macrumors12345

Apr 10, 2007, 07:50 PM

I wonder if Apple will pull a M$ and ditch PowerPC in 10.5. Doubt it....Only advantage of dropping PowerPC, is more simplified code base. Instead of having to write code for 2 different hardware platforms, they'll just have 1 hardware platform making it easier to write new versions of Mac OS X.

No, even if they dropped PPC support (which they will not in 10.5, and they will not in 10.6...maybe in 10.7), they'd still have two platforms to code for: Intel and ARM (iPhone).

One of the great strengths of OS X is that it is hardware agnostic, and once all the devs have moved to XCode (i.e., once MSFT ships Office 2k8 later this year), there is very little effort required to maintain a codebase that runs on Intel and PPC (and potentially other platforms too).

Going forward you are going to see OS X become MORE hardware agnostic, not less.

ElderscrollsV

Apr 10, 2007, 07:51 PM

I don't really get what this means...Like I know quite a bit about computers, but this "open gl?" and other stuff....can somone explain to me what this REALLY means...

fuyutsuki

Apr 10, 2007, 07:51 PM

Anyone else have 2 cents to share on the issue?

My intuition / guess:

10.5: ditch G3
10.6: ditch PPC

I wouldn't be at all surprised if 10.6 were Intel only, and Apple had good excuses for it thanks to another longer release cycle. It just seems to me that the days of new year / new OS X are behind us. Not Vista bad, goodness no, but less hectic than back before Tiger since so much is in place now.

Also I foresee a bright and crucial future for Core Animation but that's another story.

job

Apr 10, 2007, 07:52 PM

Mmm...ThinkSecret, I think I would rather trust my 10 year old sister...

TS used to be one of the most accurate Apple sites, far more so than Appleinsider or even Macrumors, especially back in the day.

I wouldn't blow off a report like this.

psychofreak

Apr 10, 2007, 07:54 PM

TS used to be one of the most accurate Apple sites, far more so than Appleinsider or even Macrumors, especially back in the day.

I wouldn't blow off a report like this.

There are always going to be improvements, and things such as 'Quicktime will be improved' are not so useful to me...

What I am blowing off is the idea that TS has reliable inside sources...probably the same ones that got so much other stuff wrong...

EagerDragon

Apr 10, 2007, 07:54 PM

I wonder if these changes will be ablee to keep those 8 cores busy.

elppa

Apr 10, 2007, 07:56 PM

Interesting to see exciting things being worked on for Leopard that are not in the developer previews.

A sign of more to come…?

EagerDragon

Apr 10, 2007, 07:59 PM

hob

Apr 10, 2007, 07:59 PM

I remember being blown away by seeing a G5 tower running 4 (:eek: ) Quicktime movies at the same time without stuttering...

Anyway, yes yes... good...

Umm,

I wish all games companies were like Blizzard. From my experience with Warcraft III I think they basically make the game for Mac + PC and ship it all on one DVD. This is definitely the way ahead...

Although some DirectX/Windows emulation in Mac OS X would be great to see, so I could load up all my old PC games... VMWare Fusion (http://www.vmware.com/products/beta/fusion/) has some initial support, but it's not good yet.

Also, intel support being dropped... I know this is the modern world and all, and things do move on, but if you think about it the first Intel iMacs were shipping about a year ago, was it? I almost can't believe some companies are dropping PPC support already... Though I can see it being a PITA for many to still support PPC...

PPCITA!! (sorry)

guy4apple

Apr 10, 2007, 08:00 PM

I think OpenGL could be improved, but updating QuickTime would risk Panther (10.3.9) being an unsuported system.

hob

Apr 10, 2007, 08:02 PM

updating QuickTime would risk Panther (10.3.9) being an unsuported system.

how'd you mean?

Interesting to see exciting things being worked on for Leopard that are not in the developer previews.

A sign of more to come…?

I'm feeling a 3D animated Finder, but perhaps I'm optimistic...

MrCrowbar

Apr 10, 2007, 08:08 PM

Hardware h.264 encoding perhaps...

Elgato is making a USB dingle that does hardware H.264 encoding. Those things are real screamers and take off most of the CPU load. Cost around 100-130 dollars and should be out in a month or so. Keep checking their website.

ElderscrollsV

Apr 10, 2007, 08:11 PM

can anyone explain to me what this all means????

xUKHCx

Apr 10, 2007, 08:14 PM

I think OpenGL could be improved, but updating QuickTime would risk Panther (10.3.9) being an unsuported system.

That is generally what happens. Only the 2 latest OS's get updates (for the previous OS it is generally just security updates).

When Tiger came out Jaguar became unsupported. I am sure that when Leopard comes out then Panther will be laid to rest.

Which is a personal shame because my first mac, Rev A iMac came with Panther so i have a sort of bond with it. However on the flipside means I am even further along my OS X journey which has to be good.

Leopard will be on a pre-order as soon as I can, just like Tiger was before it.

MrCrowbar

Apr 10, 2007, 08:14 PM

No, even if they dropped PPC support (which they will not in 10.5, and they will not in 10.6...maybe in 10.7), they'd still have two platforms to code for: Intel and ARM (iPhone).

One of the great strengths of OS X is that it is hardware agnostic, and once all the devs have moved to XCode (i.e., once MSFT ships Office 2k8 later this year), there is very little effort required to maintain a codebase that runs on Intel and PPC (and potentially other platforms too).

Going forward you are going to see OS X become MORE hardware agnostic, not less.

Believe it or not, but XCode just does not work for big software projects. Even the new one that will be out with leopard lacks features necessary for big software development. Most open source projects use XCode, but most commercial software relies on more elaborate systems. I bet a lot of people are actually using visual studio on PCs and have some sorts of plugins to compile for OSX...

Di9it8

Apr 10, 2007, 08:15 PM

I think OpenGL could be improved, but updating QuickTime would risk Panther (10.3.9) being an unsuported system.

It is not being developed any more, so it is already unsupported in those terms.
Many of the new OS features are only usable with what ever the current update is.

MrCrowbar

Apr 10, 2007, 08:24 PM

can anyone explain to me what this all means????

The rapture is coming! :D

To keep it simple: 3D stuff, videos and Core Animation (the new feature in Leopard that enables super smooth transitions) will run better.

I wish they would use core animation for when I switch between the views (Icon, List, Column) in Finder. Imagine the items in the right column (in column view) zooming into place and morphing into the big preview icons. It's actually super easy to do with core animation, very fun to play around. If you're an ADC member, download an open source project and try to add core animation effects everywhere. Only then will you grasp the potential of that API. :o

Morris

Apr 10, 2007, 08:26 PM

Also, intel support being dropped... I know this is the modern world and all, and things do move on, but if you think about it the first Intel iMacs were shipping about a year ago, was it? I almost can't believe some companies are dropping PPC support already... Though I can see it being a PITA for many to still support PPC...

