Quartz Extreme Presentation

[arn]

AllOSX points us to a PDF Presentation recently presented at SIGGRAPH 2002 by Peter Graffagnino, Apple's Director of Graphics and Imaging.

The slides describe how Quartz Extreme uses OpenGL and the desktop is simply a 3d scene. It also reiterates that only 16MB of video memory is required.

 

[aaronvegh]

Thank God!

Sweet Blessed Joy, if this is true!

I've been shopping around for a new video card to replace my RAGE 128...the options are ugly. If I can benefit with my current card, then I'm very happy!!!!

 

[Hemingray]

Well fantastic, but that's 16MB of VRAM coming from AGP. So all us with PCI bus graphics still won't get this advantage, even though my Radeon 7000 has 32MB of RAM. Oh well... I'll upgrade my G4 when Apple gets their PowerMac act together.

 

[G4scott]

That's nice that it only requires 16mb of video memory, but how about us iBook users who bought our computers less than a year ago, and only have 8mb of video memory? I think we should get something from Apple...

Quartz Extreme is a big part of Jaguar, and is part of why it seems to run faster on most systems, because it takes the graphics processing load off of the CPU. I do hope it does something with my 8mb of video memory, instead of letting it go to waste, like it is right now...

 

[Mr. Anderson]

I have an original G4 Sawtooth, with a Rage128 Pro - 16 Meg VRAM - who'd a thought a 3 year old machine would be able to run Jaguar after all the scare stories.

It looks good and I think I'll be upgrading and even though I'll be ok with the current graphics card, can any one recommend a replacement - I do a lot of 3D and something with a little more umph would be great.

D

 

[ericmw]

Well how about http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/quartzextreme.html this for a little bit better conformation on what is needed? Look at the small print in the lower right corner.

Eric

 

[SmashingYM]

Too bad I have a year and a half old Powerbook G4 400 that won't be able to take advantage of it. I knew when it came out that 8MB would probably not be enough. It would be nice if I could use quartz extreme anyway, maybe just not run as smoothly. Anything is better than nothing. Hopefully Jaguar will be the performance boost on its own that its supposed to be. I'm pretty satisfyed with 10.1.5 anyway. It is too bad that a 1.5 year old pro machine won't be able to take advantage of it though.

 

[MikeH]

Can someone clear this up for me:

Will a 16mb PCI graphics card (such as the ATI Rage in the B&W G3's) show no improvements in performance with Jaguar at all?

OR

Will there be performance improvments, just less than those who have AGP graphics cards?

The thing is I can't see why PCI won't work, but AGP will if the graphic card specs are otherwise identical - surely it's down to the cards' chip.

 

[arn]

Originally posted by MikeH
Can someone clear this up for me:

The thing is I can't see why PCI won't work, but AGP will if the graphic card specs are otherwise identical - surely it's down to the cards' chip.

AGP required.

It's a faster bus and PCI won't provide enough speed for it.

arn

 

[iH8Quark]

The desktop is a 3D environment

If that's a hint of things to come, this OS is going to get very interesting.

 

[EddieB]

Typo

Well, looks like my TiBook667 is supported!! And that's always a good thing.
Also there is a typo in the article posted by macrumors:

The slides describe how Quartz Extreme uses OpenGL and the desktop is simply a 3d scene. It also reiterates that only 16MB if video memory is required.

The 'if' should be changed to 'of'.

 

[Catfish_Man]

Actually...

Originally posted by arn


AGP required.

It's a faster bus and PCI won't provide enough speed for it.

arn

..it's because PCI graphics cards can't use main memory as texture memory and AGP cards can. The speed is just an added benefit of AGP.

To the person who was rejoicing that their 16MB RagePro can run QE: Sorry, it can't. Go look at Apple's QE page; only Radeons or higher are supported, no matter how much vram they have (there's several very good reasons for this).

None of this info is actually new, it's just not scattered all over the web like it was before.

 

[AmbitiousLemon]

Originally posted by ericmw
Well how about http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/quartzextreme.html this for a little bit better conformation on what is needed? Look at the small print in the lower right corner.

Eric

while you are looking at the link also note the bar graphs to the left of the note on QE compatability. even without QE 10.2 boasts approximately a 50% increase in speed over 10.1. Having installed 10.2 on machines not supported by QE i must say that the speed increase is very real and very significant. thats not to say it wouldnt be nice to have QE also speeding things up, but with old machines you should never expect a new os to have perfect compatability.

