Apple Seeds OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 Build 13D55 to Developers

[3282868]

Ok, that all being stated, some questions between us developers.

OpenGL 4.1 is fully supported, has been for some time. 4.2 is 2/13, 15%, supported. Compared to previously OS X 10.X builds, this is progress, but how does this compare to Windows systems? Is OS X still lagging in graphics support (in general)?

FPS Test results are interesting.

 

[iPro97]

Does anybody know if this update fixes the magic mouse twitchiness when scrolling introduced in 10.9?

 

[MikhailT]

Companies don't (or at least shouldn't) do public betas to cut costs, they do them to improve the quality of their software. Public betas might not even be cheaper than hiring people directly to do the testing: the company has to go through more support requests, more bug reports, more bandwidth used to distribute the betas, etc.

What makes public betas so useful, is that it brings more environments, users, use cases, and combinations of hardware and software to the testing, than you could ever arrange in a controlled testing environment. For example, the with more beta testers the issues with WD SmartWare might have been spotted well before Mavericks was released. It's much easier to recognize patterns, if you have more bug reports to work with.

Correct. In other words, consider the fact that in cases like this, you want a dirty environment to improve the stability of the OS. If you hire 10,000 guys to test things, they're going to start out with a clean OS install, do things in organized fashion and stuff like that. 99% of them are not likely to find anything wrong whereas having 1000 customers with very dirty and different OS environments with various tools, misconfiguration issues, and so on, they'll find bugs very quickly.

Just as humans will suffer badly from growing up in a pure clean environment and then being let out in the world as opposed to be being practically immune if they grew up dirty and being let out in the world.

 

[Crunch]

As is can see none use quicktime

Is it really that shocking? lol...

Why do you, if I may ask?

 

[treichert]

I've done this twice yet still the new build doesn't appear in the app store.

Because it's not supposed to.

 

[tywebb13]

Build 13D55 is still not available for public beta testers.

Maybe it never will be!

 

[dyrer]

Is my idea but i thing 13D55 is slower than 45a?

 

[Crunch]

Ok, that all being stated, some questions between us developers.

OpenGL 4.1 is fully supported, has been for some time. 4.2 is 2/13, 15%, supported. Compared to previously OS X 10.X builds, this is progress, but how does this compare to Windows systems? Is OS X still lagging in graphics support (in general)?

FPS Test results are interesting.

Which other tool(s) are you using for testing/benchmarking?

 

[slime73]

Ok, that all being stated, some questions between us developers.

OpenGL 4.1 is fully supported, has been for some time. 4.2 is 2/13, 15%, supported. Compared to previously OS X 10.X builds, this is progress, but how does this compare to Windows systems? Is OS X still lagging in graphics support (in general)?

Yes, the OpenGL 4.1 specification was released in 2010. The most recent is OpenGL 4.4, whose specification was released summer 2013.
nvidia's Windows drivers got full OpenGL 4.4 support around December. AMD's Windows drivers got it earlier this month. Intel on Windows is at 4.2 plus several bits of 4.3 and 4.4 (which is still better than the OS X drivers.)

Keep in mind newer OpenGL versions just enable developers to use more features. Sometimes those new features are used to enhance performance, but just supporting a new version doesn't automatically mean performance is increased.

On the other hand, OpenGL 4.3 and 4.4 do have several good performance-enhancing features (although developers will still need to explicitly take advantage of them), and some of the new features they provide let developers port DirectX 11 programs to OpenGL much more easily. So developers definitely want more up-to-date OpenGL support on OS X.

 

[tywebb13]

It seems acedout's post has been deleted by a moderator.

As interesting as all this stuff is, I think we should refrain from giving instructions on here on how to allow non-developers to get developer seeds. It violates macrumors rules.

 

[mpainesyd]

Apple continues to ask developers to focus on ... Mail ...

Any chance of the Exchange fiasco being addressed?
https://discussions.apple.com/message/25013198#25013198

 

[tywebb13]

Build 13D57 has just been released to apple employees. So maybe public release will be soon. Especially since it has release notes:

The OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 Update is recommended for all OS X Mavericks users. It improves the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac.This update:

Improved 4K display support on Mac Pro (Late 2013) and MacBook Pro with 15-inch Retina display (Late 2013)

Adds the ability to sync contacts and calendars between a Mac and iOS Device using a USB connection

Improves the reliability of VPN connections using IPsec

Includes Safari 7.0.3

 

[WallToWallMacs]

Build 13D57 has just been released to apple employees. So maybe public release will be soon. Especially since it has release notes:

The OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 Update is recommended for all OS X Mavericks users. It improves the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac.This update:

Improved 4K display support on Mac Pro (Late 2013) and MacBook Pro with 15-inch Retina display (Late 2013)

Adds the ability to sync contacts and calendars between a Mac and iOS Device using a USB connection

Improves the reliability of VPN connections using IPsec

Includes Safari 7.0.3

From the sounds of it they're getting ready to push it out given it is such a small leap in build numbers and a willingness to get employees to give it a go as well.

