cuteDavidLeblond said:
So I guess a total re-write of the Windows API outside of the Windows environment is not technically an "emulator", but whatever it is, it sucks the bone.
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First Impressions of Intel iMac Core Duo
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So I guess a total re-write of the Windows API outside of the Windows environment is not technically an "emulator", but whatever it is, it sucks the bone.
Randall said:
I'm very sorry but I need to point out a few things wrong with this post.
There is no actual emulation going on right now! Rosetta is a universal translator for PPC code to x86 code, it isn't running a software based PPC machine (which is what emulation would be... running software to emulate hardware... very cpu intensive and rather slow). Rosetta simply translates the instructions on the fly and does it rather well.
As for your comments about Wine for OS X, of course it has been bad -- translating Windows programs to run on Darwin on a completely different architecture is a bit challenging -- plus they never got a ton of support. It was a giant undertaking, and we should be happy they got this far. But now that OS X uses the same exact hardware that Windows based programs run on, no code has to be translated, and it is SIGNIFICANTLY easier to run these programs. Again, AFAIK Wine is not an emulator, but simply a way to bypass the OS and run small portions of Windows code that make these programs boot. It will be much easier for the Wine team to do this now that we're on x86, and the speed should be very, very quick.
firestarter said:
My point was, that it's pretty impressive that they were able to switch architectures and have a significant speed bump (laptop side) right off the bat. We are now in transition and the switch was made based on the fact that G5 was in slow/no development mode. In 18 months, where will Intel and Moto be?
B
Best Features of the iMac...
1) Doubles as reading lamp
2) Automatically emails fan letter to Steve Jobs during start up
3) If you cup your palms over the domed base, your hair will rise in air
4) Sprouts set of cybernetic insectoid legs and scutters away when threatened
5) Perfectly matches the iBlouse
6) Screen is flat, which is good for some reason
7) Special drool tray catches saliva from enthralled technogeeks
8) Communications directly with human pineal gland by firing information-rich beam of pink light
9) Wuvs you
Stolen from The Onion of about 4 years ago but still true today.
1) Doubles as reading lamp
2) Automatically emails fan letter to Steve Jobs during start up
3) If you cup your palms over the domed base, your hair will rise in air
4) Sprouts set of cybernetic insectoid legs and scutters away when threatened
5) Perfectly matches the iBlouse
6) Screen is flat, which is good for some reason
7) Special drool tray catches saliva from enthralled technogeeks
8) Communications directly with human pineal gland by firing information-rich beam of pink light
9) Wuvs you
Stolen from The Onion of about 4 years ago but still true today.
RAM is not real important in boot times. 512MB should be the same as 1GB, 2GB, 4GB etc. The main hardware component that affects boot times is the old hard drive. The Rev A iMac G5 had a bum SATA controller that really limited the drives performance. If it was a Rev A G5 used in these benchmarks, that says a lot to me about the slow boot times, although it should still be faster than a G4 Powerbook.
topgunn said:
Well as I said I didn't have any specifics. I think that I got my 1GB stick on the same day 10.4.2 was released so maybe that helped boost the start-up time too, but I'm still pretty sure it had a noticable effect.
Ars review
Comments on http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/imac-coreduo.ars/1 ...
* Great review! And as thorough as we expect from Ars.
* Looks like the MacBook Pro and iMac both have optical digital output, and both have analog audio input and output too... but only the MacBook has digital input, the iMac doesn't. (Both have mics and speakers built-in.)
* "small iSight camera with a tiny microphone next to it" ... I THINK that's the iSight's "on air" light. The Mic is hidden in the speaker grille on the underside last I heard. Maybe that's changed?
* "the power cord threads through a hole in the middle of the stand and into the back of the iMac" ... or better yet, be tidy: thread ALL your cables through the hole
* The easy self-service internal design of the original iMac G5 was great. I hope that philosophy returns--the PowerMac still has it. Meanwhile, at least they made the thing thinner!
* Ars refers to changing internal components as "all the things that PC users take for granted"--but that's talking about PC towers, not thin all-in-ones. And Mac tower are the same as PCs that way, or even easier in fact. Mac tower uses can "take it for granted" too.
* Front Row has "giant icons for iPhoto, iTunes, iDVD, and a picture of a DVD" ... well, no, that's not iDVD, that's the iMovie icon And it just means "movies" in general.
* Question: can you navigate Front Row by mouse if you choose? To get through long lists of songs for instance? A BT mouse would be a nice companion to the Front Row remote. (Or maybe Apple should build the IR remote INTO an optional BT Mighty Mouse?)
