I agree 100%. This is an unnecessary barrier to the platform. If it were jusr a driver issue many more cards would be available. The fact that the cards need custom firmware is a nonsense.
You'd rather have the driver flipping all the data between little-endian and big-endian, going both ways?
You'd need a x86 emulator that runs a PC BIOS to initialise the GFX card at boot up. Other then that you'd need some more drivers for the diffrent configurations that exist of each card (a 6800GT from one manufacturer doesn't have to be the same as one from the next and so on).
Y'know, Apple really ought to get a handle on its graphic card selection.
There is no 3rd party graphic card on the Mac anymore.
Not helped by the astronomic prices of the 'entry' level tower.
It would be really nice to have a 6800 GT. It's a great card.
Hum.
Cinbench support team basically told me Apple's Open GL 'okay' but could be better. Given this, could you imagine the nightmare of Apple supporting more than one card? They can't make the cards they do support perform with flare compared to PC counterparts. The dual G5 blazes in physics simulations and rendering but Open GL? Sucks, basically. To the point where last generation PC cards can cream the latest Mac version of a latest PC card.
Weird.
Reading between the lines. 'Okay'. Backhander. ie Average. ie not brilliant. ie not crap. C+, could do better. ie Apple have more work to do...or need to try harder and put their back into it...or are waiting for 'Tiger' to 'do it properly' or need to hire some SGI people to do it properly. Or get an Nvidia staffer on the team.
ie Apple have some way to go. So average GL, on a beta render bench app' on an OS which still doesn't fully utilize the G5 on 'down clocked' Apple versions of PC cards. It's not difficult to see how Apple's GL version gets creamed by the PC opposition.
And Apple are charging loyalists a premium for their 'average' work.
Again...HOPEFULLY, Open GL 2 will be a bleeding edge, rock solid implementation in 'Tiger', offering something more than comparable to PC equivalents if not much better.
You'd need a x86 emulator that runs a PC BIOS to initialise the GFX card at boot up. Other then that you'd need some more drivers for the diffrent configurations that exist of each card (a 6800GT from one manufacturer doesn't have to be the same as one from the next and so on).
Thats brings up more interesting thoughts, if's, and hmmm...
Thats brings up more interesting thoughts, if's, and hmmm...
Or crushes thoughts, ifs and hmms into the dust with the reality that it is very impractical to do this, but it shouldn't be impossible to have the computer realise that the card has PC firmware and upload Mac firmware, so long as it was available for that card.
I think a Better Hope would be for apple to come up with its own ridiculously good graphics hardware options (based on NVidia or ATI hardware, perhaps) and a really good OpenGL implementation to boot.
I had this odd thought about how Mental Ray linux can use a PC .dll as a shader reference instead of a .so nix' version like it should. There is a work around, and I started thinking it could be possible to boot the card in single user or write an apple script that launches it in unix via X11 at startup then, well It gets a little more complicated after that, but it could possibly be done somehow under unix I imagine.
The interesting thing about mental ray on OS X is Mental Ray thinks, or references OS X as IRIX in shader source code, but Maya looks at it as either windows, or IRIX ion the headers. <<- That last stuff has nothing to do with this I was just rambling.
Interesting thought onlooker... though I haven't had too much fun getting OpenGL support on graphics cards in Linux. It is really hard sometimes... *shrugs*
I wanted to clear up Cinebench03 stuff...
People keep saying it is a beta. You are partly correct.
Cinebench03 has been final for well over a year. It recently went "beta" for g5's. You can still download the final version for 32bit testing. As I understand the only difference between the two is 64bit libraries. Scores went up big time going from 32bit to 64bit for cpu. As far as I know gl scores rose a little too... but not much.
So if you want to consider it beta... go ahead... but I don't think the beta part of it has that much to do with the OpenGL portion of the tests.
Interesting thought onlooker... though I haven't had too much fun getting OpenGL support on graphics cards in Linux. It is really hard sometimes... *shrugs*
If the 9800xt and 9600xt and 6800 ultra don't have the correct # of pipes... apple is looking at a HUGE lawsuit. (...)
I didn't want to say that the GPUs only have 4 pipelines but that in this test it doesn't look like more than 4 pipes are beeing used. Sorry for my bad expression.
Quote:
I seriously think someone needs to do some more research on this.
PC.... some Distro's it is somewhat easier than other distros... example:
Suse 9.1... (great os). With my 5900xt and 5200... it let me update the drivers after installation using YAST. Very cool. Did everything for me. Took 5 minutes.
Redhat Enterprise 3.0(worst distro ever). This is a $1,500 dollar OS! Anways... trying to get an NForce board working and get a Geforce card working for OpenGL is insane... might as well set aside a week to do it, unless you've done it before.
It was the most horrible experience getting that stuff to work with RH 3.0.
