This particular question is about OpenCL requirements, not minimum requirements for Snow Leopard.
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Latest Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Builds Still Have Work to be Done
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This particular question is about OpenCL requirements, not minimum requirements for Snow Leopard.
OpenCL has a DX10 requirement for the GPU? I haven't heard or read that, though I haven't looked. However, apply logic: Why would OpenCL care about what D3D requirements? Yes, all DX10 requires the pipelines to do both kinds of operations as opposed to DX9 which required 2 different pipelines for the operations. I don't think there is a shred of truth in that one.
LOL Leopard had issues in September, but it was released in October. No worries. Apple can work on things very fast.
Honestly, Apple writes its graphics code in OpenGL. DirectX and Apple do NOT GO TOGETHER.
I would kinda like DX10 support in Mac OS X for making porting/developing games is easier, but I'm licensing would be a b!t¢h
Very true. While Apple is very into OpenGL, a lot of games are in DirectX. Grrr.
I think when you write code for OpenCL, the programmer has to specify what features he or she needs from the hardware. OpenCL will then use the fastest available hardware that has all the features that are needed. I think DX10 has more well-defined floating-point arithmetic than DX9, so it may be that a DX10 card can run some software that a DX9 card wouldn't be able to run.
Apple will have to write code generators for any supported hardware; that is some effort, so they may concentrate on the most valuable hardware.
I just hope Snow Leopard is what they say it is. There are way too many issues with Leopard networking. I hope Snow Leopard can bring stability and consistency back to OS X. I'm looking forward to the release. Sooner rather than later, but I'd give up sooner, for delivering a rock solid product.
Lots of work indeed
yeah, lots of work on Font Book... nothing new there. that piece of crap has needed lots of work since the second it was written. Probably the most useless app on the entire system.
maybe apple should just be smart and nix font book altogether... linotype fontexplorer is a million times better already. just use that.
yeah, lots of work on Font Book... nothing new there. that piece of crap has needed lots of work since the second it was written. Probably the most useless app on the entire system.
maybe apple should just be smart and nix font book altogether... linotype fontexplorer is a million times better already. just use that.
i admit i am a noob, but i just want to know know what this cocoa thing everyone is talking about for snow leopard and how would it benefit us??
thanks for the tips. 
I've been sticking with Tiger--and a lot of older versions of apps--because of all issues with Leopard.
I hope Snow Leopard get released soon. That having been said, they shouldn't release it before it's ready. (How's that for flip-flopping. I would make a great politician.)Ah, I see.
Yes, I have followed those betas too (actually, from Jaguar upwards), and TBO reading these seed notes it doesn't really look like the development is half way yet.
Don't want to sound pessimistic, but having 2 pages of "issues" (installation issues, Time Machine network backup issues, other issues, Developer issues, Third party issues) makes me think that Snow Leopard seems at least 6 months away from Release Candidate.
Also lots of ".... not fully functional"
But... Apple never ceases to amaze me...
Good. Apples target release date is June 09. Just about exactly 6 months away. This is from Steve's "about a year" statment he made in June 08.
However I do expect Apple to show off a preview or at least talk about 10.6 at the Jan 09 Macworld
There are many common things the GMA950 would be very fast at. For example let's say you have an .jpg image that needs to be converted from sRGB to aRGB color space. The GMA950's shared RAM model might even be a great advantage in this case because you could map the data into the GPU's address space and not have to push it over a "slow" interface. Then the GPU could do all the 8-bit integer math very quickly.
Are you sure that it would be an advantage? The big problem with shared RAM is that it is shared. The CPU is multi-tasking, and fetching from the same RAM store the GPU is. They can't do it simultaneously. Whereas a GPU with its own RAM doesn't have to wait to access the shared RAM.
I'd say the shared RAM model is still a detriment to performance here. With a dedicated RAM model, the GPU only needs two accesses to the CPU's RAM: read the raw image data, write the raw image data. A GPU on shared RAM is constantly hammering the CPU's RAM reading/writing data, and so is the CPU. They have to share the bandwidth, which winds up slowing both down.
The "slow" interface that plagues dedicated GPUs reading/writing to main memory is the same interface a GPU using shared RAM uses.
I imagine it will be similar to how CoreImage works on the 12" Powerbooks - their GPU was slow so they just run everything in software. Otherwise, people would have to write multiple versions of their code depending on whether or not a subsystem was available on certain machines - not a lot of fun.
It doesn't. It just happens to be that the industry marks generational changes in GPU technology with the corresponding DirectX version that takes advantage of them. A DX10-class GPU would be something 2007 or newer, with specific capabilities, many of them related to offloading CPU work onto the GPU. Many of Tiger's new graphical technologies required a DX9-class GPU with programmable shaders and so on.
No, they do not. But OpenGL lacks a clear versioning system that would make a good shorthand for describing the capabilities of GPUs.
Haha that's cool. Sometimes I get the impression apple comes up with a name, and then develop a feature around it though...
jp jp, but how fun that'd be!
I imagine that's what's really important to Apple: Will it be fun to develop? Yes? OK, lets do it! No? Nah, lets go work on pointless features for the iPhone.
I updated the night Leopard was released (stood in line and got the tee shirt) and had one notable bug. iSight and Quartz Composer were not playing well until 10.5.1 was out, but all things considered it went pretty well.
I put 10.5 on my laptop and left my tower on 1.4 until 1.5.1 was out. My laptop goes everywhere with me and is my computer 95% of the time. Things went great, and Leopard has been great for me every since.
i admit i am a noob, but i just want to know know what this cocoa thing everyone is talking about for snow leopard and how would it benefit us??
Cocoa is a flavor of Objective-C, the programming language in which Mac OS X apps are written. Prior to Cocoa, Carbon was used. Currently, some apps are Carbon and some are Cocoa. As the OS has been optimied for Cocoa, that is the preferred choice and what Apple is now writing all of their own software (Mail, Address, Book, iMovie, etc.) in. Some third-party apps will continue to use Carbon, especially older apps that haven't been updated. And they won't run quite as well with the updates, but it won't be too terrible either.
And because of this Apple should offer Snow Leopard at half price or some other discount to upgrade they intel based Mac(s). If this is offered I would jump all over it.
"Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!"
"I'm dreaming of a white Leopard"
...or wouldn't it be cool if Apple released Snow Leopard in April accompanied by the brilliant Prince classic "Sometimes It Snows in April"
"I'm dreaming of a white Leopard"
...or wouldn't it be cool if Apple released Snow Leopard in April accompanied by the brilliant Prince classic "Sometimes It Snows in April"