Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Will "Snow Leopard" have advanced effects?

B

BioCore

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 9, 2007
116
0
I was wondering if this would happen. Seeing as Apple has announced that they would be making an Intel-dedicated OS, would support for more advanced effects as in desktop "eyecandy" be possible.

I know it currently is possible still (although I have found now apps that can do it), but with better processor handling and GPU handling this should become easier I believe. So I was wondering if we could see something like Compiz Fusion (Linux) happening for Mac OS X. What are your thoughts?

Oh and please don't comment that this would be a stupid idea. If you consider it stupid I am sure they would have an option for your guys to disable the feature/s.
 
You talk as if the PPC macs would not be able to handle all these new "eye candy" features, when it reality it would do much much better since over half of Apple's product line now have worse graphics than they did 3 years ago, and for that thank Apple and Intel GMA.
 
Neil321 said:
I know that's why i put *looks like*,I'm not assuming anything but i do think personally it's about time Apple dropped PPC and concentrated on an intel OS
Click to expand...

Well that's fair enough, but I was responding to the OP who stated "Seeing as Apple has announced that they would be making an Intel-dedicated OS". I would still like a link to that announcement.
 
nick9191 said:
You talk as if the PPC macs would not be able to handle all these new "eye candy" features, when it reality it would do much much better since over half of Apple's product line now have worse graphics than they did 3 years ago, and for that thank Apple and Intel GMA.
Click to expand...

That's simply not true. GMA950 may be integrated, but it's still better than what the Mini had. x3100 is far superior to what the iBooks had.
 
Subiklim said:
That's simply not true. GMA950 may be integrated, but it's still better than what the Mini had. x3100 is far superior to what the iBooks had.
Click to expand...
Your probably right as I've lost touch with graphics over the last few years however I can say that the old Core Duo Macbooks with the GMA 950 had nothing on the Powerbooks graphics.
 
Hi sorry I was late to answer to robbie's question but I had to step out. Here is a link to a news article on MacNN, they got themselves a copy of the requirements for 10.6 Snow Leopard at the WWDC. This is pretty old but gives you the confirmation:

Snow Leopard - Intel Only

I personally think that an Intel only OS for macs would be better support as Apple would focus most of their developers team on the Intel lines.
 
nick9191 said:
Your probably right as I've lost touch with graphics over the last few years however I can say that the old Core Duo Macbooks with the GMA 950 had nothing on the Powerbooks graphics.
Click to expand...

to my understanding, the macbook is the less powerful consumer laptop, and the powerbook was the high-end "professional" machine.
 
BioCore said:
Hi sorry I was late to answer to robbie's question but I had to step out. Here is a link to a news article on MacNN, they got themselves a copy of the requirements for 10.6 Snow Leopard at the WWDC. This is pretty old but gives you the confirmation:

Snow Leopard - Intel Only

I personally think that an Intel only OS for macs would be better support as Apple would focus most of their developers team on the Intel lines.
Click to expand...

That is the WWDC preview build. That does not mean that Apple have announced that Snow Leopard is Intel only, or that Snow Leopard will be Intel only. Some of the developer preview seeds of 10.5.5 could not be installed on any Intel Mac with integrated graphics (so no MacBooks or Mac Minis). This does not mean that this restriction will be in place when 10.5.5 is actually released. Until Apple actually announce the requirements for the OS it is simply not true to state that "Apple has announced that they would be making an Intel-dedicated OS" or even wise to assume that this is the case.
 
My guess is Apple is making two versions. One for PPC and one for Intel. The intel version will not have Rosetta since it will be dedicated to Intel chips and Intel only apps.

However this next release will probably be the last for the PPC.

[edit]

As far as advanced effects. Apple did say they were making Snow Leopard more robust and Cocoa friendly so it's anybody's guess.

[/edit]
 
robbieduncan said:
That is the WWDC preview build. That does not mean that Apple have announced that Snow Leopard is Intel only, or that Snow Leopard will be Intel only. Some of the developer preview seeds of 10.5.5 could not be installed on any Intel Mac with integrated graphics (so no MacBooks or Mac Minis). This does not mean that this restriction will be in place when 10.5.5 is actually released. Until Apple actually announce the requirements for the OS it is simply not true to state that "Apple has announced that they would be making an Intel-dedicated OS" or even wise to assume that this is the case.
Click to expand...

Why would Apple make several developer preview builds omitting the PowerPC chip if they were intending to keep it? Its a beta! You can't seriously believe that they're only going to beta test the Intel side of the OS and not do any testing on the PowerPC side.

Also, Apple has made many strong "hints" that PowerPC support is going to be axed. It should also be known that since the whole goal of snow leopard is to make use of those extra cores they've been shipping and tune things up a bit. It would be useless to run it on a PowerPC since only dated PowerMacs had more than one core, and only on the most expensive models.
 
