Yeah, neat idea conceptually...but in practice I would personally rather not have my iMac look like a school bus window
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Apple Including Ultra High Resolution Artwork in Lion for Possible Retina Displays?
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Yeah, neat idea conceptually...but in practice I would personally rather not have my iMac look like a school bus window
3200x2000 requires 6,400,000 pixels. At 32 bit per pixel, we're talking 25,600,000 bytes of data. Considering modern framebuffers are double buffered, this requires 51,200,000 bytes of memory to hold. That fits into 48.82 MB of RAM. GPUs have had that much since ... hum... 2004 ? So we're good on framebuffer RAM.
Now, bandwidth. In order to refresh the screen 60 times, we need to push out those 25,600,000 pixels. That's going to require 11718 Mbps of bandwidth. Let's see... Display port 1.1a has 10.8 Gbps so it's a no go (though it could almost do it). If only there was a DP 1.2 spec that had a 21.6 Gbps cap... Oh wait there is.
So we're good on RAM and bandwidth. Now, what ATI family introduces DP 1.2 so that we can use this new standard ? Oh right, the Radeon HD 6000 series, AMD's current shipping tech! Now if only Apple would release some kind of support for these GPUs, like they did back in 10.6.7
http://appleheadlines.com/2011/03/2...ion-for-amd-5000-and-6000-series-video-cards/
So let's see if I got all of this right. We're good on RAM (have been for quite a few years). We're good on bandwidth for 60 hz 3200x2000 resolution. We're good on hardware (AMD 6000 series) and we're good on OS X support (with 10.6.7).
What exactly is missing here ? Oh right, a hardware refresh with said hardware included, which is probably a formality seeing all of these news and facts
I have a question.
Is 25,600,000 bytes (25.6 MB) x 60 Hz not equal to 1,536,000,000 bytes.
Correct me if I am wrong.
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desk...6990/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6990-overview.aspx#3
Amd (ati) lists the desktop 6990 as having a maximum display output of 2560 x 1600 per display (with display port 1.2). Something is going to have to change on the hardware level.
My opinion: This will look amazing but 3D gaming is going to suck at that resolution and especially since an iMac will not be able to have a very good GPU since it cannot handle the heat. Of course they could design it so that the resolution could be brought down during gaming.
You contradict yourself here. A 27" iMac is probably already retina, considering the viewing distance should be around 30" away.
As the distance grows, the PPI treshold to achieve the "retina" effect of "Eye can't distinguish the individual pixels" becomes lower. Given enough distance, 48 PPI can be enough to be dubbed "retina display" (your standard 50" 1080p TV).
No, you're not wrong. But I'm not either. I'll let you figure out why (think about the lower case b in Mbps vs MB of RAM
). Unless I'm misinterpreting something, I doubt DP 1.2 can push out 21 gigaBYTES of data per second...As for the 6990 listing that as max resolution, I'm betting that has more to do with current LCD display limitation (that is the max resolutions you'll find on an LCD monitor) than with actual hardware limitation. The hardware is capable of more than that. Some of these cards with a single GPU have 2-4 DP outputs capable of driving 2-4 of these 2560x1600 monitors. The GPU itself doesn't a problem pushing out these pixels and DP 1.2 makes it so they can push it over a single connection.
I look forward to the day that Apple releases retina displays for the MBP. Something else that would setapart.
Sony was there first with the Vaio Z. 13.3", 1920x1080 baby. If it weren't so expensive it would be mine and I'd be back to running Linux.
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Ah... But notice they sell one type of these displays and not the other
Currently, roughly how much would a display that meets retina specs cost?
Depends. What size display and what is the normal viewing distance for that type of display ? With both those, we can calculate the required PPI and see if something already exists in that size or not.
You might be surprised to find out it's already out there and quite competitively priced in some cases.
Great!
Nice Ruler for measuring your devices output:
http://pediddle.net/dpi-ruler.html
Side Note:
While reading different sites about screen resolution and retina display and different Apple marketing "bluffs", I got into this:
http://twek.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/a-letter-to-steve-jobs-about-6-bit-macbook-pro-displays/
Which models are like this?
Is this real or another Apple hate thing?
Nice Ruler for measuring your devices output:
http://pediddle.net/dpi-ruler.html
Side Note:
While reading different sites about screen resolution and retina display and different Apple marketing "bluffs", I got into this:
http://twek.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/a-letter-to-steve-jobs-about-6-bit-macbook-pro-displays/
Which models are like this?
Is this real or another Apple hate thing?
Well that would be an awesome upgrade (having a monitor going up to 3200 x 2000!) but I will have to wait until 3rd party (NEC, EIZO) make a nice matte version later down the road.
Should make for some amazing iMac upgrades in the near future though!
Should make for some amazing iMac upgrades in the near future though!
That's a limitation of TN panels. To get true 8 bit per channel, you need to either go with PVA or IPS panels. It's not an "Apple hate" thing, it's quite true. It's also the reason that profesionals usually work on expensive IPS displays and not the sub-200$ LCD screens you see at Best Buy.
