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More Intel iMac Benchmarks (Native and Rosetta)
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skunk said:
THE INTELIMAC HAD 256MB PER CORE - THE TEST IS W@£K
We will see some real world speeds when both has 2gb - the 256 per core will be really bottlenecking that dual core processor and rosetta
jacobj said:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/173200/
You can't compare Rosetta's performance to VPC or Apples 68k emulator. You really need to compare it to another product that lets PowerPC apps run on x86 chips. Something like PearPC which as I recall was getting less than 10% speed.
The thing is that emulating a PowerPC on an x86 is *very* hard due to the lack of registers on x86. It impacts performance in a way that you just can't avoid. When going the other way, it's easier. Even the 68k to PowerPC transition was easier (though the original PowerPC chips didn't have enough cache to run the emulator properly).
Rosetta doesn't emulate a CPU but rather translates the instructions and then runs them. This is why it's so fast. The fact that it can run PowerPC binaries on an x86 chip at 50% speed is totally awesome. Not since the x86-on-Alpha days (FX!32 was based on the same idea as Rosetta, possibly even the same code) has such a thing been possible.
Id was going to start writing it's game engines in Java at one point. In fact, you can get a Quake2 Java port. The thing that drives 3D games these days is your video card. I'm not saying that a G3 with the latest card could run DOOM3 because obviously there's still quite a lot of CPU activity. It's just that the amount of CPU required is quite a bit less than your average system has today.
The thing is that emulating a PowerPC on an x86 is *very* hard due to the lack of registers on x86. It impacts performance in a way that you just can't avoid. When going the other way, it's easier. Even the 68k to PowerPC transition was easier (though the original PowerPC chips didn't have enough cache to run the emulator properly).
Rosetta doesn't emulate a CPU but rather translates the instructions and then runs them. This is why it's so fast. The fact that it can run PowerPC binaries on an x86 chip at 50% speed is totally awesome. Not since the x86-on-Alpha days (FX!32 was based on the same idea as Rosetta, possibly even the same code) has such a thing been possible.
nagromme said:
Id was going to start writing it's game engines in Java at one point. In fact, you can get a Quake2 Java port. The thing that drives 3D games these days is your video card. I'm not saying that a G3 with the latest card could run DOOM3 because obviously there's still quite a lot of CPU activity. It's just that the amount of CPU required is quite a bit less than your average system has today.
BakedBeans said:
That image was from the Universal binary of the game, it is 100fps running natively on the core duo. It was being run to show off a native game.
I'm not too concerned. Rosetta is only an interim technology. If you're that worried, buy a G5 now and get a Mactel in a couple of years when Universal binaries are... well, universal.
In order to move forward, sometimes you have to take a couple of steps backward. Any platform transition has shortcomings to begin with. OS9 to OS X is a good example. Yet here we are 5 years on with most people having no need for Classic and I don't know anyone who'd even want to go back to OS9.
Rosetta is Classic for the new transition. It's not perfect, but it's a neccessary step to get away from PowerPC. The only way to avoid it is to keep waiting for that G5 PowerBook and 3GHz PowerMac.
And wait.
And wait.
In order to move forward, sometimes you have to take a couple of steps backward. Any platform transition has shortcomings to begin with. OS9 to OS X is a good example. Yet here we are 5 years on with most people having no need for Classic and I don't know anyone who'd even want to go back to OS9.
Rosetta is Classic for the new transition. It's not perfect, but it's a neccessary step to get away from PowerPC. The only way to avoid it is to keep waiting for that G5 PowerBook and 3GHz PowerMac.
And wait.
And wait.
Debunking the 64-bit FUD
64-bit does not make anything faster. It actually makes things slower and more importantly, bigger. A 64-bit app might not fit in the processor cache where a 32-bit one would.
However, there's something special about x86_64 (Intel calls it EMT64). You see, when AMD designed this they did some tweaks to the ISA as well. The most significant of these is that they doubled the registers available to a 64-bit program.
The increased register count is the principle reason that some "64-bit" programs are running faster on x86_64 systems. The compiler can avoid memory accesses (which are really slow) and just use registers instead. It's a luxury that the PowerPC has enjoyed since it was designed.
Notes:
Yonah (Core Duo) does not have x86_64.
The next generation of Intel chips will have x86_64.
Not all applications are written in such a way that the compiler can make them 20% faster using the extra registers.
SIMD stuff (Altivec/SSE) has absolutely nothing to do with 64-bit. The SSE stuff you can do with Intel chips is almost as good as what you can do with Altivec. It's probably not as elegant or as efficient as what the G4 had but the G5 showed that doesn't matter if you have a faster clock speed.
Until Apple has fixed their GUI code to allow 64-bit operation (it's not currently 64-bit clean) then no apps with a GUI can be 64-bit.
