Apple compiles first Mac OS X 10.4.4 builds

[AppleInsider]

Engineers at Apple Computer have recently compiled the first builds of Mac OS X 10.4.4, the fourth in a series of several maintenance updates planned for the company's Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" operating system over the next 10 months, tipsters tell AppleInsider

While few, if any, details of the operating system update have yet to surface, some Apple developers have reportedly been told to expect the first pre-release external seeds of the software during the last week of November or first week of December.

Apple has historically completed and released to the public a maintenance update to its Mac OS X operating system just prior the Christmas holiday and the company's short winter vacation.

Last year Apple released Mac OS X 10.3.7 on December 15th and the year before issued Mac OS X 10.3.2 on December 17th. Back in 2002, the Mac maker posted to its website Mac OS X 10.2.3 on December 19th, just days before the holidays.

Each of the holiday maintenance updates saw their first external seed come in mid-to-late November, suggesting that Mac OS X 10.4.4 could be on a similar schedule that spans only a few weeks from developer seeding to release.

Regardless of whether Mac OS X 10.4.4 will make the pre-holiday cut or debut shortly after the new year, sources believe a later milestone of the update may be used on the first Macs that will ship with Intel processors in the first half of 2006.

Apple recently issued the third maintenance release to its Tiger operating system, brining the software up to version 10.4.3 during the last week in October.[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ] (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1364)

[nathan22t]

cool

[PB]

Any word about Dashcode (http://thinksecret.com/news/0511dashcode.html)?

[melgross]

The most interesting comment in the article is the "over the next 10 months".

I wonder if that puts a release date for 10.5 on the table for about September 2006.

[french macuser]

The big question : is Quartz 2D exteme enabled ? :D

[nagromme]

As long as it's not a huge download, I'll be happy.

[Chucker]

Originally posted by french macuser
The big question : is Quartz 2D exteme enabled ? :D

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301984
Disables Quartz 2D Extreme—Quartz 2D Extreme is not a supported feature in Tiger, and re-enabling it may lead to video redraw issues or kernel panics.

[BWhaler]

Yes, we are STILL waiting for Tiger to be decent quality...


As for the "10 months" I really hope that is NOT true.

10.5 needs to be a serious, major update. It needs to change the game on Microsoft and not be a minor bump like we have seen over the past few years.

I hope Apple takes their time with 10.5. Make sure they have incorporated every good idea from Longhorn--yes there will be some. And then put Microsoft to shame but leapfrogging them in a major way.

[melgross]

Originally posted by BWhaler
Yes, we are STILL waiting for Tiger to be decent quality...


As for the "10 months" I really hope that is NOT true.

10.5 needs to be a serious, major update. It needs to change the game on Microsoft and not be a minor bump like we have seen over the past few years.

I hope Apple takes their time with 10.5. Make sure they have incorporated every good idea from Longhorn--yes there will be some. And then put Microsoft to shame but leapfrogging them in a major way.

10 months from now gives Apple a good 18 month development cycle. Longer than this last one was.

[lokithefirst]

It is going to be quite enjoyable to watch Apple release the new Mac line and Leopard around the same time as M$ tries to roll out vista. Finally, the media will be able to compare the OS offerings from both companies on a more level playing field. The OS War is about to be brought to the forefront for the first time in a long time. When was the last time that both companies released an OS at the same time, or even within 6 months of each other?

I don't mind paying Apple every 18 months for an OS upgrade. It works out to less than $10 a month for a beautiful, stable, secure and powerful OS that understands how I want to work and lets me be more productive. That's a much better deal then having to pay M$ $10 a month for spyware protection, anti-virus protection and also have to pay them for new OS's every couple years that do little more than change the color scheme of the desktop! Talk about a racket!! Isn't it against the law to provide a product of know inferior quality and then charge extra to make it work properly?

[kenaustus]

The impressive part is that Apple is still going full steam on 10.4 while working on the Mactels and 10.5. Why is it that little old Apple can do this and big old MS can't?

