Apple's New Graphics Card?

[iGav]

It all sounds very impressive and all......

But I have one question?

Will they be able to squeeze it into the TiBook??

Now that would be impressive!! 😛

Or will it be the size of an ICE card??

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Re: Half the problem...

Originally posted by serpicolugnut
Lightwave and Cinema 4D both have awful OpenGl redraws in the OS X versions.

This totally sucks. I have only tried Lightwave with OSX once and noticed it was a little 'sticky' on the redraws. I thought at the time that I need to get the 7.0b upgrade from NewTek. But if what you're saying is true, I might have to wait until OSX.2 or even further before the OpenGL problem is solved.

Damn.

Not only that, the graph editor tends to screw up in OS9 on 7.0b because of AppleQuickDraw issues. I was talking with tech support at NewTek about this one and they said to disable all quickdraw extensions. Are you seeing the same problem? Oh, its only with some graphics cards - I was running on the TiPB, not the same issues with my desktop G4.

 

[mischief]

Okay, hold on here folks.

I've got a hunch that most ported 3D apps are in the same situation as ArchiCAD: Non-native or nonexistant AltiVec. If the thing is set up for Wintel chipsets to do it's base calcs than it'll always stick on the redraw on the Mac.

This is where the Open-GL GUI concept starts looking good. If all the monitor-related tasks are offloaded the CPU can deal with just the admin and math.

This model doesn't work without the kind of Video card we'd get out of this. It would be possible on the current machines but the rumored G5 MP with one of these would smoke any production desktop currently made.

As to GPU RAM performance gain: If the program has native support for Open GL and is anything that renders live (see any CAD or CGI software) frames you use up that 32 Mb per monitor pretty damn fast. It's more than just textures but light mapping, BMP mapping, polygons and split polygons,colours, shading, grouped objects, vectors and, of course the screen buffer.

I want that 256Mb DDR card please.

This also explains a few other rumors:

I heard one about an Apple G5 test box with an AMD chip in with a G5.

AMD and nVidia have been discussing OS X.

Upshot: what if nVidia does an Apple designed dual head card using AMD built GPU chips?

Picture it:

Choice of:

2, 4 or 8 G5 1.2Ghz CPU's (built under liscence by IBM)

500Mhz Rapid I/O bus

4Gb of RAM

choice of ATA 133 or SCSI 160 two to six HDs

256Mb HyperTransport Dual GPU apple/nVidia Xforce video card with two 1.2Ghz AMD GPU chips.

Workstation cost: $10,000.00 USD.

 

[gbojim]

Now this is starting to make some sense...

The film and video folks have not been very happy with SGI in recent times. And, through a couple of my clients I had been hearing rumblings about Apple making a strategic push into that market to try to unseat SGI. I consider that to be a good move - a lot of very high margin sales in that market.

The thing that was weird was people were talking about a very high end graphics card - as in $2000+ - becoming available when the new powermacs are released (don't know if that meant G5 or not). I had checked around with current producers of high end vid cards and nobody was willing to admit they were even thinking of working with Apple on this.

But, if Apple is working on this on their own, that starts to tie a lot of things together that I had been hearing about.

This could get really interesting.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Re: Okay, hold on here folks.

Originally posted by mischief
I've got a hunch that most ported 3D apps are in the same situation as ArchiCAD: Non-native or nonexistant AltiVec.

Lightwave is optimized for OSX, atleast on the CPU side of things. The OpenGL issue is something I'm looking into.

 

[mischief]

Re: Re: Okay, hold on here folks.

Originally posted by dukestreet


Lightwave is optimized for OSX, atleast on the CPU side of things. The OpenGL issue is something I'm looking into.

Patched is different from native support. There's always some lag if the program is saying:"Go here, no wait go there!" for every FPU/Altivec action.

 

[ejm625]

Twin GPU's? I have to change my shorts. Time to count my pennies.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

OSX/Lightwave7.0b and OpenGL

I downloaded the latest update to OSX and Lightwave and I don't have the same lag anymore, it runs smoothly, even better than in OS9😀

So I'm happy and I'd love to see a dual card for when I open up the big models. Right now I'm still building my objects, the scenes where I put them all in together won't happen for a while.

 

[Catfish_Man]

Re: Okay, hold on here folks.

Originally posted by mischief

This is where the Open-GL GUI concept starts looking good. If all the monitor-related tasks are offloaded the CPU can deal with just the admin and math.

Exactly! That's what I was trying to say in the topic I started about that (3d os). I think it would be fun to try making an entire graphics system (QuartzII or something) that did everything in OpenGL. 2d graphics would be done as flat 3d objects or textures. It's completely impractical of course, but it would be sorta cool.

