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OS X Snow Leopard 10A402 Brings Visual Tweaks and Other Enhancements

zerostar said:
So I did some Xbench testing in 10.6 and 10.5 same machine

iMac 24" 2.4GHz Radeon HD 2600 (no Core Image support)
4GB Ram is the only addition.

I left the disk test off since 10.5 is on a Western Digiatl Black 1TB and 10.6 is on a Firewire 800 External 7200.12

RESULTS

10.6 total score 173
10.5 total score 189

10.6 CPU 169
Floating Point 267

10.5 CPU 150
Floating Point 150

10.6 Memory 166
10.5 Memory 163

10.6 Quartz 189
10.5 Quartz 196

10.6 Open GL 115
10.5 Open GL 179

10.6 UI Test 294
10.5 UI Test 341

Find it interesting that 10.5 beats 10.6 overall (obviously 10.6 needs more optimization and that is impressive considering how FAST it is over 10.5) BUT 10.6 squashes 10.5 in Floating Point *BADLY!* Although all things GPU Quartz/OpenGL/UI were won by 10.5

10.6 is a tad better with this new update, so I am interested to see if raw test performance gets better than 10.5 anytime soon...

p.s. I am attaching the 2 full tests (these were the average results over 20 tests in each OS)
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LETS JUST SAY XBENCH IS TO OLD FOR RELIABLE TESTING IN BILLY MAYS
LETS JUST SAY XBENCH IS TO OLD FOR RELIABLE TESTING IN BILLY MAYS
LETS JUST SAY XBENCH IS TO OLD FOR RELIABLE TESTING IN BILLY MAYS
LETS JUST SAY XBENCH IS TO OLD FOR RELIABLE TESTING IN BILLY MAYS
 
Krafty said:
Oh, so Apple did say the UI is called "marble"? I didnt know that
glare.gif
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They don't have to announce it anyway. it could just be an internal code name, like the code names from Roman mythology used for the 10.5 updates, that aren't meant as retail or official names.
 
pdjudd said:
No. Apple has never used the word "marble" in any of their PR or announcements of their OS. Marble was first speculated by the rumor mills.

Now I am very sure that Apple is constantly at work with the overall interface, but there is no way to know what Apple is calling us until they make some sort of an announcement.
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First you say "internally" and now "rumor mills."

Well, then I'm naming the next UI.




















































Geometricaliytic.
 
NathanCH said:
Wait... QuickTime X doesn't support WMV by default? Is it still just .mov and other formats rarely used?

I remember hearing it was going to be the best player ever.
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Blame Microsoft, they own the WMV (and WMA) formats and determine who can play that back by licensing it out. Apple can't implement it directly without permission from Microsoft. Of course Telestream (makers of Flip4Mac) have licensed the codecs (the non-DRMed ones at least) from Microsoft so there is no need for Apple to license a proprietary codec from a rival. The only other way that this could happen would be for Apple to reverse engineer those formats - a process that they view as a waste.

There is no way that Apple can get support for every format in Quicktime - it just won't happen - not practical. Second: I don't know how one can consider WMV or its cousin WMA to be any good formats. Their sole intention w to be a proprietary alternative to MPEG and MP3. Overall those closed Microsoft formats have been heavily criticized as inferior compared to the more modern formats. Thats what Quicktime X was supposed to be about support. See here:


Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, a major leap forward that advances modern media and Internet standards. QuickTime X includes a brand-new player application, offers optimized support for modern codecs, and delivers more efficient media playback, making it ideal for any application that needs to play media content.
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It has never been touted as supporting everything. I think you misunderstood what it's intention is supposed to be.
 
coolfactor said:
I have Leopard, but I'll be buying Snow Leopard for $129 instead of $29 because it's worth way more than that to me, and a healthy markup is what allowed Apple to become what they are, so I will continue to do my part. Thanks for your hard work, Apple. Keep it up.
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As ridiculous as this might sound today, at one point in time a lot of us did this. Shortly after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he killed the long time practice of Apple not charging for new major software updates. A lot of us griped about it but Apple needed the money. Badly. I think the update was System 8.5 and we all went out and bought it whether we needed it or not because Apple was hemmoraging money. They had 4 billion dollars in the bank and plummenting. The revenue they got from that as well as a $150 million cash infusion from Microsoft allowed Apple to have enough capital to get their house in order. The iMac and iPod would come next, and as they say, the rest is history.

Nowadays, Apple has $30 billion lying around and $150 million is chump change. I think you can keep your $100 (especially in this economy) and use it somewhere more important.
 
kikuchiyo said:
pdjudd said rumor mill but I said Gruber and frankly, he seems to know more than you do.

