Comments on: Apple Snow Leopard plus Nvidia equals what?

Nvidia has become well ensconced in Apple's lineup. So, what's the connection between Apple's graphics-fortified lineup and Snow Leopard OS X?

[man_w_balls]

sounds good, like somebody actually trying to make use of all these multicore and GPU stacked computers... instead of all the crappy software that doesn't make use of the advanced hardware

but it would also be nice to be able to use that GPU power for what it's intent was originally - games! The game market for OSX is so stagnant, it's pitiful. I guess Boot Camp killed the Mac game porting industry.

[sanjayb]

Maybe this utilization of the cores will spur game developers to create OSX games??

[deslock]

@sanjayb "Maybe this utilization of the cores will spur game developers to create OSX games?? "


Not unless apple users start buying games in larger numbers. The "attach rate" if you will of full retail games on the mac platform vs. pc is vastly different. For whatever reason, there are a ton of apple fans that just don't buy games.

Until that changes, mac will always be an afterthought. Only casual (read easy to convert) and the very most popular games that are already multi-platform will end up on mac

[Maclover1]

Umm the game market on any PC Windows or Mac is nothing compared to the console market. Last year NPD numbers put PC game sales at just under 900million and console game sales at over 14billion.

Consoles are just better IMHO for most users, not all but most. Tray and Play via a PS3 or 360 hooked up to the internet is just so simple. If the game needs a patch, well the console gets it for you and installs it. On a PC, you probably wont even know there is a patch. If its a new patch you might have to find a free place to download it, that is not hammered by others. Do you get the full patch or the incrmental? Is it an easy install? Will it work with your hardware? Drivers? OS?

Console gaming is the future.

[Dalkorian]

Which console Maclover1. The Atari 2600? The Sega Genesis? Nintendo Game Cube? Wii? Xbox 360? PS, PS 2 or PS 3?

Console gaming is for suckers who like throwing useful stuff away every few years on a manufacturers whim.

[Maclover1]

@Dalkorian "Console gaming is for suckers who like throwing useful stuff away every few years on a manufacturers whim."

Like yearly video card upgrades for PC's? Some of which cost as much or more than some consoles. I think the console will out last a PC gaming rig. Then again with PC game development on the massive decline a PC gaming rig will last longer with fewer and fewer games coming out for the PC to push its limits.

[pithenumber]

@Maclover and Dalkorian
some prefer PC and some prefer console
I personally prefer PC, the draw distances and detail is horrible in console, especially compared to even a low end gaming rig

some console people just stay away from PC since PC HW is often more expensive than console and the fact that there is hardware incompatibility sometimes.

I think its worth it, so does Dalkorian, some like Maclover you are not brave or rich enough to get the best

[gzeo77]

@maclover1 "On a PC, you probably wont even know there is a patch. If its a new patch you might have to find a free place to download it, that is not hammered by others."

Steam games are auto-patched.

[solitare_pax]

No offense to gamers, but I tend to regard the Mac as a tool to get work done on, and the PC as a toy to tinker around with and play games on it.

Using that analogy, there are not many crossover games between the workshop and a game room - other than hide & seek (otherwise known as 'where did I put that thing!')

[seven7dust]

nah ! Blizzard still releases OSX games simultaneously along with Windows
Why bother with n e thing else !

[web-design-addict]

you said it man_w_balls

[myles taylor]

See that's what I keep saying when people talk about Windows 7 and how it is miles ahead of any other OS. You have to keep in mind that the other companies aren't sitting on their hands. Yea we'll see what we see, but recently there was an article on here about how Windows 7 was the best OS Microsoft ever made.

Interestingly enough, I remember seeing a quote about Windows Vista after the Beta about how it had surpassed anything that had ever been conceived. I do have high hopes for Windows 7 but...

[macewan_]

I've tested Windows 7 and unless I missed something huge there wasn't much umph to be seen. Hell, Ubuntu with Compiz-Fusion is much more impressive than Windows 7... I'm referring to Compiz-Fusion from last summer.

[MarkHernandez]

Last June at WWDC, Apple's graphics guy John Stauffer did a demo. Starting with a graphic simulation that ran on one core, like most of todays applications, he got 2 Gigaflops of performance (which is itself serious overkill for surfing the web or word processing). He then enabled Grand Central and the performance jump to 66 Gflops. Then when he engaged OpenCL and ran it across all the CPUs and GPUs, it went up to 240 Gflops. That's not a 50% performance increase, or two times faster like the speed bumps we're used to, but 120 times faster! Of course, this was a simulation written to demonstrate potential gains.

