AppleInsider › Forums › Software › Mac OS X › Here's the "new" Open GL 10.2 extensions
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Here's the "new" Open GL 10.2 extensions

post #1 of 7
8/6/02 at 11:12pm
Thread Starter 
<a href="http://www.opengl.org/developers/code/features/siggraph2002_bof/" target="_blank">http://www.opengl.org/developers/code/features/siggraph2002_bof/</a>

This contains PDF's of all the new extensions for Jaguar. A HUGE addition indeed! Proving the desktop will now be FINALLY!! fully rendered as vectors in real time hence the utilization of 3D cards etc..

Makes fascinating reading. Also diagrams showing FULL hardware acceleration in 10.2 which DOES NOT CURRENTLY HAPPEN IN 10.1.....etc.

Obviously 10.2 will re-draw on-screen images MUCH faster using this technology.
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 7
8/6/02 at 11:17pm
thanks for the link! *checking*
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 7
8/6/02 at 11:41pm
Peter Graffagnino is the Director of Graphics and Imaging Engineering at Apple. He also gave an overview of graphics and imaging at WWDC.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 7
8/7/02 at 1:38am
Er... do correct me if I'm wrong, but Quartz Extreme is the only thing in Jaguar that's actually getting routed through the GPU, right? So that means the only thing actually getting accelerated would be compositing, not drawing, since QE doesn't have anything to do with drawing.
- Apple certified service tech
- Mac user since 1985
- All around Mac dork
Reply
- Apple certified service tech
- Mac user since 1985
- All around Mac dork
Reply
post #5 of 7
8/7/02 at 1:48am
That's my understanding.

[quote]the desktop will now be FINALLY!! fully rendered as vectors in real time hence the utilization of 3D cards etc<hr></blockquote>

I don't think this is the case. This seems to be a common misconception about the dock as well, that there is some underlying vector drawing going on, and I don't think there is. Everything we see in OS X is generated from a (potentially scaled) bitmap source.

In Quartz Extreme, as I understand it, those bitmaps, along with 8-bit transparency masks, are being sent to a supported video card for compositing, but there's no change in the way they're being generated to begin with.

I'd love to see a 100% vector-drawn GUI, as the primary benefit would be variable scaling with no loss of quality. This means Apple could release a 300ppi display and keep all the UI elements exactly the same physical size, just that much clearer and sharper. But OS X isn't there.
Design your own card.com
<a href="http://www.designyourowncard.com/" target="_blank">http://www.designyourowncard.com/</A>
Reply
Design your own card.com
<a href="http://www.designyourowncard.com/" target="_blank">http://www.designyourowncard.com/</A>
Reply
post #6 of 7
8/7/02 at 2:57am
Indeed, Quartz 2D, which is what most apps use to draw to their windows, is not hardware accelerated in 10.2. With Quartz Extreme, the Quartz Compositor now does most of its work in the GPU, which makes a huge difference. It fetches the Quartz 2D -made bitmaps from main memory via DMA, and needs only minimal CPU resources for the whole compositing task.

Quartz 2D acceleration will probably be practical in a year or two, when GPUs evolve native support for beziers and better antialiasing (4x4 subsampling that's available today really doesn't cut it for Aqua-style effects or type rendering).

It's also worth noting that many of the bitmap manipulation tasks in Quartz 2D use Altivec quite effectively. Moving this to the GPU isn't nearly as urgent as the compositing side of things was.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 7
8/7/02 at 10:29pm
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Mac OS X
AppleInsider › Forums › Software › Mac OS X › Here's the "new" Open GL 10.2 extensions