He's not a rumor mill - as I said, he seems to be both well connected and well respected inside and outside of Apple.
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Yeah.
...


I'm still going with my name for the next UI.
 
Quicktime performance

(I'm crossposting this from Appleinsider from what I wrote earlier today and adding comments about the graphics drivers)

One thing that had particularly interested me about Snow Leopard was the changes to Quicktime. I had noticed performance improvements when I played HD H.264 flim clips on my Mac Mini 2009 with has the Geforce 9400M (the only graphics chip so far in SL to have H.264 acceleration in silicon). But what I was really interested in was what Quicktime 10 could do for lesser machines.

In addition to the Mac Mini, we have a 2007 15" Macbook Pro Santa Rosa with Geforce 8600 graphics, and a 2006 Blackbook (2 Ghz Core Duo, Intel graphics). Recently I was transferring some episodes of my son's favorite show (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) off my Tivo Series 3 in preparation for a family trip. Disney Channel HD broadcasts the show in 720p and the resolution of my Blackbook is 1280x800. Although the Blackbook had no problems playing 720p movie clips from Apple's Quicktime movie preview site, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse never played well on this machine. The Core 2 Duo Macs in the house didn't have this problem.

In making the MP4 file, although I own Toast 9 which allows you to rip an episode from a Tivo legally for personal use, I decided to use iTivo and let Handbrake do the job. Using the Apple Universal setting, the movie was reencoded for 5.2 Mbit/sec quality and no change in resolution. If the Blackbook under Leopard 10.5.7 played the clip, it dropped a ton of frames and was completely unwatchable. Under the WWDC version of Snow Leopard, the results were pretty much the same. The recent 10A390 update didn't change much.

But the new 10A402 release changed all that and in the process, I finally realized why the clip was so difficult to play. Disney broadcasts the show in 720p/60fps, not the 30 fps that you typically see in iTunes or Apple.com clips. With having the stuff the pipe at twice the frame rate, I understood what the problem was now. But Snow Leopard 10A420 can now play the clip without dropping frames on this lesser Mac.

There is one catch: you must play it in full screen mode (command-F) in order to get proper performance. But it's still amazing that a 720p/60fps H.264 movie is running so well on 3 year old hardware. During playback, Activity Monitor shows about 50-60% utilization on both cores. One other thing is that people on this forum have noticed improvements in the Intel GMA graphics drivers. I'm sure if that's the case that it may have a positive effect on what I'm seeing. Regardless, I'll be revisiting Snow Leopard on my Mac Mini to see if performance on the Geforce 9400M graphics system has improved as well.
 
kikuchiyo said:
pdjudd said rumor mill but I said Gruber and frankly, he seems to know more than you do.

He's not a rumor mill - as I said, he seems to be both well connected and well respected inside and outside of Apple.
Click to expand...

I am not calling Grueber a Rumor Mill. I was using that term as a general coverall to people who spread rumors - people that does include Grueber since (as far as I am aware) does not work for Apple and does not posses any special information.

Gueber is a blogger who, like MacRumors, like to make rumors. We have no idea what the next interface that OSX will use (an interface that I already said is most likely being developed).

It was the rumor mill that:
a) called it Marble - a name that nobody in Apple confirms exists and is the source of wild speculation as to what it means. Code words are meaningless since we never know what they mean - it can mean anything.
b) Will be in Snow Leopard - we know that this is most likely false since Apple themselves during WWDC said that the interface will be the same.

To be clear - I am not denying that Apple is working on a new interface. What Apple calls is and how or wether or not it will be used is not known and is part of the rumor mill. They probably are. However I was classifying the people speculating on this whole "marble" thing as rumor. We don't know what Apple plans on doing for it's OS. Anybody who claims that and is not an employee at Apple on their OS division is part of the rumor mill - regardless of who they are or how much they are respected or who their connections are. People can be wrong and have been before. We don't now what "Marble" means because Apple uses code words all the time. We can be sure that Apple is working on interface - thats obvious based on programs like iTunes - but I think we can get over it for now.

If "Marble" is some kind of interface, which nobody but Apple knows for sure, it probably will not make it into Snow Leopard on a large scale. Apple already said during WWDC that there is no interface change and it did not make it to the WWDC builds - which were touted as feature complete. Apple isn't going to drop a change like that unless they announce it first - like WWDC.
 
Sevenfeet said:
One thing that had particularly interested me about Snow Leopard was the changes to Quicktime. I had noticed performance improvements when I played HD H.264 flim clips on my Mac Mini 2009 with has the Geforce 9400M (the only graphics chip so far in SL to have H.264 acceleration in silicon)
Click to expand...