Gentoo is hard too. It really depends how user friendly the distro is.
You can get a generic driver to work with Xfree86 but getting OpenGl to work is GHEY GHEY GHEY GHEY!!!! GHEY GHEY GHEY GHEY!!!! GHEYER GHEYER GHEYER GHEYER!!!!!!!!!
Y'know, Apple really ought to get a handle on its graphic card selection.
There is no 3rd party graphic card on the Mac anymore.
Not helped by the astronomic prices of the 'entry' level tower.
Not helped by the fact that Apple doesn't ship consumer towers with Intel Extreme™ integrated graphics in them, either, forcing consumers to go back and get an aftermarket video card so that little Timmy can play games.
That's the situation on the PC side (at least, in retail, which is where most people get their PCs anyway). It's not altogether unlike Apple chintzing on RAM so that their resellers can offer 256MB RAM FREEE!!!11!!
Graphics performance is becoming, and already is in some cases one of the most crucial parts of choosing a PC for some. (it is for me already anyway) I would say for certain that Apple must definitely address all the issues that have been collectively uncovered in these threads discussing graphics.
Even threads not related to graphics (like this one) concerning machines (iMac, PowerMac, PowerBook, etc, etc.) all get around to graphics performance weather it be for DOOM3, Gaming in general, or working in 2, and 3D.
I think the general consensus is that the Macintosh is not on par with what is generally available for any, and every other computer manufacturer.
What have we discovered as a whole that was unknown to us before. I'm sure some of you new more than others, but I think everybody is starting to realize that graphics performance on even a PowerMac outfitted with the best card available is below a sub-par performing graphics system.
1). Macs appear to be using only 4 pipes.
2). OpenGL performance is embarrasing
3). NO other options when choosing a Graphics card weather it be for Gaming, 2D, 3D whatever. There is nothing.
There is much more to list but I think this next list needs another look.
Take Note of this one
G5 Dual 2.5GHz w/ GeForce 6800 Ultra = 1794
[COLOR=dark red]
Pentium 4 single 3.0Ghz w/ GeForce 6800 GT = 3016[/COLOR]
Athlon 3200+ single 2.2GHz w/ GeForce 6800 = 2502
G5 Dual 2.5GHz w/ Radeon 9600 XT = 1636
[COLOR=dark red]
Pentium 4 single 3.2GHz w/ Radeon 9600 Pro Mobile =[/COLOR] 2592 <-This is a LapTop out performing a PowerMac
Athlon XP 2500+ single 2.2GHz w/ Radeon 9600 Pro = 2651
Athlon 64 FX51 Single 2.2GHz w/ Radeon 9800 Pro = 3460
Apple/IBM Processor
[COLOR=dark red]
(W)Intel Processor[/COLOR]
AMD Processor
4). As all can see this this is the 2.5GHz PowerMac (blue highlighted) which is Apples best. What does it say about the rest of the line? What does it say about the PowerMac? Better graphics performance can be had for under $1000?
If Apple has a #1 priority it should be putting the PowerMac back on the Map. Because as far as I can tell it fell off.
They may appear to be using 4 pipes but this is why i don't think that is true.
#1) The 9600xt has half the pipes a 9800xt has normally... Well the scores don't show that when comparing mac 9800xt -> mac 9600xt.
#2) Lawsuit.
#3) It would cost more money to purchase a batch of chips from ATI (apple makes the cards) and disable the correct # of pipes.
There are a few other things that need to be considered. From what I understand NVidia makes the 6800 ultra. Apple makes the ATI cards. I don't understand why though. But, Is the 9800xt 256bit? Is the 9600xt 128bit?
I know one fact... just turning down the clock speed and mem speed wouldn't produce such a downgrade in performance. Is there any 3D program to Benchmark.... lets try another program and see if the results are as drastic as Cinebench03... i'm willing to bet they are.
I have Maya 6 for pc and Mac... 5900xt vs 9600xt (5900xt is 256bit though). My mac stomped on my pc (3400+) in cinebench and dnetc... so we know the mac (dual 2.0) has more cpu power.
Someone needs to tell me how to benchmark in maya 6.
When that rumor of ati underclocking their cards was going around... my buddy and I attacked it big time. We called ati... ati said the only cards they support are the ones they sell. They said, "We don't support 6¥9he cards that ship in Apple machines becuase Apple purchases the chips from us and makes their own cards." You can take that word for word.
I have maya 6 unlimited for both.... let me know how to benchmark...
You'd need a x86 emulator that runs a PC BIOS to initialise the GFX card at boot up. Other then that you'd need some more drivers for the diffrent configurations that exist of each card (a 6800GT from one manufacturer doesn't have to be the same as one from the next and so on).
VPC already runs a PC BIOS.
Edit: Or aren't you discussing emulators "in general"?
Edit: Or aren't you discussing emulators "in general"?