And, of course, our machines will immediately benefit from Snow Leopard when we're doing multiple things at once, but to get anywhere near these 120x gains, software will have to be updated, and that'll take a year or two. Intel and AMD know that we can't go much faster than 3Ghz per core without water cooling, so it's a multi-core game now, but the OS and the individual applications must follow to make it all happen. Updating MacOS is the next step, and whatever foundation Apple creates, it's going to be around for a while. That project is over and is now being tested. it's just a few month more until that day is here. When Apple releases Snow Leopard, there will no doubt be announcements of major apps like Photoshop which have already been updated to take advantage of it.

We also recently saw some Apple patent applications for 3D human interfaces that should naturally be coming down the line, and even Safari 4 has gotten a bit of 3D eye candy. These are compute-intensive things. To continue to be innovative, Apple knows you have to set the groundwork. Snow Leopard is, in some ways, the software equivalent of switching from PowerPC to Intel, or from OS9 to OSX. It's going to be fun!

[rapier1]

You need to take a look at Amdahls law. There is only so much benefit you'll get from parallelization in most applications. The more inherently serial it is the less benefit you'll see from multiple cores of any sort. It seems to me that the demo application you saw was probably embarassingly parallel but these sorts of algorithms/work flows tend to be very rare. This isn't to say that parallelism isn't worth pursuing but I wouldn't expect to see performance improvements measured in orders of magnitude for most applications.

[contentcreator--2008]

rapier1 has it in 1 -- Amdahl's law is very tough on this stuff. I do multicore all the time, you're subject to diminishing returns pretty quickly a lot of time as the overhead predominates. Pretty much by definition, Grand Central lets you do NOTHING you can't already do now --- it just makes it easier for folks new to the multicore party. If you do your own, you should be faster, in fact... So don't expect it to provide any gain to already multicore apps.

OpenCL should be able to produce some large gains for very simple and regular applications. But it is very difficult to move larger portions of apps into it, because you've got a lot of little fiefdoms, and the time required to move data from one fief to another can easily dwarf the calculation time. OpenCL presents a lot of complexity and also looks inherently like a maintenance hassle for now--- the sort of thing that will be different on each machine, and get jerked around as graphics cards and OSs get updated. So I think you'll see it's impact limited to a few spots where it offers huge gains (game rendering, video color correction or coding, say) and not really elsewhere till it's more proven.

[pithenumber]

hmmm
I got 3.7GHz on air in both the Ph2 940 and 720 using safe volts
the i7's go into the mid 4's on air, the volts are too high for me to feel safe running 24/7 though

Intel and AMD are ramping up clocks, the i7 975 is 3.33 and AMD is expected to release an ultra high clocked Ph2 when they get the watts and volts required under control. I say that we haven't reached the upper limit for clocks yet

[superswiss]

Microsoft is doing the same thing with DirectX 11, which will be available for previous versions of Windows as well. At least for Vista. The GUI in Vista and Windows 7 is already taking more advantage of the GPU than current flavors of OS X. Take a look at comparisons between the Desktop Window Manager (Vista) and Quartz (OS X).

[Hep Cat]

"Microsoft is doing the same thing with DirectX 11"

Yay. I'm sure it'll be a bag of security holes and broken drivers, as usual.

[Maclover1]

66% of PC run XP, will Direct X 11 support XP? DX10 did not. Gamers for the most part hate DX10 because of performance issues.

[chabig83]

"The GUI in Vista and Windows 7 is already taking more advantage of the GPU than current flavors of OS X."

So there you have it. The not-yet-released Windows 7 is just about catching to Mac OS X circa 2002!

[Dalkorian]

w7 == fista sp3, so counting fista as a "previous version of winblows" isn't exactly fair. It's similar to saying an Apple program supports previous versions of OS X because it will run on 10.5.1 through 10.5.6.

[pithenumber]

@Maclover
gamers hating DX10 was because driver issues and the problems that Vista caused
they were fixed pretty quickly, but Apple and console fanboys still think that PC gamers hate DX10

[ZetaZeta_]

There was an article related to this from last October...
http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/27/windows-7-to-feature-gpu-acceleration-just-like-os-x-snow-leopar/

=/

[kelmon]

It's well known that OpenCL is seemingly going to play very nicely with nVidia graphics with CUDA but I wonder how well it will work for ATI chips. AMD has collaborated with Intel, nVidia and Apple on the OpenCL specification but do their current GPUs support it? Put another way, when Snow Leopard launches later this year, should we be looking for Macs with nVidia GPUs rather than those from ATI if we want to get the most from it?

[commun6]

Maybe it's time for AMD to get off their ***** and try to solicit some business from Apple? If ATI loses to nVidia, they are getting what they deserve.