[french macuser]

Originally posted by Chucker
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301984
I knew, I wasn't serious.
Since at least one dude asked for Q2DX at each tiger update, I had to do so. ;)

[melgross]

Originally posted by kenaustus
The impressive part is that Apple is still going full steam on 10.4 while working on the Mactels and 10.5. Why is it that little old Apple can do this and big old MS can't?

MS does. They have at least five different operating systems that they are working on at once. Then comes the X Box, now the 360. They produce their own games, as well as Office, an enterprise size Database, hardware, and many other products as well.

[melgross]

Originally posted by french macuser
I knew, I wasn't serious.
Since at least one dude asked for Q2DX at each tiger update, I had to do so. ;)

Keep that page handy, you'll need it again...and again.:lol:

[MacCrazy]

Originally posted by melgross
Keep that page handy, you'll need it again...and again.:lol:

:smokey:

[Catman4d2]

The impressive part is that Apple is still going full steam on 10.4 while working on the Mactels and 10.5. Why is it that little old Apple can do this and big old MS can't?

Thats because they Suck........ :)


Microsoft = theives, thats the only reason why Vista has been delayed for years and years now... because apple keeps Inovating and microcrap keeps having to change the formula or rethink everything.

I hope apple keeps on making them have to go back to the drawing board until they are inovated out of existance......... I know format bashing has become very unpopular latley on msg brds but hey "way back before i switched to mac.... i lost some very very important files that are never to be had again" thanks to their incompitance in making a secure o.s. let them eat cake!!!!
:devil:

[Chucker]

Originally posted by french macuser
I knew, I wasn't serious.
Since at least one dude asked for Q2DX at each tiger update, I had to do so. ;)

Ah, alright, heh ;)

[grad student]

uh, i've lost files on my macs over the years.... especially pre-osx days...

and i personally hope vista is stellar - the faster software progresses, the better it is for all of us - even if the features show up on our second favorite platform first...

[ipodandimac]

Originally posted by BWhaler
Yes, we are STILL waiting for Tiger to be decent quality...


As for the "10 months" I really hope that is NOT true.

10.5 needs to be a serious, major update. It needs to change the game on Microsoft and not be a minor bump like we have seen over the past few years.

I hope Apple takes their time with 10.5. Make sure they have incorporated every good idea from Longhorn--yes there will be some. And then put Microsoft to shame but leapfrogging them in a major way.
well you know, tiger really is a great OS point release, and were around when it came out? people left and right were bashing apple for releasing products too quickly. they didnt want to have to pay $130 every year. and now all of a sudden there's a demand for 10.5?? i just dont understand.

[Telomar]

It's very simple to understand, people like to complain. They also like to refuse to take any responsibility for themselves.

I'd say 10.5 will be the one that utilises and adds support for IA-32e, it is about the right timeframe, and that certainly isn't a bad thing. There are always things that can be added or improved and people normally like something new but for now 10.4 works well enough and I get what I need to done.

[rok]

you know, with apple's recent vague patent about multi-boot system setups out of the box, they may just want leopard and vista to play VERY well together. and i've said it before, microsoft DOES NOT CARE what kind of box runs their OS and apps. they'd be happy to stab every contract-holder in the back and side with apple if there were macs threatning to be on every desktop. microsoft is in it for the money, bottom line, pure and simple. if you always remember that, lots of other things fall into place.

[Ilgaz]

Originally posted by kenaustus
The impressive part is that Apple is still going full steam on 10.4 while working on the Mactels and 10.5. Why is it that little old Apple can do this and big old MS can't?

Oh come on. Do you know how many freaking chipsets,chips, usb devices, freak configurations MS has to support/test?

Don't make us defend MS please.

[Ilgaz]

Originally posted by Chucker
Ah, alright, heh ;)

OS X hints guys/community were running with Q2D Extreme for months without problems. I personally tried once, didn't see any glitch but I am kinda conservative on OS so gone back to old setting.

