Quartz GL

[throttlemeister]

Could someone explain to me the advantages/disadvantages of enabling Quartz GL?

 

[throttlemeister]

Anyone? I can't seem to find much info on it, and most of it is ambiguous. What does it do? Why is it disabled? I enabled it and do not notice any ill effects, and it seems a bit snappier with graphics but I really have no way to tell without any tests.

 

[retroneo]

It sped up some graphics operations up but slowed down other types.

 

[Riemann Zeta]

I personally have it hard enabled and have since Leopard was released. I don't understand why Apple just gave up on it and decided to sh*tcan the whole thing. The interesting thing about QuartzGL is that once it is enabled for the entire system, it is still possible to disable it on an app-by-app basis for certain applications that get glitchy if set to use it. All one has to do to tell an app to either use it or not use it is add and set a new sibling boolean variable to the application's Info.plist: QuartzGLEnable.

The applications that either have problems or are slower if QuartzGLEnable is not set to "No" are Safari, Adobe anything and video players like VLC & QuickTime. I suppose that program incompatibilities and per-app settings would have been too hard for many end users to understand, so Apple just never bothered to inform people about it.

 

[Catfish_Man]

I don't understand why Apple just gave up on it and decided to sh*tcan the whole thing.

They didn't, they made it something developers can choose to enable for their app or not (hopefully said decision would be based on profiling and timing results...).

 

[Riemann Zeta]

But the function is disabled by default on Leopard, so even the one single application (Preview) that has the "QuartzGLEnable == Yes" variable won't be able to use it. Once it has been enabled, one should see QuartzGL = Enabled in the system profiler. Most applications that are not Adobe-related seem to work fine with it on. Apple put in disable variables in QuickTime and other video applications (video playback does not require acceleration of fonts and text). Safari also requires it to be turned off in the Info.plist because plugins like Flash and QuickTime embedded have issues with it; so after activating it with the old QuartzDebug trick, remember to add:

QuartzGLEnable == No

to your Safari Info.plist.