Core Image Compatabilty

[TheWitePony]

I've been trying to figure out if Core Image will work on my Tibook. I can't remember what card I have, I believe that it is a ATI Mobility 9000 64MB. i don't see it on the list of compatible cards that Apple provides.

Supported graphics cards:


ATI Radeon 9800 XT

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

ATI Radeon 9600 XT

ATI Radeon 9600 Pro

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

ATI Mobility Radeon 9600

NVIDIA GeForceFX Go 5200

NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra

You think I will be able to run Core Image?? I really hope so...I just got my Tibook last year and would hate to start being left behind in new tech this soon. :(

[Sun Baked]

You think I will be able to run Core Image?? I really hope so...I just got my Tibook last year and would hate to start being left behind in new tech this soon. :(Probably not. And if it does you might not get "all" the features.

Doubtful this is a fast enough card/bus problem like Quartz.

This is more likely a case of the new framework taking advantage of card/driver features on these cards.

Edit -- "The performance gains and features supported by Core Image ultimately depend on the graphics card."

[Dr. Dastardly]

You might not be able to take full advantage of it. But as far as not being on the list neither is the 6800 ultra. :p ;)

[FightTheFuture]

I can't remember what card I have, I believe that it is a ATI Mobility 9000 64MB.
if its a 2002 powerbook 867/1ghz, then your right about your card. you can check your system profiler to double check. i wouldn't feel that bad though. you didn't "just miss out" cause the revisions after your machine still aren't core-image ready - the rev.A 12" ALbook has an NvidiaGeForce Go 420 and the 17" the 440. the september 2003 released rev.B 12", 15", and 17inchers are the only ones compatible apparently.

based on the new Tiger features i'm feeling its time to invest in a G5.

[ravenvii]

I'm wondering... will it work on my iBook's Radeon 7500 Mobility?

:D :p ;)

[Dr. Dastardly]

I don't think that not having this feature will really hinder your Tiger experiance. It seems to be a cool feature but you don't have it now and your not really missing anything except for a little extra bit of eye candy that will probably get old after a while anyway.


There, do you feel better now? ;)

[titaniumducky]

I've been trying to figure out if Core Image will work on my Tibook. I can't remember what card I have, I believe that it is a ATI Mobility 9000 64MB. i don't see it on the list of compatible cards that Apple provides.

Supported graphics cards:


ATI Radeon 9800 XT

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

ATI Radeon 9600 XT

ATI Radeon 9600 Pro

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

ATI Mobility Radeon 9600

NVIDIA GeForceFX Go 5200

NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra

You think I will be able to run Core Image?? I really hope so...I just got my Tibook last year and would hate to start being left behind in new tech this soon. :(

I have the same machine bought at the same time (approximately).

The Mobility 9000 doesn't fully support Core Image, but from the site, Core Image will scale down to fit the video card.

Core Image needs a graphics card powerful enough to handle pixel-level programming; unfortunately for us, only the latest cards support this. However, Apple's site says:

"The performance gains and features supported by Core Image ultimately depend on the graphics card. Graphics cards capable of pixel-level programming deliver the best performance. But Core Image automatically scales as appropriate for systems with older graphics cards, for compatibility with any Tiger-compatible Mac.

Hopefully that means it will work well enough for us to at least see the effects put in by Apple and 3rd party developers. Oh yeah: it'd be great if we could also take advantage of some of them in iPhoto/Photoshop.

[zakee00]

by the looks of those cards, core image takes advantage of the pixel/vertex shaders. thats very impressive, XP dosnt. longhorn will, but thats in like 2007. shows that apple pwns M$ :D lol jm

[Darwin]

We may not be able to make use of these features but remember that this shouldn't slow down the OS experience too much in terms of speed

Got a Cube G4 here and thanks to Panther it works even faster then before so hopefully the system should get faster even without the graphics help

But I must admit that don't like to miss out on some of these cool effects :(

Mind you still got a long time to be worring about that :)

[Chaszmyr]

I was at WWDC and asked the speaker about this after the presentation about Core Image. What he told me was:

Any video card that includes pixel-level programming supports core image. This includes the 6800 (even though it isnt on that list), and should support every future video card. Also, if your video card does not support this, it does NOT mean you cannot use the core image technology. If you have an incompatible video card, core image uses your CPU as a fallback. This DOES mean that core image will run more slowly than if it used your video card (and if you have a slow processor, it might run VERY slowly), but you aren't excluded from using it really.

