Quartz Extreme - is Apple on Crack?

G

Gedankenspiel

Registered
I have been reading about the Quartz Extreme controversy on Mac related sites but haven't really seem much talk about it here so I am posting this thread. My question is if Apple is simply on crack and is working in a wrong direction.

For those who haven't heard: Quartz Extreme will yet again up the ante of desktop wizardry by introducing new gee-wiz effects. Quartz Extreme in version 10.2 will need the support of GPU in form of a graphics cards which is currently not installed in any system (except the latest PB and high end G4's).

The obvious upside:
- a cooler user desktop with effects never seen before
- enhanced performance and better user experience browsing the desktop

The obvious downside:
- Needs 32MB of VRAM
- Runs best with the use of a new generation video card for graphics processing not contained in 99% of all systems currently
- better desktop visual effects have a reverse effect on productivity

Is Apple on Crack? I have been using MAC OSX since pretty much it came out. I have to say that I am STILL not used to it over a year later. My productivity using OSX has certainly dropped. Culprits are the clumsy file management, the inability to sort by creation date etc. from the file save / load box and many other details. The desktop effects in OSX are nice but before Apple goes down the road of releasing more useless crap, how about working on what is there, like eliminating the hated beach ball which I stare at for at least 10 minutes per day?

I am running the Developer release 10.2 and I don't see any usability issues addressed at all. Am I the only one here who thinks that Apple is becoming a toy-like operating system far removed form the objectives of being a highly productive work environment?
 
Well.. about quartz extreme.. why don't we first wait for the official release and then complain?? i have no complain at all even on my second computer..(ibook 600) where it isrunning as a charm.. very awesomely...



"Is Apple on Crack? I have been using MAC OSX since pretty much it came out. I have to say that I am STILL not used to it over a year later. My productivity using OSX has certainly dropped. Culprits are the clumsy file management, the inability to sort by creation date etc. from the file save / load box and many other details. The desktop effects in OSX are nice but before Apple goes down the road of releasing more useless crap, how about working on what is there, like eliminating the hated beach ball which I stare at for at least 10 minutes per day? "

1st... have you tryed Windows XP?? (toylike OS)
2nd You don't like ..that makes it crap??
3rd Why are you using a beta...to complain??
4th I don't see no beach ball.. i see an HD plate sinning
5th Your productivity went bad... claim apple for it :))) yep that is what everyone does... he he..
 
<b>1st... have you tryed Windows XP?? (toylike OS) </b>
I never compared the two because I have been an Apple user for 12 years. I am just concerned that Apple is making a bad decision here.

<b>2nd You don't like ..that makes it crap?? </b>
www.macintouch.com has pages and pages of post form people just as disturbed about this topic.

<b>3rd Why are you using a beta...to complain?? </b>
I am not basing my opinion on the beta. My concern comes from official releases from Apple about the requried 32MB VRAM. The beta and the planned release for Septembe rof Jaguar is a bit disappointing in itself if they don't fix the productivity issues that - btw - I am not the only one have noted.

<b>4th I don't see no beach ball.. i see an HD plate sinning </b>
Hey, seeing a beach ball for 10 minutes on my screen or seeing a sprinning HD plate with pretty rainbow colors is the same damn thing to me. It bot results in staring at a frozen screen.

<b>5th Your productivity went bad... claim apple for it )) yep that is what everyone does... he he..</b>
And are you trying to tell me that you are more efficient navigating OS X than you were in 9? I understand the grave fundamental changes in OSX but come on: you expect people to understand that now you have a user desktop, a general desktop, and that when you try to save files from within an application you have to navigate through the whole system (Macintosh HD/Users/myname/desktop/myfolder/)? PUHLEASE!!!! I might as well use the terminal window.
And how often have you accidentally clicked on an application on the app bar that you did not want to open. 15 seconds late (Illustrator) you finally get to quick the app again.

I am not griping about Apple in general. I am just worried that OSX in general has much to be left desired. It all looks great and sounds good - but in reality I miss OS 9 and am worried that the truly important issues won't be addressed until waaay later.
 
32 MB are recommended, but 16 MB are sufficient. *AND* you get decent performance without QE on Jaguar. It's just that you even get MORE when you have a newer machine. This is exactly what Apple *should* do in my opinion. Make the OS fast on all systems, and even faster on better machines. Yes, they should USE the hardware they sell. And all recent machines have a good enough graphics card for QE. If you now say that whatever computer you have is only so and so old, well, pity. But Jaguar won't appear until late summer, so even a machine you buy today will be a quarter year old by then. Nothing to bash Apple about. Finally they're making progress, I say. (And I'm 'left behind' with my TiBook 500.)
 
Originally posted by Gedankenspiel
For those who haven't heard: Quartz Extreme will yet again up the ante of desktop wizardry by introducing new gee-wiz effects. Quartz Extreme in version 10.2 will need the support of GPU in form of a graphics cards which is currently not installed in any system (except the latest PB and high end G4's).
Click to expand...

