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wait for notebook that fully supports tiger?

S

swingerofbirch

macrumors 68040
Original poster
I have been saving up my pennies for the iBook deal from Amazon where I would get the iBook 1.2 ghz combo 12" for 899 with rebate, no shipping, no tax. I finally have enough money, and then I read on page 2 rumors that MWSF may bring new powerbooks.

I start thinking about the future of my notebook and how long it will last me. i remembered something about how tiger requires 64 mb of vram for all the special core image effects? can someone confirm that? and so i am thinking maybe i should keep saving and buy a new 12" pb instead....maybe amazon will even expand once again this rebate deal to the new powerbooks...

an ibook would be enough for my needs, but i can wait, and i can keep saving....how big of a deal will this core image be?
 
As you know the current ibooks don't fully support core image. Tiger will still work on the current ibooks but the core image stuff will either be done in software (as opposed to on the graphics GPU) or won't be done at all. The current powerbooks will support core image. My guess is that Apple won't release Tiger until the whole range supports core image which means the ibooks/emacs need a revision - the new powerbooks are expected in the new year (probs the last G4 powerbooks).

Personally unless you need a mac now I'd wait until the new year and get a new 12" powerbook (unless the ibooks get updated at the same time - which I doubt as they've just been done)
 
great. But I don't get the fact that my 128MB Vram in my PB 1.5 gighz isn't capable of running graphicle core stuff... That is just too much and far beyond my imagination....

I bet it will be supported by current powerbooks, not just on software but also hardware.
 
Godfather said:
great. But I don't get the fact that my 128MB Vram in my PB 1.5 gighz isn't capable of running graphicle core stuff... That is just too much and far beyond my imagination....

I bet it will be supported by current powerbooks, not just on software but also hardware.
Click to expand...

Umm... no problems... Your 1.5 GHz will support it no problem. You have 128 MB VRam. Only 64 is required.
 
swingerofbirch said:
I have been saving up my pennies for the iBook deal from Amazon where I would get the iBook 1.2 ghz combo 12" for 899 with rebate, no shipping, no tax. I finally have enough money, and then I read on page 2 rumors that MWSF may bring new powerbooks.
Click to expand...
How do you get an ibook for $899?
 
hcuar said:
Umm... no problems... Your 1.5 GHz will support it no problem. You have 128 MB VRam. Only 64 is required.
Click to expand...

Actually, the amount of Vram is fairly irrelevant, the issue is the capabilities of the GPU itself, stuff that supports arb_fragment_shader is compatible (if it'd be labelled a 'DirectX 9' card when plugged into a windows machine, it's Coreimage capable)

So of the cards seen in macs, the following are coreimage capable

Geforce FX5200
Radeon 9600
Radeon 9700
Radeon X800 (are ATi actually shipping these yet.. no idea.)
Geforce 6800GT/Ultra
 
I just attended the apple tiger tech talk in boston yesterday. There is nothing to core image that you should be worried about. the only thing that would not run is the ripple effect in the widgets. Core Image is another jargon term they have introduced. It is nothing different. The quartz compositor used to use the graphics card for GUI and stuff now can do more "standard" image transforms. now instead of just the genie effect you have few more transforms. This has been apple way of substituting for lack of good CPUs so they started to transfer the load to the GPU. And it has lot of limitations. CoreImage will shift to CPU if the GPU does not have enough resources and they did not mention any further uses of Core Image other than that. Core Data is completely tangential to this problem. Apple tech likes to talk about their ability to do heavy lifting on the GPU but he had to conceede that there were lot of limitations. even though GPU can transfer at the rate of 35Gbps from its memory the graphics bandwidth(AGP) is arround 2Gbps. So all it can do is more efficiently work when the load is not going to choke the GPU. And in that case it falls back to the CPU and its RAM. Unless they prove the architecture is extremely useful one really need not bother themselves with the whole issue of Core Image compatibility. Tiger will run fine minus the ripple effect. And the graphics card they love talking about (nVidia 6800) is more pricier than getting a second CPU which is far more useful! Questions about framerates their answer was that we donot require framerates more than 60Hz, as we cannot see! Apple is just making a huge cry out of almost nothing new! The only advantage is that you have some good debugging tools and better "managed" classes.
 
budugu said:
I just attended the apple tiger tech talk in boston yesterday. There is nothing to core image that you should be worried about.
Click to expand...