[FightTheFuture]

i think we're all bouncing around the execution of core image. its not like quartz extreme right? its only for applications that can take advantage of the gpu. so an app like photoshop can render filters through the gpu faster, instead of relying on memory or the cpu. i'm not that tech savvy but i'm sure thats what the demonstration was emphasizing.

therefore, none of the interface stuff that happens with tiger is going to rely on core-image. thats all still quartz extreme. i'm sure thats all theWhitePony wanted to know - if he can do hardcore filters and effects faster. and it looks like you can, but not at the full advantage of having an ati 9600 or an nvidia 5200 could give. but it'll still depend on the developers to implement this into their products.

actually, i'm probably wrong about all of this, so please correct me if thats the case. :confused:

a bit off topic with the eye candy in tiger, i'm sure we'll all have that wow factor for about 10 seconds, then it'll be back to turning off dock animations and changing the minimize back to zoom. just make sure you know how to turn them back on to show off to your friends.

[yamabushi]

Well, the benefit of Core Image seems to be that you won't need to turn off eye candy. Really it's just taking advantage of the relatively untapped processing power present in modern graphics cards. Therefore disabling effects that take advantage of the GPU would only be advantageous if you have an outdated graphics card. Effects that do not use the GPU are another matter.

[titaniumducky]

i think we're all bouncing around the execution of core image. its not like quartz extreme right? its only for applications that can take advantage of the gpu. so an app like photoshop can render filters through the gpu faster, instead of relying on memory or the cpu. i'm not that tech savvy but i'm sure thats what the demonstration was emphasizing.

therefore, none of the interface stuff that happens with tiger is going to rely on core-image. thats all still quartz extreme. i'm sure thats all theWhitePony wanted to know - if he can do hardcore filters and effects faster. and it looks like you can, but not at the full advantage of having an ati 9600 or an nvidia 5200 could give. but it'll still depend on the developers to implement this into their products.

actually, i'm probably wrong about all of this, so please correct me if thats the case. :confused:

a bit off topic with the eye candy in tiger, i'm sure we'll all have that wow factor for about 10 seconds, then it'll be back to turning off dock animations and changing the minimize back to zoom. just make sure you know how to turn them back on to show off to your friends.

Actually, from what I understood, Core Image is relied on for certain eye candy (such as parts of DashBoard).

[Darwin]

Actually, from what I understood, Core Image is relied on for certain eye candy (such as parts of DashBoard).

Thats what I thought too :confused:

[Chaszmyr]

Actually, from what I understood, Core Image is relied on for certain eye candy (such as parts of DashBoard).

That's true, but it's also more than that.

[BakedBeans]

how good does core image look...i take it it is free with tiger???
along with core video???

i might take another look at the wwdc stream just to see the features again...

[Chaszmyr]

how good does core image look...i take it it is free with tiger???
along with core video???

i might take another look at the wwdc stream just to see the features again...

There seems to be some confusion about what Core Image is. Ofcourse it is "free with tiger" but it is not some sort of application or even extension, it is actually a part of the operating system.

[Sun Baked]

There seems to be some confusion about what Core Image is. Ofcourse it is "free with tiger" but it is not some sort of application or even extension, it is actually a part of the operating system.You post still doesn't help me learn how to write a program to take advantage of these API services presented in the Core Image/Video frameworks. :(

[Chaszmyr]

You post still doesn't help me learn how to write a program to take advantage of these API services presented in the Core Image/Video frameworks. :(

Sorry, I sat through a presentation, but graphics and such aren't my field, so I couldn't really tell you. :(

[TheWitePony]

"therefore, none of the interface stuff that happens with tiger is going to rely on core-image. thats all still quartz extreme. i'm sure thats all theWhitePony wanted to know - if he can do hardcore filters and effects faster. and it looks like you can, but not at the full advantage of having an ati 9600 or an nvidia 5200 could give. but it'll still depend on the developers to implement this into their products."