64-bit does not make anything faster. It actually makes things slower and more importantly, bigger. A 64-bit app might not fit in the processor cache where a 32-bit one would.
However, there's something special about x86_64 (Intel calls it EMT64). You see, when AMD designed this they did some tweaks to the ISA as well. The most significant of these is that they doubled the registers available to a 64-bit program.
The increased register count is the principle reason that some "64-bit" programs are running faster on x86_64 systems. The compiler can avoid memory accesses (which are really slow) and just use registers instead. It's a luxury that the PowerPC has enjoyed since it was designed.
Notes:
Yonah (Core Duo) does not have x86_64.
The next generation of Intel chips will have x86_64.
Not all applications are written in such a way that the compiler can make them 20% faster using the extra registers.
SIMD stuff (Altivec/SSE) has absolutely nothing to do with 64-bit. The SSE stuff you can do with Intel chips is almost as good as what you can do with Altivec. It's probably not as elegant or as efficient as what the G4 had but the G5 showed that doesn't matter if you have a faster clock speed.
Until Apple has fixed their GUI code to allow 64-bit operation (it's not currently 64-bit clean) then no apps with a GUI can be 64-bit.
agreenster said:
All laptops are a waste of time for digital content creation. They're always a compromise compared to a desktop. If speed is really important for you and you need it now, the Quad G5 can't be beat.
BakedBeans said:
No, it doesn't work like that. Memory isn't split up by how many cores you have. It had 512MB available to BOTH cores.
SiliconAddict said:
Huh? VMWare doesn't emulate X86 on PowerPC. VirtualPC does. How does VMWare 'kick snot'?
BakedBeans said:
I think that was Blizzards still-in-work Universal Beta they were showing on some machines at Macworld. I've heard other reports that under Rosetta it is playable, but not 100fps at the moment. But it doesn't matter really as Blizzard has said that the UB will be out in 2 to 3 weeks.
AidenShaw said:
Not strictly true.
The GUI side of the app is 32bit but CS2 will access 8GB on 64bit systems running Windows XP64 or later versions of OSX 10.3 for large image manipulation and to use as a scratch area instead of hitting the disk.
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/320005.html
ncoffey said:
Great - 3 binaries in each app bundle. Let's hope we've all got faster broadband by then or Software Updates are going to be huge.
I'd like to know how Photoshop emulated on a MacBook Pro runs compared with Photoshop run natively on a G4 Powerbook. Has anyone made those comparisons?
Both VMware and VPC do "x86 virtual machines on x86". (Remember that Microsoft sells "Virtual PC for Windows".) I assume that the "snot" remark refers to "VMware Workstation" vs "Virtual PC for Windows".aegisdesign said:
Microsoft also sells "Virtual Server", a high end VM system comparable to VMware GSX. (Except for price - VS for a quad CPU system is $99, GSX is $2800.)
If people say that MS is losing interest in VPC, that's probably true. VS is more capable, and cheaper.
With VT technology, add-on virtual machine environments like VMware/Virtual Server are going to disappear. Microsoft will be embedding VT in the operatiing system core, so that a default system would actually be a single VM running on top of the VT layer. If you add an application, say a web server, you'll add a second VM that runs IIS.
(Microsoft has also made licensing VMs much easier. If you're running Virtual Server on a Windows Server dual-dual with 4 Windows Server virtual machines running - you only one Windows Server dual license. 5 systems on a quad for the price of one dual.)
Yvan256 said:Rosetta, Intel Core Duo, G5... How are the new iMacs compared to my little Mac mini and its G4?
And do you think we'll see iBooks and Mac mini updated at the same time? Will they offer a "Mac mini Pro" with a Core Duo or will the iBook and Mac mini be stuck with single-core processors?
I have to admit I would also like to see a round about against the whole mac range. It's not much use to me comparing it to the previous iMac, as I have never used one!
I know, I'm selfish!
a1291762 said:
Agreed, and they should have run repeat tests, how fast was it the second time the performed that operation?
The reason Doom may run well may have more to do with Id's coding style and the faster 3d card, games often have tight inner loops, so level loading might be much slower, but in game tightloop code is probably cached.
50% is a great result, and that probably means that the iMac would run PPC apps faster than they run on my Mini for example, which would be a good result for people like me considering upgrading the Mini we bought to dip our toe in "Ocean Mac".
Generally however, this looks like a crap comparison, compared to the ars review. Not trying to be a fan boy here, but the review left me cold, I didn't feel I had learned much.
Thanks for the link, but to me it confirms that CS2 is 32-bit only.aegisdesign said:
"If you have more than 4 GB (to 6 GB (Windows) or 8 GB (Mac OS)), the RAM above 4 GB is used by the operating system as a cache for the Photoshop scratch disk data.