If you get it enabled, it works perfect giving you huge free CPU, you would ask why they resist disabling a technology like that.

[melgross]

Originally posted by Ilgaz
OS X hints guys/community were running with Q2D Extreme for months without problems. I personally tried once, didn't see any glitch but I am kinda conservative on OS so gone back to old setting.

If you get it enabled, it works perfect giving you huge free CPU, you would ask why they resist disabling a technology like that.

Because you guys were lucky. Most of the reports said that there were many problems. The web sites that tested it also reported problems. Do you think that Apple would turn off a useful functioning technology?

[french macuser]

Originally posted by Ilgaz
OS X hints guys/community were running with Q2D Extreme for months without problems. I personally tried once, didn't see any glitch but I am kinda conservative on OS so gone back to old setting.

If you get it enabled, it works perfect giving you huge free CPU, you would ask why they resist disabling a technology like that.
I'm not sure it works great under 10.4.3. Some users reported kernel panics the minute after they enabled it. :\

But maybe in 10.4.4 it will be activated by default. :D

[BWhaler]

Originally posted by melgross
10 months from now gives Apple a good 18 month development cycle. Longer than this last one was.

Except for the fact that Tiger still is not done.

[Targon]

Originally posted by Chucker
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301984

Well that blowz!! I purchased Tiger 'exclusively' for this feature, in fact this feature alone was to be our 'savior' for audio app's like CubaseSX who still have atrocious waveform zooming performance. Steinberg developers promised us huge waveform zooming performance increases when Tiger ships with Q2DE and an updated CubaseSX to take advantage of it. This was promised well over a year ago!!

[JLL]

Originally posted by Targon
Well that blowz!! I purchased Tiger 'exclusively' for this feature, in fact this feature alone was to be our 'savior' for audio app's like CubaseSX who still have atrocious waveform zooming performance. Steinberg developers promised us huge waveform zooming performance increases when Tiger ships with Q2DE and an updated CubaseSX to take advantage of it. This was promised well over a year ago!!

Apple never promised anything about Q2DE and in Tiger Q2D is already much faster than QuickDraw - perhaps they are still using that.

[JLL]

Originally posted by BWhaler
Except for the fact that Tiger still is not done.

Neither was/is Panther. Software projects are hardly ever done.

[blue2kdave]

I've seen Quartz Extreme in several threads recently, and remember Steve-o talking about it, but can't remember exactly what it was supposed to add and do. Anyone?

[Targon]

Originally posted by JLL
Apple never promised anything about Q2DE and in Tiger Q2D is already much faster than QuickDraw - perhaps they are still using that.

Well yes they did, it was a touted feature @ WWDC and was on their Mac OS X Tiger web page for a long time. Advertising of this nature to me suggests a sure fire thing, IOW a promise.

JLL, your assumption is correct, they are still using Quickdraw. They mentioned they were actively re-writing the drawing architecture of the application, to fully implement Quartz 2D Extreme. They mentioned when Tiger ships they would be ready to ship the Cubase update to take full advantage of Q2DE which would also have seen Quickdraw deprecated and our lives better off.

This is a failed promise from my perspective...one which makes myself and countless others very bitter.

[Targon]

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/14

[JLL]

Originally posted by Targon
JLL, your assumption is correct, they are still using Quickdraw. They mentioned they were actively re-writing the drawing architecture of the application, to fully implement Quartz 2D Extreme. They mentioned when Tiger ships they would be ready to ship the Cubase update to take full advantage of Q2DE which would also have seen Quickdraw deprecated and our lives better off.

AFAIK they are not supposed to do anything to take advantage of Q2DE when it is enabled - other than make sure to use Q2D in the first place.

I can't see what's holding them back since Q2D alone should give them a nice speedup.

[a_greer]

Originally posted by BWhaler
Except for the fact that Tiger still is not done. Runs stabley, all promissed features now work really fast, very few bugs remain in 10.4.3 (none that i know of) If it is everything you were promised at release and is stable and has needed bug fixes, how is it not "finished"? and what is "finished"?