This is what I was inquiring about, I don't really care about the filters in Photoshop and whatnot. I was worried about it being used in system-wide effects. And from what it looks like Core Image is being used in some of Dashboard. Oh well. It is nice to hear that it might be scaleable, that it won't use the GPU it just might switch over to the CPU.

I wonder if Apple is thinking of building anymore Core Image components into the interface, cause right now I don't see myself using Dashboard all that much. Which really wouldn't be a loss for me then.
:rolleyes:

[Threnody]

I'm wondering... will it work on my iBook's Radeon 7500 Mobility?

:D :p ;)

'Fraid not. But if it makes you feel better, it won't work on my NEW iBook's Radeon 9200 Mobility, either! :rolleyes:

[sockeatingdryer]

It still doesn't make sense that 2 of the only 3 models that are currently shipping (and that are selling the most *coughemaccough*) won't take full advantage of the next OS revision only a few months away.

Like, WTF, mate?

[Chaszmyr]

It still doesn't make sense that 2 of the only 3 models that are currently shipping (and that are selling the most *coughemaccough*) won't take full advantage of the next OS revision only a few months away.

Like, WTF, mate?

1: By the time Tiger is in full swing, most macs may well support Core Image
2: It's not like Apple decided "we don't like iBooks, they cant take full advantage of Core Image", they just happen to use low end video cards, and the low end video cards of today don't allow pixel-level programming

[nuckinfutz]

Hmmmm interesting thread.

I have seen frustration from some people about the lack of Core Image support in recent eMacs, iBooks and iMacs. What we mustn't forget is that pixel level shading features are VERY new to the graphics world. This technology has just hit the market in that last few years and it's taken a bit to "trickle down" to the lowerer end units. Many of todays current games don't support the shader functions that are present in todays midrange and upper level cards.

Core Image doesn't look any different than what you're seeing today. What Core Images does is utilize the GPU to processing effects in real time that would take many CPU cycles. So you are likely to see Core Image manifest itself in many different ways in Tiger. iMovie will speed up drastically because most of iMove is waiting for effects and transitions to render. iPhoto can process effects on your photos now, if Apple chooses, with blazing speed. Quicktime will use Core Image. You will see many other effects crop up also once Tiger ships since Image and Video units are programmable via the SDK.

So in short those with a GPU that supports Core Image will now suddenly be able to processes video as if their computers was much faster. Now that you GPU is processing these effects I presume that your CPU will be able to put most of its attention towards running other parts of the app. I'm really excited about this technology but it goes to the heart of what what slows our computers down. Remove that barrier and it becomes feasible to do so much more with Images and Video in applications because the CPU "hit" isn't severe.

[BrianKonarsMac]

edit: sorry...i failed to read.Thanks NuckinFutz, I needed that :D.

[yamabushi]

So in short those with a GPU that supports Core Image will now suddenly be able to processes video as if their computers was much faster. Now that you GPU is processing these effects I presume that your CPU will be able to put most of its attention towards running other parts of the app. I'm really excited about this technology but it goes to the heart of what what slows our computers down. Remove that barrier and it becomes feasible to do so much more with Images and Video in applications because the CPU "hit" isn't severe.

Yes I am very excited about this as well. The bottom line is that with Tiger your Mac will be faster and if it is a newer model it will be much faster. :D

[MacsRgr8]

I think you can test if you're GPU can handle CoreImage (as it is in the 8A162 build), by adding a Gadget in Dashboard:
If the water-ripple effect takes place, it is compatible. If not, well.. it doesn't.

Me thinks.

