Mac Pros: Unified Drivers?
- Thread starter Crimguy
- Start date
symphonix
Scratch & Sniff Committee
There is some speculation that this is one of the goals that Apple is aiming to achieve at the moment. The transition to EFI instead of BIOS means that video card manufacturers will eventually be able to make one type of video card to support all EFI equipped computers, regardless of the operating system or processor it runs.
Now, this plan was well on track to start taking effect around 2008, but now Microsoft have dropped plans to support EFI on the launch of Windows Vista, and will be adding it with a later update (no real surprise there: Microsoft have dropped many of their planned features as development of Vista slips further and further behind schedule).
So, yes, EFI will allow video card manufacturers to make one card for both Mac and PC platforms, but EFI cards won't be widely available until PC manufacturers start making motherboards that support EFI. And they won't bother doing that until Windows supports it, straight out of the box. Which, due to Microsoft's delays, won't happen for a few years. Laptops will probably pick up EFI first, with desktops following a few months later.
So yes, some day in a couple of years you'll be able to buy the latest graphics cards for the PC and they'll plug straight into your Mac. But until then, EFI versions of graphics cards will cost more than their non-EFI counterparts.
It always amazes me that Apple manage to adopt new technologies a couple of years before they become popular in the PC world, and Apple always seem to make these transitions very easily compared to Microsoft. Apple moved completely to the USB standard two years before PC users had even heard of USB, and a full year before Windows even had USB support.
Now, this plan was well on track to start taking effect around 2008, but now Microsoft have dropped plans to support EFI on the launch of Windows Vista, and will be adding it with a later update (no real surprise there: Microsoft have dropped many of their planned features as development of Vista slips further and further behind schedule).
So, yes, EFI will allow video card manufacturers to make one card for both Mac and PC platforms, but EFI cards won't be widely available until PC manufacturers start making motherboards that support EFI. And they won't bother doing that until Windows supports it, straight out of the box. Which, due to Microsoft's delays, won't happen for a few years. Laptops will probably pick up EFI first, with desktops following a few months later.
So yes, some day in a couple of years you'll be able to buy the latest graphics cards for the PC and they'll plug straight into your Mac. But until then, EFI versions of graphics cards will cost more than their non-EFI counterparts.
It always amazes me that Apple manage to adopt new technologies a couple of years before they become popular in the PC world, and Apple always seem to make these transitions very easily compared to Microsoft. Apple moved completely to the USB standard two years before PC users had even heard of USB, and a full year before Windows even had USB support.