Snow Leopard H.264 Hardware Acceleration and OpenCL Requirements

[Sehnsucht]

Bias alert and fact check follow-up...

May I suggest a few searches on the web:

• (436,000 hits) "macbook air core shutdown"
• (802,000 hits) "macbook overheat"
• (438,000 hits) "macbook game overheat"
• (39,700 hits) "macbook game overheat shutdown"
• (310,000 hits) "imac overheat"
• (36,600 hits) "imac overheat shutdown"
• (202,000 hits) "macbook burns legs"
• (20,700 hits) "macbook severe burns"
• (74,700 hits) "macbook melts desk"

After you've read a few of those replies, come back and tell us how confident you are of Apple's thermal engineering team.

Apple has a pretty dismal track record with thermal issues running *expected* loads.

Sehnsucht likes to keep things fair and balanced, like Fox News.

Let's review:

Dell laptop core shutdown - 93,300
Dell laptop overheating - 122,000
Dell laptop game overheat - 96,400
Dell laptop game overheat core shutdown - 44,400
Dell laptop burns legs - 48,900
Dell laptop severe burns - 19,400
Dell laptop melts desk - 57,100

(I omitted the iMac obviously because Dell doesn't make anything remotely similar. The XPS One doesn't compare. Also omitted any MBA/Dell Adamo comparisons.)

Interestingly enough, most of the "burns", "melts", and "overheat" results were linked to the defective Sony batteries, which were recalled from pretty much every OEM including Apple.

Obviously, with results like those, it *must* mean that since "MacBook burns legs" got 202,000 hits and "Dell laptop burns legs" got only 48,900 hits, Dell notebooks are only exploding/melting down/scorching users about one fourth as often as MacBooks!

 

[AidenShaw]

i rest my case.

ur examples don't count b/c those computers are not running Snow Lepoard.

u can go home now!

Apple's computers needlessly hot without Snow Leopard. Stop the presses.

Huh? What do these responses mean?

Do you believe that the TDP for existing systems will go *down* with 10.6 pushing the hardware even harder?

The mind spins....

 

[Eidorian]

Huh? What do these responses mean?

Do you believe that the TDP for existing systems will go *down* with 10.6 pushing the hardware even harder?

The mind spins....

I experienced some sort of G5 fluke under Leopard. The G5 machines were much cooler and quieter under Leopard than on Tiger.

No I don't expect Snow Leopard to lower the TDP of the hardware. Apple's hardware has always had heat issues. You've used that as a reason for the lack of h.264 hardware acceleration and/or OpenCL. This issue was around long before Snow Leopard was even conceived.

 

[AidenShaw]

Interestingly enough, most of the "burns", "melts", and "overheat" results were linked to the defective Sony batteries, which were recalled from pretty much every OEM including Apple.

Of course you realize that statistics on any other manufacturer are irrelevant to the discussion of whether Apple systems have thermal problems.

I'm glad that you mentioned the difference between the types of hits for Apple kit and the Dell hits. For example, most of the "shutdown" hits for Dell that I looked at talked about the user shutting down the system - not a spontaneous shutdown due to overheating.

For example, forcing the search to include the exact phrase "core shutdown":

'dell laptop "core shutdown"' - 824 hits
'macbook "core shutdown"' - 2700 hits

Picking at my post doesn't affect the truth that there are many complaints on the web and in Apple discussion groups of heat-related problems with MacBooks and Imacs.

When "thin" is more important than "cool", this is bound to happen.

By the way, your math may be flawed. Since there are far more Dell laptops, Dell's ratio is better than simply comparing the hit counts.

No I don't expect Snow Leopard to lower the TDP of the hardware. Apple's hardware has always had heat issues. You've used that as a reason for the lack of h.264 hardware acceleration and/or OpenCL. This issue was around long before Snow Leopard was even conceived.

I have not *used that as a reason* - as I've said several times, I'm speculating that Apple may have tested some older systems with hardware that in theory could support OpenCL, but found heat issues and is therefore not supporting that hardware.

I cannot prove that my speculation is true, and you cannot prove that it is false.

I'll agree that the most likely explanation is that Apple wants you to buy new Apples, therefore they won't let it work on the systems that people already have.

 

[bpd115]

My question is this...

My Mac Pro is running a non openCL 7300 at the moment.

I have an OpenCL supported 4870 sitting on my door step at the moment.

I was thinking about running my 30" ACD of the 4870 and my 23" ACD of the 7300.

