3d OS

[Catfish_Man]

This is a possibly crazy idea that I came up with: Make a GUI for an OS that looked pretty much like Aqua but was done in OpenGL instead of Quartz. Instead of 2d pictures you would have flat 3d objects with the pictures (icons, desktop backgrounds, etc...) put on as textures. This would allow you to shunt the entire GUI over to the graphics card, allowing the processor to do other things. I think it would be fast enough because Aqua is a lot less complex then Quake III and any recent Mac can handle QIII with ease. It would slow down 3d performance, but only if the GUI was showing while a 3d program was running, which is very rare (the only way I can think of it happening is when a 3d program is running in a window). Also, once the computers (or at least their graphics cards) got fast enough to handle it, you could easily add in "eye candy" like dynamic lighting, refraction, and reflection (personally I don't think eye candy is a good thing, but flexibility is always good). Another thing would be that windows in the background could actually be farther away, which could have some benefits.

btw, I am aware of 3dOSX, but I think it's a rather clumsy way of doing it.

 

[mac15]

that would be awesome
but OS X interface hogs enough memory as it is
you would probably need a powerful G4 with a gig of ram
and a very high powered video card
its a very good idea but Im happy with the interface as it is

 

[Catfish_Man]

I think...

Originally posted by mac15
that would be awesome
but OS X interface hogs enough memory as it is
you would probably need a powerful G4 with a gig of ram
and a very high powered video card
its a very good idea but Im happy with the interface as it is

...you may have missed my point. This would have the result of making the GUI less processor dependent than it is now, not more. I'm not sure about the ram.

 

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by mac15
that would be awesome
but OS X interface hogs enough memory as it is
you would probably need a powerful G4 with a gig of ram
and a very high powered video card
its a very good idea but Im happy with the interface as it is

hey os x developers/programmers out there, why does os x hog so much memory?

does os x really need it?

is this an industry way to just sell more ram?

 

[mischief]

It's the next logical step.

If the GUI is shunted to the video card the CPU can do other things. We all know that Quartz seems like a stopgap and Apple has been bumping up it's video cards. The math works.......all that G4 and RAM could be freed up for actually doing what you want it to focus on.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Re: 3d OS

Originally posted by Catfish_Man
tw, I am aware of 3dOSX, but I think it's a rather clumsy way of doing it.

3dOSX is a toy app. Not much use, which is too bad, because you're right, the potential is there.

Moving the GUI to the graphics card is a nice approach, but how integrated does the GUI need to be with the CPU for updating and filemanagement, app maintenance?

With a faster bus speed (faster than what we have now) it might be transparent in those terms. I like it. Now to find someone to do it....

 

[Taft]

Logical path for GUI development.

I think Apple should have taken more of a developmental approach to their GUI. The problem with the current GUI is really in that it can do too much and it was presented to the public too quickly.

All of the advanced abilities of Quartz are not yet handled by current graphics cards. Thus, to make the speed of these things as snappy as less sophisticated engines on current platforms, you need to have either very efficient drawing algorithms or a very fast machine. Apple pushed out OS X so quickly (I would argue a bit too quickly when compared to other commercial OS's) that optimization probably took a back seat to features. This means that the efficiency in their drawing algorithms is not yet there.

I'm sure things will get better and faster, but I can't help but think that Apple could have taken a slower path to some of the advanced features they have already put in their GUI. That way, their algorithms and hardware (both on the machine end and graphics cards) would have had time to catch up.

What do you guys think?

Matthew

 

[engpjp]

Isn't that QE?

Pushing the processing of the UI to the GPU by making files into textures on 3D surfaces? Isn't that to a large extent what happens in Quartz Extreme, through GL ?

Under any circumstances, the bus is the bottleneck here - and when the new generation of hardware arrives, in which bus problems are alleviated, we will see Aqua flow the way it is supposed to be. As usual, optimization is done by throwing processor cycles at it (in this case GPU cycles), or, to put it another way: the OS was written for hardware with capabilities that are only just now beginning to appear.

engpjp


--- I'm discussing this further on http://macbloqs.blogspot,com

 

[arn]

Re: 3d OS

Originally posted by Catfish_Man
This is a possibly crazy idea that I came up with: Make a GUI for an OS that looked pretty much like Aqua but was done in OpenGL instead of Quartz. Instead of 2d pictures you would have flat 3d objects with the pictures (icons, desktop backgrounds, etc...) put on as textures. This would allow you to shunt the entire GUI over to the graphics card, allowing the processor to do other things.

You just described Quartz Extreme.

 

[Choppaface]

he he blast from the past, cool

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Ok, lets not make this a habit. If you have a reason to resurrect a thread, fine. But just for nostalgia? And we've had another thread on the same subject going on.....sheesh!

D