Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
CoreImage FAQ
- Thread starter DXoverDY
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
FX5200 Core Image - CPU Rendering Default
The FX5200 may support Core Image, but according to documents on the Apple Developer Connection the CPU will normally be faster at rendering, so the default Core Image rendering on a FX5200 system is in fact the CPU.
I have done some benchmarks for BareFeats on the iMac G5 1.8 FX5200 machine (vs iMac G5 2 GHZ Radeon 9600), the Imaginator benchamarks are considerably slower on the FX5200 proving Apple documents.
ADC Document
http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2005/qa1416.html
BareFeats comparison.
http://www.barefeats.com/imacg52.html
The FX5200 may support Core Image, but according to documents on the Apple Developer Connection the CPU will normally be faster at rendering, so the default Core Image rendering on a FX5200 system is in fact the CPU.
I have done some benchmarks for BareFeats on the iMac G5 1.8 FX5200 machine (vs iMac G5 2 GHZ Radeon 9600), the Imaginator benchamarks are considerably slower on the FX5200 proving Apple documents.
ADC Document
http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2005/qa1416.html
BareFeats comparison.
http://www.barefeats.com/imacg52.html
Whats the deal Apple? Geforce 4 Ti should work!
So I'm wondering why a Geforce 4 Ti doesn't work. I have one in my Powermac, and have been wondering why I'm not getting the ripple effect. I know Apple doesn't list my card as Core Image compatible, but I'm starting to get puzzled as to why. According to Apple, the card simply must be "programmable." The Geforce 4 Ti is definitely programmable. So whats the deal Apple? Why no sweet effects?
So I'm wondering why a Geforce 4 Ti doesn't work. I have one in my Powermac, and have been wondering why I'm not getting the ripple effect. I know Apple doesn't list my card as Core Image compatible, but I'm starting to get puzzled as to why. According to Apple, the card simply must be "programmable." The Geforce 4 Ti is definitely programmable. So whats the deal Apple? Why no sweet effects?
longofest said:
Same here. "Too Old" in most people's opinion. Whatever. I'm rather ticked that it's not supported.
yellow said:
Personally I'm more than a little peeved that my brand spankin new, came out a month before Tiger Mini isn't supported.
I guess I'll be skipping Tiger and buying a new machine when Leopard comes out. Bogus combination, coming up with a brand new Desktop a month before the new OS and the two are not fully compatible.... Then there's the whole IBM dropping the ball issue..... Grr.... I'll enjoy a "cheaper than the G5's" Itanium in a few months though....
yellow said:
if you read my FAQ it kind of explains why it isn't supported. The GeForce 4 Ti doesn't support pixel shaders. Period. That is the "programmable" part of a graphics card. The rest of it is simply handed right off to the graphics card and displayed, there's no information sent back from the video card while you're playing games. Your CPU does what it needs, loads the textures, then throws the image to the video card to render, it renders it and starts displaying it on your monitor.
3d world->RAM->CPU->Video Card->Display
For coreimage to work you need to get a result from the video card. so it looks something like this.
graphics info->RAM<->CPU<->Videocard->Display
notice the arrows... <-> in the second one, while you get -> in the first one. With programmable shaders you can obtain a result from the video card and not "display" it, you can actually take the resulting information from the card. When you're doing graphics work it hardly makes sense that you're going to have something displayed on screen but really.. the computer has no idea what it looks like. so when you save the file it's exactly the way it was before.. but your video card did stuff to it on SCREEN but not to the actual data. that is essentially what happens otherwise. The thing is you NEED to get the data from the video card and save the file, you cannot do that with a GeForce 4 Ti, totally throw it out of the question.
It's not apple, it's a hardware issue. The old 3d cards were not built with this idea in mind. Simple as that guys.
DXoverDY said:
Wrong. I quote from nVidia's GeForce 4 Ti site:
"nfiniteFX II Engine
The NVIDIA nfiniteFX II Engine incorporates dual programmable Vertex Shaders, faster Pixel Shaders and 3D textures."
I have talked to some pretty knowledgeable people, and i have had it explained to me (since my last post) that the likely reason that the GeForce 4 Ti is not supported by CoreImage is because it does not support floating point data formats, and also because it only has a limited amount of space for the program size. The GeForce 4 Ti IS programmable, but it was an early version of Programmable graphics cards, and since then, card manufacturers have expanded on the technology.
longofest said:
i explained it requires Shader 2.0 in my FAQ, i figured that was a better explaination so i skimped on it here. However you are correct that it is programmable, it does not support Shader 2.0 though (a minimum requirement for GPU CoreImage support). There may also be no way to get the data from the GPU on the GeForce 4 cards. The new ones allow data to come back from the card, the GeForce 4 may not allow it to come back to the CPU or RAM only out to the display. I don't know enough about the GeForce 4 to make an educated guess even. The floating point part is probably the best reason for it not being supported.
Is CoreImage independent from Tiger? I mean, if you have a PB with Radeon 9600 (which supports CoreImage) but running Panther, can you still enjoy any "eye candy" effect any third party software developers may include in their new program in the future? Is it necessary to upgrade the OS to Tiger for eye candy effects (such as ripple effects) to enjoy this feature if other developers decide to include?
CoreImage != EyeCandy
CoreImage is a feature of Tiger, and is therefore totally dependant on Tiger. But its important to separate CoreImage from "eyecandy." CoreImage can PRODUCE eyecandy, but they are not one in the same.