[blue2kdave]

Originally posted by Targon
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/14

thanks

[PB]

Originally posted by JLL
Apple never promised anything about Q2DE...
Don't make me repeat things we already know but quickly forget. Fast forward to min. 23 (http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/wwdc_2004_qt_sotu/wwdc_2004_gm_sotu_ref.mov). Apple apparently miscalculated something here and was unable to deliver at all. Yet. It is just as simple as that.

[BWhaler]

Originally posted by JLL
Neither was/is Panther. Software projects are hardly ever done.

Yawn.

Obviously no software is "complete." You can go on for ever and ever fixing bugs and adding new features.

But Tiger:

1. Does not work on single 1.8 G5
2. Has massive lockupd issues which crush internet access on late generation ibooks and new powerbooks with over 1gig of memory
3. Flicker the screen on new powerbooks with over 1 gig of memory.

These are critical, show stopper type bugs.

We're all Apple fans here. It's why we are here. But let's not be Apple Apologists.

[hmurchison]

Originally posted by BWhaler
Yawn.

Obviously no software is "complete." You can go on for ever and ever fixing bugs and adding new features.

But Tiger:

1. Does not work on single 1.8 G5
2. Has massive lockupd issues which crush internet access on late generation ibooks and new powerbooks with over 1gig of memory
3. Flicker the screen on new powerbooks with over 1 gig of memory.

These are critical, show stopper type bugs.

We're all Apple fans here. It's why we are here. But let's not be Apple Apologists.


Bullshite

You've been ranting about this stuff for 6 months. There are no more show stopper bugs in OS X.

[BEatMaKeR]

Maybe Apple can make an update to OS X that brings my Dual 2.5ghz Power Mac G5 up to the performance speed (for getting around my Mac HD) that I once had in a beige G3!!!! :mad:

...With every update since 10.3.9 comes SLOWER performance and SLOOOOOOWER performance issues!!!!

C'MON!!!

[Chucker]

Originally posted by Targon
Well that blowz!! I purchased Tiger 'exclusively' for this feature, in fact this feature alone was to be our 'savior' for audio app's like CubaseSX who still have atrocious waveform zooming performance. Steinberg developers promised us huge waveform zooming performance increases when Tiger ships with Q2DE and an updated CubaseSX to take advantage of it. This was promised well over a year ago!

Then Steinberg was bullshitting you. CubaseSX, as far as I know, still uses QuickDraw. Apple hasn't been optimizing QuickDraw for many years; it's a dying technology, no news there. Steinberg needs to switch to Quartz 2D, which as of Panther was indeed slower than QuickDraw. With Tiger, that has changed -- Quartz 2D is now faster.

Would Quartz 2D Extreme make it even faster? Yes. But that requires absolutely no intervention from developers. All developers need to do, and were supposed to do for many years now, is transition to Quartz 2D instead of QuickDraw.

[melgross]

Originally posted by BWhaler
Except for the fact that Tiger still is not done.

Heh! We've gone over this one before! Most of the 10.4 team has been reassigned to the 10.5 project. This starts to happen as a project winds down.

I assure you that 10.6 is already in the first phase.

[JamesG]

Originally posted by ipodandimac
well you know, tiger really is a great OS point release, and were around when it came out? people left and right were bashing apple for releasing products too quickly. they didnt want to have to pay $130 every year. and now all of a sudden there's a demand for 10.5?? i just dont understand.


Bleh. I still am not sold on "Tiger". All I know is that they 1) have broken the connection to any OS9 file servers and 2) broke compatibility with our v1.2 of Apple Remote Desktop. If we were to update ARD to 2.2, we wouldn't be able to connect to OS9 machines. I had Tiger installed and had to remove it. The political decisions really infuriate me.

We're a school district so we still have a ton of iMacs in our elementaries that are running OS9 quite happily.