[Chaszmyr]

I think you can test if you're GPU can handle CoreImage (as it is in the 8A162 build), by adding a Gadget in Dashboard:
If the water-ripple effect takes place, it is compatible. If not, well.. it doesn't.

Me thinks.

Not necessarily true. I said it before but no one reads apparently. Core Image can use the CPU as a fallback if you have an incompatble video card. I don't know if the dashboard effect or whatever will take place if your GPU is unsuported, but core image things can work without a fall back.

Please note: My PowerBook has a supported video card, but its BARELY supported, and the effects still work like crap.

[MacsRgr8]

Not necessarily true. I said it before but no one reads apparently. Core Image can use the CPU as a fallback if you have an incompatble video card. I don't know if the dashboard effect or whatever will take place if your GPU is unsuported, but core image things can work without a fall back.

Please note: My PowerBook has a supported video card, but its BARELY supported, and the effects still work like crap.

It is a simple test if the GPU as Apple has stated is supported.

I have read the fact that the CPU can be used as fallback, but letting the CPU handle effects like the "ripple effect" will slow-down the general user experience.
So only supported grfx cards get the "ripple effetcs" to work.

Like I said, it is merely a test to see if your GPU is CoreImage supported.

[FredAkbar]

Not that I would necessarily do this, obviously I'd wait till I got Tiger and see how it is, but if I found that CoreImage was slow (I have a 1 GHz iMac with a GeForce 4 MX with 64 MB of DDR RAM), is there any way to upgrade the video card in an iMac? Assuming it's not too expensive, can a user access that part of the machine at all, or is it too un-upgradable for that? Just curious.

[wrldwzrd89]

Not that I would necessarily do this, obviously I'd wait till I got Tiger and see how it is, but if I found that CoreImage was slow (I have a 1 GHz iMac with a GeForce 4 MX with 64 MB of DDR RAM), is there any way to upgrade the video card in an iMac? Assuming it's not too expensive, can a user access that part of the machine at all, or is it too un-upgradable for that? Just curious.
As far as I'm aware (being an iMac owner myself), all the iMacs have the video card soldered to the motherboard - i.e. not in a slot, and therefore not replacable/upgradable.

[Earl Urly]

So basically, everyone with a pre-G5 machine gets ripped, UNLESS..

- You buy a fast CPU upgrade
- You buy a hulkamaniac card for your AGP G4 (and the only choice you have is the 9800 Mac Edition, the card that wants to be hooked directly to your power supply because it sucks soooo much power)
- You give the entire Mac world the finger and switch to Windoze where graphics cards and CPU upgrades sell for the price of expensive hamburgers and you can get Oxygen / workstation cards that make even the Radeon / nVidias on the Mac look like Lite Brite kits in comparison

Also, what good do you think Core Image will do for the nearly godly triumvrate of PhotoShop / Illustrator / Quark? Jack ****** unless PhotoShop CS gets one major SDK upgrade, or Apple decides to make an iPhotoShop of their own.. (iPaint?!)

[TheWitePony]

Ok, just tried out Tiger on my powerbook. No pretty ripple effect at all in Dashboard. I have the last revision of the Titanium, 1 Ghz, 64 MB vid card (ATI 9000 Mobility I believe).

Well, I don't see myself using Dashboard that much anyways which really isn't a loss as I see it. Plus there are other nice things about Tiger that make it worth while, being noticeably faster being one of them. Tiger will mature nicely I believe by the time its ready for release and I will defiantly be picking up a copy even though I won't get the snazzy Core Image Effects.

[Ryan1524]

will Core Image work with Radeon 9200 that's in the G4 iBooks?

so what are we missing without core image? no pretty ripple effect and 'maybe' a much faster system later on?

[wrldwzrd89]

will Core Image work with Radeon 9200 that's in the G4 iBooks?

so what are we missing without core image? no pretty ripple effect and 'maybe' a much faster system later on?
Yes, that is what you would miss out on, because I'm confident that Apple will improve Core Image/Video, both in updates to 10.4 and in 10.5 and later.