How does OpenCL factor in when you have one supported card and one non supported card?

 

[Sehnsucht]

Of course you realize that statistics on any other manufacturer are irrelevant to the discussion of whether Apple systems have thermal problems.

The question wasn't a matter of whether Apple systems have thermal problems. I was pointing out that they aren't the *only* ones that have such issues, contrary to what you were implying.

I'm glad that you mentioned the difference between the types of hits for Apple kit and the Dell hits. For example, most of the "shutdown" hits for Dell that I looked at talked about the user shutting down the system - not a spontaneous shutdown due to overheating.

Smartass remarks are neither necessary nor desired.

Picking at my post doesn't affect the truth that there are many complaints on the web and in Apple discussion groups of heat-related problems with MacBooks and iMacs.

I know, it's the strangest thing...people seem to think that $3,000-Macs are immune to such defects. Whereas (for some reason) lower-cost PC notebooks aren't held to such a high level of expectation, even though they're (mostly) made from the same components. Perhaps that's why people are less likely to dial into the interwebs and raise a stink (and thus generate fewer hits) than users with overheating iMacs. Just a theory of mine...

By the way, your math may be flawed. Since there are far more Dell laptops, Dell's ratio is better than simply comparing the hit counts.

T'was sarcasm.

I'll agree that the most likely explanation is that Apple wants you to buy new Macs, therefore they won't let it work on the systems that people already have.

I sense a "Snow Leopard on PPC Macs" a la "OSX86 Project" coming up...

 

[Eidorian]

I have not *used that as a reason* - as I've said several times, I'm speculating that Apple may have tested some older systems with hardware that in theory could support OpenCL, but found heat issues and is therefore not supporting that hardware.

I cannot prove that my speculation is true, and you cannot prove that it is false.

I'll agree that the most likely explanation is that Apple wants you to buy new Apples, therefore they won't let it work on the systems that people already have.

That's fine. I know it's speculation. Just more reason to push users to buy another Mac.

Imagine trying to resell the current hardware without said support.

 

[Bonsai1214]

lack of GMA950 support = fail.

i kid... though i'm crying on the inside.

 

[dukebound85]

I sense a "Snow Leopard on PPC Macs" a la "OSX86 Project" coming up...

there wont be

any effort would be akin to running windows on a ppc mac. even vpc, back by MS, didnt make a viable solution...much less hackers starting from scratch lol

 

[Eidorian]

lack of GMA950 support = fail.

i kid... though i'm crying on the inside.

The GMA 950 doesn't have support of h.264 acceleration nor programmable shaders...

 

[AidenShaw]

The question wasn't a matter of whether Apple systems have thermal problems. I was pointing out that they aren't the *only* ones that have such issues, contrary to what you were implying.

I don't see how one could take my post to imply that only Apples overheat.

Smartass remarks are neither necessary nor desired.

It wasn't meant to be "smartass" - I was happy that you mentioned that many of the Dell posts were about the bad batch of batteries - it saved me the trouble of saying the same thing.


By the way, the point of the web search was directed at the multiple posts on this topic that were implying that Apple engineers were too smart not to have planned for OpenCL in their thermal designs of long ago.

I'm pointing out that at times they weren't smart enough to realize that you might want to watch a movie.

Anyway, time to close the tangent about thermal speculation...

 

[flopticalcube]

The GMA 950 doesn't have support of h.264 acceleration nor programmable shaders...

I would never have suspected support for the GMA950 but I would have at least expected h.264 support in the HD2600 since it works in Windows. Its a bit of a let down. Doesn't the X1600 also support h.264 acceleration in hardware?

 

[Eidorian]

I would never have suspected support for the GMA950 but I would have at least expected h.264 support in the HD2600 since it works in Windows. Its a bit of a let down. Doesn't the X1600 also support h.264 acceleration in hardware?

You get partial support. Most of the h.264 and VC-1 is offloaded to the CPU anyways.

You'll need to go with the Radeon HD2000 Series (except the 29xx, etc.) and the GeForce 8 Series (except the G80 based 88xx, etc.) to get full support.

Now why is Apple using the CPU for MPEG-2 decoding to this day...

 

[ricosuave]

My 2006 Mac Pro with a tiny Nvidia 7300 is going to get an SSD, a 1 GB XFX Radeon 4870 and Snow Leopard come September. For the fraction of the price of a new machine, it will feel brand new.

Out of curiosity, which SSD are you going to install on your Mac Pro? I have the same 1st generation as well.