* Front Row "doesn't really have a reason to exist" unless your Mac is in your living room? That's not the only room people watch movies in--what about the bedroom? Basement rec room? Dorm room? Even... computer room with a couch? And music even more so--your screen distance doesn't matter for music. I've almost bought a remote for my PowerBook many times, just for DVD player and iTunes. With a MacBook I'd be all set.
* They seem to forget that the iMac can output to TV, just like all other Macs--with a simple adapter. No need to limit yourself to 17-20" for movies or games.
* Taking casual snapshots is just a "a toy"? Pretty common need if you ask me! To say nothing of videos: your iMac is a camcorder ready for iMovie, in essence. And if PhotoBooth's filter effects are a toy... well they're a really fun one!
* "To my eye, the iSight in the iMac seems to be a bit sharper than my old one. The picture is sharp, and it does a good job with autofocus." Good to hear.
* Re OS X live window resizing in the past: "In early versions, one could click and drag on the corner of a Finder or application window and be rewarded by having said window move or resize some time later." That's exaggerated. Correction: it would resize without delay, but at a poor framerate--annoying but not hard to use, even on slower Macs from ages past. And it was Finder and iTunes more specifically than apps in general--most apps resized smoothly all along.
* "verall, I'm very impressed with Rosetta. Aside from Unreal Tournament 2K4, I've not run into a single application that was unusable on the iMac." Note that UT 2004 has a Universal Binary--awaiting final iMac testing before release Lots of other games--new and old alike have had their publishers announce UB's on the way. And some games--like Quake 3 engine games--reportedly run great in Rosetta (according to the developer of Alice for Mac.)
* "using applications such as Microsoft Office felt so smooth that I really didn't get the feeling that there was some sort of translation at work." Excellent.
* Re Photoshop filter speed. People aren't upgrading from a PowerMac G4 dual to a Core Duo iMac for the most part. They're probably upgrading from some G4. How does Rosetta Photoshop compare in THAT case? Are you at least getting comparable G4 performance while awaiting Universal Photoshop?
* "Some reportedly won't launch at all, like Final Cut Pro 5 and Logic 7." Universal versions are due soon.
* "Overall, I'd have to say it's one of Apple's quieter machines, which is a relief given Apple's history with loud fans." He must not have listened to many PCs Nor to Apple's many super-quiet models.
* Re detailed Xbench tests... take with salt. They're very artificial and not always fair comparisons. (Note how reviewers say the new iMac feels faster and more responsive, yet Xbench says the UI is slower.) Look at real-world apps for your tests.
* A lot of Photoshop users--like me--aren't doing big 45 MB print files. I do web-resolution work. I'm sure I'd be satisfied with Rosetta performance.
* UT 2004 Rosetta demo. What test was done exactly? Those framerates seem atypically low for 1024x768 even on the G5 machines. (And note that the newest UT2004 demo is NOT yet patched to the level of the retail game, if that matters. And did he even have the newest demo? There have been many demo patches.)
* Windows on Mac: it will happen, and before Vista. XP will run. I feel sure that some enterprising hacker will get it going eventually. And Virtual PC will be along anyway--now at full speed.
* "fix the f****** Finder" Yes--please do improve it. It has some quirks that show the need for a scrap-and-rewrite. And yet the Tiger Finder with Column View, slideshows/contact sheets, and Spotlight has been VERY productive for me, far more so than any other file manager I've used. I would go so far as to call the Finder a great app--with some flaws.
* "this machine stacks up quite favorably in terms of price and features with Pentium D desktops." No surprise--it has been a while since you could easily buy a name-brand PC cheaper than a similar Mac--not if it truly matched ALL (not just a selected few specs) of what the Mac includes.
* "Some dislike having all the ports in the back. I don't mind." Me neither. Yes, they're in back, but hardly difficult to get to. It's not like the iMac is tricky to turn, the way a tower is.
* Good roundup at the end:
Comments on http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/imac-coreduo.ars/1 ...
* Great review! And as thorough as we expect from Ars.
* Looks like the MacBook Pro and iMac both have optical digital output, and both have analog audio input and output too... but only the MacBook has digital input, the iMac doesn't. (Both have mics and speakers built-in.)
* "small iSight camera with a tiny microphone next to it" ... I THINK that's the iSight's "on air" light. The Mic is hidden in the speaker grille on the underside last I heard. Maybe that's changed?
* "the power cord threads through a hole in the middle of the stand and into the back of the iMac" ... or better yet, be tidy: thread ALL your cables through the hole
* The easy self-service internal design of the original iMac G5 was great. I hope that philosophy returns--the PowerMac still has it. Meanwhile, at least they made the thing thinner!
