[ecs]

Anybody here has a Mac mini with Tiger installed? If so, did you try Core Image effects with it? How does it perform? Is the 9200-32MB a usable GPU for Core Image?

[nokiauk]

I wouldnt think so these cards are from the Apple Site:

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
ATI Radeon 9600 XT, 9800 XT, X800 XT
nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL

[ezkcdude]

From what I understand, even if you don't have a compatible GPU, the Core Image functionality will use the CPU, instead. It may be slower, but the interface should be the same.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by nokiauk I wouldnt think so these cards are from the Apple Site: ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 ATI Radeon 9600 XT, 9800 XT, X800 XT nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200 nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL

Even though it's not listed, the Mobility Radeon 9600 is CoreImage compatible. At least the one in my PowerBook is.

[Noel]

Originally Posted by ezkcdude From what I understand, even if you don't have a compatible GPU, the Core Image functionality will use the CPU, instead. It may be slower, but the interface should be the same.

Shouldn't the ripple effect then be working on my iBook G3?

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by Noel Shouldn't the ripple effect then be working on my iBook G3?

The ripple effect is Apple's way of showing that your GPU is CoreImage compatible. Kind of like how the mouse pointer has a shadow if your GPU is Quartz Extreme compatible.

[Luca]

Yeah, no ripple effect here on my mini. Widgets just do a zoomy-scaling thing when you drop them on the dashboard, and a little mini-genie effect when you close them. That's the "eye candy" level I guess. It might be different for applications that use the Photoshop-like filters... you can probably still do those things, but the CPU handles them so they're not as fast. Apple disables the effects in the general GUI because they would rather you look at less eye candy than see really slow eye candy.

It would be interesting to see if you could enable it. I wonder how the CPU would handle the ripple effect? It could take a long time... it seems like the sort of thing where a CPU would have to crunch the data for a while.

[BuonRotto]

CoreImage effects will work on any G4 or greater. Some eye candy is turned off if your computer doesn't have an advanced enough GPU, but any actual practical use of CoreImage effects will work. I promise.

I beta tested a CoreImage app on a 700 MHz G4 iMac that only has something like a GeForce 2 card. Performance is slow on certain combinations of effects, but it all works.

[Noel]

Originally Posted by bassplayinMacFiend The ripple effect is Apple's way of showing that your GPU is CoreImage compatible. Kind of like how the mouse pointer has a shadow if your GPU is Quartz Extreme compatible.

Ah, makes sense. Thank you.

[dfiler]

Actually... the shadowed cursor can be misleading. If you have the shadowed cursor, you are QE capable. However, the opposite is not true, some cards are QE capable but don't get the shadowed cursor.

On top of that...

Even if a machine's GPU doesn't accelerate Core Image functions, the machine is still running Core Image. Core Image is a flexible API that simply attempts to make the fullest use of available hardware. Even if you have an ancient computer which can't GPU accelerate CI and which can't even pull off the effect via the CPU, it is still running Core Image.

[ecs]

Originally Posted by BuonRotto I beta tested a CoreImage app on a 700 MHz G4 iMac that only has something like a GeForce 2 card. Performance is slow on certain combinations of effects, but it all works.

So, how fast is Core Image when running by ALTIVEC in the G4? If it fast enough for full-screen "real-time" (ie: more than 6fps) previews of filters? Or is it only suitable for non-realtime calculation?

[Wraven]

Luca,
I don't know about you but I don't miss the ripple effect at all (i.e. it's not going to make me upgrade to a faster machine at least). I see myself using my mini for a long time...

Although on the other hand, it would be NICE to see those 1920x1080i HD H.264 Quicktime movies on a 30" ACHD / G5 PowerMac .

[Luca]

Yeah. It'll require a whole lot more than a fully CI supported video card and a processor bump to make the mini a 1080p machine. Remember that - it's 1080p, because 1080i means it's interlaced, and doesn't really have any more resolution than 720p.

[Wraven]

Luca,
Doh - good catch. They are 1080p on the web site. However, even 1080i is a "higher" resolution than 720p, FYI (1920x1080/2 = 1036800 pixels while 1280x720 = 921600 pixels).

[dfiler]

Heheh... here we go with the endless 720p vs. 1080i debate ...

What you say is true. But keep in mind that 720p is 60 frames per second rather than 60 fields (half frames) per second. There will never be a consensus on which one offers higher perceived resolution or picture quality.

Also interesting to note:
In this context, 1080p typically refers to video at 24 fps while 1080i typically refers to video at 60 fields per second. In other words, 1080i is pushing more pixels than 1080p.