What software dropped PPC support? Don't mention Adobe CS3 because they did not drop PPC support. Everything that was available on PPC in CS2 will be available for PPC in CS3. They only added some stuff that only existed for X86 (for Windows) so was easy to port. They had two options, just release it for Intel or not release it at all. I'm glad they choose the first option, especially given the fact all power hungry CS users will be on Intel anyway.

Howmanoid

Apr 10, 2007, 08:26 PM

Anything AAPL can do to put a dent in MSFT's DirectX10 PR train has got to be a good thing. It would be so totally sweet if Leopard could be released with graphic benchmarks that leave Veeesta in the dust.

PS. Check out the Spam piece on my blog (below) if you want a good giggle (sorry for the shameless plug but I think you'll really like it).

Vidd

Apr 10, 2007, 08:27 PM

I've seen a few people complain about Tiger feeling as if it wasn't optimised for the Intel architecture and I don't know if that's true or not (what does anyone else think?).
I'm hoping that relevations such as these allude to better support for newer hardware i.e. software that makes better use of what's available.
For example, I'd like to see Leopard perform better than Tiger on intel Macs and although I don't see them dropping support for PPC for a while, I expect or at least hope for them attempt this even though people might claim that they are forgetting about a good chunk of thier customers.

I don't expect very much support to exist when 10.6 rolls around though.

EDIT:I'd really like to see hardware encoding but I'm slightly pessimistic about that being a possibility.
Quicktime, though, could be related to this.

theBB

Apr 10, 2007, 08:30 PM

TS used to be one of the most accurate Apple sites, far more so than Appleinsider or even Macrumors, especially back in the day.

I wouldn't blow off a report like this.
Let's see since last summer, TS predicted Red iMacs, video iPods in October '06, then before Christmas '06, Blue-Ray drives in "early 2007", Leopard in March, iPhone in April. These are the ones that made into MacRumors, who knows what else it had. It is not that hard to predict intel MacBooks, 8-core Mac Pros or C2D MBPs "this Tuesday" countless times and be right at some point. It seems like the sources for TS has dried up.

Now, it is about MBP with LED backlights in first or second quarter, 4k+ resolution displays and FC Extreme at NAB. We'll see...

xUKHCx

Apr 10, 2007, 08:33 PM

I've seen a few people complain about Tiger feeling as if it wasn't optimised for the Intel architecture and I don't know if that's true or not (what does anyone else think?).

I feel that Tiger on Intel was just a hack, felt very unpolished and buggy. I came across more bugs using OS X .4 on Intel than i did using 10.4.0 on PPC. It has gotten a lot better with 10.4.9 and the airport updates but there is still something there which is no quite right. I will be glad when 10.5 is released because it will be the first major release knowing full well that it will be used on intel machines and widely tested on the intel architecture that it being used on, rather than the pentium 4 dev boxes etc.

ortuno2k

Apr 10, 2007, 08:37 PM

I think it's a good thing about the OpenGL thing.
I've noticed that World of Warcraft has improved A LOT on my MBP after Apple did their updates, I think 10.4.8 or 10.4.9. Also Blizz released some updates, so that was nice.
Soo...where's Leopard?

trainguy77

Apr 10, 2007, 08:38 PM

I feel that Tiger on Intel was just a hack, felt very unpolished and buggy. I came across more bugs using OS X .4 on Intel than i did using 10.4.0 on PPC. It has gotten a lot better with 10.4.9 and the airport updates but there is still something there which is no quite right. I will be glad when 10.5 is released because it will be the first major release knowing full well that it will be used on intel machines and widely tested on the intel architecture that it being used on, rather than the pentium 4 dev boxes etc.

Yeah i have noticed this too. I think that 10.5 will run much better on intel then its 10.4 counterpart.

ElderscrollsV

Apr 10, 2007, 08:41 PM

The rapture is coming! :D

To keep it simple: 3D stuff, videos and Core Animation (the new feature in Leopard that enables super smooth transitions) will run better.

I wish they would use core animation for when I switch between the views (Icon, List, Column) in Finder. Imagine the items in the right column (in column view) zooming into place and morphing into the big preview icons. It's actually super easy to do with core animation, very fun to play around. If you're an ADC member, download an open source project and try to add core animation effects everywhere. Only then will you grasp the potential of that API. :o

mmmok I understand. I have a question though...I have a black macbook and it runs superfast...and I am sure that a "core animated" finder would run smooth as silk on my beast. BUT what about those that are stuck on g4s? Do you really think apple is going to integrate somthing like this in 10.5???

Enigmac

Apr 10, 2007, 08:42 PM

This sounds promising. Bring on Leopard! :D

ogee

Apr 10, 2007, 09:05 PM

can anyone explain to me what this all means????

It means if you cant understand it your getting old ;)

dartzorichalcos

Apr 10, 2007, 09:07 PM

I hope that there will be Blue-ray support with these updates too.

Konradx

Apr 10, 2007, 09:15 PM

a lil late. Hope they do this sooner, rather than later

twoodcc

Apr 10, 2007, 09:16 PM

Sounds good...so when is Leopard coming out?

exactly!

but yeah, this does sound good.....hope they get quicktime in leopard

ppnkg

Apr 10, 2007, 09:19 PM

EagerDragon

Apr 10, 2007, 09:21 PM

can anyone explain to me what this all means????

OpenGL is a graphic library that to my knowledge was developed for Unix/Linux. Since OSX is a variant of that it can also run it. It is mainly used for 3D games. Making it faster makes Mac's a better gaming choice.

Mgkwho

Apr 10, 2007, 09:27 PM

Mmm...ThinkSecret, I think I would rather trust my 10 year old sister...

well said

-=|Mgkwho

mozmac

Apr 10, 2007, 09:31 PM

EagerDragon

Apr 10, 2007, 09:32 PM

Well, they can't do that soon - there's still many of us PPC mac users out there.

Apple may not abandom us PPC users for a while, but the writing is on the wall, even Adobe has some intel only products, several other developers are also going to start moving toward Intel only. It will be slow at first and in a year it will be hard to find many upgraded PPC apps. Slow at first, like a train until it picks up speed.

Look at FC specs.

MrCrowbar

Apr 10, 2007, 09:44 PM

mmmok I understand. I have a question though...I have a black macbook and it runs superfast...and I am sure that a "core animated" finder would run smooth as silk on my beast. BUT what about those that are stuck on g4s? Do you really think apple is going to integrate somthing like this in 10.5???

I'm writing on a 500 MHz PowerMac G4 AGP (1999 or 2000) right now running OSX 10.4.9. It all works, only videos don't really cut it and there's only the old slow USB 1.1. I borrowed that machine because my Macbook is at the shop for repairs.

The Macbook does not have a dedicated graphics card, there's merely a chip that uses (up to) 64 MB of your main memory (RAM) and sucks big time on 3D stuff but works very well on anything else. Core Animation works fine on Macbooks indeed (I have a the developer releases) and should do well on recent Powerbooks and G5 Powermacs. It's already using the graphics card a lot, so it doesn't really matter if you're on a G4 ore Core 2 Duo, the graphics card counts.