Basically, what CoreImage is is a new "framework" of the operating system that allows programmers to use just a couple lines of code to activate cool effects that either Apple has written or someone else has written (maybe even the developer himself/herself). And because Apple decided to have these effects rendered on the GPU whenever possible (9600+ or FX series), it allows the CPU to not be bogged down.
Panther does not have this framework, so if a developer tries to "call" it, well, it wouldn't be a good thing. But, a developer could, if he wanted, hand-code the GPU programs (it would be a much more complex task than just writing a couple lines of core-image code), and get the same result. This would allow a 10.3 system to have the same performance and eye candy as a 10.4 system.
The thing to remember is that Core-Image is just a way to make eye-candy more accessible to developers, and it is a way to make sure that that eye-candy doesn't bog down the CPU.
YS2003 said:
CoreImage is a feature of Tiger, and is therefore totally dependant on Tiger. But its important to separate CoreImage from "eyecandy." CoreImage can PRODUCE eyecandy, but they are not one in the same.
Basically, what CoreImage is is a new "framework" of the operating system that allows programmers to use just a couple lines of code to activate cool effects that either Apple has written or someone else has written (maybe even the developer himself/herself). And because Apple decided to have these effects rendered on the GPU whenever possible (9600+ or FX series), it allows the CPU to not be bogged down.
Panther does not have this framework, so if a developer tries to "call" it, well, it wouldn't be a good thing. But, a developer could, if he wanted, hand-code the GPU programs (it would be a much more complex task than just writing a couple lines of core-image code), and get the same result. This would allow a 10.3 system to have the same performance and eye candy as a 10.4 system.
The thing to remember is that Core-Image is just a way to make eye-candy more accessible to developers, and it is a way to make sure that that eye-candy doesn't bog down the CPU.
longofest said:
But it is not just for eye-candy - but also real improvements in the handling of photo type of filters that has many of jazzed for the near future. Only if iPhoto took advantage of them, that would go a long ay to show people the power of Core Images.
Chip NoVaMac said:
yea it's just a really powerful imaging system. i believe all the window compositing is done on the GPU now in the new systems. let's put it this way. I got a good 30 minutes more tacked onto my average battery life by upgrading to Tiger, i attribute part of that to coreimage and quartz extreme.
stcanard said:
I guess my point was that iPhoto does not yet IIRC use all the filters that Apple listed in their overview of CoreImage. I could be wrong...
Um, huh? The 5200 is supported. The only one not fully supported it the ATI 9200, and that's only in the iBooks, mini, and the previous eMacs.deanbo said:
solvs said:
correct... take a look at the first page, it's all listed on there. which is supported and which is not. i pretty much listed bone stock machines that supported it (including the video cards if i recall correctly) .. give it a look.
Chip NoVaMac said:
That's true, it doesn't. But if you haven't seen it, trust me -- the performance leap is itself an amazing demo of just what CoreImage can do. It takes editing (especially rotating) from unusable to not even taxing the system.
new iBooks support core image fully
on apple's web site now, ati radeon 9550 is full core image compatible, although it only comes with 32mb vram.
on apple's web site now, ati radeon 9550 is full core image compatible, although it only comes with 32mb vram.
G4 iBook + Tiger?
This has been on the Apple website (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301347) for a while. I saw it there before the announcement of the new iBooks
Core Image
Other graphics effects and optimizations in Tiger, such as the ripple effect that shows when you place a widget on Dashboard, are driven by Core Image. When a programmable GPU is present, Core Image uses the graphics card for image processing operations, freeing the CPU for other tasks. To take advantage of Core Image, you need one of the following graphics cards:
ATI : ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, Radeon 9600 XT, 9800 XT, or X800 XT.
NVIDIA : GeForce FX Go 5200, GeForce FX 5200 Ultra, GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, or GT DDL.
If you have a different card, contact the manufacturer for Core Image compatibility information.
---------------------------------
Today, I found this different list on another Apple page (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/coreimage/) although it might have been there since Tiger came out:
When a programmable GPU is present, Core Image utilizes the graphics card for image processing operations, freeing the CPU for other tasks. And if you have a high-performance card with increased video memory (VRAM), you'll find real-time responsiveness across a wide variety of operations.
Core Image-capable graphics cards include:
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
ATI Radeon 9550, 9650, 9600, 9600 XT, 9800 XT, X800 XT
nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL
ATI Radeon 9550 is in the new iBooks.
This has been on the Apple website (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301347) for a while. I saw it there before the announcement of the new iBooks
Core Image
Other graphics effects and optimizations in Tiger, such as the ripple effect that shows when you place a widget on Dashboard, are driven by Core Image. When a programmable GPU is present, Core Image uses the graphics card for image processing operations, freeing the CPU for other tasks. To take advantage of Core Image, you need one of the following graphics cards:
ATI : ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, Radeon 9600 XT, 9800 XT, or X800 XT.
NVIDIA : GeForce FX Go 5200, GeForce FX 5200 Ultra, GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, or GT DDL.
If you have a different card, contact the manufacturer for Core Image compatibility information.
---------------------------------
Today, I found this different list on another Apple page (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/coreimage/) although it might have been there since Tiger came out:
When a programmable GPU is present, Core Image utilizes the graphics card for image processing operations, freeing the CPU for other tasks. And if you have a high-performance card with increased video memory (VRAM), you'll find real-time responsiveness across a wide variety of operations.
Core Image-capable graphics cards include:
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
ATI Radeon 9550, 9650, 9600, 9600 XT, 9800 XT, X800 XT
nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL
ATI Radeon 9550 is in the new iBooks.