Quartz Extreme is supported on EVERY consumer machine Apple sells right now. The iMac supports it (NVidia card). The iBook supports it (Radeon Mobility). The PowerMac G4, in ALL configurations, supports it (NVidia/Radeon). The TiBook supports it (Radeon Mobility).

The one one that DOESN'T support it is the low-low end egg-shaped iMac that is only available to educational customers, and that's being phased out by the eMac, which, incidentally, supports it (NVidia card).

So which system were you talking about that DOESN'T support Quartz Extreme?
 
Gedankenspiel, maybe you don't understand the concept of Quartz Extreme.

What it does is it allows the GUI to be displayed and calculated by the graphics card, rather than letting the CPU do all the work. This way, you'll have a faster GUI, plus you'll have more CPU available to do background tasks and other things.

Apple is not adding any more "whiz-bang" effects... it's just speeding them up.

Furthermore, Quartz Extreme does not up the requirements of OS X. It has it's own set of requirements. If you do not have a supported graphics card for Quartz Extreme, you can still use Jaguar using the regular Quartz, which calculates the GUI stuff using the CPU still.

And like fryke said, all computers that Apple currently sells has a compatible video card for Quartz Extreme. This includes the iBook, because 32 MB of VRAM is not REQUIRED, just recommended. The only requirement is the graphics card, and any ATI Radeon graphics card is supported.

It's a GOOD thing that Apple is doing this.

Oh, and if you had the Jaguar beta, you'd notice there are numerous improvements in the Finder and other things. Like the new Get Info window and Inspector window (yes, both are in Jaguar). That's very handy, and I'd say that Apple really is improving the operating system, not just making it "a toy".
 
Needs 32MB of VRAM
Click to expand...

Not true. 32MB recommended for optimum performance. Works with less. The type of graphics card is important.

Runs best with the use of a new generation video card for graphics processing not contained in 99% of all systems currently
Click to expand...

Yes (even if 99% is true), but runs OK with with current technology out there. OSX runs great on the new rack mounted server (I assume), but runs fine on my iBook. It wouldn't make sense to run the other way around. I don't understand your argument. If they didn't create their software to take advantage of future hardware advancements then their OS would not have much shelf life. MS-DOS was a great example of that.

better desktop visual effects have a reverse effect on productivity
Click to expand...

Not necessarily true. Yes, enhanced visual effects take up clock cycles that were available for other processes, but they may help you work better, and so productivity may increase. e.g. The bouncing icon in the Dock when an appl needs your attention. The bouncing icon takes up some processor power so your other apps may run 0.1% slower, BUT that is more than made up for by the timely alert to the user. Needless effects will take up processing time, but if that processing time is then shoved onto a graphics cards rather than the main processor then there will be an overall gain in speed.

R.
 
perfectly right, roger. apart from the DOS part. ;)

DOS had an incredibly long shelf life indeed. Even Windows ME was basically still DOS with patches and toppings.
 
And are you trying to tell me that you are more efficient navigating OS X than you were in 9?
Click to expand...

YES!!! but only if you start to think like osx and not keep trying to make it be os 9!! of course adding a few haxies like ASM and Default Folder X help a lot and give you back a little of the os 9 familiarity. And i have been a mac os user for closer to 20 yrs, so i had those old habits as firmly ingrained as you, if not more so.

In truth, osx is far simpler to navigate and understand once you stop thinking it should be like os 9. I loved os 9, but osx is the future for a lot of good reasons. Frankly, i can't believe you don't see more productivity just in less reboot time.
 
Originally posted by Gedankenspiel

Hey, seeing a beach ball for 10 minutes on my screen or seeing a sprinning HD plate with pretty rainbow colors is the same damn thing to me. It bot results in staring at a frozen screen.
Click to expand...

What is up with all these people with computers way better than mine complaining about OS X running so slowly for them? Are you doing something wrong, or am I doing something very right? The only things I have problems with are live window resizing. I see the HD plate/beachball/whatever the hell it is very infrequently even on my G3 400MHz iMac, and even when I do see it it's hardly ever for more than a couple seconds. Is it really a lot worse for you (despite that your machine has a clock speed almost twice mine)? Or are you just more of a whiner than me?

And are you trying to tell me that you are more efficient navigating OS X than you were in 9? I understand the grave fundamental changes in OSX but come on: you expect people to understand that now you have a user desktop, a general desktop, and that when you try to save files from within an application you have to navigate through the whole system (Macintosh HD/Users/myname/desktop/myfolder/)? PUHLEASE!!!! I might as well use the terminal window.
Click to expand...

Hit Apple-Option-H to go to your home folder. Or you could use a folder OTHER than one on your desktop. In the words of Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe from Cryptonomicon (which you all should read), display some ****ing adaptability.

Sorry to be scathing, but these don't seem like very well-thought-out complaints.