* Ars refers to changing internal components as "all the things that PC users take for granted"--but that's talking about PC towers, not thin all-in-ones. And Mac tower are the same as PCs that way, or even easier in fact. Mac tower uses can "take it for granted" too.
* Front Row has "giant icons for iPhoto, iTunes, iDVD, and a picture of a DVD" ... well, no, that's not iDVD, that's the iMovie icon
And it just means "movies" in general.* Question: can you navigate Front Row by mouse if you choose? To get through long lists of songs for instance? A BT mouse would be a nice companion to the Front Row remote. (Or maybe Apple should build the IR remote INTO an optional BT Mighty Mouse?)
* Front Row "doesn't really have a reason to exist" unless your Mac is in your living room? That's not the only room people watch movies in--what about the bedroom? Basement rec room? Dorm room? Even... computer room with a couch? And music even more so--your screen distance doesn't matter for music. I've almost bought a remote for my PowerBook many times, just for DVD player and iTunes. With a MacBook I'd be all set.
* They seem to forget that the iMac can output to TV, just like all other Macs--with a simple adapter. No need to limit yourself to 17-20" for movies or games.
* Taking casual snapshots is just a "a toy"? Pretty common need if you ask me! To say nothing of videos: your iMac is a camcorder ready for iMovie, in essence. And if PhotoBooth's filter effects are a toy... well they're a really fun one!
* "To my eye, the iSight in the iMac seems to be a bit sharper than my old one. The picture is sharp, and it does a good job with autofocus." Good to hear.
* Re OS X live window resizing in the past: "In early versions, one could click and drag on the corner of a Finder or application window and be rewarded by having said window move or resize some time later." That's exaggerated. Correction: it would resize without delay, but at a poor framerate--annoying but not hard to use, even on slower Macs from ages past. And it was Finder and iTunes more specifically than apps in general--most apps resized smoothly all along.
* "verall, I'm very impressed with Rosetta. Aside from Unreal Tournament 2K4, I've not run into a single application that was unusable on the iMac." Note that UT 2004 has a Universal Binary--awaiting final iMac testing before release
Lots of other games--new and old alike have had their publishers announce UB's on the way. And some games--like Quake 3 engine games--reportedly run great in Rosetta (according to the developer of Alice for Mac.)* "using applications such as Microsoft Office felt so smooth that I really didn't get the feeling that there was some sort of translation at work." Excellent.
* Re Photoshop filter speed. People aren't upgrading from a PowerMac G4 dual to a Core Duo iMac for the most part. They're probably upgrading from some G4. How does Rosetta Photoshop compare in THAT case? Are you at least getting comparable G4 performance while awaiting Universal Photoshop?
* "Some reportedly won't launch at all, like Final Cut Pro 5 and Logic 7." Universal versions are due soon.
* "Overall, I'd have to say it's one of Apple's quieter machines, which is a relief given Apple's history with loud fans." He must not have listened to many PCs
Nor to Apple's many super-quiet models.* Re detailed Xbench tests... take with salt. They're very artificial and not always fair comparisons. (Note how reviewers say the new iMac feels faster and more responsive, yet Xbench says the UI is slower.) Look at real-world apps for your tests.
* A lot of Photoshop users--like me--aren't doing big 45 MB print files. I do web-resolution work. I'm sure I'd be satisfied with Rosetta performance.
* UT 2004 Rosetta demo. What test was done exactly? Those framerates seem atypically low for 1024x768 even on the G5 machines. (And note that the newest UT2004 demo is NOT yet patched to the level of the retail game, if that matters. And did he even have the newest demo? There have been many demo patches.)
* Windows on Mac: it will happen, and before Vista. XP will run. I feel sure that some enterprising hacker will get it going eventually. And Virtual PC will be along anyway--now at full speed.
* "fix the f****** Finder" Yes--please do improve it. It has some quirks that show the need for a scrap-and-rewrite. And yet the Tiger Finder with Column View, slideshows/contact sheets, and Spotlight has been VERY productive for me, far more so than any other file manager I've used. I would go so far as to call the Finder a great app--with some flaws.
* "this machine stacks up quite favorably in terms of price and features with Pentium D desktops." No surprise--it has been a while since you could easily buy a name-brand PC cheaper than a similar Mac--not if it truly matched ALL (not just a selected few specs) of what the Mac includes.
* "Some dislike having all the ports in the back. I don't mind." Me neither. Yes, they're in back, but hardly difficult to get to. It's not like the iMac is tricky to turn, the way a tower is.