How about the Radeon card? Will it install out of the box or are you going to flash it?

Links?

 

[bpd115]

Out of curiosity, which SSD are you going to install on your Mac Pro? I have the same 1st generation as well.

How about the Radeon card? Will it install out of the box or are you going to flash it?

Links?

The Radeon card I will flash. It's sitting on my doorstep now. I ordered the XFX 4870 1 Gig card from Newegg for 150.00.

I'll follow the guide posted here

http://web.me.com/jacobcroft/4870Flash/4870Flash.html

As far as the SSD, I'm not decided yet. I'm going to shoot for one in the 128 gig range as everything above that seems a bit high budget right now and I can't see installing the OS and apps on anything less than a 120 gig drive.

I'm looking at the OCZ series (Either Apex or Vertex..)

I know my brother installed one (an ssd) in his 2nd Gen Mac Pro (not sure of the brand) and let me control it over iChat screen sharing. The speed was simply mind blowing.

 

[ricosuave]

The Radeon card I will flash. It's sitting on my doorstep now. I ordered the XFX 4870 1 Gig card from Newegg for 150.00.

I'll follow the guide posted here

http://web.me.com/jacobcroft/4870Flash/4870Flash.html

As far as the SSD, I'm not decided yet. I'm going to shoot for one in the 128 gig range as everything above that seems a bit high budget right now and I can't see installing the OS and apps on anything less than a 120 gig drive.

I'm looking at the OCZ series (Either Apex or Vertex..)

I know my brother installed one (an ssd) in his 2nd Gen Mac Pro (not sure of the brand) and let me control it over iChat screen sharing. The speed was simply mind blowing.

Very nice. I'm wondering if your brother used a 2.5 with an adapter or was able to find a 3.5 one...

 

[Sehnsucht]

I don't see how one could take my post to imply that only Apples overheat.

Because I'm a raging fanboy who takes all negative comments about personally.

It wasn't meant to be "smartass" - I was happy that you mentioned that many of the Dell posts were about the bad batch of batteries - it saved me the trouble of saying the same thing.

Like I said..."fair and balanced." I've seen so many fanboys on here who dismiss things like battery defects with MacBooks with comments like "Oh, big deal, it's not Apple's fault," but then if the same problem causes a Dell to explode, "Oh, well, that's just 'cause Dell's laptops SUUUUCK! Betcha it wouldnta happened if you had a Mac!" Even though the batteries were both the same, made by Sony. Or (another good one) "Hey guys, trying to decide between Apple's 24" cinema display and the Dell ABCD1234. Which one should I choose?" And the fanboys say "OMG get the ACD, Dell monitors SUUUUUCK!" Even though both displays have the same LG H-IPS LCD panel.

By the way, the point of the web search was directed at the multiple posts on this topic that were implying that Apple engineers were too smart not to have planned for OpenCL in their thermal designs of long ago.

I'm pointing out that at times they weren't smart enough to realize that you might want to watch a movie.

Makes sense now, I suppose. You'll have to forgive me, it was 9 something in the morning which is too early for me.

 

[AidenShaw]

Makes sense now, I suppose. You'll have to forgive me, it was 9 something in the morning which is too early for me.

I respect you, not just forgive you.

When you posted the hits for "Dell laptop xxxx", I smiled and thought "good comeback". In a formal debating sense irrelevant, but could easily distract the sheep.

You engage at a higher level than most - I appreciate that.

 

[50548]

Just found this on Apple Support forums (partial quote):

"Alright. I've got good news. My friend says there's not much documentation up yet about OpenCL and that the current Snow Leopard release might not even have support for it yet, as it's more of a testing bed for basic compatibility with Snow Leopard's main system, acceleration techniques notwithstanding.

He filed a ticket though, and an engineer stated that the 8800 GS is really a GTS card with a "nickname," and the specs referred to on the Snow Leopards page list do include the 2008 iMac's high-end card. In fact, the 8800 GS is as powerful as the GT 130 that's in current iMacs, and actually more powerful in certain benchmarks."

That should do it; 8800GS users, relax and enjoy OpenCL when SL comes...

 

[djgamble]

My question... what's technically preventing the X1600 from being supported?

I'm no guru, but Apple's given a simplistic explanation about OpenCL... "your graphics card is basically just another CPU sitting there idle... we've pushed heaps of tasks over to the GPU, freeing up the CPU..."

