Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

64-Bit Jaguar and 970 PowerMacs

Originally posted by Shadowfax
also, more recently, a game called "BloodRayne" ported by Aspyr. it's a terribly dirty game in terms of performance. and it's not my hardware's fault.
Click to expand...

You have to remember that Bloodrayne was a console game first. The engine was made for consoles and thus the engine limitations were carried over in the port.

It has nothing to do with porting, just the limitations of the actual engine - coded by the actual developers, not the Mac port house or publisher.
 
I hope Apple doesn't pattern its case design in accordance to Gollum/Smeagol. He's one ugly SOB if you ask me.

-The 970 is the precious!
 
Education decrease in price of powermacs

Another sign that Apple is clearing it's inventory of Powermac G4 computers and paving the way for the 970???

The individual educational pricing for Powermacs have decreased at my school, and probably all schools. It used to be only $100 discount on the lowend 1ghz and $300 on the highend configured 1.42ghz. The discount has increased by $100--no telling what the discount is for school purchases.
 
Originally posted by job
You have to remember that Bloodrayne was a console game first. The engine was made for consoles and thus the engine limitations were carried over in the port.

It has nothing to do with porting, just the limitations of the actual engine - coded by the actual developers, not the Mac port house or publisher.
Click to expand...
well, i believe the PC port was done much better, with adjustments to the screen resolution and so on permitted. they could have made it perform much better. furthermore, it eats ram and won't clean itself out, so after about an hour of play, the whol game slows down insanely so it's like playing CS on a 56K. that's not the engine's fault.
 
optimizations

I would imagine the situation is not as dire as some would believe. Apple has to make changes to support the new hardware (heck they had to make new builds for non-processor changes in the past).

Beyond that, I would bet Apple will be compiling using a 970 optimized GCC. So, at release time, Apple's code will be optimized. This will speed up most programs (we are calling libraries after all).

I wouldn't worry too much. It will be fast and get faster.
 
minor correction for petrolheads...

nicolas got things mixed up:

'Smeagol' is from JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. ...A modern example of a Sleeper or Q-Ship automobile would be something like the Audi RS4 Quattro Avant. It looks like a normal compact station wagon, but its engine has been worked over by Porsche: 0-60mph is <5 sec, 0-100ph is <12sec, and 0-125 is 17sec. Coming back down, you find that Porsche's worked on the suspension/braking systems too: 70mph-0 in 155ft.

The RS2 is the one that was co-developed with Porsche, RS4 has NO Porsche components but has 380 horseposer engine from Audi Cosworth - that's 0-100km at 4.8 secs. RS4 is faster than RS2 ... and on track faster than RS6.

Some of us have further 'hobbies' apart from our Macs :)

=thebimbo
 
Originally posted by Shadowfax
i thought you would make a comment about them naming this project after you, gollum.

i wonder why everyone thinks they are going to release 64 bit processors before their 64 bit OS. it seems to me that it would simplify thingss to wait.
Click to expand...

Well, the Dual G4s came out before OS X did, and that was the first Mac OS to support dual processors...
 
Originally posted by ddtlm
Frobozz:


I wonder how they would be able to separate motherboard performance from processsor performance and declare which is responsible for what. Hopefully this launch is more dramatic than the arrival of the G4-733.
Click to expand...

Amen, brotha.
 
Originally posted by ZildjianKX
Well, the Dual G4s came out before OS X did, and that was the first Mac OS to support dual processors...
Click to expand...
Heck, the dual and quad 604 machines came out well before the dual G4s.
 
Re: Make Panther slower on G4s.... Hmmm....

Originally posted by AidenShaw
Using a new compiler to optimize for the 970 would more than likely imply that it will slow down the G4 (unless the gcc today is really that poor on PPC).
Click to expand...
The G4 will never run the 64 bits version of Panther. 64 bits libs and kernel will be 970 optimized; this could also mean that at installation time even 32 bits part of Panther could be delivered with the right sheduling for the 970.

Will Apple let the opportunity to run a 32 bits Panther kernel on the 970? To my knowledge all 64 bits vendors (SGI, Sun, IBM...) have let their customer choose between a 32 and a 64 bits kernel on 64 bits hardware for a few years.

Only a few apps would benefit from a 32 to 64 bits port (remember AltiVec is a powerful 128 bits SIMD engine), most would infact slow down.
This means developers would have to optimize 32 bits apps against 2 and a half (G3&G4, G4e, 970) different CPU cores, and 3 (7400, 7450, 970) different AltiVec implementation.
We are still far from the x86 instructions extension mess (MMX, SSE, SSE2, 3DNow!, 3DNow! Pro...).
Anyway I have no doubts about the fact that CPU specific builds are going to be pretty rare, most of today apps are targeted to the G3, and developers that do not overlook the 7400/7450 differences are God send.
 
Originally posted by ZildjianKX
Well, the Dual G4s came out before OS X did, and that was the first Mac OS to support dual processors...
Click to expand...

Yes, but there were a few major apps that supported them. Photoshop and, IIRC, Strada Studio, and a few other high-end apps supported multiple processors. Otherwise, Daystar would never have released their Quad-processor Mac.
 
Originally posted by Shadowfax
well, i believe the PC port was done much better, with adjustments to the screen resolution and so on permitted. they could have made it perform much better. furthermore, it eats ram and won't clean itself out, so after about an hour of play, the whol game slows down insanely so it's like playing CS on a 56K. that's not the engine's fault.
Click to expand...

Okay, I'm not trying to perpetuate an argument that was laid to rest, but as a software developer (not for the Mac, unfortunately), let me tell you that this is not the result of a lack of hand-optimized code.