YES! I've waited for so long to read this! You've made millions of MacMini2009_as_a_HTPC owners happy! No more stuttering in 1080p h.264 MKVs playback! (I hope...)
I'm counting days till September 25....

(the only graphics chip so far in SL to have H.264 acceleration in silicon)
Click to expand...
So is this confirmed? What about GT120/GT130/4850 iMacs, can they use the "never_mentioned" 9400M gpu which is hidden in their motherboard??
 
gianly1985 said:
YES! I've waited for so long to read this! You've made millions of MacMini2009_as_a_HTPC owners happy! No more stuttering in 1080p h.264 MKVs playback! (I hope...)
I'm counting days till September 25....


So is this confirmed? What about GT120/GT130/4850 iMacs, can they use the "never_mentioned" 9400M gpu which is hidden in their motherboard??
Click to expand...

Yes it does
 
The "marble" theme has also been referred to as "Illuminance".

As I said about. I dunno a year ago. If any developer. That is a person that has been a full member of the ADC for more than a year knows. There is an example called either "recipes" or "menu".

This example shows the illuminance and the layers used.

The new dock is an example..

And.

The reason spaces seems so funky and the new lists/grid/fan view is because right click is coming to those in another build.

We are seeing "marble" right now.

It's simply layers of illuminance..Perhaps that's where Gruber got confused.
 
coolfactor said:
I have Leopard, but I'll be buying Snow Leopard for $129 instead of $29 because it's worth way more than that to me, and a healthy markup is what allowed Apple to become what they are, so I will continue to do my part. Thanks for your hard work, Apple. Keep it up.
Click to expand...

I have no problem with anyone willing to pay for something they appreciate and value. Snow Leopard is worth it, but the best reason to buy the $129 version is so you won't have to install Leopard before Snow Leopard if you ever need to start from scratch.
 
DMann said:
Still have 2 LaserWriter IIs, a Quadra 650, 950 with AV input & output with Radius cards for movie editing, and 13" & 17" Apple CRT AV Monitors. System 7 - 7.5 in the '90s was awesome - even MS Word 5.1 rocked back then, and was better then than it is today. With a 4800 baud modem, and a dedicated phone line, the sky was the limit - there was nothing this setup could not do - great times, indeed!
Click to expand...

I remember using ClarisWorks a lot. I was in high school at the time 1994, 1995, etc., and I used to do presentations in ClarisWorks and actually bring my Mac in to class and hook it up to a projector. I had music, animations, etc. I suppose PowerPoint could do the same things at the time, however.

Only thing that annoyed me about system 7 and 7.5 were loading all those exensions upon startup. I eventually upgraded to OS 8, but I can't remember whether that had to load extensions as well. Of course, it depended on what applications you had installed, but the more you had the more extensions had to load, i,e., sound manager, quicktime instruments, etc.
 
Is there an official list consolidating the changes/features we will expect in SL? Not what has been updated but what is going to be there.
 
I'd like to see a quick boot copy of OS X popped on your Time Machine drive so you could recover just using the drive. It's annoying to have to insert the OS X DVD in to restore from Time Machine.
 
Eidorian said:
I'd like to see a quick boot copy of OS X popped on your Time Machine drive so you could recover just using the drive. It's annoying to have to insert the OS X DVD in to restore from Time Machine.
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Just partition your time machine drive and restore the Install DVD to it. That's what I do.
 
"Marble" hater

Well personally I am still a Aqua fanatic. I am glad to see updates to the UI, but I don't personally like the idea of letting go too quickly.

But if they MUST replace Aqua eventually (which they must) I pray it won't be this so called "Marble" look. (Yes. I realize Marble is a product of the rumor mill)

It's ugly. It reminds me of the Luna team's version of a Mac OS X UI.
 
DMann said:
Speaking of law, in the state of Washington, there is a law against having sex with a virgin under any circumstances. (Including the wedding night)
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Um, yeah, I'm just going to call ******** on that and assume you're speaking out of your ass. Citation needed, otherwise this is just as mythical as all of the other rumors about Apple coming out of the rumor mill.

Besides, even if a law is "on the books", it can still have already been struck down. It took Alabama three *decades* to repeal its law against interracial marriage that had been struck down in 1967. So just because a law is technically "on the books", it doesn't really necessarily mean anything. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/al/main03.htm . OH SEE WHAT I DID THERE, I CITED A SOURCE! OMG!

I hate these "factoids" about "weird" laws. Most of them lack any citation whatsoever, and therefore are probably false and just perpetuated on the internets. Things like this need to stop, and people need to stop repeating them unless they can verify the claims.
 
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