As it is right now, exposé in Leopard works about twice as smooth on my 500 MHz Powermac as it does in Tiger. Expect it to get a little better with the final release. I'd say everything that says Apple on it and has more than one GHz should handle Core animation just fine.

But remember Apple is famous for dropping obsolete things very fast. They were fast to ditch the floppy drives and VGA-Connectors in favor of better technology. I assume Leopard will be the last OSX that runs on G4s. OSX 10.6 might be supported for G5s as they can do 64 bit, but don't count on it.

So my answer to your question is: I don't think Leopard will have core animation everywhere, only where it adds to the ease of use, for example when you change the sorting scheme, the items smoothly move to their new position. Windows Vista has lots of Eye Candy, and most people will agree that it actually doesn't add to the ease of use at all, it's just disturbing. Apple is all about keeping it simple yet useful.

Leopard will most probably come out on June 11th with some updated hardware and iLife. iPhone will be either a little sooner or later, but since Apple does not want small developers to make software for it, there's no reason to reveal it at WWDC in my opinion.

ricksbrain

Apr 10, 2007, 09:45 PM

Mmm...ThinkSecret, I think I would rather trust my 10 year old sister...

So what does she have to say? :D

MrCrowbar

Apr 10, 2007, 09:49 PM

Am I one of the few that's completely under-impressed with Quicktime's video performance? Don't get me wrong, Quicktime is very robust and has taken computer video to new heights. However, iTunes video performance pails in comparison to Windows Media Player. I love iTunes as a music player and I've been using it since it was SoundJam MP, but cannot say anything good about it as a movie player. I hope this rumor is true because Apple needs to build up their video performance if they are going to poise themselves as a media content provider.

Yea, iTunes sucks big time for video, even small podcasts look like crap. Do the right-click, reveal in finder and open the same thing with quicktime or through front row and you'll have smoother video than VLC can offer, especially on high def stuff.

iJon

Apr 10, 2007, 09:51 PM

VLC (http://www.videolan.org/) and QTFS (http://macweaver.com/software/quiktimefs/)

I know this, plus I own QTPro so no problem there. What I want to do is to be able to double click a video in Safari and it goes to full screen, simple as that and just like Windows does it. It didn't seem like that software did it.

There is this new piece of software out called BoPeepers. The software didn't work the first time I tried it so I haven't messed with it since.

jon

Rocketman

Apr 10, 2007, 09:52 PM

It's not up to Apple to have 10.5 support DirectX. Microsoft would have to implement it, or at least license it, and the chances of that approach 0%.
--Eric

Macintosh Business Unit. Every Parallels install (on average) sells or utilizes 1.2 Microsoft licenses. Earth to Microsoft.

Rocketman

nuckinfutz

Apr 10, 2007, 10:06 PM

Apple is replacing the older legacy Quicktime frameworks for the new QTKit which is 64-bit.

OpenGL in Leopard is the newest 2.1 version which will be threaded even better than today's 10.4.x

Eric5h5

Apr 10, 2007, 10:44 PM

OpenGL is a graphic library that to my knowledge was developed for Unix/Linux. Since OSX is a variant of that it can also run it. It is mainly used for 3D games. Making it faster makes Mac's a better gaming choice.

OpenGL was developed by SGI as a successor to their IRIS GL. It's an open standard, which is why Apple uses it. It's a 3D graphics API, which you can implement on any OS...Apple first used it in OS 8, which of course has nothing to do with Unix.

--Eric

GeeYouEye

Apr 10, 2007, 10:56 PM

Apple is replacing the older legacy Quicktime frameworks for the new QTKit which is 64-bit.

OpenGL in Leopard is the newest 2.1 version which will be threaded even better than today's 10.4.x

This is correct, though it's worth noting that QTKit exists in Tiger (in what's likely a more limited form than we'll seen in Leopard) already.

Fukui

Apr 10, 2007, 10:56 PM

Am I one of the few that's completely under-impressed with Quicktime's video performance? Don't get me wrong, Quicktime is very robust and has taken computer video to new heights. However, iTunes video performance pails in comparison to Windows Media Player. I love iTunes as a music player and I've been using it since it was SoundJam MP, but cannot say anything good about it as a movie player. I hope this rumor is true because Apple needs to build up their video performance if they are going to poise themselves as a media content provider.

Hence all of the fixes/re-writing that are being done.

nuckinfutz

Apr 10, 2007, 11:01 PM

This is correct, though it's worth noting that QTKit exists in Tiger (in what's likely a more limited form than we'll seen in Leopard) already.

Indeed ..I'm wondering just 'how' extensive of an update the Leopard QTKit is. I heard developers state that Tiger's QTKit was pretty basic. I'm hoping for a bit more "beef" with the Leopard version.

SiliconAddict

Apr 10, 2007, 11:05 PM

Sounds good...so when is Leopard coming out?

Who cares. Seriously. Anyone who is so anxious about getting the OS launched isn’t interested in stability. They just want teh shiny. Personally stability comes over features however features comes over stagnation.

landis

Apr 10, 2007, 11:24 PM

As to what everyone is saying about dropping ppc support, i do not think that will occur anytime soon. there is still a large mac base using ppc and they do not want to risk loosing them by making their hardware obsolete.

i would think the apples as well as other developers straregy would be to make apps more processor intensive until G4s cannot run them, only the higher powered G5s.

once they have i would estimate around 80-90% of users on intel, then they may drop support completely. although i do not see this happening until 10.7

in the past apple has received lots of criticism for dropping obsolete technology even as recently as putting an express card instead of a pc card slot in the macbookpro.

i am still on a rev A imac with tiger and can see this conputer working easily for another three years, although i am getting my new macbookpro in the summer once all major problems have been fixed.

Catfish_Man

Apr 11, 2007, 01:27 AM

I love how people somehow think this is new stuff that isn't in the developer seeds... iirc it's all in the publicly available WWDC session videos.

RedDragon870503

Apr 11, 2007, 01:41 AM

I don't see PPC being dropped anytime soon.

The very high end G4's (Dual 1.42's, 1.67, and the after market chips pushing 1.8) and most G5's are still very capable chips that run Tiger amazingly well. To completely phase them out in 1 or 2 major system updates would be crazy.

(Plus, I just got my lovely "iSight" iMac and I do not want to see it obsolete!)

bigwig

Apr 11, 2007, 02:09 AM

OpenGL was developed by SGI as a successor to their IRIS GL. It's an open standard, which is why Apple uses it. It's a 3D graphics API, which you can implement on any OS...Apple first used it in OS 8, which of course has nothing to do with Unix.
--Eric
It should be noted that DirectX exists in usable form because Microsoft joined a consortium with SGI to develop an advanced graphics API. From a 1997 press release:

"The Fahrenheit project will create a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) for the Microsoft DirectX multimedia architecture on the Windows operating system and the Silicon Graphics UNIX-based platform. Fahrenheit will incorporate Microsoft Direct3D and DirectDraw APIs with Silicon Graphics complementary technologies such as OpenGL, OpenGL Scene Graph and OpenGL Optimizer. The Fahrenheit architecture will be the basis for innovative third-party graphics and visualization applications including Internet, games, business, digital content creation, CAD/CAM, medical and scientific applications."

