Mac OS X 10.6 to utilise GPU Acceleration

[PV5150]

Big things ahead for Apple it sems...

Details in the news article

 

[ai_01]

Probably will get crucified for this, but i would not be surprised to see Apple being the main platform for most users within the future. (5~10+ yr span) I do not see them being a main platform for gamers though, unless something really changes (such as more compatibility with hardware swap) which i do not think is Apples image. However Microsoft has a lot of free cashflow, which helps a lot for R&D. Also would not be surprised if Google came out with a platform that blew everyone else out of the water.

Apple does not have a bigger market share from PC's to MAC's but if their stock price hits 280 they will bigger than MS, money wise. Just a thing to think about. Two years ago Apple was trading at 50~75 dollars per share. It is now 180 as of today, and it hit 202 in late December.

Honestly I don't care who wins, its not even a matter of who, its just speculation on my part, not biased towards any party, i do not even own a Mac, still use PC b/c i game mostly.

 

[Toxcity]

I do believe Apple is partly owned by Microsoft.

MS also said they will take advantage of your GPU in Vista.. look how that turned out.

 

[equk]

Probably will get crucified for this, but i would not be surprised to see Apple being the main platform for most users within the future. (5~10+ yr span) I do not see them being a main platform for gamers though

I thought the whole point in this is not for gamers, but for developers , opening the use of 3D graphics and possibly more GPU powered effects? (to ANY app rather than only a select few)

lets “any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications”

Definately not just 'games' or for 'gamers' (I guess games are considered to be 'graphics applications')

'Snow Leopard' should bring a lot more performance to newer intel based systems as I've heard they are making it as intel 64bit only. So old support for PPC should dissapear and all that slow 'legacy' stuff should almost dissapear.

Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL (Open Computing Language), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU). With GPUs approaching processing speeds of a trillion operations per second, they’re capable of considerably more than just drawing pictures. OpenCL takes that power and redirects it for general-purpose computing.

To accommodate the enormous amounts of memory being added to advanced hardware, Snow Leopard extends the 64-bit technology in Mac OS X to support breakthrough amounts of RAM — up to a theoretical 16TB, or 500 times more than what is possible today. More RAM makes applications run faster, because more of their data can be kept in the very fast physical RAM instead of on the much slower hard disk.

 

[equk]

I do believe Apple is partly owned by Microsoft.

MS also said they will take advantage of your GPU in Vista.. look how that turned out.

Leopard already uses GPU based effects with 'Core Image' support. Which was introduced in 2005 with Mac OSX Tiger.

Previous to that there was the introduction of Quartz Extreme in 2002 on Jaguar

 

[equk]

For more info on Snow Leopard, visit the apple website

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

Lots more info on what's going on, mostly seems to mostly be based on making way for new hardware like the intel Nehalem.

 

[FarFarAway]

Apple are doing some interesting stuff and I can see them stealing a good %age of the home market from MS, not just with the new devs in Snow Leopard but generally with our more image-conscious culture and the fact that older people are buying PC's more and more and they have the money to drop on a Mac

I like the OpenCL idea, hope Apple pull it off and devs start using it

 

[Rastalovich]

Indeed.

I know they have their reasons for not releasing their OS for installation on pcs in general, mainly down to the support nightmare that would ensue, I would imagine, but there are some crazy cheap ways of `making` a mac - 99.99% legally - and quicker, more hardware relevant. (which we can`t go into too much detail on, so lets not discuss it too much)

Watching a bunch of Apple dev stuff, the core of the OS is pretty darn transportable. Culminating with the fact ur iPhone has the same core as an iMac, or will do depending on the dateline.

I`m sitting, with tissues ready, for the next line of Apple-pc/MBP/etc to be released. It`s quite apparent that they`re aged and pricess are going down. Whether they`re eol yet I don`t know. U can buy the miniMac, that I believe is a minor mbp without a screen, about the size of 2 external dvd drives, for $590 or so. I`d pay that tbh.

There`s nothing like the smell of opening a box that`s come from Apple. I have no idea what the smell is, but let`s say it`s quite nice. Not apparent in iTouch/iPod boxes tho. I got a keyboard and OS box here and just opening it is an experience LOL (I`m mad).