 

[ShaolinMiddleFinger]

So should I buy it for my iBook then? These things are confusing me now... I wonder if it's even worth it at this moment....

 

[Gelfin]

You know, I can't help but wonder if Quartz Extreme was what ultimately came out of trying to find a way to stop the irritating ghosting effect in Terminal with transparency enabled.

 

[MacMaster]

In the PDF it says that agp 2x required and agp 4x recommended. Only recommended? Does this hint to something like agp 8x? Just a thought...

 

[Mr Jobs]

Originally posted by MikeH
Can someone clear this up for me:

Will a 16mb PCI graphics card (such as the ATI Rage in the B&W G3's) show no improvements in performance with Jaguar at all?

OR

Will there be performance improvments, just less than those who have AGP graphics cards?

The thing is I can't see why PCI won't work, but AGP will if the graphic card specs are otherwise identical - surely it's down to the cards' chip.

alll systems will be faster with 10.2 only less then those with AGP (16MB Ti) 32MB graphics

cheek this link http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/quartzextreme.html
should help a lot, the

 

[MacArtist]

Originally posted by dukestreet
I have an original G4 Sawtooth, with a Rage128 Pro - 16 Meg VRAM...
...can any one recommend a replacement - I do a lot of 3D and something with a little more umph would be great.
D

The only upgrade, short of a new system, is a Radeon 7000. Do to the PCI interface, it still won't support Quartz Extreme, but it'll give you a signifigant performance boost for 3D.

 

[sevag1]

heh, desktop a 3d environment? So if i have like lets say 20 windows open at the same time, i will see an FPS decrease? LOL...

 

[G4scott]

Originally posted by ShaolinMiddleFinger
So should I buy it for my iBook then? These things are confusing me now... I wonder if it's even worth it at this moment....

Jaguar is much more than just Quartz Extreme. Although it'd be nice for QE to work on an iBook with 8mb VRAM, there are plenty of other features that will be useful.

 

[ShaolinMiddleFinger]

Originally posted by G4scott


Jaguar is much more than just Quartz Extreme. Although it'd be nice for QE to work on an iBook with 8mb VRAM, there are plenty of other features that will be useful.

I want to make sure if it will increase my speed....hopefully as fast as OS 9 was...

 

[billiam0878]

For those of you who are concerned about your 6-12 month old iBooks/PowerBooks, I am running an early seed of Jaguar on my 500MHz TiBook (with 8MB ATI), and you WILL notice a speed bump. Perhaps not as much as if you had a 16MB+ AGP card, but you will notice an appreciable difference.

Bill

 

[nickgold]

Originally posted by MacArtist


The only upgrade, short of a new system, is a Radeon 7000. Do to the PCI interface, it still won't support Quartz Extreme, but it'll give you a signifigant performance boost for 3D.

Not quite true... The Sawtooth was the first G4 to feature an AGP graphics bus (2x). I would hold out for the new Radeon 9000, or, if they fall in price, the Radeon 8500. The original AGP Radeon is still way too high in price, if you ask me. My Sawtooth 450 is waiting eagerly for a new video card (came with a Rage 128 AGP... Not even a Rage 128 Pro! Talk about Rev. A!)

 

[topicolo]

Oh sweet. I always suspected that Apple would treat windows as textured polygons. Hmmm... If I get a GF4 with nVidia's new drivers, would I be able to turn on 4x FSAA and get extreme hardware accelerated antialiasing? What would happen if I open so many windows that it floods the texture buffer? Would 10.2 then crash?

One really cool (but useless) thing Apple or some smart programmer could do is allow windows to be rotated in real time in the OS, since they're all just 3d polygons. Very cool...

 

[Hemingray]

Originally posted by nickgold


Not quite true... The Sawtooth was the first G4 to feature an AGP graphics bus (2x). I would hold out for the new Radeon 9000, or, if they fall in price, the Radeon 8500. The original AGP Radeon is still way too high in price, if you ask me. My Sawtooth 450 is waiting eagerly for a new video card (came with a Rage 128 AGP... Not even a Rage 128 Pro! Talk about Rev. A!)

I think MacArtist misread the original poster. Sawtooth is AGP, Yikes is PCI.