Fahrenheit was a bust, but not before Microsoft stole a bunch of SGI's work for DirectX. DirectX was horrid before then, both from a useability and performance standpoint, but the version of DirectX after Fahrenheit was shuttered (DX6?) was a quantum leap ahead. SGI, of course, got no credit for it, and this deal (one of several) with the devil augured in SGI's long downward slide.

aLoC

Apr 11, 2007, 03:13 AM

I don't really get what this means...Like I know quite a bit about computers, but this "open gl?" and other stuff....can somone explain to me what this REALLY means...

When programmers want to write a program that puts 3D stuff on the screen (such as a spaceship in a game) they don't program the apperance of the spaceship pixel by pixel.

They use some pre-written program code that comes with OS X called OpenGL that lets them draw entire triangles, cubes etc. at a time. It's easier for them, but it also means the speed of their program depends on how fast that pre-written program runs.

So it's exciting when Apple decides to put some effort in to speeding it OpenGL, because it means all your existing programs that use it (all your games for example) will potentially start going faster, even though the program code on the game CD hasn't changed since you bought it.

JFreak

Apr 11, 2007, 03:24 AM

I don't see PPC being dropped anytime soon.

Me neither. Apple still sells refurbished PPC hardware, and whatever Apple sells they have committed to support for at least 3 years. Therefore, we can take it as a fact that PPC support will be available in 2010.

Dropping G3 is another story; the chip lacks vector processing unit and can be considered obsolete. Even the current iLife pack does not fully support G3, so one can assume Leopard does not either. But that is because current Apple software seems to be requiring vector processing unit and not because G3 is old.

That said, I'm certain Apple will never drop G4 support "because it is old". Essentially G4 and G5 are the same (code-wise), so the big question is: how long Apple continues to support PPC? I would guess about 5 years.

Xgreed

Apr 11, 2007, 03:42 AM

Take a look at the following Job posting:

http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExternal.showJob&RID=4721&CurrentPage=5

"
Join a new high powered team to develop a cross platform web browser plugin for interactive media. You will be solving problems in performance, resource management, and scalability across radically different hardware and software architectures. Bring to bear your knowledge of video and audio processing and interactivity from the desktop to embedded devices implemented in C and various assembler languages. Work in complex source code and build management systems on multiple projects and targets.

Senior media engineer: 5+ years experience in video and/or audio system design and development required. Both desktop and embedded preferred. C and assembler required. C++ preferred. Unix required. OS X / Darwin a major plus. API design a major plus. Codec optimization a plus. Playback optimization experience a major plus.
"

I guess they are creating the next generation of Quicktime which could be direct competitor to Adobes Flash/Flex or Microsofts WPF/E.

This next generation of Quicktime might thus become Apples new cross-platform approach of the future. Think iTunes implemented as an Apollo application.

cheers
marc

gregorsamsa

Apr 11, 2007, 05:59 AM

Being a gamer, this sounds very promising & I can barely wait for June!

I don't see PPC being dropped anytime soon.

(Plus, I just got my lovely "iSight" iMac and I do not want to see it obsolete!)

I too think Apple won't drop PPC any time soon. But Mac games developers certainly will, at least some of them. Intel-only games are starting to come out now & this process is bound to accelerate over the next couple of years.

Once the Macs have been updated, & with Leopard out in June, I'll certainly be looking to buy an Intel Mac. However, I've no intention whatsoever of getting rid of my PPC Mac & I've no worries about it becoming obsolete (outside of playing said Intel-only games).

Mac Kiwi

Apr 11, 2007, 06:07 AM

Faster 3d app viewport refresh would be awesome.

I hope they have tweaked dual planes ability etc as well.

Sounds like some of the people who bought Quadros might just get on par performance after all.

link92

Apr 11, 2007, 06:20 AM

The developer previews run on PPC...

MS shipped at least one RC of Windows 2000 for Alpha before dropping support of it. Apple has done it before also, the developer previews of Rhapsody were available for x86.

What there are developer previews of is irrelevant.

gnasher729

Apr 11, 2007, 06:21 AM

Windowlicker

Apr 11, 2007, 06:33 AM

I love iTunes as a music player and I've been using it since it was SoundJam MP, but cannot say anything good about it as a movie player. I hope this rumor is true because Apple needs to build up their video performance if they are going to poise themselves as a media content provider.

Word! iTunes is becoming far too massive. I understand the video feature only because they sell movies on iTS, but the video feature still sucks.

Three things for Quicktime:
- Full Screen support for basic version
- Playlists
- REAL subtitle support

Now, I know these features can be taken in use by using 3rd party software, but that's not what I want it to be. These two things are super easy for Apple to implement and they won't bload the software (Full Screen actually already excists). Having these features would finally let me free of VLC for example (it's pretty unstable on Intel when using a playlist -- as far as I'm concerned).

J Radical

Apr 11, 2007, 07:10 AM

Improvements are good, but if apple really wanted to compete with the windows world they would include real graphics hardware in their computers.

I'm talking mostly about the macbook, but even the MBP could do with an upgrade from the x1600- comparable dell machines kill it's graphics performance. The new 8 Core Mac Pros offer the fasted cpu available, but a mediocre graphics option with the x1900.

Graphics cards are the biggest bottle neck for the mac as a viable gaming platform. Also Direct X > OpenGl

Direct X 10 Crysis screens:

http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/5167/crysispicsd1.jpg
http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/1329/crysispicdi8.jpg
http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/8321/crysispicjq3.jpg

These are low res in game shots, check out the high res stuff HERE (http://www.crysis-online.com/Media/Screenshots/screenshots-ingame.php)

Digitalclips

Apr 11, 2007, 07:55 AM

can anyone explain to me what this all means????

The answer is 42

;)

CoreWeb

Apr 11, 2007, 08:11 AM

Improvements are good, but if apple really wanted to compete with the windows world they would include real graphics hardware in their computers.

I'm talking mostly about the macbook, but even the MBP could do with an upgrade from the x1600- comparable dell machines kill it's graphics performance. The new 8 Core Mac Pros offer the fasted cpu available, but a mediocre graphics option with the x1900.

Graphics cards are the biggest bottle neck for the mac as a viable gaming platform. Also Direct X > OpenGl

Direct X 10 Crysis screens:

These are low res in game shots, check out the high res stuff HERE (http://www.crysis-online.com/Media/Screenshots/screenshots-ingame.php)

Did you take a look at the WWDC 06 video of OpenGL demonstration? It was done by ATI, and it was amazing. It had rain that looked real, buildings that looked real, items inside buildings that looked real, well... I think you get the picture.

