graphics

Some Mac users are finding that some of the latest MacBook systems from Apple are sometimes showing drastic drops in graphics performance, which are particularly notable when playing graphically intensive applications like video games.

While at first launching the game will show the expected smooth performance, it may suddenly drop to a very low frame rate and be essentially unplayable. Usually when systems drop to low frame rates it suggests they are being overworked for some reason and are struggling to make the computations necessary for smooth gameplay, and as a result will usually be relatively hot as the graphics … Read more

The Logo Creator for Mac is an app that produces logo images, watermarks, letterhead, and other advertising graphics. Priced at $37 for a licensed copy, The Logo Creator for Mac is available from the publisher and a number of other download locations.

The interface of The Logo Creator for Mac is easy to work with and mostly intuitive. You start with more than 200 templates that can be customized, or you can create an image from scratch if you have the inspiration and skills. On top of the basic image, you can add one or more of the 300 elements … Read more

Adobe's first major Creative Cloud-driven update to Photoshop CS6, as well as an important update the to the lesser-known CC-only Muse Web design tool, tosses out just enough capabilities to keep things interesting. Along with HiDPI -- i.e., Retina Display -- support for Photoshop and Illustrator, which rolled out to Creative Cloud subscribers all users last night (and which should be available to the rest of the nonsubscription folks by the end of the year), Photoshop actually reverts some changes to the crop tool, modestly fixes the text styles implementation, updates 3D text handling, finally admits that Actions … Read more

Nvidia wants its new GeForce Experience software to help gamers navigate the technical hurdles common to playing games on a computer. It's easy to see how it could become something more.

In closed beta as of today, the GeForce Experience presently offers two core functions. It can automate the process of updating your Nvidia graphics card software driver. It can also detect your system configuration and apply an optimal set of in-game graphics settings.

As any PC gamer can tell you, keeping your graphics card drivers current is a tedious necessity, but it's also one of the first … Read more

MacRumors is reporting that a fix is in the works for a display flickering problem on Apple's latest Mac Mini models.

The flickering problem, in which the screen intermittently goes black for a few seconds, has been outlined by a number of new 2012 Mac Mini users, who report that it occurs when their systems are connected to HDMI video devices.

This problem seems isolated to HDMI connections and does not affect DisplayPort connections through the Thunderbolt port on the Mac.

Some experiencing this problem have suspected their televisions and display devices to be the root of the problem, … Read more

Yesterday Apple released a developer preview build of OS X 10.8.3 to its testing community, and upon investigating the build a few people have found it includes new drivers for AMD's high-end Radeon 7000 series graphics cards. People who have tested the build with PC versions of the Radeon 7970 have found that the card is recognized and works, and suggests that possibilities for new hardware offerings from Apple are in the works.

In the past, Apple has switched back and forth between graphics processors from AMD and Nvidia with iterations of its hardware, with its latest … Read more

To GIF or not to GIF. That is the question for many Internet denizens these days, especially if they frequent Tumblr or Reddit. At the moment, it's the easiest way to share a quick animation, thanks in part to its compatibility with nearly every Internet browser ever made.

As the GIF (graphic interchange format) turns 25 this year, what better way to celebrate -- aside from GIFing it -- than Oxford American Dictionaries announcing that the acronym has been named 2012's "Word of the Year. … Read more

For those of you who own one of Apple's new MacBook Air or MacBook Pro systems that were released in June, Apple has made a software update available. The update is around 127MB in size and includes bug fixes and performance enhancements for the systems' graphics, and their ability to communicate with some USB devices.

While Apple didn't reveal the specific problems addressed by this update, recently a few owners of the new MacBooks have reported noticing flashing displays when waking the system, washed-out or high-contrast colors when using external displays, and odd graphical artifacts when using some … Read more

Imagination, a key supplier of Apple chip technology, will buy MIPS, one of the oldest names in the silicon business.

U.K.-based Imagination Technologies, a major supplier of graphics chips, will buy the operating business of MIPS Technologies, a vendor of power-efficient chips used in routers, set-top boxes, and game machines.

With the deal, valued at $60 million, Imagination will get 82 "key" patents that are "directly relevant to the MIPS architecture" and comprehensive license rights to all of the remaining 498 MIPS' patents, for a total of 580 patents.

Imagination, known primarily as a … Read more