Can't really see why they can't just push some of the CPU's tasks over to the GPU... granted Snow Leopard only supports a VERY SMALL number of computers! (Macs made within the last 3-4 years)... surely they could do all early adopters a favour and make a driver for the X1600? Bet $1000 000 there's nothing stopping it from working...

Sure... performance won't be as good as a card made in 2009 with 1gb of VRAM... but it will surely still be better than the GPU just sitting there idle (unless the technology's a POS...)

 

[JFreak]

The 8600M GT has the same video processing engine as the 9400M since they are the same architecture. Apple just chooses not to support it.

I hate this, being a SR MBP owner. Why not, if the hardware was capable?

 

[eviltobz]

My question... what's technically preventing the X1600 from being supported?

I'm no guru, but Apple's given a simplistic explanation about OpenCL... "your graphics card is basically just another CPU sitting there idle... we've pushed heaps of tasks over to the GPU, freeing up the CPU..."

Can't really see why they can't just push some of the CPU's tasks over to the GPU... granted Snow Leopard only supports a VERY SMALL number of computers! (Macs made within the last 3-4 years)... surely they could do all early adopters a favour and make a driver for the X1600? Bet $1000 000 there's nothing stopping it from working...

Sure... performance won't be as good as a card made in 2009 with 1gb of VRAM... but it will surely still be better than the GPU just sitting there idle (unless the technology's a POS...)

The thing is that different graphics cards offer different functions. apple has chosen a minimum base of required functionality that a card needs to offer to be able to support opencl which leaves certain cards unsupported. gpus initially worked solely for graphics so were able to take certain shortcuts to give a better price/performance ratio. for example, many cards have incorrect floating point maths. the results are good enough to render a picture to the screen for a 60th of a second, but when working on scientific datasets that error could mean that your results become irrelevant.

also chip makers have recently been adding functionality to their chips to allow things like opencl to be more viable. and card that doesn't have all the features required by opencl is obviously not going to work, it may be a stonking card for graphics, it may even work well for stuff _like_ opencl but it may just not support one critical feature that apple needs, like the ati stuff before the 4xxx series with their register support or whatever it was. that doesn't mean that it can't work as a gpgpu, just not for the specification that apple laid out. the entire point of opencl is to provide a consistent and powerful api for devs to use to create high performance software. if they'd scaled back the opencl spec to support older cards then it wouldn't look so appealing going forwards as a useful tool. if they'd been more lax about having different tiers of opencl support to work with then they create the sort of compatibility confusions and headaches for devs and users alike that are more a part of the windows world that us mac fans like to try and hide from.

 

[MikeTheC]

A shame my iMac (ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro) would be able to enjoy these added benefits.

Why is it a shame? I'd think you'd *want* these benefits.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

My question... what's technically preventing the X1600 from being supported?

There is zero monetary benefit to Apple and Apple doesn't care about customer support. It's as simple as that. It's the same reason PPC was dropped. G5 Quad owners are wondering why they couldn't carry support for their expensive and still very useful machines for one more OS version and the answer is the same. Apple would rather try and force you to upgrade. They don't believe you will buy a Windows machine and other than hacking, you have no alternatives to buy Mac hardware from and so you will grumble, but ultimately you WILL comply. You are Djgamble of Borg. Free thinking is futile.

 

[rufwork]

That's because they make their BIG money off selling you the HARDWARE not the software. So they have every incentive to try and force you to buy as much hardware as often as they can possibly get you to do it, not to try and make your life more pleasant by making OS X faster and more efficient and support older computers ...

Yep. Apple makes its primary dough off of Macs and iPods, not OS X and iTunes.

Still, I've got to think H.264 proc'n will be extended past the 9400M. Honestly, I didn't expect the new Mini to come out until SL... the whole purpose of the Mini upgrade (and MacBook Air, I'd guess) was the ensure that every new Mac sold did well with SL, which the old, Intel video Mini would not.

This would explain the MacBook Pro dual GPUs, though, wouldn't it? I like the line that if your Mac is fast enough encoding isn't a big deal then they didn't care about getting you H.264 accel, and this would suggest the dual GPU boxes would've had subpar (ie, less than MacBook speeds) H.264 performance without the 9400Ms, doesn't it? That's not a benchmark you'd like to see if you're Apple. Wonder if that "saving battery life" excuse really holds enough water to warrant the dual GPU setup, or if it was all H.264 performance.

I'm going to guess more GPUs (as in newer, not older) get H.264 bonuses in SL as things move along... Apple just wanted to make sure Macs in the Apple Stores ran video well for upcoming sales pitches, which meant 9400M was priority one.