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Message from discussion OSX on old powerbook (8meg VRAM)??
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Mike Paquette  
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 More options Sep 1 2002, 8:30 pm
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
From: mpa...@earthlink.net (Mike Paquette)
Date: 1 Sep 2002 17:30:35 -0700
Local: Sun, Sep 1 2002 8:30 pm
Subject: Re: OSX on old powerbook (8meg VRAM)??
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OS X Man <nu...@business.net> wrote in message <news:nunya-D640EF.01404431082002@unknown.level3.net>...

> > "While other operating systems hope to introduce comparable technology
> > in late 2004..."

> Again, this is marketing speak.    Windows has used the video card
> processor's hardware for graphics display for years.    How do you
> suppose they get such stunning game play on Windows computers?    It's
> all in the video card and drivers.

Not quite the same thing.  The Quartz Extreme implementation uses the
hardware normally reserved for game use, the 3D engine used for OpenGL
and it's poor cousin DirectX on Wintel, to accelerate the user
interface for all apps, not just games.

> > OS X has had "video drivers" all along.

Quite true.  The drivers support a 2D acceleration abstraction layer
via IOKit, and many cards also provide 3D acceleration via OpenGL
driver plug-ins.

> Yes, OS X has had "video drivers", they just didn't work properly.

This turns out not to be the case.

> Now
> they are using the hardware acceleration that all modern video cards
> have.   It's tricky to write these drivers, however.   So the first few
> versions of OS X didn't use hardware acceleration.  

There's a bit more to it than that.  The Quartz Extreme mechanism will
switch from using the 2D acceleration path plus software, to using the
OpenGL engine when certain capabilities are present.  The engien
treats the desktop as a 3D scene, rendering windows and their content
as textured polygons.  Blending (e.g., window transparency effects) is
done via the GL hardware blend and multitexture mechanisms.

Peter put together a nice presentation on how this works for a
SIGGRAPH BOF on OpenGL.  You can get it here:

www.opengl.org/developers/code/features/
siggraph2002_bof/sg2002bof_apple.pdf

Microsoft is contemplating introduction of this mechanism in their
Longhorn release, currently scheduled for 2004 shipment.


 
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