I think I'll skip giving Apple more padding for their coffers and instead wait for 10.5 and the Pentium models.

[french macuser]

Originally posted by Chucker
Then Steinberg was bullshitting you. CubaseSX, as far as I know, still uses QuickDraw. Apple hasn't been optimizing QuickDraw for many years; it's a dying technology, no news there. Steinberg needs to switch to Quartz 2D, which as of Panther was indeed slower than QuickDraw. With Tiger, that has changed -- Quartz 2D is now faster.

Would Quartz 2D Extreme make it even faster? Yes. But that requires absolutely no intervention from developers. All developers need to do, and were supposed to do for many years now, is transition to Quartz 2D instead of QuickDraw.
Yeah, the wait for Q2DX sounds like an excuse.

BTW, are we sure that Quartz 2D is now faster than quickdraw for everything? They demoed one line drawing test, yes, but when comparing Q2D to Q2DX, they showed several tests (rectangle drawing, text...).
Not that I skeptical, but it looks like Quickdraw is faster than quartz only for line drawing. :\ I admit I know nothing about the core of these technologies.
Please reassure me.

[AquaMac]

Originally posted by JLL
Neither was/is Panther. Software projects are hardly ever done. True, there only done when they are obsolite. ie. AmigaOS.

[brent1a]

Originally posted by BEatMaKeR
Maybe Apple can make an update to OS X that brings my Dual 2.5ghz Power Mac G5 up to the performance speed (for getting around my Mac HD) that I once had in a beige G3!!!! :mad:

...With every update since 10.3.9 comes SLOWER performance and SLOOOOOOWER performance issues!!!!

C'MON!!! Don't know what your system's problem is but Ihave the opposite reaction.
FYI:here's one example-
Under OSX 10.3.9 I had 1.5GB ram, 10.3.9 managed it horribly.
It was alsways at 850MB's-1GB
Under 10.4.3 I bought an extra 1.5GB's ra but in Tiger my ram usage is never above 700MB while running the same programs.

Another example-
Startup under 10.3.9 would take in upwards of 45+ seconds even with a Raptor boot drive
Under 10.4.3 booting takes less than 25 seconds.

[melgross]

Originally posted by AquaMac
True, there only done when they are obsolite. ie. AmigaOS.

http://www.amiga.org/

[Targon]

Originally posted by Chucker
Then Steinberg was bullshitting you. CubaseSX, as far as I know, still uses QuickDraw. Apple hasn't been optimizing QuickDraw for many years; it's a dying technology, no news there. Steinberg needs to switch to Quartz 2D, which as of Panther was indeed slower than QuickDraw. With Tiger, that has changed -- Quartz 2D is now faster.

Would Quartz 2D Extreme make it even faster? Yes. But that requires absolutely no intervention from developers. All developers need to do, and were supposed to do for many years now, is transition to Quartz 2D instead of QuickDraw.

Chucker -> Steinberg have re-written the drawing guts, it is now Quartz 2D, since Cubase SX3.1. There has been a small improvement running 3.1 in Tiger, however we ARE waiting for Quartz 2D Extreme to be enabled by Apple and this will provide us a significant improvement. I thought this was already explained??

The main point was Quartz 2D Extreme was a "PROMISED" feature of Tiger, it has now been completely discarded after we have payed for Tiger purely to get faster graphics in Cubase. The major annoyance here is, we are ALWAYS waiting. Waiting for Apple to fix this, waiting for steinberg to fix that, waiting for this an that to be implemented and working, waiting, waiting, fsckin waiting, like 5 years and the mofo's still can't get this shit sorted. Now what we have to wait another 2 years while these muppets transition from PPC to x86? We waited patiently on Mac OS 8/9x for years waiting for a freeze free, stable midi timing and a bugless Cubase. OS X was to be the savior. More like a bunch of dreams and broken promises.

I just wish someone would write fresh dedicated multi tasking multithreaded SMP Midi/Audio Operating System without all the networking, printing, and fancy CPU draining UI's, built to run on a dedicated platform with midi UART chips on board like the old Atari and point to point I/O busses with loads of RAM.

