Enabling Quartz 2-D Extreme in Tiger

lundy · April 29, 2005 2:53PM

All of you folks with a Radeon 9600 or better, or nVidia 5200 go or better, don't forget to turn on Quartz 2-D Extreme. The following is copied from John Siracusa's fantastic Tiger review on Ars Technica:

Right click this link to download, unzip and run the Quartz Debug application at

http://www.johnnylundy.com/Quartz%20Debug.zip

Choose "Enable Quartz 2-D Extreme" from the menu and leave Quartz Debug open. RE-LAUNCH all apps that you want to take advantage of it.

I will put this post in a sticky at the top of Mac OS.

hobbes · April 29, 2005 3:41PM

You can also edit the plist com.apple.windowserver.plist located in /Library/Preferences/; change Quartz2DExtremeEnabled to YES.

Note too that there's very likely a reason why Apple deemed Q2DE not quite ready for prime time in 10.4.0. That said, enjoy!

algol · April 29, 2005 3:46PM

It doesn't make sense to me why apple would have it turned off sense it should increase performance of the OS on computer with newer GPUs.

hmurchison · April 29, 2005 4:10PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Algol

It doesn't make sense to me why apple would have it turned off sense it should increase performance of the OS on computer with newer GPUs.

It's probably buggy.

not unlike myself · April 29, 2005 4:46PM

They have to save something to 'turn on' for Leopard 10.5

mdriftmeyer · April 29, 2005 6:10PM

Not to mention when more graphics chips are available for Q2D extreme to be BTO options then people will be pleased.

s.metcalf · April 29, 2005 8:33PM

So has anyone that's enabled Q2DE noticed any bugs or their system becoming more unstable? I should be picking up my copy of Tiger today, would be interested to know whether there's any problems leaving it enabled.

outsider · April 29, 2005 8:55PM

Will it work with a Radeon 8500 with 64MB VRAM?

dave marsh · April 30, 2005 2:32AM

I don't believe the Radeon 8500 (64MB) card has Pixel/Vertex Shader version 2.0, so the answer is no. The oldest card meeting this requirement is the Radeon 9500. See the below link for cards that are compatible:

http://www.neeyik.info/3dspecs/

yuy · April 30, 2005 6:32AM

any bug?

or Apple just turn it off to avoid clash with low-end graphic cards?

danmacman · April 30, 2005 8:31AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hobbes

You can also edit the plist com.apple.windowserver.plist located in /Library/Preferences/; change Quartz2DExtremeEnabled to YES.

Does this mod require that you re-enable it after a restart, or is it a lasting change?

hobbes · April 30, 2005 12:39PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DanMacMan

Does this mod require that you re-enable it after a restart, or is it a lasting change?

I believe it's lasting, until the plist attribute is changed back to NO.

mdriftmeyer · April 30, 2005 3:10PM

It should be noted that com.apple.windowserver.plist does not exist in a system without Q2D Extreme graphics capabilities (iBook 1Ghz G4 as an example).

Secondly, after testing it on a Powerbook 15.2" 1.5Ghz system with:

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 64MB of DDR SDRAM

com.apple.windowserver.plist property list is there but no reference to Q2D Extreme.

Downloading the Debug Utility and enabling it indeed shows improvement in Tiger.

ipodandimac · April 30, 2005 5:20PM

how safe is all of this? i don't want my card getting overheated or voiding some warranty.

mdriftmeyer · April 30, 2005 10:35PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ipodandimac

how safe is all of this? i don't want my card getting overheated or voiding some warranty.

Works just fine. In debug mode, if anything you might be able to discover some reproducible bugs that you can submit to Apple and have it role into 10.4.1.

I filed several yesterday on Preview.app and its PDFX-3 flaws among other issues. I gave them the various scenarios and steps to reproduce and encouraged them to tag it against Appkit and where else necessary.

Bugs will be found and should be found--we are the best testers Apple can afford.

greeneggsaregood · April 30, 2005 10:41PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mdriftmeyer

It should be noted that com.apple.windowserver.plist does not exist in a system without Q2D Extreme graphics capabilities (iBook 1Ghz G4 as an example).

Secondly, after testing it on a Powerbook 15.2" 1.5Ghz system with:

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 64MB of DDR SDRAM

com.apple.windowserver.plist property list is there but no reference to Q2D Extreme.

Downloading the Debug Utility and enabling it indeed shows improvement in Tiger.

Hey Mdriftmeyer,

I have the same powerbook but i do not have the com.apple.windowserver.plist on my system. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

hobbes · May 1, 2005 6:41AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mdriftmeyer

com.apple.windowserver.plist property list is there but no reference to Q2D Extreme.

Oh, is that so? I'm quoting someone else here, don't have Tiger yet. Plists are now binary by default, unfortunately, so you'd have to edit/convert them using plutil.

lundy · May 1, 2005 7:58AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ipodandimac

how safe is all of this? i don't want my card getting overheated or voiding some warranty.

I've been running it for at least six months and my Radeon 9600 is fine.

icfireball · May 1, 2005 8:18AM

I enabled it in the debug utilt. but it dosnt stay enabled.

gregmightdothat · May 1, 2005 12:53PM

Quote:

Originally posted by icfireball

I enabled it in the debug utilt. but it dosnt stay enabled.

it only stays enabled while the debug is open.

hitby · May 1, 2005 2:25PM

Hi all, Could someone confirm how to make this change permanent? Is it something along the lines of

plutil 1 /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist

?? Not knowing anything about terminal at all?

Cheers

Dan

Enabling Quartz 2-D Extreme in Tiger

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