Snow Leopard H.264 Hardware Acceleration and OpenCL Requirements

[DTphonehome]

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Yarg, no support for the Radeon HD 2600 Pro?! This is in a previous-generation Intel iMac... sigh.

Exactly why I held out for WWDC before I bought that system. Wanted to make sure it was opencl compatible.

 

[NightStorm]

i hope so i have the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS as according to System Profile too

Mine is the same way... I bought it earlier this year figuring that it would be compatible with the new features of 10.6. This Wikipedia entry seems to agree that the 8800 GS is really a rebranded 8800M GTS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series#8800_GS

Hopefully Apple will clarify this soon.

 

[DiScO197]

I was really hoping my Radeon 1900xt would be supported. There aren't really any upgrade options for the 2007 Mac Pros, at least not direct from Apple. I really do not want to muck around with flashing PC video cards or such.

Yep, got the 1900XT also and I was just looking into the 8800GT. The Apple store mentions about the version for the early 2007 Mac Pro's on the web page but no link. I rang them up to enquire and was told it's discontinued now, so we don't have much hope do we?

Cheers.

 

[eviltobz]

yeah, it's kind of a bummer that a lot of fairly recent machines won't have support for open cl or hardware h.264, but the thing is, they don't do it now either. snow lep is set to deliver performance enhancements from the general optimisation of code and the addition of grand central, it's not like these machines won't run sno-lep, or that they'll run it slower than they currently run leopard, they just won't see performance increases as big as others will.

if they'd been asking the usual full whack of $129 for sno-lep and one of the major new innovations was incompatible with a shed load of hardware then i could understand the righteous indignation, but with the pricing for upgrading from leopard being so cheap i think that it still remains a very attractive new os.

 

[Todd H]

My first generation Intel iMac's ATI Radeon X1600 doesn't look to be compatible. It might be time to retire her for a newer model.

 

[kresh]

So now we know why it is $29

Apple boldly said at the WWDC keynote that SL runs on all Intel Macs, without mentioning a single word that some models would be excluded from OpenCL.

It has to be $29 to sell well because at $129 ($149 family pack) I would not purchase SL for any of the 5 Intel iMacs in our house with the ATI 2600 cards. If it does indeed hold true that my iMacs are excluded I don't think I will buy it at any price.

It is times like these I really hate Apple's stance on non-upgradable all-in-ones that so many on this board praise.

 

[chelsel]

Does anybody know if the newly announced NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 for Mac Pro will be supported?

 

[cg0def]

... Nvidia 7300GT is running nicely with H.264 hardware decoding support. I think it started with the OSX 10.5.6 based graphics update.

I utilize a Core 2 Duo 1,87Ghz with OSX 10.5.7. Right now it has 30% from 100% CPU cycles (counting both cores) left - and I can run any 1080p trailer from Apples movie page just fine.

How do you check if decoding/encoding is done with the gpu? I've used iMovie to encode with H.264 a few times and 10.5.6 didn't seem to change anything for me. But then again I have 8600 and not 7300 ...

 

[DTphonehome]

God this makes me very irritated with Apple.

I specifically bought this iMac 8 months ago in order to have a computer which could make use of these 'amazing' new features of Snow Leopard.

I spent all my f•••••g cash on this damn thing and now it turns out it's about as much use as a handbrake on a canoe for running Snow Leopard.

I was going to buy SL, but I don't think I'll bother now. Don't worry Apple, I'm not spending £20 just to save 6GB of space.

Oh chill out. Your iMac is not "useless"... it's still a perfectly useable machine (my iMac G5 from 2004 is still chugging along). And no one ever promised your 8 month-old iMac (which was from early '08... so 10 months old already when you bought it) would be able to use each and every SL feature. You knew full well SL was coming, and if you were SO concerned about getting every SL feature on your machine, you would have waited for the full spec list. I've been waiting 6 months for WWDC to see the spec list before I bought a 2.8 early 2008 iMac, and now I'm glad I didn't. Quit whining.

 

[utsava]

iMovie

Will we have to wait for iMovie 10 for iMovie to take advantage of this hardware acceleration, or do you think they will update iMovie 09 to take advantage of it? To me, iMovie is the most important app for HW acceleration (for the average folk). I want to import and transcode my HD footage as quickly as possible.

 

[Killyp]

You try chilling out after blowing £1k on one of these things. £1k last year was a lot more money than it is now.

I bought it after being told it's future proof. Apparently not.

 

[colonels1020]

Alot of you guys are overreacting to the lack of OpenCL support. Snow Leopard will still take full advantage of 64-bit, the gargantuan speed increases, and the many other new features included in it. You just won't get the OpenCL. Since most apps nowadays aren't even coded to support OpenCL, you shouldn't really even notice any difference in performance.

 

[windywoo]

Apple been doing that for years. I don't think it's a "evil genius" plot as much as it is Apple moving the bar and improving overall usability. Technology improvements don't just come in H/W. Think Quartz Extreme, Core Graphics, Motion, even the 64-bit underbelly of SL requires at minimum a C2D chip.

So when Apple do it, its improving usability, but when MS do it, its abusing a monopoly?

To be fair, you didn't bash MS in your post, but many here would, I was just presenting evidence that one is as bad as the other.