[french macuser]

Originally posted by Targon
[B]Chucker -> Steinberg have re-written the drawing guts, it is now Quartz 2D, since Cubase SX3.1. There has been a small improvement running 3.1 in Tiger, however we ARE waiting for Quartz 2D Extreme to be enabled by Apple and this will provide us a significant improvement. I thought this was already explained??

So why did steinberg say they would release an update for Q2DX, since it doesn't require any modification in apps that already use Quartz 2D?

The main point was Quartz 2D Extreme was a "PROMISED" feature of Tiger, it has now been completely discarded after we have payed for Tiger purely to get faster graphics in Cubase. The major annoyance here is, we are ALWAYS waiting. Waiting for Apple to fix this, waiting for steinberg to fix that, waiting for this an that to be implemented and working, waiting, waiting, fsckin waiting, like 5 years and the mofo's still can't get this shit sorted. Now what we have to wait another 2 years while these muppets transition from PPC to x86? We waited patiently on Mac OS 8/9x for years waiting for a freeze free, stable midi timing and a bugless Cubase. OS X was to be the savior. More like a bunch of dreams and broken promises.

I'm note sure one can say that Q2DX was "promised" since it never appeared in the "official" tiger new features. By "official", I mean the features revealed to the average customer, not to the developpers in a WWDC session.
Anyway, Q2DX has never showed any significant improvment in responsiveness (from users who enabled it). You would probably be disappointed even if apple enables it. Buying tiger just for this wasn't a good idea, but you couldn't know.

Steinberg should not have talked about Q2DX because, as OS X developpers, they knew that Apple never wrote a single line on Q2DX in their documentation (AFAIK) [EDIT : I'm wrong, there is one reference]

[MacCrazy]

Originally posted by melgross
Heh! We've gone over this one before! Most of the 10.4 team has been reassigned to the 10.5 project. This starts to happen as a project winds down.

I assure you that 10.6 is already in the first phase.

This is to be expected.

[Chucker]

Originally posted by Targon
The main point was Quartz 2D Extreme was a "PROMISED" feature of Tiger, it has now been completely discarded after we have payed for Tiger purely to get faster graphics in Cubase. The major annoyance here is, we are ALWAYS waiting.

Bullshit. Steinberg can't tell their customers "oh well, Apple will fix this problem for you, just wait", then blame Apple later on if they don't do it.

[a Martin]

I wonder If Apple will ever fix the cosmetic "bug" that is getting the text selection cursor when over a button. This happen relatively often but even more so when using Dashboard widgets.

[kcmac]

Originally posted by JamesG
Bleh. I still am not sold on "Tiger". All I know is that they 1) have broken the connection to any OS9 file servers and 2) broke compatibility with our v1.2 of Apple Remote Desktop. If we were to update ARD to 2.2, we wouldn't be able to connect to OS9 machines. I had Tiger installed and had to remove it. The political decisions really infuriate me.

We're a school district so we still have a ton of iMacs in our elementaries that are running OS9 quite happily.

I think I'll skip giving Apple more padding for their coffers and instead wait for 10.5 and the Pentium models.
Glad my kids don't go to your schools. They seemed to switch over just fine. OS 9? Egads!

[macserverX]

Apple could just never tell you AT ALL EVER about what they were planning on having implemented in the next release. You're waiting for Q2DX, I'm waiting for my terabtye DDR9 RAM and 10GHz P11 with 3 petabtyes of HD.

Thank goodness for 20th Century culture. Produced lots of wonderful people.

[end rant]

[melgross]

Originally posted by macserverX
Apple could just never tell you AT ALL EVER about what they were planning on having implemented in the next release. You're waiting for Q2DX, I'm waiting for my terabtye DDR9 RAM and 10GHz P11 with 3 petabtyes of HD.

Thank goodness for 20th Century culture. Produced lots of wonderful people.