No, the reason that the AmigaOne PPC Running AmigaOS4 or PegasosPPC boards running MorphOS can use standard run of the mill PC cars is that there "BIOSes" (UBOOT and Open Firmware respectively) uses a x86 emulator and a PC BIOS clone to initalise the GFX cards. A "x86" is built to have a PC BIOS tell it what to do, after you have started it you can change it to play nice with the PPC. All of the rest is up to drivers.
Comments
Originally posted by Addison
I agree 100%. This is an unnecessary barrier to the platform. If it were jusr a driver issue many more cards would be available. The fact that the cards need custom firmware is a nonsense.
You'd rather have the driver flipping all the data between little-endian and big-endian, going both ways?
I'll take the firmware, thanks.
You'd need a x86 emulator that runs a PC BIOS to initialise the GFX card at boot up. Other then that you'd need some more drivers for the diffrent configurations that exist of each card (a 6800GT from one manufacturer doesn't have to be the same as one from the next and so on).
There is no 3rd party graphic card on the Mac anymore.
Not helped by the astronomic prices of the 'entry' level tower.
It would be really nice to have a 6800 GT. It's a great card.
Hum.
Cinbench support team basically told me Apple's Open GL 'okay' but could be better. Given this, could you imagine the nightmare of Apple supporting more than one card? They can't make the cards they do support perform with flare compared to PC counterparts. The dual G5 blazes in physics simulations and rendering but Open GL? Sucks, basically. To the point where last generation PC cards can cream the latest Mac version of a latest PC card.
Weird.
Reading between the lines. 'Okay'. Backhander. ie Average. ie not brilliant. ie not crap. C+, could do better. ie Apple have more work to do...or need to try harder and put their back into it...or are waiting for 'Tiger' to 'do it properly' or need to hire some SGI people to do it properly. Or get an Nvidia staffer on the team.
ie Apple have some way to go. So average GL, on a beta render bench app' on an OS which still doesn't fully utilize the G5 on 'down clocked' Apple versions of PC cards. It's not difficult to see how Apple's GL version gets creamed by the PC opposition.
And Apple are charging loyalists a premium for their 'average' work.
Again...HOPEFULLY, Open GL 2 will be a bleeding edge, rock solid implementation in 'Tiger', offering something more than comparable to PC equivalents if not much better.
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by Eric_Z
@onlooker
You'd need a x86 emulator that runs a PC BIOS to initialise the GFX card at boot up. Other then that you'd need some more drivers for the diffrent configurations that exist of each card (a 6800GT from one manufacturer doesn't have to be the same as one from the next and so on).
Thats brings up more interesting thoughts, if's, and hmmm...
Thats brings up more interesting thoughts, if's, and hmmm...
Or crushes thoughts, ifs and hmms into the dust with the reality that it is very impractical to do this, but it shouldn't be impossible to have the computer realise that the card has PC firmware and upload Mac firmware, so long as it was available for that card.
I think a Better Hope would be for apple to come up with its own ridiculously good graphics hardware options (based on NVidia or ATI hardware, perhaps) and a really good OpenGL implementation to boot.
The interesting thing about mental ray on OS X is Mental Ray thinks, or references OS X as IRIX in shader source code, but Maya looks at it as either windows, or IRIX ion the headers. <<- That last stuff has nothing to do with this I was just rambling.
I wanted to clear up Cinebench03 stuff...
People keep saying it is a beta. You are partly correct.
Cinebench03 has been final for well over a year. It recently went "beta" for g5's. You can still download the final version for 32bit testing. As I understand the only difference between the two is 64bit libraries. Scores went up big time going from 32bit to 64bit for cpu. As far as I know gl scores rose a little too... but not much.
So if you want to consider it beta... go ahead... but I don't think the beta part of it has that much to do with the OpenGL portion of the tests.
Originally posted by emig647
Interesting thought onlooker... though I haven't had too much fun getting OpenGL support on graphics cards in Linux. It is really hard sometimes... *shrugs*
Mac, or PC?
Originally posted by emig647
If the 9800xt and 9600xt and 6800 ultra don't have the correct # of pipes... apple is looking at a HUGE lawsuit. (...)
I didn't want to say that the GPUs only have 4 pipelines but that in this test it doesn't look like more than 4 pipes are beeing used. Sorry for my bad expression.
I seriously think someone needs to do some more research on this.
YES
GeForce 6800 Ultra 1794
Radeon 9600 XT 1636
Radeon 9800 XT 1723
Originally posted by onlooker
Mac, or PC?
PC.... some Distro's it is somewhat easier than other distros... example:
Suse 9.1... (great os). With my 5900xt and 5200... it let me update the drivers after installation using YAST. Very cool. Did everything for me. Took 5 minutes.