Yes, the OpenGL 4.1 specification was released in 2010. The most recent is OpenGL 4.4, whose specification was released summer 2013.
nvidia's Windows drivers got full OpenGL 4.4 support around December. AMD's Windows drivers got it earlier this month. Intel on Windows is at 4.2 plus several bits of 4.3 and 4.4 (which is still better than the OS X drivers.)

Keep in mind newer OpenGL versions just enable developers to use more features. Sometimes those new features are used to enhance performance, but just supporting a new version doesn't automatically mean performance is increased.

On the other hand, OpenGL 4.3 and 4.4 do have several good performance-enhancing features (although developers will still need to explicitly take advantage of them), and some of the new features they provide let developers port DirectX 11 programs to OpenGL much more easily. So developers definitely want more up-to-date OpenGL support on OS X.

There is also the issue of the video card vendors providing the OpenGL stack itself where as Apple has its own stack as well as dealing with the fact that a large number of the system components such as Core Video, Core Image etc. all very much heavily make use of OpenGL so it isn't something you want to muck around with especially in between releases.

Ok, that all being stated, some questions between us developers.

OpenGL 4.1 is fully supported, has been for some time. 4.2 is 2/13, 15%, supported. Compared to previously OS X 10.X builds, this is progress, but how does this compare to Windows systems? Is OS X still lagging in graphics support (in general)?

FPS Test results are interesting.

I'd say the next build will probably jump to 4.3 or maybe 4.4 - it is interesting to see how things go particular when one considers the growth of GPU power and whether we'll see OpenGL ES being pushed aside in favour of having a fully featured OpenGL implementation on the handheld devices like one receives when using a desktop/laptop.

 

[tywebb13]

I don't think there will be many more changes now in 10.9.3.

We can probably expect a 10.9.4 beta soon too, which will probably be more interesting - as well as the 10.10 DPs of course.

 

[Fangio]

13C1021 OpenGL version is 4.1 ATI-1.20.11. 13D55 has 4.1 ATI-1.22.25.
I didn't notice much of a performance increase though, in Unigine Heaven or Valley.

On the other hand, OpenCL is still the same version 1.2 in 13D55 but the date has changed, from December 2013 to April 2014. And there is a noticeable speedbump of ~5% to what I've got in 10.9.2, with each of the apps below.



Maybe this indicates where Apple’s focus is. But there's still room for improvement, compared to the windows performance of this card (consumer version of D700).

 

[3282868]

Great information, thanks to everyone for chiming in.

In general, there has been good advancements in OS X graphics support, which hopefully points to more in the near future. However, there is still a bit of work to be done. Looking forward to it.

Which other tool(s) are you using for testing/benchmarking?

I ran some simple tests with OpenGL Extensions Viewer, checking out updates/versions/etc. but everyone has given me much better information regarding ver. changes. I am running AutoCAD and a few other AutoDesk app's as well as Final Cut Pro editing on a 2013 8-Core Mac Pro6,1 w/ 2 AMD FirePro D700 6GB cards and 16GB RAM (which I plan on upgrading), using a Pegasus2 Promise R4 array.

 

[FieldEffectX]

I know of this hack and it doesn't solve my blurry fonts. I still think Apple should fix this issue, because everything runs smooth on the same rmbp late 13 under windows.

Hey Zeiter,

I have the same exact computer as you and the same exact problem. I'm connecting a 24" Acer H243H via HDMI and am having the blurry text issue. Images don't look bad, but the text is just not right. Hurts my eyes after 10-15 minutes, which is unacceptable. I've tried the "force RGB" work around with no success. MacOS X detects with display properly with the correct resolution, but it's just not right.

I know it's definitely NOT the HDMI subsystem. When I run Windows 7 Pro in VMware everything is perfect (as you say as well). It's very frustrating that this problem has been around for a few years and Apple still hasn't fixed it.