 

[thopter]

$10,000 dollar Macs!? The day of super expensive workstations is over. As is that of $10,000 dollar apps. Notice the falling market share of SGI, and the drastic price (and outlying office) pullbacks by the likes of Alias, and Newtek, and Electricimage......

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by thopter
The day of super expensive workstations is over.

If you went to the Apple store right now you could order yourself a $10k machine. The days are far from over. What's changed is the power you can get at more reasonable prices. There will always be a market for highend machines, just not a very big one.

 

[thopter]

If you went to the Apple store right now you could order yourself a $10k machine.
Yup, but you'll be able to get a good deal on one soon because they're not selling very well. I work for an Apple VAR and I havn't seen a quicksilver in some time now. The Mac market right now is solely iMAc's and PB's. Certainly there is pent up demand for the fabled G5, but if Apple can't/won't deliver those by summer's MacWorld, all this hard earned momentum could really begin to fizzle.
The real key to the sucess of products like FCP has been their affordabilty!
If FCP had been intro'd at the same price as other Vid software, it would have been a non-event. But at a market busting price it has been a revelation.

 

[mischief]

Exactly!

If SGI are selling workstations for $50,000.00 than an Apple KillerMac G5 at 10K would roast them if it was an updated mobo with the above video card. Particularly if Jaguar is all it's supposed to be.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by thopter
I work for an Apple VAR and I havn't seen a quicksilver in some time now. The Mac market right now is solely iMAc's and PB's.

That's got to be hurting Apple. I totally agree that Apple has got some good momentum going now and the can't jeapardize it by not updating the Pro line. Besides that, the TiPB are starting to get long in the tooth too, they're up for a redo as well.

 

[iMax]

As someone who was in Middle School not too long ago, I can still remember arguements with ym friends about whether or not Macs were better than PCs. I'd always try to explain better OS, better looking, etc, but it would always come down to this: My friends would be "Yeah, I guess Macs are better for graphics." That was the only concession I could get out of them. Apple used to havea real reputation for being the best in the graphical area... they need to have the ahrdware to reclaim that title. All this talk sounds like they are taking a step in the right direction.

 

[z0gster]

I think that maybe they are making the graphics card with 2 gpu's is so that they can make stereoscopic displays. Cause stereoscopic displays need 2 gpu's, and there was that rumor like a month ago about apple using them. That would be really cool...

 

[thopter]

So now Newtek (Lightwave) is closing branch offices as well.
Which begs a question. If Apple does offer a $10,000 G5 workstation, who
is in the market to actually buy one?

 

[thedude]

Put it this way, Square Pictures bought a whole slew of SGI for a hell of a lot more than 10k each. (granted, they're not doing so hot right now, as in splat!) The money is there, and companies are going to spend for a better product.
With maya's price drops, people should have more money to spend on the hardware anyway 😀 .
One issue that nobody has mentioned yet is Apples policy on UPGRADES...This could be a problem, as larger companies don't want to have to spend money buying brand new machines every 6 months.

 

[Scottgfx]

Re: OSX/Lightwave7.0b and OpenGL

At work I have Lightwave running on a dual G4/500. The Gfx cards are Rage 128s (Two displays... PCI is regular, AGP is Pro). At home I have a single G4/733 with a Radeon 8500. (single disply) Lightwave, does feel "sticky" with the dual with the slower gfx cards. Lightwave feels a lot better with the Radeon 8500... except this... the Dual 500 does render a bit faster than the G4/733. This doesn't suprise anyone, does it? 🙂

Edit: These are both running under OS X 10.1.5

Originally posted by dukestreet
I downloaded the latest update to OSX and Lightwave and I don't have the same lag anymore, it runs smoothly, even better than in OS9😀

So I'm happy and I'd love to see a dual card for when I open up the big models. Right now I'm still building my objects, the scenes where I put them all in together won't happen for a while.

 

[Scottgfx]

Originally posted by thopter
So now Newtek (Lightwave) is closing branch offices as well.
Which begs a question. If Apple does offer a $10,000 G5 workstation, who
is in the market to actually buy one?

FYI: I don't work for NewTek or anywhere near it.

Lightwave has always been developed by a core team of two guys under contract with NewTek. Allen Hastings and Stuart Ferguson are the two main brains behind Lightwave. They have formed a company called Luxoloy that is an umbrealla for Lightwave's development. NewTek still has their own developement team in Texas, but the main developers are still in the area where NewTek closed the office. Long story short... Not much has changed.

http://www.luxology.net/company/timeline.aspx

 

[ccornish]

Other GPU possibilities?

Check out Matrox and 3Dlabs for their new products.

The Parhelia is very impressive. Quake or UT 2003 on three monitors.

3Dlabs has something up their sleeves as well. Hopefully we will see some fresh new products from new vendors instead of ATI or Nvidia.