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Quartz 3D Extreme
- Thread starter HiRez
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Actually, though I can't claim to be positive, I'm pretty sure it was just as unsupported before--remember that the dev tools was the only way you could turn it on before, and it's still the only way you can turn it on.zakatov said:
Again, maybe I'm the one who's wrong here, but I think people are misinterpreting the 10.4.3 release note; I took it to mean that the update would turn it back off if you'd enabled it, and as a reminder that it wasn't supported. I just assumed that Apple noticed a lot of non-developers were enabling it, but they don't think it's ready for prime time yet (or 10.4.3 makes changes that may introduce new bugs), so they took 10.4.3 as an opportunity to turn to back off if it'd been turned on and forgotten about, and to remind folk that it's still an unsupported feature.
Am I wrong about this? In either case, I don't see any difference between before and now--it can still be turned on again if you want, and it's not like it was on by default before.
Makosuke said:
No, you're basically right. It was an unofficially unsupported feature, and now it's officially not supported, for exactly the reasons you outlined. So the practical impact is negligible. Except for anyone who was expecting Apple to turn it on in 10.4.3, in which case, I guess their dreams have been brutally crushed, and we should all take a moment of silent reflection.
mkrishnan said:No, you're basically right. It was an unofficially unsupported feature, and now it's officially not supported, for exactly the reasons you outlined. So the practical impact is negligible. Except for anyone who was expecting Apple to turn it on in 10.4.3, in which case, I guess their dreams have been brutally crushed, and we should all take a moment of silent reflection.
I think they were wore concerned about eliminating bugs with 10.4.3 than to start a whole new breed of them by enabling Q2DE. Soon enough, it'll be available, but of course, it won't work well until 10.4.7 or so.
With the problems they seem to be having, I guess that they'll soon make the decision to just move this to a feature of 10.5. Nice to have a speed boost with a new major OS version, and that should give them plenty of time to really optimize it.bousozoku said:I think they were wore concerned about eliminating bugs with 10.4.3 than to start a whole new breed of them by enabling Q2DE. Soon enough, it'll be available, but of course, it won't work well until 10.4.7 or so.
Wow, back like... forever ago when there were Quartz Extreme benchmarks on Apple.com I assumed it was enabled on all Macs... Especially since the Apple.com Mac OS X page says "When you move, resize and scroll windows in real time on Mac OS X, you're witnessing the power of Quartz Extreme."
Chaszmyr said:
I could be wrong, but I think that Quartz 2D Extreme is a new technology, and separate from Quartz Extreme.
yes Quartz Extreme and Quartz 2D Extreme are different. Q2DE is experimentally implemented, and QE has been on OS X since Panther, or was it Jaguar, shoot I forget. anyway, there is an explanation of the two (and Quartz itself) on arstechnica right here http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/14
kwajo.com said:
Yeah...it's not on Apple's site because it's not a supported feature of the OS!
There are tons of threads about it here, too, from Tiger's dawning days.... Don't worry, if the 2D Quartz Extreme is worth it, Apple will unveil it sooner or later.
Actually, Quartz 2D Extreme exists in all versions of Tiger. But it's not enabled by default, because it has problems. Some people found a way of activating it though... Namely, a guy at xlr8yourmac.com, and he said that he noticed an extremely big difference in the speed of the finder interface.
Anyway, in the 10.4.3 update info, Apple says that 10.4.3 disables quartz 2d extreme, since it causes many problems and kernel panics.
I hope we see that thing before 10.5 is released. The UI's speed is rumored to be dramatically faster with Quartz 2D Extreme on.
Anyway, in the 10.4.3 update info, Apple says that 10.4.3 disables quartz 2d extreme, since it causes many problems and kernel panics.
I hope we see that thing before 10.5 is released. The UI's speed is rumored to be dramatically faster with Quartz 2D Extreme on.
Indeed, the naming is stupid, but Quartz Extreme and Quartz 2D Extreme are entirely different beasts.
And there's really nothing mysterious about how one or the other is enabled or disabled. All you've got to do is this:
1. Install the Developer Tools that came with your Tiger package.
2. Open the Developer folder at the top level of your hard drive, then Applications, then Performance Tools. In there will be an app called "Quartz Debug". Launch it.