Perhaps it isn't the engine DirectX vs. OpenGL, but instead the game developers?

MrCrowbar

Apr 11, 2007, 10:54 AM

Could you quote a company that does _not_ use XCode? Just one, apart from Photoshop plug-in developers who are still stuck with CodeWarrior?

Most people use Code Warrior. It's old, but so is lots of the code and it can be a pain in the ass to migrate everything. Wolfram Research for instance does not use Xcode, even if Apple showed on a keynote how easy it is to click the little checkbox and recompile for Intel.

The big downside of Xcode is that you can't use it if you want to make an application that runs on OSX and Windows. No one wants to have competely different environments for the same product.

DaveTheGrey

Apr 11, 2007, 11:16 AM

Did you take a look at the WWDC 06 video of OpenGL demonstration? It was done by ATI, and it was amazing.

Link? Anyone?

Eidorian

Apr 11, 2007, 11:17 AM

Link? Anyone?ADC on iTunes - Session 200 - Graphics and Media State of the Union

xUKHCx

Apr 11, 2007, 11:28 AM

ADC on iTunes - Session 200 - Graphics and Media State of the Union

How do i find this? I changed my store to the US store but still couldn't find it, probably right under my nose.

DaveTheGrey

Apr 11, 2007, 11:28 AM

ADC on iTunes - Session 200 - Graphics and Media State of the Union

looks like I forgot my ADC on iTunes login password...

Edit:
actually I never had one

Eidorian

Apr 11, 2007, 11:29 AM

How do i find this? I changed my store to the US store but still couldn't find it, probably right under my nose.Maybe Google (http://www.google.com/search?q=adc+on+itunes&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)?

Just a guess.

DaveTheGrey

Apr 11, 2007, 11:34 AM

Clive At Five

Apr 11, 2007, 11:36 AM

Dropping G3 is another story; the chip lacks vector processing unit and can be considered obsolete. Even the current iLife pack does not fully support G3, so one can assume Leopard does not either. But that is because current Apple software seems to be requiring vector processing unit and not because G3 is old.

That's why I will soon take on the job of converting my G3 iMac (DV SE+!!!) into a fish tank... It should be pretty swanky... My only regret is losing dependable OS 9 support for those old-ass games... Believe it or not, my fiancee and I still love to play "Where in the USA is Carmen SanDiego?" and "Who wants to be a Millionaire?". Both fantastic games which *will* run on my G4 imac, but not well unless I boot into OS 9. Maybe someone will release a capable emulator sometime soon. *rolls eyes* Yeah right.

-Clive

guzhogi

Apr 11, 2007, 11:36 AM

Me neither. Apple still sells refurbished PPC hardware, and whatever Apple sells they have committed to support for at least 3 years. Therefore, we can take it as a fact that PPC support will be available in 2010.

Dropping G3 is another story; the chip lacks vector processing unit and can be considered obsolete. Even the current iLife pack does not fully support G3, so one can assume Leopard does not either. But that is because current Apple software seems to be requiring vector processing unit and not because G3 is old.

That said, I'm certain Apple will never drop G4 support "because it is old". Essentially G4 and G5 are the same (code-wise), so the big question is: how long Apple continues to support PPC? I would guess about 5 years.

I agree, the G3 is pretty obsolete considering a lot of stuff now needs vector processing. I don't see Apple dropping G4 & G5 support in 10.5 since they're still fast enough for the average consumer. Probably 10.6 will lose support for all PowerPC. As I said in a previous post, dropping PowerPC support and using only Intel will greatly simplify the code base of Mac OS X. And b/c of the simplified codebase, the Apple developers will be able to program faster. I don't know if this would mean Apple will release a new version of the Mac OS more frequently, or stay at the 1.5-2 year interval, but add more features in each versions. We'll just have to wait and see.

As for whether or not to use xCode, what features not in xCode do you need to write "big programs"? I tinker with xCode from time to time, but I don't know what "big programs" are and what they'd need.

dashiel

Apr 11, 2007, 11:41 AM

I guess they are creating the next generation of Quicktime which could be direct competitor to Adobes Flash/Flex or Microsofts WPF/E.

This next generation of Quicktime might thus become Apples new cross-platform approach of the future. Think iTunes implemented as an Apollo application.

nice find! god what a pita though, just as web dev was starting to conform to a single standard (i know it's not perfect, but if you were around in the 90's today looks like the promised land) we're going to get three, no make that four, rich internet app development tools. the permutations over front-end/back-end are going to be nuts...

xUKHCx

Apr 11, 2007, 11:43 AM

Maybe Google (http://www.google.com/search?q=adc+on+itunes&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)?

Just a guess.

I think xUKHCx thought "ADC on iTunes" means, the he has to do a search for ADC in the iTunes store...

As Dave said was just a bit confused, weird because i usually always search google as a first step, just the reference to iTunes threw me. Got it now thanks.

ITR 81

Apr 11, 2007, 12:59 PM

IMO:
G3 will lose support in 10.5, but might still run very very very slow.
10.6 no G3 support.
10.7 the pulling out of G4 support.
10.8 G4 support goes away.
10.9 the pulling out of G5 support.
11.0 no G5 support.

Even at the above rate of losing support you'll still piss folks off, but in a far lessor degree, then say axe it all in 10.7.

Eidorian

Apr 11, 2007, 01:02 PM

J Radical

Apr 11, 2007, 01:10 PM

Did you take a look at the WWDC 06 video of OpenGL demonstration? It was done by ATI, and it was amazing. It had rain that looked real, buildings that looked real, items inside buildings that looked real, well... I think you get the picture.

Perhaps it isn't the engine DirectX vs. OpenGL, but instead the game developers?

I can't find the video you're talking about unfortunately- google tells me that you have to be a member of Apple Developer Connection to access it. So I'll take your word for it that it looks good, but I refuse to believe that it looks nearly as good as what Crysis is doing on DX10.

Ultimately you are right, it is all about the developers- but developers can only do so much with the hardware. The truth is that compared to PCs, Macs do not have competitive graphics cards. Since switching to intel the hardware of Macs and PCs are identical, there is no megahertz myth or anything that can make up the difference between the x1900 and the newer cards.

As for DX10, it is the favored tool for developers and so has a tight grip on a gaming market where good development tools help offset spiraling costs. Making games mac compatible doesn't make a great deal of economic sense unless you are using opengl in the first place- something most studios do not do. I'm all for openGL becoming more competitive with DX10 but it's equally important to ensure the hardware is up to the job.

guzhogi

Apr 11, 2007, 02:13 PM

You do know that the development time for a new version of OS X is now around 2 years, right?

I agree. Even if it's 1 year between new versions, and we have OS X 10.6-10.9 and then 11, that's 5 years. By that time, pretty much everyone will have an Intel Mac. I can see Apple pulling the plug on PowerPC and only use Intel by whatever comes after 10.5 (10.6?). We'll just have to see.