Go read up on 'Quartz 2D Extreme'
 
budugu said:
I just attended the apple tiger tech talk in boston yesterday. There is nothing to core image that you should be worried about. the only thing that would not run is the ripple effect in the widgets. Core Image is another jargon term they have introduced. It is nothing different. The quartz compositor used to use the graphics card for GUI and stuff now can do more "standard" image transforms. now instead of just the genie effect you have few more transforms. This has been apple way of substituting for lack of good CPUs so they started to transfer the load to the GPU. And it has lot of limitations. CoreImage will shift to CPU if the GPU does not have enough resources and they did not mention any further uses of Core Image other than that. Core Data is completely tangential to this problem. Apple tech likes to talk about their ability to do heavy lifting on the GPU but he had to conceede that there were lot of limitations. even though GPU can transfer at the rate of 35Gbps from its memory the graphics bandwidth(AGP) is arround 2Gbps.
Click to expand...

What about CoreImage in QT/FCP/DVDSP and being able to do real-time video encoding (without a dual G5) on a G4 PB all within the supported gfx card.

This is what I was expecting in the major revision of QT that is supposed to be coming,
 
live4ever said:
What about CoreImage in QT/FCP/DVDSP and being able to do real-time video encoding (without a dual G5) on a G4 PB all within the supported gfx card.

This is what I was expecting in the major revision of QT that is supposed to be coming,
Click to expand...

They had CoreVideo on the main slide but did not say any thing about it. As you say " supported gfx card". The definition of a supported Gfx card is that it can be programable (i forgot the long name that they use). The only card they talked about was 6800 ultra so unless your PB is comming with one forget about it. The revisions of OpenGL and QT they said will be on their own pace and will not be with major OS releases. On the brighter side support for h.264 is good news. CoreVideo from what ever interaction i had with the rep was that if you could use coreImage and do some video stuff!

Large number of people do general purpose programming on graphics cards including solutions for ODEs in Diffusion style problems; it just that apple is providing a basic api for it using coreImage (mostly because they have about 3 graphic cards that they have to worry about).
 
budugu said:
We have Quartz extreme in panther too... 😛
Click to expand...

Quite a different thing. That "2D" in the name wasn't a mistake.

<edit> Also, if you can, watch the "Graphics State of the Union" presentation from the ADC. You'll get quite a different picture than the pessimistic one you're painting. As for only the 6800 being supported... look at Apple's website. It lists the supported cards. </edit>
 
So wait a second. I have a rev b 12" Powerbook. It has the 5200 but, only at 32 mb Vram. So because of the Vram requirement with me having the 5200 but, not enough Vram kills core image? Or will it be slower since it is 32?
 
Catfish_Man said:
Quite a different thing. That "2D" in the name wasn't a mistake.

<edit> Also, if you can, watch the "Graphics State of the Union" presentation from the ADC. You'll get quite a different picture than the pessimistic one you're painting. As for only the 6800 being supported... look at Apple's website. It lists the supported cards. </edit>
Click to expand...

If i am not mistaken Quartz 2D became Quartz Extreme and as far as i can remember. If i am wrong i hope you can tell me the difference anyway. i thought Quartz was just a 2D compositor engine.

Supporting core image is different from being able to handle core image successfully! IF your GPU is going to choke fast then you have to fall back on CPU and you have more latency than you originally thought. There are a lot of cards that label themseleves as DirectX compliant but there are only a few cards (atleast ATI 9700 - qouting from the microsoft press book about DirectX) that can generate direct3D objects and run them properly.

I do know what cards are supported! one of the above posts mentions what are the requirements for Coreimage correctly .... just need to have "arb_..." function. What you can do with 6800 is vastly different (an order of magnitude) from what you can achieve with a 5200. All i was saying was that you donot have to get hyper about CoreImage, I am not saying that it is bad.