There are other programmers who disagree, but I don't see enough benefit from writing hand-optimized assembly (SIMD notwithstanding) to make it worthwhile these days. Most games are even offloading a lot of their most intense [graphics] calculations into the increasingly powerful GPUs we have, where we still have higher-level languages like GLslang/HLSL/Cg.

Failing to release memory and the like is really just poor programming practice, not a lack of optimized code. The performance issues are a separate story; it's my personal opinion that it's simply that we Mac users deserve (and desperately need) faster hardware.
 
Maybe smeagol is for...

People keep talking about wether the smeagol version of 10.2 is for 64 bit support support or not.

My understanding is that 970s can run 32 bits apps natively, no need for emulation. This being one of the great features of . So my guess is, hey smeagle isn't for 64 bit support, but rather new hardware support. I.e. you have to have support for the new motherboard, chips, controllers, buses, USB 2.0, any other new technology like hypertransport or gigawire etc etc etc.

To me it makes more sense that Smeagle is to support the new hardware basics, rather then opt for 64 bit support. And it would make sense that Apple would ship these sooner then later. I believe they shipped alot of what they announced right before Jaguar, with 10.1. I.e. 17inch iMacs and MDD powermacs rather then waiting a week or two for 10.2, so why would they wait a month or two, if they didn't even wait a week or two?
 
Originally posted by PaisanoMan
Failing to release memory and the like is really just poor programming practice, not a lack of optimized code. The performance issues are a separate story; it's my personal opinion that it's simply that we Mac users deserve (and desperately need) faster hardware.
Click to expand...
yeah, i guess i am just being argumentative. it is a pretty crappily written port, optimization or no. we definitely need hardware updates. motorola has royally screwed apple and its users on performance.
 
So correct me if I'm wrong but if the 970's are 64bit does this mean that panther will not work on a G4 nor would any software developed for the 970? Wouldn't this leave every single mac user in the dark for updates and new software?
 
with any luck, they will do both a 64 and 32 bit version of panther. apple would probably destroy itself doing that, though they have done some pretty mean things to their customers as far as leaving them in the dark for progress.
 
Re: Maybe smeagol is for...

Originally posted by GregGomer
My understanding is that 970s can run 32 bits apps natively, no need for emulation.
Click to expand...

I believe there are still minor OS changes required. Basically just to initialize the 970 and tell it, "hey, go to 32-bit mode and stay there".
 
Re: Q37

Originally posted by Silencio
Q37.... Q37...

If the first PowerMacs were released in March 1994, then PowerPCs have been in Apple machines for just 9-1/4 years, or 37 fiscal quarters. Q37.
Click to expand...

Your post is a joke i know, but in seriousness:

Apple has always called their prototype machines PXX, like P53, P54, etc. They may have moved to the QXX series for the new architecture.
 
Originally posted by jdstoddard
So correct me if I'm wrong but if the 970's are 64bit does this mean that panther will not work on a G4 nor would any software developed for the 970?
Click to expand...

Of course not. Apple will either ship separate 32 and 64-bit versions of Panther, or more likely include both sets of code and have the OS select which one to run (like PowerPC/68k fat binaries). Most software will still be released as 32-bit, with only the minority that can take advantage of a 64-bit CPU having separate versions.
 
Originally posted by Shadowfax
with any luck, they will do both a 64 and 32 bit version of panther. apple would probably destroy itself doing that, though they have done some pretty mean things to their customers as far as leaving them in the dark for progress.
Click to expand...

Well, other vendors have done 32-bit and 64-bit versions of their software (HP-UX for example) without much problem. I do not think this will cause Apple any great harm. 64-bit apps will of course only run on the new machines.

I would say, on the whole, Apple has been a lot nicer than Microsoft on the whole forced upgrade thing. The 3.1 to 95 was a nightmare and the dropping of support for NT, 2000 to force an XP upgrade was not fun. The only blip has been the duration people could run 98 (and I would assume that was because of how bad M.E. was). If Apple acted like Microsoft, machines would not have been able to boot OS 9 at least a year before that option was taken.
 
I don't know what's funnier - the fact that some of you are complaining about how slow a chip is that hasn't even come out yet or that a lot of you, it seems, haven't actually read the article. Or you're reading too much into this (pun intended) and either over-reacting, or wandering a little off topic (like that ever happens).

Not to criticize, but if the article is anywhere near correct, we have a lot to be thankful for.
 
Originally posted by mccoma
the dropping of support for NT, 2000 to force an XP upgrade was not fun.
Click to expand...
Good story, but check the Microsoft website. Windows 2000 is still supported, and some support is still available for NT 4.0 (esp server).

For example, see http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/infotech/aboutit/stories/w98nonsupport.htm or http://www.idg.net/ic_1041385_9707_1-5066.html

Windows NT Server users who were worried that they might be running an unsupported operating system next year got some welcome news from Microsoft Corp.

A Microsoft spokeswoman said yesterday that pay-per-incident and premier support for Windows NT Server 4.0 will run through Dec. 31, 2004. Nonsecurity hot fixes, however, will no longer be available as of Jan. 1, 2004.

Now, what's Apple's position on OS 9? A coffin, I believe. ;)
 
Originally posted by AidenShaw
Now, what's Apple's position on OS 9? A coffin, I believe. ;)
Click to expand...
Let's see what happens with the education market over the next year, the iBook/eMac updates may point to them keeping these OS9 bootable machines around another year -- may not.

This coffin call for OS 9 is starting to look like a bad sequel to "Return of the Living Dead Operating Systems"
 
Q37

I thought the Q37 deduction was pretty damn cool. I mean, c'mon, to go and figure that out, wow. Maybe it's true? Who cares? Either way, kudos for the deductiveness of it all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back