Also, I think Apple would pull out the G4 & G5 at the same time. Pulling the G4 out before the G5 is stupid because the only Macs that used the G5 were the iMac, Power Mac G5 and xServe. The Mini and both laptops used only G4s before switching to Intels. So if Apple doesn't include support for G4s but includes support for G5s, a lot of people will get POed.

Alloye

Apr 11, 2007, 02:19 PM

Believe it or not, but XCode just does not work for big software projects. Even the new one that will be out with leopard lacks features necessary for big software development. Most open source projects use XCode, but most commercial software relies on more elaborate systems. I bet a lot of people are actually using visual studio on PCs and have some sorts of plugins to compile for OSX...

As someone who works with VS 2005, Xcode 2.4.1, and the latest Xcode 3.0 preview on a daily basis, I must say that I completely disagree with this statement. IMHO, Xcode is actually much better than VS at managing large projects and also offers a far more advanced build system. VS, on the other hand, is more friendly for newbie developers (just double-click and code) and offers things like better code completion and a nicer debugger. (Without going into detail, let's just say Xcode 3.0 is closing the gap in this area as well.)

FYI, I worked as an SDE for Microsoft for just over five years (four in Office, one in Windows). None of the developers I encountered on either of those teams used VS for anything except the debugger. Most simply used some form of programmer's editor (Source Insight was popular) to edit code. Both products are built with rather complex build systems written in Perl :eek: and are managed via a custom version of Perforce called Source Depot.

As for building OS X code on a PC running VS, that's just a fantasy. The toolchains aren't even remotely similar.

nuckinfutz

Apr 11, 2007, 02:52 PM

I can't find the video you're talking about unfortunately- google tells me that you have to be a member of Apple Developer Connection to access it. So I'll take your word for it that it looks good, but I refuse to believe that it looks nearly as good as what Crysis is doing on DX10.

Ultimately you are right, it is all about the developers- but developers can only do so much with the hardware. The truth is that compared to PCs, Macs do not have competitive graphics cards. Since switching to intel the hardware of Macs and PCs are identical, there is no megahertz myth or anything that can make up the difference between the x1900 and the newer cards.

As for DX10, it is the favored tool for developers and so has a tight grip on a gaming market where good development tools help offset spiraling costs. Making games mac compatible doesn't make a great deal of economic sense unless you are using opengl in the first place- something most studios do not do. I'm all for openGL becoming more competitive with DX10 but it's equally important to ensure the hardware is up to the job.

It does. That ATI modified the scene right on the fly and then showed how it was textured (which was very efficient). Apple isn't claiming a Megahertz myth. They close gap instantly the day they announce G80 based product or ATI's top GPU parts.

DX10 if favored for games. OpenGL forms the graphics enging and backing of Apple's whole OS. DX10 isn't important in any other avenue than PC gaming and Bootcamp will handle it just fine.

In Leopard the GPU will have a constant thread for handling UI rendering whilst still processing other tasks. We've already seen demos where this increases WoW fps.

It's pretty clear why Apple hasn't announced new GPU. Do people really expect them to deliver OpenGL 1.4 drivers for Tiger for the newest parts when Tiger is due to be replaced in two months with Leopard? That's silly...Apple will deliver OpengL 2.1 drivers for the newest ATI and Nvidia parts with a vast improvement in shader language features. June at the latest.

I doubt there's much in DX10 that cannot be done in OpenGL 2.1 graphicswise.

shawnce

Apr 11, 2007, 03:32 PM

QuickTime under went a major under the hood rework for 10.4 to use a more modern pipeline centered on OpenGL, Core Video and Core Audio. The descriptions given really don't appear to point to much beyond what has already been done... not that more rework and improvements cannot still be done in this space.

...and yes stuff is improving in this space and OpenGL for 10.5 but that is all that can be said at this time.

shawnce

Apr 11, 2007, 03:58 PM

As someone who works with VS 2005, Xcode 2.4.1, and the latest Xcode 3.0 preview on a daily basis, I must say that I completely disagree with this statement. IMHO, Xcode is actually much better than VS at managing large projects and also offers a far more advanced build system. VS, on the other hand, is more friendly for newbie developers (just double-click and code) and offers things like better code completion and a nicer debugger. (Without going into detail, let's just say Xcode 3.0 is closing the gap in this area as well.)
...
As for building OS X code on a PC running VS, that's just a fantasy. The toolchains aren't even remotely similar.

I want to second this... I work on a family of products that are made from a large mostly shared code base (foundational libraries and end customer applications). On Mac OS X we use Xcode 2.4.1 to build all of the various libraries and applications (in some cases use Xcode to drive some make based builds). In general the Xcode project based build system is easier to maintain and more flexible then the VS based one used on the Windows side of things (they actually purchased some 3rd party products to extend VS to allow give them some missing functionality).

Xcode works well if you don't fight it but instead leverage the paradigm it is designed around (this is true for any tool chain). I say that because I see lots of folks trying to make Xcode work like CodeWarrior or VS instead of really understanding and utilizing Xcode ... then they bitch about "how bad it is" when in fact it is primarily their lack of understanding of Xcode.

Oh... and thanks to Xcode's built-in multi-threaded build system we can build the Mac versions of our products in much less time then Windows versions... even when compiling for twice as many processor architectures (PowerPC and Intel). Nice to compile four files at once without having to lift a finger configuration / tool chain wise.

Yeah I would like better auto-completion, editor and source debugger in Xcode but .... hey is that Xcode 3.0 (http://developer.apple.com/leopard/overview/tools.html) I see? Oh and we are really excited about IB 3.0... going to let us build better native GUI in less time then Window's team we have here.. suckers :)

Rod Rod

Apr 11, 2007, 03:58 PM

10.9 the pulling out of G5 support.
11.0 no G5 support.

What about 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, 10.13? These aren't decimals. :)

commander.data

Apr 11, 2007, 05:56 PM

It's pretty clear why Apple hasn't announced new GPU. Do people really expect them to deliver OpenGL 1.4 drivers for Tiger for the newest parts when Tiger is due to be replaced in two months with Leopard? That's silly...Apple will deliver OpengL 2.1 drivers for the newest ATI and Nvidia parts with a vast improvement in shader language features. June at the latest.

I doubt there's much in DX10 that cannot be done in OpenGL 2.1 graphicswise.
Is it harder to program in OpenGL than DirectX? I would guess DirectX is easier otherwise I would think developers would just use OpenGL since it's more portable. I suppose it may be that part of it may be that ATI's GPUs always seem to be weaker at OpenGL than nVidia.

In terms of graphics card selection I can understand why Apple doesn't introduce higher end cards. If Apple has to code their own drivers for each GPU it would make sense that they would choose specific GPUs for each market like a lower-high end X1900XT which is still pretty fast, while has a larger market that than a top-of-the-line model. For notebooks, there really was no reason for Apple to update since the MR X1700 and Go 7700 aren't much faster than the MR X1600 and anything higher end wouldn't fit in the 15.4" MBP's thermal envelop. The 17" MBP could use a better GPU, but I guess they just couldn't justify a separate supply chain. I wonder if the Intel transition makes it easy to port drivers over from Windows since that could help Apple introduce a wider GPU selection.