It is just that you world is not comming to an end if your machine does not support core image.
 
Godfather said:
great. But I don't get the fact that my 128MB Vram in my PB 1.5 gighz isn't capable of running graphicle core stuff... That is just too much and far beyond my imagination...
Click to expand...
Your 128MB video card is an ATI Radeon 9700. The mobile version, but still a 9700. It is compatible.

My Sister's boyfriend has Tiger running on his iBook (1GHz model). It works fine. He said the fancy stuff may not run as well as his PowerMac's, but most of it still runs. I have a feeling it will be like when Quartz Extreme was first announced, and they said you needed a 32MB video card, but the iBooks and earlier PowerBooks, came with only 16MB. They later revised it to 16 (I think 32 was still recommended, but if you had a Radeon, you were ok).

If you think you need Core Image (or Motion), you will probably not want an iBook anyway. If you can do without the whiz-bang stuff, most of the effects in Tiger (as well as all of Tiger itself) will work fine on a 1.2GHz iBook. Some things may be slower, but everything will work.
 
quagmire said:
So wait a second. I have a rev b 12" Powerbook. It has the 5200 but, only at 32 mb Vram. So because of the Vram requirement with me having the 5200 but, not enough Vram kills core image? Or will it be slower since it is 32?
Click to expand...

One of the users asked the same question but with a 17" PB. what he said was that pb older than roughly 2 years will not be supported as the model did not meet the requirements. i am not sure of exact models though.

when i meant supported, i meant on hardware (GPU) as opposed to Software mode (CPU).
 
dongmin said:
How do you get an ibook for $899?
Click to expand...

I found the deal at:

http://www.pbcentral.com

They have direct links to current, new iBooks and Powerbooks that Amazon is offering $100-$150 rebates on, no sales tax, no shipping.

The reason that I said to click on the link from that site is because Amazon sells Apple notebooks from different vendors and you have to get the exact one that Amazon is selling directly to get the rebate, and it's easier for me to go through pbcentral than rooting around on amazon.

Beware though if Amazon runs out of stock they will sell you one through Circuit City for example but it looks like it's coming from Amazon and won't be eligible for the rebate. Have to watch out for that.

But anyhow, pbcentral.com is great for finding the best prices, and that is the best I know of at the moment, beating apple's education prices as well.
 
budugu said:
If i am not mistaken Quartz 2D became Quartz Extreme and as far as i can remember. If i am wrong i hope you can tell me the difference anyway. i thought Quartz was just a 2D compositor engine.
Click to expand...

Quartz EXTREME is the compositing engine, Quartz 2D still exists, HAS to exist, to generate the things for QE to composite... in Tiger, Quartz 2D Extreme turns the generation of pretty much.. well, everything.. over to the pixel shader hardware on the gpu.. watch the afformentioned WWDC/Graphics state of the union clip (and if you get the one with Phil Schiller, it's the wrong one.)

text, lineart, everything, rendered in hardware, so not only does the cpu not have to do it, but the gpu can do it a hell of a lot faster in most cases.
 
So what happens to all of us who have hardware that does not support core image? Does that mean we cant use tiger? What about the little people with 32 gpu's!! haha
 
Chryx said:
Quartz EXTREME is the compositing engine, Quartz 2D still exists, HAS to exist, to generate the things for QE to composite... in Tiger, Quartz 2D Extreme turns the generation of pretty much.. well, everything.. over to the pixel shader hardware on the gpu.. watch the afformentioned WWDC/Graphics state of the union clip (and if you get the one with Phil Schiller, it's the wrong one.)

text, lineart, everything, rendered in hardware, so not only does the cpu not have to do it, but the gpu can do it a hell of a lot faster in most cases.
Click to expand...