 

[G4R2]

Confusingly, the GS is referred to by both of those names (Hardware diagnostics shows a GS as a GT with missing pipelines and the card is referred to elsewhere as an 8800M GTS)

So it's not quite clear if it is supported or not. I would be thoroughly surprised if it isn't, however.

Thanks for the clarification. Hopefully this will be the case.

 

[QCassidy352]

Yarg, no support for the Radeon HD 2600 Pro?! This is in a previous-generation Intel iMac... sigh.

ugh, same here. Oh well, sooner upgrade I guess.

 

[CristobalHuet]

The list mentions the GeForce 8800 GT and the GeForce 8800 GTS but no sign of the GeForce 8800 GS in my 1 year old iMac!?

That can't be right!

I was about to post this.

I'll be outraged if the GS isn't supported.

 

[Benthic]

What is a GT130?

The list of supported GPUs include:

- NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, Geforce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130.
- ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870

What the heck is a GT130? I don't see that anywhere in the Apple Store. I have a GT120 and an XT2600 in my Mac Pro...

 

[Eidorian]

Anything post Radeon HD 2xxx and GeForce 8 Series should be supported for OpenCL. Why everything isn't is a mystery.

 

[maclancer]

I researched about it and I came to the conclusion that for ATI cards you need to have at least an ATI RADEON 4XXX as minimum.

 

[thedoor1]

choice for card on new iMac

So.. if I'm buying an iMac today, is it correct that the better cards don't support the H264 acceleration? You can't even get a 9400M option on the faster models.

 

[jhsfosho]

Snow leopard sounds like a really good thing for speed. I can't wait for it to come out to see the improvement.

 

[DTphonehome]

You try chilling out after blowing £1k on one of these things. £1k last year was a lot more money than it is now.

I bought it after being told it's future proof. Apparently not.

Did you use your computer for 8 months? How much is that worth to you? If you 're just dicking around online probably not a lot, but if you do real work then it's a perfectly reasonable amount to pay for a computer that STILL WORKS FINE.

And I really doubt anyone told you it's "future proof" because that's a baldfaced lie in the computer world. And if someone did tell you that and you believed it...

 

[commander.data]

Note that OpenCL (and to a lesser degree video decoding) can make the graphics chipset run hot - as hot as the CPU since in effect that's what it becomes.

Apple may have realized that some of their systems based on mobile parts don't have adequate cooling for the graphics chipset.

They may have chosen to disable certain models that would technically be able to use the acceleration to avoid damage to the machine.

In theory, the point of using the GPU for H.264 acceleration is that the GPU is more efficient at it than the CPU using less power and generating less heat. So if the cooling system in the MacBook Pro can handle the CPU doing H.264 decoding, it should be able to handle the GPU doing it. H.264 decoding is less strenuous than playing games and likely Core Image acceleration too, both of which Apple supports. Adding H.264 isn't likely to yield a huge jump in potential 8600M GT failures. And 8600M GT failure mechanism isn't heat itself, but heat cycling, so in theory keeping the GPU in use and warm at a stable temperature is better for it.

Yep, got the 1900XT also and I was just looking into the 8800GT. The Apple store mentions about the version for the early 2007 Mac Pro's on the web page but no link. I rang them up to enquire and was told it's discontinued now, so we don't have much hope do we?

Cheers.

I'll repeat my earlier response to first-gen Mac Pro options.

http://www.barefeats.com/nehal05.html

POWER FOR THE REST OF US
Apple is officially supporting only 2009 and 2008 Mac Pros with the Radeon HD 4870 kit. And it requires either the build of OS X 10.5.6 with the February 2009 ATI drivers -- or OS X 10.5.7 (not yet golden).

As with the Radeon HD 3870 and HD 2600, ATI included both a 32-bit and 64-bit EFI driver in the ROM, so it should work in all models of Mac Pro with the latest drivers. We installed in the Clovertown first generation 8-core Mac Pro (as you can see from the graphs above) and a close colleague installed it in a 2.66GHz Woodcrest 4-core first generation Mac Pro. As long as you have two power feeds for the card in your first generation Mac Pro and have the correct drivers properly installed, it should work fine.

Despite Apple not wanting to officially support the HD4870 with first-gen Mac Pros it actually does work since ATI always includes both 32-bit and 64-bit EFI ROMs. I believe 32-bit EFI is required for first-gen Mac Pros. Note this is not the same as OS level 64-bit support so shouldn't affect the first-gen Mac Pro's ability to run 64-bit Snow Leopard. nVidia skimps by only including 64-bit EFI probably to use a smaller ROM chip, meaning only later Mac Pros are supported.

 

[Consultant]

Oh splendid. The video card in my ~£2k Mac Pro from just over a year ago isn't supported.

I know things have to move forward, but it's still irritating.

They've released the nvidia geforce 285
http://www.evga.com/articles/00479/

 

[mrgreen4242]

If they there's not a growth in this list to include the 2600pro, or at the very least a simple, unofficial hack to enable support, I'm done buying Apple computers. I'll still use (and pay for) OSX, but I'm not going to keep paying premium prices for poor legacy support and non-upgradable hardware.

If they don't "make this right" my next Mac will be a Hackintosh desktop (my Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh is actually one of the more impressive OSX machines I've used, when viewed at a dollar for dollar level).