Ok I think we all understand that it was not an official announcement. Maybe some of us here actually still use PowerPC macs which is why we do nto want to believe the rumours which have some strong backups. But this is not the reason I started the thread - if I offended anyone by saying Apple announced Intel-only Snow leopard I AM SORRY! But forget it and lets discuss some future eye-candy in Snow Leopard please!!!
 
BioCore said:
But this is not the reason I started the thread - if I offended anyone by saying Apple announced Intel-only Snow leopard I AM SORRY! But forget it and lets discuss some future eye-candy in Snow Leopard please!!!
Click to expand...

OK, moving on. I don't think there will be any significant eye-candy additions in Snow Leopard. Apple have explicitly stated this release will not have any user-visible changes (although this is not true: Exchange support being built in requires a small number of user-visible changes), rather is targeted at improving the code base making it faster, smaller and more secure...
 
Yes this is true. But how about another group developing some kind of design customization. for example Shapeshifter (which I understand is not too popular) helps change the theme of Mac OS X.

In Linux, example they have Compiz Fusion which is a separate program for eye-candy customizations. Now that we all know Apple will be making the under-the-hood Mac even better by improving better CPU and GPU handling and implementing even more newer technology I am just wondering could it be possible that some group would take up the challenge? Although I would hope it would not be the same group that makes Shapeshifter :).
 
BioCore said:
I am just wondering could it be possible that some group would take up the challenge?
Click to expand...

Not without the same issues that ShapeShifter has: Apple do not endorse this or provide APIs to support it so the whole thing has to rely on private APIs that are not documented, can change without notice and can be removed without notice. So basically it ends up being somewhat a big hack.
 
robbieduncan said:
Not without the same issues that ShapeShifter has: Apple do not endorse this or provide APIs to support it so the whole thing has to rely on private APIs that are not documented, can change without notice and can be removed without notice. So basically it ends up being somewhat a big hack.
Click to expand...

Now I understand more fully as to why shapeshifter has problems. But then I have another question, do you think Apple will ever change its views on end user customization? I mean I am not sure how many people actually want that right now, but I think if you gave them the option, people would love it. Also from what I understand of programming (which is quite small) openCL and Core Animation could be very helpful I think, correct me if I am wrong.
 
I hope there is very little eye candy in snow leopard or if there is, I hope Apple doesn't step in a Vista-like bear trap and require some powerful graphics engine simply to get a window open or resized. M$ has taken a wrong turn down a dead end road to end user frustration and wasted money for hardware to run Vista. For a while there, everybody loved M$ because their hardware requirements made hardware costs for things like HDD and RAM come down. Now, M$ is trying the same trick with nonessential high end graphics technology and people are rebelling.

Apple is growing because a lot of people are saying "if I gotta replace it anyway (because it doesn't meet Vista specs), I might as well try Mac." I really want to see a snow leopard option for PPC hardware though I can understand the up side of letting it go. Four of our five macs are Intel already. But the bottom will fall out of the PPC mac hardware resale value if this rumor turns out to be true. This would leave a lot of people feeling burned. They can't run snow leopard and they can't sell off their PPC hardware for the usually high returns used Apple gear brings.

When I went to pick out a Mac, the genius spent a few wasted minutes showing me snazzy effects before I let him know that wasn't why I was switching. If I wanted to throw 300 mips at a .3 mips problem, I might consider running Vista.

First and foremost a gui must be fast. Second, it must be simple. Third, it has to run with acceptable lag on modest hardware (this is related to point number one, think minis and macbooks). If there are high end capabilities in Mac hardware, they should be there to support high end applications, not merely the OS. I don't see a lot of users posting in Apple forums saying they are in love with the "eye candy". Sure there are a few, but most people like that OS X is fast and well designed. A foray into the dubious territory of eye candy for its own sake is not what I would like to see.
 
r0k said:
First and foremost a gui must be fast. Second, it must be simple. Third, it has to run with acceptable lag on modest hardware (this is related to point number one, think minis and macbooks). If there are high end capabilities in Mac hardware, they should be there to support high end applications, not merely the OS. I don't see a lot of users posting in Apple forums saying they are in love with the "eye candy". Sure there are a few, but most people like that OS X is fast and well designed. A foray into the dubious territory of eye candy for its own sake is not what I would like to see.
Click to expand...

I see your point. This is probably true, and it probably makes developing for the Mac much easier since Apple supplies all the user side part of a program similar to their iPhone developer SDK. I actually love my Mac greatly because it gives me an already nice look, with great speed and stability and very low price (that is the OS upgrade).
 
Dustman said:
Why would Apple make several developer preview builds omitting the PowerPC chip if they were intending to keep it? Its a beta! You can't seriously believe that they're only going to beta test the Intel side of the OS and not do any testing on the PowerPC side.
Click to expand...

PowerPC is in the WWDC build. It just isn't maintained in a runnable state yet. It boots far enough to crash with a kernel panic. Once the code has stabilized, they will bring it up on PPC and do the beta.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back