[lasuther]

I'm just using the Tiger release as an excuse to buy a new PowerBook. When is Tiger being released anyway?

lasuther

[AppleMatt]

Not necessarily true. I said it before but no one reads apparently.

It's annoying isn't it?! All it takes is a read through of the thread, and not only are the majority of questions answered but you learn something new aswell.

Can I remind everyone you're judging performance on a first beta (maybe considered alpha) of Tiger. Yes that's what you're doing.

AppleMatt

[wrldwzrd89]

I'm just using the Tiger release as an excuse to buy a new PowerBook. When is Tiger being released anyway?

lasuther
All we know at this point is that it will come in the first half of 2005, whenever Apple's ready to release it :)

[nounoursbleu]

just testing tiger on my new 15'' powerbook G4 1.5 atimobilityradeon 9700 and coreimage doesn't work for me...
no effects at all..

does anyone has a suggestion/explanation??

thanks

[Ryan1524]

Radeon 9700 was listed as supported hardware for Tiger. i ahve the same Powerbok, and would like to know too.

[FightTheFuture]

does anyone has a suggestion/explanation??only suggestion i have is that it is still in beta form and that apple dev might still be working in the kinks to get it to activate when it senses your card.

[Raiden]

I have the current top of the line 15 inch PB (the one on the apple store now...just bought it).

Will the cool core image effects be fully supported by my PB's radeon 9700? Its not on the lower end of the list, so I would figure that it would work fine.

anyway, just wondering... peace

[freiheit]

The way it sounds from the "officially compatible" video cards list, is that CoreImage and CoreVideo will make use of the features of "DirectX 9" compatible cards (as they're known in the WinWorld). "DirectX 8" cards like the Radeon 9000/9200, 8500 and GeForce4Ti simply don't have all the features that CoreImage and CoreVideo will use to work their magic. If Tiger allows the CPU to act as a fallback when one of these older generation video cards is present, then that's a good thing -- at least it will work on such systems, it just might make everything else a bit sluggish.

What I wonder is, for those of us with a dual G4 PowerMac and a Radeon 9000, how will CoreImage/CoreVideo likely affect our overall system performance when Tiger realizes we a) don't have a "compatible" video card and b) we do have two CPUs it can use.

And yes I fully understand we're talking about an early developer build of Tiger at this point. It's something I'll be very interested to know, though, as the Time Of Tiger approaches. $350 is kind of steep for a video card upgrade (Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition) and I'm not planning to sell my new $2000 G4 PowerMac to buy a $2200 G5. :)

[nuckinfutz]

Core Image/Video is fully supported on even the 5200fx from Nvidia. The only reason for you purchasing a $300+ card would be if you wanted to run Motion Apple's new Motion Graphics app or if you wanted to run the latest games. If your card doesn't support Core Image/Video then it will gracefully fall back using the CPU. No worries

[Windowlicker]

hmm does this mean my rev a 2x1.8GHz G5 with the GeForce FX 5200 won't be able to take advantage of this? ..I mean, it doesn't have the "GO" on the name now does it :P

i sure am gonna be pissed if my less than two years old (when Tiger comes out) high end (?) machine doesn't run this technology. can anyone give me a straight answer to this?

EDIT: OOOPS! Didn't check the page 2 before posting (don't kick my ass, i'm having fever).. well, my question got the answer pretty fast I guess.

[BoomAM]

Hi.
You all say that in order to use Core Image, that we`d need a video card capabile of rendering with pixel/vertex shading effects.
And that the G4 iBooks wernt compatible.
News flash everyone, the 9200s used in the G4 iBooks are basically Radeon 8500s that are clocked slower and have 1 of their normal 2 texture mapping units taken out. In other words, a 4x1 pipeline/TMU based graphics processor. You might also be interested to hear that the 8500/9200 are pixel/vertex shader capible. Upto the spec of 1.4.
Info on parts of GPU specific to Core image (imo)
Specifications of the 9200 chipset:
SMARTSHADER
DX8.1 Programmable Pixel and Vertex Shaders. Pixel Shader version 1.4 supported with up to 22 instructions. Vertex Shader 1.1 supporting up to 128 instructions.