The 27" iMac uses an IPS display so it is not affected, however, all Apple notebooks use TN displays. Laptops with IPS screens are very, very rare. One model HP Elitebook comes with an optional IPS display that I know of.
Also, this story probably isn't about "retina" displays per say as people view them (4 times the pixel count) but more akin to new monitors that use DP 1.2's available bandwidth, finally breaking the 2560x1600 barrier we've had for the last few years.
This news item is probably mostly about new ACD resolutions/new iMac resolutions than it is about a whole revamp of the entire line-up to use the misused "Retina" monicker.
Apple knows what they meant by Retina, too bad most people around here fail to accept that meaning and go for the simpler "300 PPI screen".
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3200x2000 sounds great!
Now, just give us the hardware to run at least last year's games at more than mediocre settings.
3200x2000 sounds great!
Now, just give us the hardware to run at least last year's games at more than mediocre settings.
Note that the 3200x2000 wallpaper is form factor 16/10 and not 16/9!
Does this means Apple will be reverting to widescreen 16/10 displays instead of the tv-widescreen 16/9? Wouldn't be bad
I really hope the new iMac will have such a screen, and comes with a decent GPU like the HD6970m or the HD6950m for the top 27" iMac.
I agree completely. 16:9 is fine, but I find that 16:10 is a much better ratio for apps and multitasking personally. It's amazes me how much the difference that little makes. Given a choice I will always go with 16:10 on a computer. Good eye.
Not yet.
More likely that they are producing a higher res iMac display first.
And this site has the most archaic, convoluted commenting sign-up/system I have ever seen. It should be abolished and replaced with Facebook Comments. How many distinctions of value are there really to be said about feature-limited Mac products anyway. Don't mistake this as a critique of Apple.
More likely that they are producing a higher res iMac display first.
And this site has the most archaic, convoluted commenting sign-up/system I have ever seen. It should be abolished and replaced with Facebook Comments. How many distinctions of value are there really to be said about feature-limited Mac products anyway. Don't mistake this as a critique of Apple.
Bingo. That or a higher resolution ACD (new 30" ?).
I like the forum style a lot more than flat commenting a la Facebook and other blogs. Discussions are easier to follow and BBcode allows much more flexibility in posting. This is a forum, not some blog with 1-liner comments.
@KnightWRX
Glad we agree, but who would ever purchase an ACD? Buying an overpriced, inferiorly performing, glare-crazy Apple display device is the height of Apple brainwashing.
It says a lot that my education college professors owned several back when they were $3000, yet complained about budget cuts. You know the study: Mac users are statistically hippy liberal douches. Like VW Bug owners.
Glad we agree, but who would ever purchase an ACD? Buying an overpriced, inferiorly performing, glare-crazy Apple display device is the height of Apple brainwashing.
It says a lot that my education college professors owned several back when they were $3000, yet complained about budget cuts. You know the study: Mac users are statistically hippy liberal douches. Like VW Bug owners.
You contradict yourself here. A 27" iMac is probably already retina, considering the viewing distance should be around 30" away.
As the distance grows, the PPI treshold to achieve the "retina" effect of "Eye can't distinguish the individual pixels" becomes lower. Given enough distance, 48 PPI can be enough to be dubbed "retina display" (your standard 50" 1080p TV).
No, you're not wrong. But I'm not either. I'll let you figure out why (think about the lower case b in Mbps vs MB of RAM
As for the 6990 listing that as max resolution, I'm betting that has more to do with current LCD display limitation (that is the max resolutions you'll find on an LCD monitor) than with actual hardware limitation. The hardware is capable of more than that. Some of these cards with a single GPU have 2-4 DP outputs capable of driving 2-4 of these 2560x1600 monitors. The GPU itself doesn't a problem pushing out these pixels and DP 1.2 makes it so they can push it over a single connection.
Sony was there first with the Vaio Z. 13.3", 1920x1080 baby. If it weren't so expensive it would be mine and I'd be back to running Linux.
Thanks, a 'duh' moment for me.
However, ati does list the 6990 as having a maximum display resolution of 2650 x 1600 per display though it can handle up to 6 displays. There will have to be a change somewhere. (Though you could probably write a program that would allow this resolution). That is still going to max out thunderbolt so you would not be able to drive one of those displays at native with a macbook pro.
Pretty sure again that the limitation is purely a "spec sheet" limitation given that is the max current LCDs do. My GF's miniDVI Macbook has a maximum "spec sheet" resolution of 1920x1200 yet she's plugged into a Dell SP2343W with a native resolution 2048x1156 with no problem. That resolution doesn't even show up on the "spec sheet" but it works fine in practice.
If the hardware really can't push more than 2560x1600 per connection, than since it can handle up to 6 displays of that resolution, I'm pretty sure it's just a firmware update away from enabling higher resolutions over DP 1.2. Again, maybe just something AMD overlooked because of the lack of such displays on the market.
Time will tell, but all the components available today can do it. We're at the point where we are ready to break beyond the 2560x1600 wall for a single monitor.
Now Thunderbolt is indeed a wild card here. Why would Apple limit DP like that though ? I'm betting that in DP mode, if they do implement DP 1.2, you would be able to use the full 21.6 Mbps. Otherwise, it makes no sense...
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