Just a bit of Mac Evangelism (about GHz PowerMacs -- they are out!)

simX

simX

Unofficial Mac Genius
So I was reading at MacCentral this morning about the new PowerMac G4s and the status of the iMacs. First about the new PowerMacs.

800 MHz, 933 MHz, Dual 1 GHz. Awesome already. The 800 still has a CD-RW (wondering why not combo), but the 933 and dual both have a SuperDrive. Even better, the 800 has, STANDARD, a ATI Radeon 7500. The 933 and Dual? GEFORCE 4 MX. Who cares if it's not the full-blown retail card... this card could still blow the GeForce 3 out of the water, I bet. First on Mac, too. :) Apple claims the dual machine can get 115 fps out of Quake III with 32 bit graphics at a resolution of 1024x768. That sounds pretty damned awesome.

Beyond that, not much of an update, even though it's already pretty good. Hard drives are all now 7200 RPM drives, at sizes of 40, 60, and 80 gigs. Awesome. And all at the same price points -- $1599 to $2999.

About those new iMacs? 150,000 pre-orders already. 150 THOUSAND. That's a whole bunch of pre-orders -- Apple claims it's more than the amount of sales of the original iMac in 1998 alone (that would be about 4 months). Wow. Nice going Apple, I think this is another home run. :)

Now in some unrelated news, over here at Stanford, a new e-mail virus with the subject "New Photos From My Party!" is going around. And guess what? It doesn't affect Macs. Insert tiny snicker here. Or gargantuan laughter. Either will work. :D The only problem is that I'm using Outlook Express, so I'm probably at more of a risk, BUT THAT'S ONLY BECAUSE FREAKIN' APPLE HASN'T ADDED SSL SUPPORT TO MAIL.APP. When that happens, I'll be just about invulnerable. That's the other reason I'm anxious to get rid of OE. Here's to hoping 10.1.3 will have this support as thinksecret.com reported. If not, there will be some big explosions over at that rumor site's headquarters.
 
Wrong, the 2x1 GHz PowerMacs have 2x80 GB :D
And 1.5 GB of RAM... which means they'll have to make new motherboards for the next revision to reach 2 GB ;)
 
you say - Apple claims the dual machine can get 115 fps out of Quake III with 32 bit graphics at a resolution of 1024x768. That sounds pretty damned awesome.
=-====================
I laugh cus my pc gets more using a GF3 card and Athlon 1.33ghz or 1.47 Athlon XP 1700+ and running 1280-1024 with 512mb ram.
I've seen benchmakrs saying Q3 get liek on a pc, over 150 fps and not dual or anything more then say 1.4ghz. And a dual on mac running 1ghz would outperform per say the 1.4ghz Athlon single cpu etc.

Anyhow 115fps isn't that great on that machine i think compared to my pc or others.
i have a dual g4/450 by the way so you won't think i'm a pc only freak.
 
I wonder if this means that Apple's PowerMac line will stand still for a little while? Conventional wisdom tells us that because apple just updated a line that it will not change it again in the next few months.

I hope this isn't true this time. Dell, (I know, bad word around here) updates their lines every week and they have some of the lowest manufacturing costs around. From that I assume that changing chips, hard drives, video cards, etc. in a computer isn't *that* expensive to do.

Anyway, it's good to see that Apple has sped up their line. I hope it doesn't mean they are resting because even with dual 1ghz machines, they have some catching up to do.

Vanguard
 
Originally posted by RyanLang
Sim, even though you dissed me the other day, i have 10.1.3 beta if you want it :) see i am nice
Click to expand...

Hehe, I know you're nice. I sometimes get a little too dramatic about things like pirating. I have to admit that I have done it in my past, but I don't do it any more (the only thing I have that's "pirated" on my machine are really, really old games like Crystal Quest and Pac in Time -- surely that's OK :D ). But I'll pass on the 10.1.3 beta -- I'll prefer to install it when it's tested and works. :)

Thanks, though.
 
VOTE FOR 'THE MAC' AS YOUR GUILTY PLEASURE AT SLASHDOT.COM . WE CAN BEAT 80'S POP MUSIC!!!!