Is Tiger still using OpenGL 1.4? Tiger was released in 2005 and by that time OpenGL 2.0 had already been around for more than half a year. I'm not sure what exactly is the difference between all the versions, but I would think Tiger should have launched with at least OpenGl or be updated to OpenGL 2.0 by now. I wonder if using older versions of OpenGL prevent use of some modern GPU features or limit the card's performance.

mdriftmeyer

Apr 11, 2007, 06:06 PM

Real simple. Both QuickTime and OpenGL will have core APIs written for Cocoa.

zolotroph

Apr 11, 2007, 06:11 PM

OpenGL is a graphic library that to my knowledge was developed for Unix/Linux. Since OSX is a variant of that it can also run it. It is mainly used for 3D games. Making it faster makes Mac's a better gaming choice.

Actually, OpenGL is a graphics API initially developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. It is primarily used for professional 3D graphics applications such as modeling, animation, CAD and visualization software. OpenGL is truly cross-platform, running on all major flavors of UNIX, Linux, Mac OS and Windows.

Virtually all current professional graphics applications use OpenGL, even on Windows. Professional OpenGL graphics cards like ATI's FireGL and nVidia's Quadro series cost much more than their non-professional gaming card equivalents because of the added cost of application-certified OpenGL drivers and support for professional applications.

McScooby

Apr 11, 2007, 06:14 PM

nuckinfutz

Apr 11, 2007, 06:23 PM

Is it harder to program in OpenGL than DirectX? I would guess DirectX is easier otherwise I would think developers would just use OpenGL since it's more portable. I suppose it may be that part of it may be that ATI's GPUs always seem to be weaker at OpenGL than nVidia.

In terms of graphics card selection I can understand why Apple doesn't introduce higher end cards. If Apple has to code their own drivers for each GPU it would make sense that they would choose specific GPUs for each market like a lower-high end X1900XT which is still pretty fast, while has a larger market that than a top-of-the-line model. For notebooks, there really was no reason for Apple to update since the MR X1700 and Go 7700 aren't much faster than the MR X1600 and anything higher end wouldn't fit in the 15.4" MBP's thermal envelop. The 17" MBP could use a better GPU, but I guess they just couldn't justify a separate supply chain. I wonder if the Intel transition makes it easy to port drivers over from Windows since that could help Apple introduce a wider GPU selection.

Is Tiger still using OpenGL 1.4? Tiger was released in 2005 and by that time OpenGL 2.0 had already been around for more than half a year. I'm not sure what exactly is the difference between all the versions, but I would think Tiger should have launched with at least OpenGl or be updated to OpenGL 2.0 by now. I wonder if using older versions of OpenGL prevent use of some modern GPU features or limit the card's performance.

I'm sure that Microsoft probably has easier programming tools for DX9. That's their coupe de grace with most tools. I haven't read much about the programming ease/difficulty of OpenGL 2.1. I do know that many of the ARB members want to promote a "Lean and Mean" subset for rapid advancements (in particular AMD/ATI and Nvidia).

Yeah I was bummed that Tiger didn't have OpenGL 2.0 but hindsight being 20/20 I understand why. 1.4 doesn't have the GLSL shaders and they weren't prepared to have Tiger support GLSL and OpenGL 2.0 when Tiger was being developed. Rather than upgrade Tiger they just pushed OpenGL 2.x to Leopard and tied the development in with QuartzGL (formerly Quartz 2D Extreme) and the multithreading in Leopard. I guess the question is will Apple implement upcoming OpenGL revisions "Longs Peak" and "Mt Evans" ,due this year, into Leopard or will they again bypass the extensions and deliver what will be known as OpenGL 3.0 in 10.6 in 2009?

http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol002_1/

The main task for the ARB is to deliver two new OpenGL releases in 2007. The first one, code named OpenGL "Longs Peak" (the actual releases will have version numbers), is slated to be released in summer 2007. The second one, code named OpenGL "Mt. Evans", is targeted for an October 2007 release. Why code names? We want to give the ARB's marketing group a chance to think through what the right names would be for these releases. Too many suggestions have already been made, including OpenGL 2.2, OpenGL 3.0, OpenGL 3.1 and even OpenGL 4.0. This is not the time yet to pin down the version number, and therefore we'll be using code names.

OpenGL Longs Peak will be a significant departure for us. While there will still be backwards API compatibility, the new "Lean and Mean" profile, and a substantial refactoring in terms of the new object model, make it in many ways an entirely new API design. This is an ambitious task and requires a high degree of commitment from the ARB members. We are already seeing some welcome participation from Khronos members who were not members of the old ARB, and hope to see much more.
While OpenGL Longs Peak will be implementable on current and last generation hardware, OpenGL Mt. Evans will only be implementable on the newest hardware available. The OpenGL Mt. Evans release will be a continuation of OpenGL Longs Peak, with a lot of new functionality added. Some of the highlights are: geometry shading, a more central role for buffer objects, and a full integer pipeline accessible via the OpenGL Shading Language.

Why two new OpenGL releases do you ask? This split in two makes it easy for ISVs to develop a new title spanning a wide range of graphics hardware. By coding their core rendering engine to OpenGL Longs Peak, both older and the newest hardware will be covered. By then coding incrementally to the OpenGL Mt. Evans API, the newest hardware can be exploited to its maximum potential.

My emphasis added. Sounds interesting. I'd like for Apple to continuously evolve Leopard adding in support for the extensions as they can test them but know knows? I know this..we need not fear DirectX10. Longs Peak will deliver a majority of what DX10 offers with the added benefit of backwards compatibility to existing Unix, XP,Linux and more. Apple likely won't upgrade Tiger but Leopard's a possibility.

zolotroph

Apr 11, 2007, 06:25 PM

Also Direct X > OpenGl

This is not even remotely true. Suggested reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Direct3D_and_OpenGL

Excerpt:

"With the exception of Windows and the Xbox, all operating systems that allow for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics have chosen OpenGL as their primary graphics API."

"The principal reason for Direct3D's dominance in the gaming industry is historical."

"Making games that use OpenGL while using the non-Direct3D portion of the DirectX API is no more difficult than making a game using all of the DirectX API. The decision to use Direct3D over OpenGL was made from simple pragmatism: in those [early] days, OpenGL implementations were difficult to work with."

"Later versions of OpenGL would rarely add functionality that wasn't actually widely available in hardware. As such, the issue has, for the most part, become a non-issue."