[pithenumber]

I think ATi put it on their current chips to try and separate Apple and nvidia
and Apple puts an ATi chip as their highest end SPU on both the iMac and the Mac Pro

[snakesfield]

ATI has focused their latest GPU's on raw GPU performance and catching up with Nvidia. Nvidia has focused on GPU Compute capabilities allowing ATI to catch up. If you want juts graphics either will do fine, but if you want compute power Nvidia is the way to go as ATI is at least a year away architecturally.

[pithenumber]

@snakesfield
nVidia just caught up in the high end range

ATi still rules midrange by a long shot, with the decrease in price of the Radeon HD 4850/4870, nVidia will have to do something fast, hopefully a decrease in GT250/9800GTX+(same thing) pricing

[sanjayb]

All that you hear about Snow Leopard is that it will be smaller in size and run apps better but no new features. Then you get an article like this and you wonder is Apple planning to blow us away with something truly amazing?

The anticipation is starting to grow....

[thelemurking]

Definitely makes a new iMac more appealing... but due to limitations in desktop space now, I will probably end up with the MacMini since I have no room for an iMac. With the mini, I can at least KVM it with another system.

If Apple really got serious about games, and the developers really got serious about putting games out for the Mac, then I wouldn't mind investing in one. My main PC is a gaming PC that also stores all my music. I do some graphics and audio editing on it. All my web surfing is down on my Ubuntu box and I have another PC for ShoutCast. My Mac G4 is now in my closet because it was a monster. The Mini I think can fit nicely in my existing setup. Something I am now considering.

[pithenumber]

@thelemurking
Apple isn't interested in games for Mac, Valve was interested in making Mac games once, they got turned down by apple i believe

[kelmon]

No offense, sanjayb, but have you been living under a rock? OpenCL is not exactly a newly announced feature for the OS but rather something that was discussed during WWDC last year and is advertised on the Snow Leopard web page, although not in great detail.

What remains to be seen is how quickly this functionality can be incorporated into applications and whether it really provides benefits worth knowing about for day-to-day computing.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

[sanjayb]

@kelmon

Not everyone of us visits the Snow Leopard site or attend/listen to WWDC. I do read stuff from CNET and listen to podcasts periodically. The general tone has been that Leopard is minor upgrade that will improve performance but not add any significant features.

[Mr. Dee]

The thing I am understanding from Snow Leopard, its using technologies to 'try' and compete with establishments in the Windows world like DirectX 11, also, Windows 7's new scheduling improvements allows the OS to scale up to 256 processors.

[Dalkorian]

Well, we wouldn't want to strain your brain so we'll just allow you to understand whatever you want.

[rexscar]

Windows has always sucked compared to Mac OS. The release of snowleopard should finally make people realise this.
:p

[Dalkorian]

I fear it won't because people hate change. What will get people to look around will be another WGA level screw up by M$; another slap in their customer's faces. When these people try to boot their precious fista sp 3 machine thinking w7 is so cool but find they can't because some M$ update decided to lock up their computer and call them names (PIRATE! NO COMPUTER FOR YOU! SUCKER!!), then and only then will some people decide they've had enough. (Notice this has already happened!)

Others fear freedom way to much to wander far outside the realms of their masters plantation, no matter how cruel the whippings get. Those people deserve what they get - the problem is the rest of us who also must suffer countless zombie botnet machines because of these people.

Imagine how much safer the internet would be if it was mandated that M$ remove any and all networking capabilities from their crapware. Trojans would rule the internet (can't protect much against dumb users, but the rest of us could simply not install that supposed codec to view "anightinparishilton.com") and viruses and worms would virtually become threats from the past overnight (virtually - because I don't think ANYTHING is completely secure. It's a difference of a team of 12 developers working for 12 months to find an exploit that's patched in days, or a 12 year old given access to Google for 12 minutes to find an exploit that's patched next year).

[contentcreator--2008]

Actually multicore app compute performance on WIndows has been better. It took a fair amount of OS X workaround to get OS X app performance to match Windows Vista app performance on the same boot camp machine. Apple has made some kernel improvements in response and is hopefully working on memory allocation. This is a first-hand fact, end of line.

I'm equal opportunity---I'm generally PO'd at both vendors, but about different things.

[gp2792]

@dalkorian:

The world is full of sheep, except you. Thank you for being the beacon of light in the darkness we all so desperately need. Truly, someone with such an extensive vocabulary (fista, M$, Winblows) and perfectly appropriate tech analogies (slavery) is qualified to lead us out of the oppression that is M$ Winblows Fista!

Thank you Great One!

[ZetaZeta_]

Dalkorian doesn't know how to use a PC.

[kelmon]

@Dalkorian

Totally agreed. Snow Leopard, in itself, is highly unlikely to make people want to switch, mostly because they'll never have heard about it unless they are already using a Mac or have an interest in one. Rather, what you need are events that make you want to look for alternatives, which is how I ended up switching to the Mac when Windows XP drove me berserk. In general, you have to want to change before you'll even start looking at alternatives.