Sorry about the caps but I wanted to catch attention. I don't know how much longer the poll will be up but it would be cool if we skewed their results.
 
Hello!

Ok, I have been waiting and waiting for the PowerMac G4's with gigagertz processors. Now, when they come out I do not even realize it till a while later. I am browsing the forums and see people talking about the gigahertz PowerMac, I check Apple's web and sure enough they have released it.

I feel like I am living in a dark hole! :D

Have a great day!

Albert
 
Originally posted by buggs1a
I laugh cus my pc gets more using a GF3 card and Athlon 1.33ghz or 1.47 Athlon XP 1700+ and running 1280-1024 with 512mb ram.
I've seen benchmakrs saying Q3 get liek on a pc, over 150 fps and not dual or anything more then say 1.4ghz. And a dual on mac running 1ghz would outperform per say the 1.4ghz Athlon single cpu etc.

Anyhow 115fps isn't that great on that machine i think compared to my pc or others.
i have a dual g4/450 by the way so you won't think i'm a pc only freak.
Click to expand...

I'd love for some doctors to run some tests on your eyes. If you honestly think that you can perceive a difference in 115 and 150 fps, you've been blessed with capabilities beyond most humans.

...and the video cards in those PCs were probably the most expensive component, too. Apple puts a fairly good amount of attention to ALL aspects of their computers, which results in overall quality.

Now I know someone here is going to post a horror story about their Mac that crashed within a week or was DOA, but a small amount of faulty equipment is expected in ANY electronic device. Ask any PC user if something major has gone wrong with their PC, and I'll bet the majority of them affirm if their computer is a year or more old. I think the only exception to this is my grandfather, who STILL uses the original IBM PC (128k RAM, dual 360k floppies, no HD) for typesetting and what-not. The only thing wrong with that computer is that DOS 3.3 is still running it!

The point is that Macs really are multi-function machines -- and they do ALL the funtions quite well -- they were built that way (ie, software-hardware integration). So do PCs, but the people who start bragging about FPS in Quake III and the GeForce12 they have in their computer are just like those weasley little hot-rodders on the roads of late -- they buy a $10,000 Honda Civic, then put $50,000 worth of upgrades like a big exhaust, spoilers, ground effects, stereos and neon lights into their car. Yeah, it sounds and looks fast, but it's still running on 4 cylinders... for the amount they spent, they could have bought a Porche that would blow that thing away without any modifications at all (see the PC-Mac correlation there?! Hehe...).
 
I guess this is a bad way to start my first post here but oh well :)

About the Quake III performance... I'm sorry but PC hardware is just faster than Mac hardware. Let's just realize this and move on with our lives. We still have OS X, a great GUI, and better designs...oh and we don't have to run win xp! :) But we are stuck with Motorola chips.

I looked around on some PC review sites and found this:
Althon XP 2000+ and an Intel 2.2GHZ
GeForce3 Ti 500
256 MB ram
30gig ATA100 drive
WinXP

the benchmarks showed 197 fps (althon) and 205 fps (intel) in Quake III with 1024/768 32bit Max graphics settings!

Motorola has to double the speed of the current chips, and Apple needs a new motherboard design. The PC chips aren't the best either for raw power but when the 64-bit stuff starts coming down the road the gap between Motorola/Apple and Intel/Althon is just going to get larger...

my .02 cents....
 
Well, PCs and Macs have different architecture much like rotary and regular engines -- the both accomplish the same things, but the internal workings are different. Regular engines can move you as fast as a rotary engine, but the rotary engine attains a higher RPM... much like MHz.

Ok, so the PC people win the Quake III FPS argument. If you wanna play games, go buy a PC.

On another note, help me here...

Here goes my stupidity for the day -- FPS = Frames Per Second. The refresh rate of a monitor, measured in Hz, if I'm not mistaken, is how many times the screen refreshes itself per second, right? Well, if I'm playing Quake III on a PC and am pulling 200 FPS, but the refresh rate of my monitor is, say, 120Hz, then aren't the extra 80 FPS (200 - 120 = 80) just overkill? I mean, let's say for a moment that most people run their monitors at 1024x768 @ 85Hz. Well, theoretically, if what I've stated is true and I'm not talking out of my ass, then I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 85 FPS and 200 FPS in that setup, correct?
 