3. Aside from some options to help make your apps draw faster to the screen, have a look at the app's icon in the Dock. If you haven't messed with your settings, you will notice that it says "QE" in green. That means that Quartz Extreme is available and running, like its supposed to be. And that's it, regardless of which version of Tiger you're running, at least as of 10.4.3.
4. Now have a look at the Tools menu--aside from an option to disable Quartz Extreme (obviously for debugging purposes, but you can try turning it off and see how things slow down), you will notice an "Enable Quartz 2D Extreme" option there. It is NOT on by default in any verison of 10.4 so far, but if you enable it you'll see a little "Q2DE" appear on the app's icon, and things may run a little faster. They might also be less stable, or you could see graphical glitches--this is why Apple has not enabled it yet.
10.4.3 has not changed this process at all--it was never on by default, and you can enable it just like before. All 10.4.3 did was turn it off if you'd already used that app to enable it for some reason, probably so Apple doesn't have to deal with complaints because somebody's kid turned Q2DE on without them noticing, and they're confusing problems caused by an experimental feature with new problems in 10.4.3. Or who knows, maybe it crashed the installer or something.
Try it if you want to know what the big deal is--I didn't see much speedup personally, but perhaps on slower computers or certain operations it helps.
And there's really nothing mysterious about how one or the other is enabled or disabled. All you've got to do is this:
1. Install the Developer Tools that came with your Tiger package.
2. Open the Developer folder at the top level of your hard drive, then Applications, then Performance Tools. In there will be an app called "Quartz Debug". Launch it.
3. Aside from some options to help make your apps draw faster to the screen, have a look at the app's icon in the Dock. If you haven't messed with your settings, you will notice that it says "QE" in green. That means that Quartz Extreme is available and running, like its supposed to be. And that's it, regardless of which version of Tiger you're running, at least as of 10.4.3.
4. Now have a look at the Tools menu--aside from an option to disable Quartz Extreme (obviously for debugging purposes, but you can try turning it off and see how things slow down), you will notice an "Enable Quartz 2D Extreme" option there. It is NOT on by default in any verison of 10.4 so far, but if you enable it you'll see a little "Q2DE" appear on the app's icon, and things may run a little faster. They might also be less stable, or you could see graphical glitches--this is why Apple has not enabled it yet.
10.4.3 has not changed this process at all--it was never on by default, and you can enable it just like before. All 10.4.3 did was turn it off if you'd already used that app to enable it for some reason, probably so Apple doesn't have to deal with complaints because somebody's kid turned Q2DE on without them noticing, and they're confusing problems caused by an experimental feature with new problems in 10.4.3. Or who knows, maybe it crashed the installer or something.
Try it if you want to know what the big deal is--I didn't see much speedup personally, but perhaps on slower computers or certain operations it helps.
Makosuke said:
Not a good idea in 10.4.3. There are numerous reports of people turning this on and suffering a kernel panic. In a couple of cases the panic has currupted their filesystem, requiring a reinstall.
From my post in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/159836/
"Quartz 2D Extreme has never been a supported feature of Tiger. It appears that Apple is refactoring their graphics (and perhaps GPU) code behind the scenes (the system interfaces used by developers are unchanged) and a side-effect of this is that the experimental Quartz 2D Extreme stuff in Tiger is currently causing the Mac kernel to panic (typically within a few minutes of Quartz 2D Extreme being turned on). Expect 10.4.4 or Leopard to offer significant graphics performance improvements over Tiger 10.4.3.
http://www.macosrumors.com/20051102A.php has some speculation on this."
--
Michael
Take anything (and everything) the macosrumors guy(s) says with a LARGE pinch of salt.
The only times I've ever seen them get any "rumor" correct is when one of their "sources" copies stories posted on other sites like AppleInsider or ThinkSecret.
The only times I've ever seen them get any "rumor" correct is when one of their "sources" copies stories posted on other sites like AppleInsider or ThinkSecret.
xraydoc said:
what the heck is up with this post? MacRumors has their own sources (that successfully predicted the 12'' and 17'' PowerBooks when no one else did), and even if they didn't, why are you bothering to post? There's no law that says you can't reference another site...