[end rant]

When is that supposed to be coming out?

[kaiwai]

Originally posted by grad student
uh, i've lost files on my macs over the years.... especially pre-osx days...

and i personally hope vista is stellar - the faster software progresses, the better it is for all of us - even if the features show up on our second favorite platform first...

How did you manage that, besides the computer crashing an no back ups?

I fire files between Mac and Windows without any problems.

[kaiwai]

Originally posted by grad student
uh, i've lost files on my macs over the years.... especially pre-osx days...

and i personally hope vista is stellar - the faster software progresses, the better it is for all of us - even if the features show up on our second favorite platform first...

How did you manage that, besides the computer crashing an no back ups?

I fire files between Mac and Windows without any problems.

[kaiwai]

Originally posted by Chucker
Then Steinberg was bullshitting you. CubaseSX, as far as I know, still uses QuickDraw. Apple hasn't been optimizing QuickDraw for many years; it's a dying technology, no news there. Steinberg needs to switch to Quartz 2D, which as of Panther was indeed slower than QuickDraw. With Tiger, that has changed -- Quartz 2D is now faster.

Would Quartz 2D Extreme make it even faster? Yes. But that requires absolutely no intervention from developers. All developers need to do, and were supposed to do for many years now, is transition to Quartz 2D instead of QuickDraw.

IIRC at WWDC, they made a conserted effort repeat again and again and again that QuickDraw is dead; its at the end of its shelf life, and that all developers should start moving to Quartz 2D, not only for performance reasons but to also have the ability of their applications to be scalable on extremely high resolution displays once they become mainstream.

[Thinine]

They also made clear that not only was QuickDraw deprecated but that Quartz 2D now had the superior performance, even in software mode (non-Q2DX). I noticed a huge jump in GUI responsiveness going from Panther to Tiger, and that's without Q2DX. Once they get Q2DX working well, even if it's not until Leopard, we should see even better performance, though probably not very noticeable in everyday usage. But anyone using Quartz primitives intensively sure would (think CAD but with bezier curves and vectored lines). It should be pretty nice, for those of us with the hardware to handle it (one of the main reasons Q2DX doesn't work that well now, most people don't have enough VRAM).

[Chucker]

Originally posted by Thinine
It should be pretty nice, for those of us with the hardware to handle it (one of the main reasons Q2DX doesn't work that well now, most people don't have enough VRAM).

VRAM? I think much more importantly, most people just don't have GPUs that have the necessary feature set.

[lundy]

Originally posted by Chucker
VRAM? I think much more importantly, most people just don't have GPUs that have the necessary feature set.

True, but the way Q2DE works is that is caches very very aggressively. And it still has to share the VRAM with regular Quartz Extreme. So for the first time, the performance of Mac OS X is going to be sensitive to the amount of VRAM on the card. If there isn't enough, it will start thrashing because Quartz has its own VM system for the GPU.

Developers also have to read the documentation carefully in order to write their Quartz code in such a way that Quartz recognizes that it can cache the objects that are drawn. I expect that the first few rewrites of QuickDraw to Q2D will foul up on this point and run more slowly than they need to.

[kaiwai]

Originally posted by lundy
True, but the way Q2DE works is that is caches very very aggressively. And it still has to share the VRAM with regular Quartz Extreme. So for the first time, the performance of Mac OS X is going to be sensitive to the amount of VRAM on the card. If there isn't enough, it will start thrashing because Quartz has its own VM system for the GPU.

Developers also have to read the documentation carefully in order to write their Quartz code in such a way that Quartz recognizes that it can cache the objects that are drawn. I expect that the first few rewrites of QuickDraw to Q2D will foul up on this point and run more slowly than they need to.

With that being said, however, I am sure there is a way where by Apple can reduce duplication of data stored in memory; not necessarily 'compression' but 'RAM usage rationalisation' - why store something twice if it can be stored once and accessed by two Quartz 2D and 3D extreme.