Redhat Enterprise 3.0(worst distro ever). This is a $1,500 dollar OS! Anways... trying to get an NForce board working and get a Geforce card working for OpenGL is insane... might as well set aside a week to do it, unless you've done it before.
It was the most horrible experience getting that stuff to work with RH 3.0.
Gentoo is hard too. It really depends how user friendly the distro is.
You can get a generic driver to work with Xfree86 but getting OpenGl to work is GHEY GHEY GHEY GHEY!!!! GHEY GHEY GHEY GHEY!!!! GHEYER GHEYER GHEYER GHEYER!!!!!!!!!
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
Y'know, Apple really ought to get a handle on its graphic card selection.
There is no 3rd party graphic card on the Mac anymore.
Not helped by the astronomic prices of the 'entry' level tower.
Not helped by the fact that Apple doesn't ship consumer towers with Intel Extreme™ integrated graphics in them, either, forcing consumers to go back and get an aftermarket video card so that little Timmy can play games.
That's the situation on the PC side (at least, in retail, which is where most people get their PCs anyway). It's not altogether unlike Apple chintzing on RAM so that their resellers can offer 256MB RAM FREEE!!!11!!
Even threads not related to graphics (like this one) concerning machines (iMac, PowerMac, PowerBook, etc, etc.) all get around to graphics performance weather it be for DOOM3, Gaming in general, or working in 2, and 3D.
I think the general consensus is that the Macintosh is not on par with what is generally available for any, and every other computer manufacturer.
What have we discovered as a whole that was unknown to us before. I'm sure some of you new more than others, but I think everybody is starting to realize that graphics performance on even a PowerMac outfitted with the best card available is below a sub-par performing graphics system.
[COLOR=dark red]
[COLOR=dark red]
[COLOR=dark red]
[COLOR=dark red]
[COLOR=dark red]
If Apple has a #1 priority it should be putting the PowerMac back on the Map. Because as far as I can tell it fell off.
I have to disagree with one point...
They may appear to be using 4 pipes but this is why i don't think that is true.
#1) The 9600xt has half the pipes a 9800xt has normally... Well the scores don't show that when comparing mac 9800xt -> mac 9600xt.
#2) Lawsuit.
#3) It would cost more money to purchase a batch of chips from ATI (apple makes the cards) and disable the correct # of pipes.
There are a few other things that need to be considered. From what I understand NVidia makes the 6800 ultra. Apple makes the ATI cards. I don't understand why though. But, Is the 9800xt 256bit? Is the 9600xt 128bit?
I know one fact... just turning down the clock speed and mem speed wouldn't produce such a downgrade in performance. Is there any 3D program to Benchmark.... lets try another program and see if the results are as drastic as Cinebench03... i'm willing to bet they are.
I have Maya 6 for pc and Mac... 5900xt vs 9600xt (5900xt is 256bit though). My mac stomped on my pc (3400+) in cinebench and dnetc... so we know the mac (dual 2.0) has more cpu power.
Someone needs to tell me how to benchmark in maya 6.
Wait a second... I don't think Apple makes the ATI cards. They never did before. Although, this could be new, and I may not be informed.
I have maya 6 unlimited for both.... let me know how to benchmark...
Originally posted by Eric_Z
@onlooker
You'd need a x86 emulator that runs a PC BIOS to initialise the GFX card at boot up. Other then that you'd need some more drivers for the diffrent configurations that exist of each card (a 6800GT from one manufacturer doesn't have to be the same as one from the next and so on).
VPC already runs a PC BIOS.
Edit: Or aren't you discussing emulators "in general"?
Originally posted by emig647
The 9600xt has half the pipes a 9800xt has normally... Well the scores don't show that when comparing mac 9800xt -> mac 9600xt.
I have a new theory
On a G5 the OpenGL numbers scale with the speed of the CPU not the speed of the GPU (if you don't look at the FX5200)!
It's a single CPU test - not a GPU test. The heading is only a mistake
Originally posted by smalM
I have a new theory
On a G5 the OpenGL numbers scale with the speed of the CPU not the speed of the GPU (if you don't look at the FX5200)!
It's a single CPU test - not a GPU test. The heading is only a mistake
there is no mistake. it's an openGL test.
Originally posted by emig647
I have maya 6 unlimited for both.... let me know how to benchmark... [/B]
Wow! You must be either rich, work in 3D, or a thief.
Originally posted by Zapchud
VPC already runs a PC BIOS.
Edit: Or aren't you discussing emulators "in general"?
No, the reason that the AmigaOne PPC Running AmigaOS4 or PegasosPPC boards running MorphOS can use standard run of the mill PC cars is that there "BIOSes" (UBOOT and Open Firmware respectively) uses a x86 emulator and a PC BIOS clone to initalise the GFX cards. A "x86" is built to have a PC BIOS tell it what to do, after you have started it you can change it to play nice with the PPC. All of the rest is up to drivers.