* Good roundup at the end:
i just got my 20inch intel imac [w/ 2 gigs of ram] in the mail yesterday. i've been waiting to get a mac for a long time and am delighted with my new purchase. prior to this i had a intel pentium 4 3.2ghz sony vaio w/ 1.536 gb of ram. the imac boots faster and seems to do web surfing faster as well. i'm excited for final cut to come out for intel, that's the main reason i bought this. anyhoo, i do have one gripe that no one has mentioned yet:
i cannot get wmv files to function using flip2mac. i get an error saying that i need a newer version of quicktime [6/.1 or greater], whereas my imac came with quicktime 7.0. any suggestions?
thanks guys, i'm happy to finally be a member of the mac community.
i cannot get wmv files to function using flip2mac. i get an error saying that i need a newer version of quicktime [6/.1 or greater], whereas my imac came with quicktime 7.0. any suggestions?
thanks guys, i'm happy to finally be a member of the mac community.
longofest said:
Even Apple's own bar graphs don't show the system as being 3x faster. The biggest bar, for Modo, is 1.6x longer than the Baseline bar (although the bar actually says "2.6x faster" on it, typo or deliberate misleading?)
Another way to XP
Hi guys, I'm a long time reader of these forums and I finally decided to chime in with a few ideas for getting XP to run on an Intel Mac.
First I'll tell you that I by no means am an expert in these things only that I have a few ideas that may be worth looking into.
#1
Has anyone tried booting from a Tiger disc and then trying to install from an alternate drive? In OS9, I used to use this method as a work-around but I'm not sure if this would apply to newer machines.
#2
Why not just install XP on an alternate HD on a standard PC, then taking that drive out and adding it to the chain inside Intel Mac?
Sorry, if the above ideas sound stupid to anyone but I'm just as curious as the next guy. ;-)
~Performa 600
Hi guys, I'm a long time reader of these forums and I finally decided to chime in with a few ideas for getting XP to run on an Intel Mac.
First I'll tell you that I by no means am an expert in these things only that I have a few ideas that may be worth looking into.
#1
Has anyone tried booting from a Tiger disc and then trying to install from an alternate drive? In OS9, I used to use this method as a work-around but I'm not sure if this would apply to newer machines.
#2
Why not just install XP on an alternate HD on a standard PC, then taking that drive out and adding it to the chain inside Intel Mac?
Sorry, if the above ideas sound stupid to anyone but I'm just as curious as the next guy. ;-)
~Performa 600
Click on the Apple in the upper left hand corner of your screen. On the menu that pops down, click on Software Update. QuickTime 7.0.4 should be one of the updates available.kskill said:
kjs862 said:
At some point they will. After all, they no longer support 680x0 procs. It'll be a while before all the PPC-based Macs are retired but it'll happen at some point.
aristobrat said:
hey thanks for the advice, but i've done that already and it still won't work for me. i get this error message:
QuickTime version 6.5.1 or later is required to run Flip4Mac WMV Player.
in another thread, 12thgear told me to try "try forcing Quicktime Player to launch in Rosetta. You can do that via a checkbox in the Get Info window (highlight Quicktime, Control-click, select Get Info from the contextual menu)." but being the noob that i am i couldn't quite figure out how to do that. any other suggestions? aside from this, the intel imac is pretty siiiick.
My guess is they'll be done with supporting PPC within 5 years. Eventually death will come to the PPC in the Mac OS, but for the time being they plan on full support. I would almost guarantee by the time OS 11 rolls out that the PPC will be dead. It took what 5 years for them to completely kill off OS 9 "Classic" support in OS X? The time will come. People need time to adjust and upgrade accordingly. Forced upgrades are not fun, and typically 5 years is a fair lifespan for a computer.kjs862 said:
kskill said:
That error message appears because Flip4Mac isn't Universal Binary yet. It will be very soon though. Got this from Flip4Mac support.
So that's just a "random" error message.
Hang in there
Church said:big deal, let's get something worth while, like WINE, on these computers so we can play some games already. CS: SOURCE, HERE I COME! (battlefield 2 too, hopefully
Why mess around with WINE trying to get Battlefield 2 to run, when you can just run the Mac version? (Well, not at the moment you can't, but it's being ported right now.)
--Eric
We need an EFI enabled version of Windows XP, or a bootloader that can support EFI. But first it sounds like even Windows Vista isn't booting, which could possibly mean that the EFI shell isn't installed in full capacity. There are a lot of questions out there and not a lot of answers. All we know is that OS X86 doesn't support the legacy BIOS module for EFI (and why should it, there is no reason to) and we know that Windows XP 32-bit can only boot from BIOS at this point in time.macidiot said:
Somebody will figure this mess out, and it will work... eventually.