As someone pointed out earlier, DirectX is only usable now because of the technology Microsoft siphoned from SGI.

zolotroph

Apr 11, 2007, 06:38 PM

nuckinfutz

Apr 11, 2007, 06:58 PM

This may make the whole DirectX vs. OpenGL argument a moot point:

TransGaming, nVidia teaming up to bring high-end games to the Mac

http://apple.qj.net/TransGaming-nVidia-teaming-up-to-bring-high-end-games-to-the-Mac/pg/49/aid/82038

Hmmm that's pretty cool. I think j.radical is just getting a wee bit too excited about gaming. If you hang out in gaming areas DX10 is going to seem like God returning. But if you expand your scope and look at the 3D overall you see the OpenGL not only has maintained their ground but in 2007 will really extend the API via "Long Peaks" and "Mt Evans" Siggraph 2007 should be fun.

Saying DX10 is greater than OpenGL is simply foolish. You must narrow the context for such a statement to be made. For if someone is using a Mac, Linux or Unix based OS DX10 is a non starter. Hell I'm not sure DX10 will run on XP for the forseeable future.

commander.data

Apr 11, 2007, 07:00 PM

Yeah I was bummed that Tiger didn't have OpenGL 2.0 but hindsight being 20/20 I understand why. 1.4 doesn't have the GLSL shaders and they weren't prepared to have Tiger support GLSL and OpenGL 2.0 when Tiger was being developed. Rather than upgrade Tiger they just pushed OpenGL 2.x to Leopard and tied the development in with QuartzGL (formerly Quartz 2D Extreme) and the multithreading in Leopard. I guess the question is will Apple implement upcoming OpenGL revisions "Longs Peak" and "Mt Evans" ,due this year, into Leopard or will they again bypass the extensions and deliver what will be known as OpenGL 3.0 in 10.6 in 2009?

http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol002_1/

My emphasis added. Sounds interesting. I'd like for Apple to continuously evolve Leopard adding in support for the extensions as they can test them but know knows? I know this..we need not fear DirectX10. Longs Peak will deliver a majority of what DX10 offers with the added benefit of backwards compatibility to existing Unix, XP,Linux and more. Apple likely won't upgrade Tiger but Leopard's a possibility.
I guess I can understand why Apple didn't integrate OpenGL 2.0 into Tiger since I guess GLSL is probably a pretty big change. I wonder why they didn't include OpenGL 1.5 though? I guess it wasn't really a major change from OpenGL 1.4 anyways.

What you linked about Long Peaks is very interesting. I'm hoping that when ThinkSecret said the OpenGL API has been overhauled, maybe they were meaning Long Peaks support, since Long Peak definitely seems like a major overhaul. It would be a shame if Apple just missed it just like they just missed OpenGL 2.0. I suppose they other performance improvement could be making the OpenGL API 64-bit. I think having multitheaded and 64-bit games for Leopard would definitely boost performance. Of course porting 32-bit games to 64-bit in addition to porting Windows to Mac might not be the easiest thing.

ChildOL

Apr 11, 2007, 10:36 PM

FIX FLASH FIX FLASH OMG FIX FLASH PLEASE!

Flash has been a long time hog on the Mac and I think it is about time to fix the issue wth the extreme sluggisness flash on the mac compared to Windows flash! The internet is becoming more and more flash based, expecially video like youtube, google video, yahoo video, etc. etc.

I use a $3,000 Dual 533Mhz Processor PowerMac G4 system with 1.25GB of RAM as my main computer and everything is very fast EXCEPT FLASH!

I hope this OpenGL upgrade will greatly improve flash performance.

Those of you who think maybe in the next version or two of OSX that Apple may drop support for PowerPC/PPC don't seem to realize that over 90% of Macs out there are PowerPC/PPC based, so why in the world would Apple drop support for almost all of their installed base?! It will be many years before PPC is totally dropped, maybe 7-10 years IF they do. The G3 could be dropped soon BUT the G4 and G5 both have a vector processing unit so they may be dropped at the same time, and that would be many years from now, IF they drop it at all.

commander.data

Apr 11, 2007, 11:11 PM

Those of you who think maybe in the next version or two of OSX that Apple may drop support for PowerPC/PPC don't seem to realize that over 90% of Macs out there are PowerPC/PPC based, so why in the world would Apple drop support for almost all of their installed base?! It will be many years before PPC is totally dropped, maybe 7-10 years IF they do. The G3 could be dropped soon BUT the G4 and G5 both have a vector processing unit so they may be dropped at the same time, and that would be many years from now, IF they drop it at all.
I agree that there is no way that Apple would drop PPC in Leopard. It just makes no sense considering Apple's history of good legacy support. As others have said 10.5 will likely drop the G3. I don't see the G4 and G5 being dropped at the same time though since the G5 has the triple marketing goodness of high-bandwidth FSBs, 4 core support, and 64-bit support to differentiate it from the G4, with the last two probably being the most important. Since 10.5 looks to be the first full 64-bit OS from Apple, it can be viewed as the introduction of broad scale 64-bit support, and so by 10.6 (probably 2009-2010) 64-bit will have become mainstay and the G4 will be dropped. The G5 can then hang-on until 10.7 when it will be dropped, which by the time it's released will be early next decade (probably 2011+) and half a decade after the Intel switch, so assuming Apple doesn't switch back to PPC, it'll be safe to assume that the loss of PPC support won't be a huge hardship to the remaining users.

ChildOL

Apr 11, 2007, 11:37 PM

I agree that there is no way that Apple would drop PPC in Leopard. It just makes no sense considering Apple's history of good legacy support. As others have said 10.5 will likely drop the G3. I don't see the G4 and G5 being dropped at the same time though since the G5 has the triple marketing goodness of high-bandwidth FSBs, 4 core support, and 64-bit support to differentiate it from the G4, with the last two probably being the most important. Since 10.5 looks to be the first full 64-bit OS from Apple, it can be viewed as the introduction of broad scale 64-bit support, and so by 10.6 (probably 2009-2010) 64-bit will have become mainstay and the G4 will be dropped. The G5 can then hang-on until 10.7 when it will be dropped, which by the time it's released will be early next decade (probably 2011+) and half a decade after the Intel switch, so assuming Apple doesn't switch back to PPC, it'll be safe to assume that the loss of PPC support won't be a huge hardship to the remaining users.

I just can't see Apple dropping the PPC support until the next major OS i.e. 11.0

The reason I said G4 and G5 may be dropped together is because the G4's high installed base and the G5's power and "newness". I am still confused as to why people keep saying by OS X 10.7 which is way too soon to drop PPC support. Like I said almost all the people owning Macs are on a PowerPC based Mac. Maybe it's just the Intel Mac noobies thinking they are the only ones using Macs and thinking that most macs or all macs are Intel based, IDK.

If Apple drops PPC support in less than 5 years it would be very bad for their user base, UNLESS there is some mass exodus of people switching to the Mac getting Intel Macs. For some reason There are MANY people who still believe the PowerPC is the "better" processor being RISC based etc. and would rather stick with a "rocket" G4 or G5.

And what about fixing the slow flash problems? *sigh*