Tiger on the Mini

texanpenguin said:
Well that's really going to screw with things.

People don't want to have to write software that incorporates this feature that not all its users can utilise.

Who would write CoreImage software if they can't be assured that (at some speed) it would work on all Tiger machines?
Click to expand...

I don't think that it'll not work on machines with unsupported vid cards. On Apple's Tiger page, they state that CoreImage will scale down to work with Altivec if that's all that's available.

I think that on the betas Apple has turned off some stuff like the ripple effects on the Dashboard etc. if your card isn't up to par. For applications that use the APIs, it should work no matter what, just slower.
 
People write software that only work with the fastest G4s and G5s, so i don't see the difference here. i bet that 98 % of the developers will use it just to make kool "extra" effects (like the rotating cube went missing on older macs when switching between user accounts) and funky screensavers :)
maybe a few will develop some kind of photoshop substitute effect application that will require a really good graphic card.
but so what?
i don't cry over the fact that my harddrive is too slow to do all the things i want do in garageband, or that i cant use iDVD since i dont have a superdrive. my next computer will be able to do that.
 
Well I own a Mini. I think that it would be VERY stupid of Steve Jobs and company not to have core and such things as the ripple effect. The thing that I do have to say is the does have a 32mb graphics card in it but it has a DVI port. I mean DVI is high defention and well high defention is 64 bit too. So, I think anybody who owns a mini or imac G4, eMac G4 well have full graphics support for it. We well just have to wait and see if and what Tiger is capable of on low end machines but overall it's unlikely that Dashboard effects will be supported. Even though a Developr's build might not have it.
 
Is this just coming down to a debate on ripple effects?

I'm don't care about ripples, just that the next OS is going to support my Mac mini - which is being shipped today, whoo-hoo! - and it will look, feel and behave as gorgeously as I'd expect from Apple and allow me to do the things I need it to do.
 
Why wouldn't it support a Mac mini? What exactly do you mean by "support?" It will more than likely "support" and run on my 5 year old G3 iMac...
 
In the past, an OS typically ran on a certain machine or it didn't, depending on what hardware was "supported" and what hardware wasn't...

...enter 2003, with Quartz Extreme, and suddenly, it's not a black-and-white situation anymore. Given a gathering of machines capable of running the OS, certain machines in that batch will be able to do things with the OS, while others won't. It's no longer "Will my machine run this OS?" -- it's now "Will my machine run every little thing built into this OS?"

Of course the Mac mini will be able to run Tiger. Will it have the "ripple" effect with Dashboard widgets? I dunno. Will my aging machine have the ripple effect? Doubtful. Will the dual-G5 machines have the ripple effect? Most definitely, and it'll probably knock yer socks off.

For the time being, these gray areas of the OS that are present on some machines but absent on others is relegated (for the most part) to eye candy. Sure, CoreImage and CoreVideo will help in current and future breeds of Final Cut Pro and the like to speed up certain sequences, but for the time being, it's all oohs and aahs.

Will the mini run Tiger? Yes, in a nutshell.
 
I've been playing with the newest Tiger build on an iBook G4 800MHz, with 640MB. It runs great. The biggest difference you'll see between this and what you'll see on a new iMac or Power Mac or Powerbook is really the ripple effect when you add in a new Widget. Thats really about it. I've been messing with it for over 24 hours now, and I must say it is performing as well, if not better then Panther does.

I am running Build 8A393. If you have any questions, please feel free to IM me on AIM, under the name whitehatzero. I will be more then happy to mess with a particular feature, and let anyone know how it performs.
 
OK, hypothetical:

A software developer plans to release a very simple graphics program. He wants it to be able to do such things as Gaussian Blur, Hue adjust, Sepia, Distortion, Halftoning, and a little bit of needless things like Page Curls and Pointillise.

The developer, seeing a need to be compatible with the next version of the OS, finds himself looking at the CoreImage functions - lookit, he says - all of what I want to do can be offloaded to CoreImage!

Yesss :).

So he writes a three megabyte program (OK, that's a guess :p) that, with the help of CoreImage, does everything he wants it to. It's not backward compatible with Panther, but he's not concerned about that. Tiger, he realises, will be the definitive OS X.

Tiger is released. He watches and weeps seeing how beautifully his little program works on his dual-G5. He gives it to his friend with an AlBook and it works fantastically. He couldn't be happier.

Then someone with an iBook gives it a go. Not only do they not get any of the effects, but they don't see ANYTHING happening. It's like every function does NOTHING. Same on the Mac Mini. Same (could be wrong here) on the iMac G5.

Word spreads that CoreImage isn't something you want to take advantage of in your programs - it's something that cuts out a huge chunk of the market; it doesn't SCALE.

Suddenly everyone has CoreImage installed in their OS and noone's taking advantage of it except Apple in the Dashboard.
 
TexasnPenguine, based on what I saw when tinkering around with Core Image Fun House I'd have to say that you don't really understand how Core Image works. You can do all the effects from Core Image on an iBook, at least so far from what I've messed around with. Now, whether or not it will do the effects in real time is where things are different. I have taken a few images, and added effects to them, and it worked, it just took a few seconds. The reason why, is that Core Image puts the computation over on the CPU if the GPU isn't powerful enough to do it. Now, in cases like Dashboard where adding a widget gives it the ripple effect, I would have to assume that it was written to not do it on a machine without a certain type of GPU, because in the case of the ripple effect when adding a widget, it is something that needs to give immediate feedback as to what is going on. Using CoreImage to create a photo editor isn't a bad idea. Just realize that it won't happen as fast as on a higher end machine.

Before anyone else gives a rant about how Apple needs to delay Tiger because Radeon X800's aren't in all of the machines, try actually messing with the OS. The OS is completely useable, and the features that are not enabled because of limitations of the GPU don't hinder functionality. The OS is near ready for prime time. There are a few glitches, but nothing really that bad.
 
Oh, there, that's what I thought originally; I didn't think there would be some distinction between real-time and render effects, but it makes sense that there would be.

Thanks for the clarification, GroundZeroX
 
What is exactly the 'ripple effect' with widgets. Is that when you go to select a new widget it pushes the screen upwards and shows an area of which you can select a widget from ??
 
no, it is when you drop a new widget on the screen, the display ripples like you droped a pebble (or your kid sister) in water.
 
Something I just noticed, but I'm not quite sure about. Is the Weather widget suppose to be transparent? Based on the latest keynote, I kind of assumed it was, but it's hard to tell because of the way it is shown. It isn't on my laptop with the 9200. Can anyone else comment on if the Weather widget is transparent on a Core Image machine?
 
I didnt notice the ripple effect on the demonstration for dashboard on the apple site. Even though i havent seen the ripple effect, by the sounds of it its not that exciting lol ...

Edit: Just saw it then, hmmm actually it does look pretty impressive !
 
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