[Wraven]

dfiler,
Right - I know this. That's why I mentioned it. And no, I'm NOT getting into a debate with Luca, just wanted to point out a small detail.

Back on topic, the 1080p Quicktime files pwn my mini.

But, that is to be expected...

[BuonRotto]

Originally Posted by ecs So, how fast is Core Image when running by ALTIVEC in the G4? If it fast enough for full-screen "real-time" (ie: more than 6fps) previews of filters? Or is it only suitable for non-realtime calculation?

It does plenty of effects in real time even on my lowly machine, but depending on the combination of the effects and the size of the image they're working on, it can and will bog down. You might be a bit surprised about which ones are quick and which ones aren't though. For example, I've found most composite operations (overlays, masking) are fast, but combining certain stuff with aggressive gaussian blurs can bog it down. Some geometric effects like rotating and scaling are nimble, but others like perspective distortion on large images aren't. Perspective distortion is fine for images around 2Mp, more or less, but if I use the perspective distortion on my 5Mp camera images without scling them down, it lags quite a bit.

The workaround solution in iMaginator is to simply turn off effects you're not concerned with for the time being, and then turn them back on when you want to see the results. So at least there's that.

There is a practical limit to what a G4 can do, definitely. Most of the time, you only use 2-5 effects on an image anyway, and for the most common effects, it's fine. Just watch out for some of the weirder ones, or complex combinations of effects. Still, I managed to beta test and produce images from an app that doesn't even preview effects, they simply get applied to the full image as you pick them.

[ecs]

Originally Posted by BuonRotto It does plenty of effects in real time even on my lowly machine, but depending on the combination of the effects and the size of the image they're working on, it can and will bog down. You might be a bit surprised about which ones are quick and which ones aren't though. For example, [...]

What about color-processing filters (hue/saturation, brightness/contrast, gamma, solarize, etc...) ? Are they faster than geometric filters?

Also, did you try convolutions (blur/sharpen) with small kernels (up to 7x7 -ie:radius=3.5) ? Are they fast? What radius size do you mean when you say "aggressive gaussian blur"?

[BuonRotto]

All that color stuff and the sharpen/blur stuff seems fine to me, no sweat. Compositing and blending are usually fine too, and they're pretty much just on/off anyway, so it's nt like you're moving the source points or other controls around.

By "aggressive" gaussian blurring, I mean a *lot* of blurring, maybe 10 points or more, way beyond what you would normally do unless you have a gigantic image to beign with. Even with big images, CoreImage will do what Photoshop does and break down the image into tiles and work out each one and reassemble the whole on the fly rather than trying to push one huge image down the pipe.

Pretty much all of the effects by themselves are manageable on a G4. The slowdowns come when you combine them in certain ways. Problem is, there are simply too many variables to make a declarative statement about which ones are impractical. You have an infinite number of combinations (you figure 100+ effects applied in any arbitrary order with any number of instances == infinity) available to you.

If I had to point out a trend in terms of where you start to bog down, some of the distortion effects and stylize effects are pretty taxing. Geometry usually isn't, except for perspective at times. Maybe the transitions effects are heavy duty as well, I haven't really done much with them.

See this list of effects for what I'm talking about.

[ezkcdude]

For the record, 1080P (24 fps) is considered by many to be the only true HD standard.

[Wraven]

ezkcdude,
As mentioned earlier, this horse has been beaten to death. Please search for the many threads dealing with HD. This thread has to do with CoreImage (and tangentially processing power of a Mac mini).

[julesstoop]

Well. A true HD standard should have a higher refresh rate. Personally I percieve 24 fps as annoyingly slow and unacceptable at the huge screen size of a cinema (it gives me a headache and it allways has).

TV/SD-Video is acceptable for the simple reason that the screen is usually so much smaller, that it doesn't trigger my peripheral vision.

[ezkcdude]

jules, the rate for movies (in the theater on analog film) is 24 fps. Do you have headaches in the theater too?

[julesstoop]

Yes. I really have a problem with 24 fps in high motion scenes especially when my peripheral vision is triggered.

[kuliand2]

so can the mac mini handle the core image ripple effect then?

[Luca]

No.

[Jasoco]

The ripple was cool while I was playing with it on the computers at the store. But I can live without it just fine with my Mac mini.

Actually, I don't even use Dashboard as much as I thought I would.. Nope. I don't. I have it available when the time comes I need it, but nope. I don't like it. Don't need it as much as I expected.