FULLSTREAM hardware accelerated deblockin of internet video streams
VIDEO IMMERSION II digital video features, including advanced adaptive de-interlacing algorithm, temporal filtering, and video gamma enhancement for enhanced movie playback.
It appears that the compatible cards on Apples list are either Pixel/Vertex shader v2.0 or 3.0 compatible. Which would leave me to belive that the Core Image setup needs some sort of shader branching and loop support.
Heres more news, the 9200s, like the 8500s, being shader 1.4 GPUs, do actually have a basic capabilty for branching & shader looping. Which means that with a little work on Apple part, the Core Image aspects could be made to run on 9200 chipsets, just with shorter shaders, and more of them, rarther than one longer shader instruction. Which would take up more video memory, but with 32Mb there, its more than possible.
Also, the card supports Fullstream, which while it is a PC centered feature, is easyily adapted to macs. As its another shader effect that can apply post filter effects to images & videos, and clean them up, removing pixelation/blockyness, which according to the Apple website, is another feature of core image.

So it seems to me, with what information we have, that if Apple actually bothered, we could have the full feature set of core image running smoothly on our G4 iBooks. If they make the effort. Which i cant see them doing to be honest.


Oh, and to the person complaining about 9800s and power consumtion on them, get over it. PC users have had cards that have external power connections on them for 2 years now. You think 9800s are bad? You wait till you get 6800Ultras, dual 6800Ultras on Apple systems. Then you can start complaining.
For reference, the 9800s use about 60W of power. Drawing 25W of it from the AGP slot. And seeing as Mac based 9800s also have AGP Pro support, add another 25W to that from the slot alone. So an extra 10W would be drawn from your Macs PSU. Now look at the 6800Ultras. 100W. Each. 2 of them, 200W. Now comment. ;) ;)

[hjhhjh]

what is core image?

[rendezvouscp]

Core Image, according to the sources I've been able to look at, Core Image is a robust framework in Tiger for ultra-fast, high-precision image processing. Using the power of the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), developers can now use filters, transitions, and effects in their applications. All of these effects are rendered on the fly, and they only require the developers to add a little bit of code. The beauty of it all is that this lifts some processing work off of your CPU (Central Processing Unit), the main brain of the Mac. GPUs are really powerful now, and all of the rendering will be shifted to them instead of the CPU.

In short, developers can add cool effects while the user sees these effects instantly. If the user doesn't have a GPU that's fast enough to render the effects, the effects don't show or they are processed in the GPU.
-Chase

[hatesac1]

But by the time Tiger releases, all of us with 8500's, 9000's, and 9200's will have been able to upgrade our video cards. ATI should give us a new low end video card hopefully early next year, the x300 possibly, that does have support for Pixel/Vertex Shader 2.0+.Then we all won't have to worry about it anymore. I feel sorry for those of you with systems that are unable to update your video cards. I would never buy a system that is not upgradeable, towers only for me ;).

[hypersquid]

Due to hard drive failure I reinstalled Tiger on my G4 PowerPC 733Mhz with a Radeon 9000 promac 64 MB video card (I have heard it isn't core image compatible). The problem is that I used to have animation and great video playback and now that is gone, Quicktime 7 has choppy video, youtube is choppy.
What could be the problem with the re install that could affect the video playback? Has anybody else had this problem with a reinstall?
I don't want to upgrade the video card because this one used to work perferctly.:(

Profiler data:
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro:

Chipset Model: ATY,RV250
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 64 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4966
Revision ID: 0x0001
ROM Revision: 113-99702-130
Displays:
Apple Cinema Display:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1680 x 1050
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Not Supported
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported
Display:
Status: No display connected

[Amdahl]

Have you applied software updates so that you have 10.4.11 and latest Quicktime 7?

Core Image is not supported on your card, as the profiler indicates.

If you go in to System Preferences, Display, set number of colors to Thousands and see if things run better, if the software updates doesn't help.