Data that previously was written directly to the hard disk by Photoshop, is now cached in this high RAM before being written to the hard disk by the operating system."
Data that previously was written directly to the hard disk by Photoshop, is now cached in this high RAM before being written to the hard disk by the operating system."
So, it's taking advantage of the operating system's file cache - not actually addressing more than 32-bits of memory. It has the same capability on both OSX and XP64.
But Adobe itself indirectly squashes the idea of true 64-bit support. This capability (using the OS file cache) is in OSX 10.3, which didn't have any 64-bit addressing available to the user !! (Also the statement by Adobe that "Photoshop CS2 is a 32-bit application." in that link doesn't hurt my case...
)ps: There's also no notion of "high RAM" in a strict sense - the OS cache is scattered all over physical memory, it's not in a dedicated place on the last two DIMMs
Remember when everyone acted like I was riding the short bus to school when I asked "What software do you all plan to use on these machines."
"What, are you stupid - Rosetta!!!"
So, what software are you going to run on these machines?
I'll wait till Creative Suite and Aperture are native till I get my MacBook, thank you very much.
"What, are you stupid - Rosetta!!!"
So, what software are you going to run on these machines?
I'll wait till Creative Suite and Aperture are native till I get my MacBook, thank you very much.
nagromme said:
However, if you're tooling along at native speeds on your new Intel Mac and then come up against an emulated app, it'll be like driving a Porsche into treacle. Suggesting that that doesn't matter because people will be used to slow speeds on their old computer is naive. People will quickly get used to full speed native apps and demand the laggards are ported asap.
nagromme said:
True. Although you've got to way up which of your apps you need native and which are ok as emulated and where speed really matters. I'd imagine anyone who just used iLife, iWork, the net and Word would be more than happy to switch now. Anyone relying on Photoshop - not yet.
nagromme said:Likewise switchers are probably not switching from a very recent fast PC. Normally you buy a new machine when your old one gets, well... old
Many people don't understand what's inside their computer and really shouldn't need to. If a new user buys an iMac but it runs Mac software really slowly then they aren't going to get a good impression of the Mac. Let's hope applications get ported quickly.
I really wish in this test they'd shoved more RAM in though. Nobody runs Photoshop seriously in 512MB and Rosetta would be taking up a load of RAM translating. If you can mitigate against Rosetta by using 2GB RAM and get acceptable performance out of Photoshop then a lot more pro users would switch. If I was getting say 80% of the performance of my 1.8 G5 iMac from the 2Ghz Core Duo then I'd be happy enough to switch now for the blazing performance outside of Photoshop. Since most of my time it's only web resolutions I deal with, I don't need Quad G5 performance which is why an iMac is usually enough for me.
I'd also have hoped they'd have tested the iMac against a Dual 2.0 PowerMac. Then we'd really have seen if the Dual Core Intel is faster than a Dual Core PPC and ended the silly arguments. (yeah I can dream)
AidenShaw said:But Adobe itself indirectly squashes the idea of true 64-bit support. This capability (using the OS file cache) is in OSX 10.3, which didn't have any 64-bit addressing available to the user !! (Also the statement by Adobe that "Photoshop CS2 is a 32-bit application." in that link doesn't hurt my case...
As I said. 'Not strictly true'
The app will take advantage of 64bit features of the OS which were introduced with the PowerMac G5 in OSX 10.2.8. Adobe require 10.3 however so I'd guess there were later fixes to the 64bit subsystem.
BakedBeans said:
NO. Not true. A dual core or dual CPU machine lets both cores or CPUs address the same memory space with the same restrictions on each core. ie. none.
They don't get half the RAM each. The second core doesn't get any less access than the first.
Can't we all be happy apple gave us the Intel Macs so soon? The software companies did not expect the switch to be so soon, so the universal binaries are not ready yet.
So I say:
If you got a G5, stick with it until your apps go universal and get the intel mashine then, when they get a hardware update.
If you have a G4, get the intel now. Your old apps will be about as fast as on your G4 but will double in speed when the universal binary comes out. But iLife and stuff will run fast right out of the Box.
Actually, I don't care what's really inside of a Mac as long as it runs at a decent speed and the cas design is good. Although I like the G4 iMac more than the new one for the design, the Core Duo is faster.
So I say:
If you got a G5, stick with it until your apps go universal and get the intel mashine then, when they get a hardware update.
If you have a G4, get the intel now. Your old apps will be about as fast as on your G4 but will double in speed when the universal binary comes out. But iLife and stuff will run fast right out of the Box.
Actually, I don't care what's really inside of a Mac as long as it runs at a decent speed and the cas design is good. Although I like the G4 iMac more than the new one for the design, the Core Duo is faster.