-the valrus
 
Alright let me clear up this Quartz Extreme thing:

I have 3 Macs:

iMac DV Special Edition
400Mhz G3, 128MB of RAM, 13GB HDD, 8MB Rage 128vr AGP

iBook
500Mhz G3, 128MB of RAM, 10GB HDD, 8MB Rage 128 AGP

Power Macintosh G4
800Mhz G4, 768MB of RAM, Dual 40GB HDDs, 32MB Radeon 7500 AGP

of these three macs the only officially supported one would be my G4, but when I tested all three of these macs, the first two only have 8MB of VRAM but they were accelerated by Quartz extreme and it was shown big time. It seems apple is being a bit optimistic with its requirements and I think everyone is overreacting, remember this is only a beta and the final requirements will most likely be a 16MB AGP Card because as of right now it looks like the AGP part of the equation is the part that will not change. So as of right now if your box has at least an 8MB AGP Video subsystem then quit griping you will be accelerated somewhat but probably not as well as a 16MB or 32MB box. Remember it also is dependant on the screen resolution you use.

~Yoshi
 
Originally posted by yoshi
Alright let me clear up this Quartz Extreme thing:

I have 3 Macs:

iMac DV Special Edition
400Mhz G3, 128MB of RAM, 13GB HDD, 8MB Rage 128vr AGP

iBook
500Mhz G3, 128MB of RAM, 10GB HDD, 8MB Rage 128 AGP

Power Macintosh G4
800Mhz G4, 768MB of RAM, Dual 40GB HDDs, 32MB Radeon 7500 AGP

of these three macs the only officially supported one would be my G4, but when I tested all three of these macs, the first two only have 8MB of VRAM but they were accelerated by Quartz extreme and it was shown big time. It seems apple is being a bit optimistic with its requirements and I think everyone is overreacting, remember this is only a beta and the final requirements will most likely be a 16MB AGP Card because as of right now it looks like the AGP part of the equation is the part that will not change. So as of right now if your box has at least an 8MB AGP Video subsystem then quit griping you will be accelerated somewhat but probably not as well as a 16MB or 32MB box. Remember it also is dependant on the screen resolution you use.

~Yoshi
Click to expand...

Hey Yoshi, how do you know the first two were also accelerated via QE? Was there a control panel or info pane that told you? Just wonder...
 
he DOESN'T know. but it doesn't matter, either. my tibook 500 has 8 megs of vram in an unsupported card and the things that would use QE are fast enough for me. EVERYONE should stop whining and wait for Jaguar to arrive. it'll be cool, really.
 
fryke - agreed with the DOS. I was just thinking about the problem that it had around DOS 5 with largest HDDs. There was a big leap in MSDOS around that time - almost a different product it was such a re-vamp.

R.
 
And are you trying to tell me that you are more efficient navigating OS X than you were in 9
Click to expand...

Are you trying to tell me you're not ?
Navigation is *so* much more efficient in X ! Getting to a file in X (Column view) is so much faster. I used file browsers in 9 that were but a poor excuse compared to the Finder in X. Granted, the Finder needs refinements but is a whole leap forward as compared to 9.
Holy cr... Who wants to use the DESKTOP (???)
Get real, you can browse folders, entire HDs from the Dock etc. Seriously, my file navigation productivity has sky rocketed since I use X !
No more folder drilling !
Really, I think *you* are on crack...
Perhaps you should Deine Gedanken spielen lassen und Dich mit dem *neuen* System etwas vertraut machen...
 
Excuse me? I don't know?

I do know, and it was. I had the developer tools installed number one and before with 128MB of RAM and a 400Mhz CPU I could not drag around a playing DVD window and watch it at the same time. of course it wasn't perfect but it was watchable while I was moving the window. Before the wasn't even an option.


Now don't tell ME what I know and don't.

~Yoshi
 
So what tells you it's Quartz Extreme speeding it up and not just other Jaguar enhancements?
 
I know because quartz is part of the window manager (for lack of a better term :p). And before I couldn't even do that and now I can. It has to be video card related because that machine is not speed demon but it does have AGP. The other Jaguar enhancements have little to do with this if anything (besides xtreme & Quicktime 6).
 
What is up with all these people with computers way better than mine complaining about OS X running so slowly for them? Are you doing something wrong, or am I doing something very right? The only things I have problems with are live window resizing. I see the HD plate/beachball/whatever the hell it is very infrequently even on my G3 400MHz iMac, and even when I do see it it's hardly ever for more than a couple seconds. Is it really a lot worse for you (despite that your machine has a clock speed almost twice mine)? Or are you just more of a whiner than me?
Click to expand...

Valrus, that was so well said that i must congratulate you on it. I have tried to say this over and over, but never quite as eloquently and succenctly as you just did. kudos my friend.

i mean, do people try to compare speeds to the computers they see on TV that do everything before the user even thinks about it?:rolleyes:
 
Wow, thanks Ed. And here I thought I was just complaining.

Must be that we have the same kind of computer - same color, even. Same amount of RAM, even. Great minds think alike, I tell you. :D

-the valrus
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top