It has been said now and then but should be stressed more - OpenGL is more than games! ArchiCad uses OpenGL... ArchiCad is s-l-o-w.. need .. more ... speed ... ... now!
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Apple Improving Open-GL?
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Nope. You get better performance for less money just upgrading to the next-best card unless you're talking the top-of-the-line cards, at which point you're talking over a thousand dollars for two of them.shompa said:
SLI may someday be worthwhile, but that day is a long way off.
~J
The Bigger Picture
In an article at AnandTech on Multi-core CPU's and gaming is an interesting statement by AnandTech in an interview with Tim Sweeney, the leading developer behind the Unreal 3 engine: (QUOTE)
AnandTech: The current OpenGL and DirectX are - AFAIK - not very well adapted to multithreaded programming. How did you solve this problem? Or wasn't it a problem at all?
Tim Sweeney: There is only one GPU in there, and though it is highly parallel at the pixel level, its execution is still serial on the granularity of state changes and triangle submission. So it is natural that the interface to the GPU remain single-threaded, and that part of one CPU thread be dedicated to submitting rendering commands.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2377&p=1
I am no engineer, but if AnandTech is correct, this statement might be seen as corroboration that Apple is preparing for a predominantly, if not eventually completely, dual-core lineup. At least in the near future, I expect the PMac (dual, dual-core?), iMac and PB to go dual-core, with the iBook, eMac, and Mac mini remaining single core.
In an article at AnandTech on Multi-core CPU's and gaming is an interesting statement by AnandTech in an interview with Tim Sweeney, the leading developer behind the Unreal 3 engine: (QUOTE)
AnandTech: The current OpenGL and DirectX are - AFAIK - not very well adapted to multithreaded programming. How did you solve this problem? Or wasn't it a problem at all?
Tim Sweeney: There is only one GPU in there, and though it is highly parallel at the pixel level, its execution is still serial on the granularity of state changes and triangle submission. So it is natural that the interface to the GPU remain single-threaded, and that part of one CPU thread be dedicated to submitting rendering commands.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2377&p=1
I am no engineer, but if AnandTech is correct, this statement might be seen as corroboration that Apple is preparing for a predominantly, if not eventually completely, dual-core lineup. At least in the near future, I expect the PMac (dual, dual-core?), iMac and PB to go dual-core, with the iBook, eMac, and Mac mini remaining single core.
It's good that Apple are recruiting in this area. 3D is one of the major parts of OS X still to be done IMHO. (Just based on PC results with the same hardware). I hope they can recruit some really top 3D experts...
Kagetenshi said:
I'm running with 1GB PC133 and bought the PowerBook with the optional 64MB VRAM on the Radeon 9000. Unfortunately, I bought the PowerBook about 2 months before the PowerBook line-up was revised with the Aluminium versions and got better graphics chipsets and DDR, so I was kinda kicking myself.
If my PowerBook is "below standard", then I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad since I've spent the last 18-months accepting that this was the way it was. Incidentally, when you say "take it in for servicing", can you clarify where this would be done and whether it would be covered under AppleCare? We're still waiting for Apple Stores in Europe (bar the one in London) so the best I have available locally are authorised specialist resellers.
I'm not clear what architectural differences there are between a last-model TiBook and a Summer 2004 iBook G4, but I'm only running on 768 megabytes of RAM. My advice would be to get in touch with AppleCare and check with them to see if that's the expected performance level (as I'm almost certain it wouldn't be, but it doesn't hurt to double-check), and any repairs ought to be covered since they're defects in the product rather than wear and tear or abuse. You may also want to run XBench and compare to some other results to confirm that yours are abnormal, and have it with you when making the repair request.
~J
~J
Because PC manufacturers are still stuck to the 1980s-style BIOS. New-world Macintoshes have had the modern OpenFirmware for a while now. This is a much more advanced BIOS software than the antiquated PC BIOS and it's very much a standard. I don't see why PCs can't use it.Lynxpro said:
It's also the reason why we need to have a PC and Mac version. If PCs had OpenFirmware, then there wouldn't be any need for PC/Mac versions. I recall Sun selling a Mac version of an ATI card for their workstations because Sun hardware uses OpenFirmware (it's Sun's invention after all).Only if PC manufacturers got a clue and moved to OpenFirmware. *sigh*
I agree! Open Firmware is FAR better than a standard PC BIOS. I wouldn't be surprised if its interface could be configured to resemble the configuration screens of a typical PC BIOS either. Of course, making this change would uproot all of the PC BIOS makers. As I see it, their sacrifice will be to the benefit of everyone (even the PC BIOS makers would benefit eventually, once they figured out that they can customize Open Firmware).MacCoaster said:Because PC manufacturers are still stuck to the 1980s-style BIOS. New-world Macintoshes have had the modern OpenFirmware for a while now. This is a much more advanced BIOS software than the antiquated PC BIOS and it's very much a standard. I don't see why PCs can't use it.
Only if PC manufacturers got a clue and moved to OpenFirmware. *sigh*
To be fair, computers run at a much higher resolution than consoles need to. You can always get better speed (often considerably) by lowering the resolution... It's just a lot less data that needs to be pushed around in the system. That, plus consoles are able to put every resource available to them into the game, where computers have dozens of tasks at any given time. The software needed to run a computer therefore needs to be more complex, etc etc. There isn't really a fair way to compare computers with consoles.DrNeroCF said:
One very good reason why you can't just switch to Open Firmware overnight is the fact that software (in particular operating systems) rely on the BIOS... It's needed to boot the system and other important things. If you just switch to Open Firmware then every i386 operating system suddenly can't be booted from the new hardware, making your hardware practically useless. It would make a coordinated effort between hardware and software manufacturers (particularly Microsoft), and it certainly wouldn't be the nice, easy transition you think it would be. Add on the fact that they get very little benefit from using Open Firmware rather than a BIOS and you can pretty much bet it will never happen.MacCoaster said:
If I was running Microsoft, and I had decided to stick with the decision to require a new computer purchase to get Longhorn, I'd require hardware changes like this as an excuse for the new computer requirement. This solves the completely valid issue you brought up. Unfortunately, Microsoft isn't smart enough to do this.TheCheat said:
wrldwzrd89 said:
If there was money in this for microsoft they would do it, but since they make no money on hardware, they would lose money if they required you by a new computer for longhorn because they wouldn't sell as many copies.