ElDiabloConCaca,

hehe I think your right! It's all worthless anyways since you pointed out, correctly, that we humans would have a damn hard time seeing the difference between 119 fps and 150 fps. So a PC getting 200+ doesn't really matter.

I just mentioned it because I was just running around telling people about the new dual 1ghz and my PC friends hmmm *nicely* told me about stats like I listed. Just trying to save some people the mistake I made :)
 
Actually, you can perceive a difference at up to 60-80 fps, depending on the person, but ElDiablo is totally correct. It's pointless to say, "I get 59383948 fps in Quake III at 5x3 resolution at .05 bit color!" because you just can't tell the difference.

By the way, I might point out that refresh rates only exist on CRTs, so the argument you were making wouldn't apply to LCD displays. However, the argument that you can't perceive much of a difference beyond 80 fps is still totally accurate. So as long as we can get at least that on our high-end machine, I'm happy.
 
Originally posted by ksv
Hehe, our eyes don't even take more than 24 fps :p
Click to expand...

Not to start a flame war, but this is a common misperception.

Standard film used in projectors is shot at 24 frames per second.

Television is shot at 30 fps.

Your television refreshes at 60 hz, or 60 fps. This leads us into a discussion of interlaced and progressive scan setups, but that is another thread.

The idea that your eye can only perceive 24fps is a myth.

The reason that film looks fluid at 24 fps is because the motion in each frame is blurred. if you look at any one frame where there is motion, the image is blurred. Taken rapid fire, the mind blends these blurred images into continuous motion.

Television, when compared to projected film is much smoother, also cleaner and sharper. This is a combination of the increased frame rate, but also due to the much brighter lights that are needed when filming at 30fps. (each frame is exposed for less time, so more light is needed. This is why film is generally darker than TV). Because of the increased frame rate, each frame is less blurred, which makes the motion appear smoother.

When a computer renders an action frame in quake3, there is NO BLURRING. The lack of any blurring makes it harder for the brain to associate motion with the seperate images. There fore, higher frame rates are needed for the brain to turn the images into motion.

So, the higher the frame rate, the smoother the motion will appear . If images are blurred, a lower frame rate will achieve the same effect of motion as a higher fps with less blurred sequence of images.

Back to the original idea, that your refresh rate exceeds the frame rate, this is true unless you speak of progressive scan displays.

I believe the real issue is when your are in an arena with lots of open space, 16 other players and bots running and jumping and shooting. If you consistently get more than 80fps in these compex and CPU intensive situations, you will never drop to a frame rate lower than your screen refreshes(avg. is 80hz at 1024x768 and higher). But at soon at the refresh rate is higher than the frame rate, you will notice jerks, and it will appear that the game is "lagging".

FaRuvius
 
OK, refresh is an analog transmission issue and IS part of CRT's but is also part of many flat panels as well which use analog transmission for backward compatibility. DVI or ADC flat panels should be virtually refresh free, although I can't say with absolute certainty.

As for perceiving 24FPS ... the human eye takes in information that can be fairly well faked with that kind of light show, but the mind takes into account motion blur, focal depth, depth of field, and paralax in real time making the human eye fairly sensitive to the tween frames. How can you tell when something is done in claymation? The added FPS allow for motion blur which is meaningful information to the mind despite that the frames are no longer discrete data to the eye.

but faking sound is even harder than faking visuals. :)

And ... I agree with Faruvius since he posted after I read the thread but before I posted.

And the GF4 is probably only marginally better than the top of the line GF3, and the 7500 is probably about as good, and Quake was made to run on a PC, and will always burn macs in comparison. It's not tweaked for Macs. And these macs do suffer from SDRAM bandwidth, hell the 604 had problems getting memory as fast as it could crunch numbers, so the framerate is good, and value per dollar has improved, but these machines were not expo-worthy upgrades, and they're not earth shattering now.
I'm happy, but I don't think these machines are Quake Killers.
 
Seems to me OmniGroup did a very good job of making the Cocoa port of Quake 3 as good as it gets. Puzzles me why Aspyr isn't using the Cocoa version of Quake for RtCW, and instead using a Carbon version...
 
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