From Quartz extreme itself the frame buffer was handled by GPU ... you can look at the documentation. I tried to do a basic search on the apple site but could not find "Quartz 2D Extreme" anywhere (may be my fault!). Unless there is a difference in the way Tiger uses OpenGL to draw! panther itself uses openGl quads + texture map to draw 2D. See there is no distiction between line art, text or any thing as they are all pixels in a frame buffer as it is a virtual copy of the screen that is going to be rendered after the compositor output.
 
budugu said:
From Quartz extreme itself the frame buffer was handled by GPU ... you can look at the documentation. I tried to do a basic search on the apple site but could not find "Quartz 2D Extreme" anywhere (may be my fault!). Unless there is a difference in the way Tiger uses OpenGL to draw! panther itself uses openGl quads + texture map to draw 2D. See there is no distiction between line art, text or any thing as they are all pixels in a frame buffer as it is a virtual copy of the screen that is going to be rendered after the compositor output.
Click to expand...

In Quartz Extreme, the compositing of elements to form the final frame is handled by the gpu, the creation of those elements has to be, largely, handled by the CPU

in Quartz 2D Extreme, the creation of those elements is offloaded to the GPU IN ADDITION to the compositing duties.

Watch : http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/wwdc_2004_qt_sotu/wwdc_2004_gm_sotu_ref.mov

Notice the section about 30 minutes in where he demonstrates the difference between Quickdraw, Quartz 2D, and Quartz 2D Extreme
 
CaptainCaveMann said:
So what happens to all of us who have hardware that does not support core image? Does that mean we cant use tiger? What about the little people with 32 gpu's!! haha
Click to expand...

Coreimage will either rollback to Altivec code or you'll have something as functional as panther at least (plain Quartz 2D is a lot faster in Tiger as well)
 
CaptainCaveMann said:
So what happens to all of us who have hardware that does not support core image? Does that mean we cant use tiger? What about the little people with 32 gpu's!! haha
Click to expand...
Yes, Apple will be releasing an amazing OS that can only be used by a handful of their customers with the very newest systems. Even if you buy an iBook or eMac right now, it will not be supported at all. And 10.5 will only run on Quad G6s with a $600 video card, to be released a year after the OS... "we hope", says Steve. Everyone else will be stuck with 10.3 forever.

That was sarcasm, BTW. As has been said, Core Image is only part of Tiger and will scale accordingly. Just like Quartz. Tiger will support almost everything Panther does, with only a few older G3s being cut out. Built in Firewire is preferred, but I'll bet you can get it to run on older hardware. Especially with XPostFacto. Considering it won't be released until sometime next year, I'm sure we're all worrying over nothing.

Well, except me. I'm not worried. As I said, Tiger seems to run fine on a GHz iBook.
 
solvs said:
Well, except me. I'm not worried. As I said, Tiger seems to run fine on a GHz iBook.
Click to expand...

Thats exactly what I have been saying don't worry about it. 🙂


Has anyone noticed that Core Image is looking at replacing Photoshop, I mean from the demos alone you basically add filter mask layers on the image or video. Adobe canned Premier since Apple has FCP, Adobe is also seeing a lot of heat for After Effects since Apple has Motion and now Photoshop with Apple Core Image built-in for still images and video.

If I were Adobe I would be sweating beads. 🙂
 
nah adobe just needs to jump on it. Apple's given them some great tools to do some amazing things. it's up to them to decide whether they want to use them or not.

i just watched that video stream. some amazing stuff. i have a 1Gz powerbook Ti, and am planning on getting Tiger, however now i'm starting to think differently of what my machine will be able to do. at first i figured it would be gimmicky things like that ripple effect which i can do without that won't work, but now seeing quicktime scale window size while playing back live, you know, seeing things that are actually more useful, i'm a little worried that for me a lot of the new innovative features that are coming out of Tiger will be "scaled back" to simply nothing more than Panther with Spotlight and Dashboard tacked on for $120 bucks. i suppose it's the price to pay for trying to stay on the cutting edge of innovation. it's good that Apple's so forward thinking. i'll definitely want to try to stick with them, but it's really nothing more than me going "aw rats." hopefully more features will work on my machine than i am fearing won't. my machine is only going to get older. i guess we'll see what happens. it's definitely a good idea to wait on buying a machine until you can get one fully compatible with Tiger, no scaling down or leaving stuff out, because it appears that with Tiger Apple is laying some solid framework that probably won't see much change for a good while. longer than the year and a half i've owned my machine anyway.
 
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