AppleInsider › Forums › Software › Mac Software › Is Aqua accelerated by OpenGL?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Is Aqua accelerated by OpenGL?

post #1 of 12
3/1/02 at 10:32pm
Thread Starter 
I tried the new top line PowerMac/dual 1Ghz PowerPC G4 machine, and I believe the MacOS X UI is even faster the MacOS 9 on the same machine.

I'm just wandering if this is just the extra AltiVec or the GeForce4 MX makes the MacOS X lightning fast.
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 12
3/1/02 at 11:16pm
Nope. Not yet at least.

Throw up half a dozen transparent terminal windows and start dragging and tell me if it still feels hardware accelerated. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

Seriously, though, Apple would have to (and perhaps is) rewrite a huge chunk of code to get Aqua OpenGL-accelerated. There were rumors that the GeForce 4 (NOT the GeForce 4 MX) had some hooks into the UI, but I haven't heard much more about that lately.

Also, you may want to <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000444" target="_blank">see this thread</a> in the Mac OS X forum.

[ 03-02-2002: Message edited by: starfleetX ]</p>
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 12
3/1/02 at 11:20pm
You are thinking about Aqua in Java, as a Java app using the Swing Aqua interface can be accelerated by OpenGL.

Daniel
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 12
3/2/02 at 1:07pm
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 12
3/2/02 at 8:01pm
You know, as I think about this, using OpenGL to speed up Quartz (it's Quartz not Aqua) is dumb. Think about it. If the graphics card has some feature that OpenGL uses to speed up Quartz when not just write Quartz to do it directly? Why bother with a platform independent API, OpenGL, to speed up 2D graphics rendering using specific hardware.

It doesn't make any sense.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 12
3/2/02 at 9:04pm
I thought OpenGL was a 3D API? Why would Quartz have anything at all to do with OpenGL?

Quartz could use the 2D acceleration of a graphics card, but I don't think it would employ OpenGL.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 12
3/2/02 at 9:14pm
[quote]Originally posted by BRussell:
<strong>I thought OpenGL was a 3D API? Why would Quartz have anything at all to do with OpenGL?</strong><hr></blockquote>Because Quartz is a 2.5D display layer. Well, some call it "third-generation" also. <a href="http://arstechnica.com/reviews/1q00/macos-x-gui/macos-x-gui-2.html" target="_blank">Siracusa explains it pretty well here</a>. There have been similar discussions on MacNN as well.

[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: starfleetX ]</p>
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 12
3/3/02 at 9:13am
[quote]Originally posted by starfleetX:
<strong>Because Quartz is a 2.5D display layer. Well, some call it "third-generation" also. <a href="http://arstechnica.com/reviews/1q00/macos-x-gui/macos-x-gui-2.html" target="_blank">Siracusa explains it pretty well here</a>.</strong><hr></blockquote>He doesn't say anything relevant to this question about the relationship between OpenGL and Quartz.

I still haven't seen any evidence that Quartz has any hooks into OpenGL.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 12
3/3/02 at 11:26am
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 12
3/3/02 at 9:50pm
[quote]Originally posted by BRussell:
<strong>He doesn't say anything relevant to this question about the relationship between OpenGL and Quartz.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sorry if I was unclear. I didn't mean to imply that Siracusa explained how Quartz and OpenGL hooked together; I just meant for that article to be used as reference to show how Quartz works as a vector-based display layer. Because it is vector based, there's the possibility that OpenGL or some similar API could be used to offload the processing to a GPU rather than the CPU.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 12
3/5/02 at 12:27am
From the way I understood it, Quartz is it's own screen rendering system based on Display PostScript. In order to "accelerate it using OpenGL" is, from my understanding, impossible, no?

You wouldn't have to stitch OpenGL calls into Quartz... you would sort of have to completely toss Quartz out the window and rebuild the screen rendering engine using OpenGL.

I think a good case in point is a freeware Terminal replacement called <a href="http://www.pollet.net/GLterm/" target="_blank">GLTerm</a>. It is a terminal replacement that uses OpenGL for rendering, and as such, can't take advantage of all the features given to windows that use Quartz.

At any rate, I'm sure Apple had good reasons for choosing Display PostScript over OpenGL, but I really don't think it is possible to accelerate Quartz by attempting to make it an OpenGL/Display PostScript hybrid
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 12
3/5/02 at 12:00pm
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Mac Software
AppleInsider › Forums › Software › Mac Software › Is Aqua accelerated by OpenGL?