WGA has had me calling Microsoft's call centres in India a few times now following false-positives. That's not annoying enough and makes me thankful that Apple has continued to avoid such stupid anti-piracy measures.

[monkeyfun14]

@kelmon

Apple has anti-piracy measures as well what do you think the hardware lock is?

And they don't need things like WGA because they can guarantee someone paid them for the hardware anyways.

[Maz2009]

New computers do not need more processing power to improve their performance since we have a 4 cores that?s not yet been fully taking advantage of, and to do multiple computing between the main processor and the GPU might have some improvements but most of the time it wouldn?t because of the overhead of synchronizing between both using the front bus (which is relatively slow compared to CPU speed), unless major hardware redesign, plus really Apple computers are no more the best in handling graphics and we can easily witness that by running same game on both OSX and Windows and compare both computers performances, oddly most of the gamers install Windows Vista along with OSX just for gaming, finally, due to the use of SLI and crossfire and most if the NVIDA and Radian cards are designed for non efi architecture, so those cards can not be used even with single card setup on MAC computers. But this is what apple is good in advertisement.

[Dalkorian]

Make sure you gloss over any and all facts to prove your point, OK? Don't bother mentioning most games are optimized for winblows, just that they're faster there. Don't bother mentioning WHY games are optimized for winblows, or the FACT that they COULD be optimized/written for any platform.

Naw, just tell us how much softer your masters whip is than anyone else's. Yeah, that'll work.

[monkeyfun14]

@dalkorian

Interesting how your calling everyone slaves that uses Windows but your doing MAC's advertising? Ironic eh?

Sure they could be optimized for MAC but until Apple stops being proprietary windows users will always have more powerful hardware.

MAC users are on core 2 duos while pc users are on i7's

[forever4now]

I don't own any Apple products, but I still find Apple to be one of the most exciting tech companies in the industry. They consistently deliver beautifully designed, high quality products and you never stop wondering "What is Apple going to do next?". Snow Leopard is just one more example of this.

[daedbird]

Well, I just dreamed up what I want - A new Mac Mini, not the one that just came out, but my imaginary one. Lets see, using this GPU chip tech, they include BluRay, an HDMI interface, and DVR capabilities. They buy out Sega, and add gaming to Front Row....Oh and in addition to the new Bluetooth controllers for the games, they include a wireless keyboard with built-in trackpad.......

[mpitogo]

I can't wait. I do so a lot of personal media tasks, encoding H.264 is a real chore time eater more so in HD 720p or 1080p resolutions.

[MPB]

I can't wait for Snow Leopard to be released!!!!!!!!!!!!

[josealva17]

Whether you are a Windows or Mac pundit, there is no denying how important Apple has been to the innovation in the computer industry.

This is pretty exciting stuff.

[video Pal]

So many here don't understand what a breakthrough Open CL is.
Here read this http://www.khronos.org/developers/library/overview/opencl_overview.pdf

[genome_77]

Pure and simple gamers won't buy Macs. We like yo build our rigs and tailor them just the way we want them. Mac are way overpriced for the hardware offered. Seriously a few grand for a mac with a Nvidia 9600? get real. For the price of a Mac with a 9600 in it I can build a PC with TWO GTX 295's in SLI. Until Mac gets a reasonable price for their hardware they will remain what they are. Overpriced toys for yuppies who are suckered by pop culture and fancy marketing.

[kelmon]

...ok...this wasn't an article about gaming but I'd like to thank you for your comment. Did you mean to post it here?

[seven7dust]

unfortunately yr the one living a suckered life
buying new graphics cards and power supplies every 3 months
overclocking and cooling yr hardware
and all this just to run a few games at high FPS
I'm sorry but the world doesn't revolve around gaming
and they r plenty of games that don't demand SLI's and GTX 295s
So go enjoy burning a hole in yr pocket every few months
and We Mac users enjoy using r Problem free computers for years

[monkeyfun14]

@seven7dust

Our gaming systems can last years while still playing games well.

A gtx 295 will still be a power house 2 -3 years from now.

Mac users buy a new mac everytime they make something as little as upgrading memory speed or a cosmetic change.

[rexscar]

@kelmon

?or maybe useful tools for designers and artists who are tech savvy enough to know a good thing when they see it?
:p

[ianbetteridge]

One thing everyone seems to be missing: as the name suggests, OpenCL is an open standard. There's nothing stopping anyone porting it to any platform, including Windows.

In fact, if you want to develop using OpenCL today, there's no reason to wait until Snow Leopard: OpenCL is part of Nvidia's CUDA project, which is already running on Mac, Windows and Linux.

[lickmoreshoes]

Next step for apple...over priced pc (=