[HTee]

Is the fact that Apple is switching over to Intel mean that they feel intel is a better processor? Or are they doing this to explore new ways of making more affordable computers. I know how laptops can benefit from this but what about desktops? In other words I want to know if my new iMac G5 2.1Ghz is going be scraps compared to a new intel based iMac.

[JayReding]

Probably not. Apple is switching for a couple of reasons, the two biggest being the fact that IBM and Freescale can't produce enough PowerPC chips to meet demand, and the fact that Intel offers a better roadmap for the future.

The G5 is still a fast processor, and for the vast majority of tasks, it's more than fast enough for most people. Apple's going to support PowerPC for at least the next 2 years, and probably longer.

In short, it's not something I'd worry about.

[Maciej]

Yeah, I've heard various informed people actually say that the PPC chip has better engineering, simply poor companies developing it. There isn't any reason feel bad about having PPC.

[hmurchison]

PPC rocks. But it's future is kinda hazy. Intel is a safer and cheaper bet for Apple for the future.

[oldmacfan]

Intel CPU's have a chance to do many things for Apple. I think the 2 keys to keep in mind are:

1. Intel's execution on the road map they gave to Apple.
2. Apple's execution on what Intel provides them.

In reality anything could happen. I agree that Intel is in someways Safer and could potentially be cheaper. Hazy is a very good word to use in regards to the future. I think Apple is playing this well keeping a couple of aces in their pockett incase they need them. I think this is much more about getting out from behind the 8-ball of IBM/FreeScale.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by JayReding The G5 is still a fast processor, and for the vast majority of tasks, it's more than fast enough for most people.

Except that the Mini doesn't have the G5, it's still using the G4.

A Yonah-based Mini should be noticably faster than a G4-based Mini. Add in improvements to the bus speed (Intel loves high bus) and a new graphics engine, and it should blow the socks off the current model.

[PB PM]

Thats the only issues I have with the G4, slow bus speed. I could never figure out why they never broke past the 167Mhz bus speed. If the 1.42 or 1.5Ghz G4 had a 400-500Mhz bus it would work a lot better.

[x86]

If PC video cards become compatible with the intel macs, that alone would be awsome and hopefully bring more games to the Mac!

[PB PM]

Not really, its just a different set of ROMs on the card. Physically the cards are the same, (you can flash Mac ROMs onto a PC Video Card, but it is risky) its the ROMs that are different. Its the differents between DirectX and OpenGL for the most part, and how the games use the CPU etc. The code for Mac games is totally different for the most part, and thus for most companies its not worth the money to make a Mac version.

[Doxxic]

Originally Posted by PB PM ...thus for most companies its not worth the money to make a Mac version.

So that doesn't change when Mac goes Intel?

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by Doxxic So that doesn't change when Mac goes Intel?

It should.

It's assumed that a game will look different than an office app, so porting should be a lot less work (you don't need to juggle toolkits). Plus, an upswing in number of mac owners should really help.

[BenRoethig]

It will make a difference when the PowerPC macs are out of the picture. A intel only windows to Mac game port could take half the time or less and be a much better product.

[Moogs]

I think a lot depends on how well Intel adapts to the dual-core philosophy. This is sort of a break from teh old way of doing things so hopefully it will work out well. That is, Intel's dual-core architecture

http://intel.com/personal/desktopcom...core/index.htm

might well be every bit as efficient as IBM's G5 dual-core, even though on the single-core side of things, they're aren't (or at least weren't the last time I checked).

[NaplesX]

It will be a better computer for apple buyers. It signals apple's desire to mass market their computer products.

We may see the end of the announce - make available months later - and actually ship months after that - cycle. We may see that process diminish to weeks.

That is what intel can offer to apple, as long as apple sticks with standard or close to standard processors.

If apple wants, they can increase their quarterly revenue by 20% or more, imo, if they can just keep up with demand for their new products.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by Doxxic So that doesn't change when Mac goes Intel?

Not really. ATI and other Video Card designers put a ROMs on the Video chips which allow them to work with Mac OSX, OS9, Windows etc. Its not an issues of the CPU being Intel or PowerPC. Most PC games are written in DirectX, a 3rd system like OpenGL, but they are very different in how they handle 3d Graphics. I don't think Apple will be paying M$ a bunch of cash to get the DirectX software on Mac OSX, so I wouldn't count on it being much different than it is now.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by PB PM Not really. ATI and other Video Card designers put a ROMs on the Video chips which allow them to work with Mac OSX, OS9, Windows etc. Its not an issues of the CPU being Intel or PowerPC. Most PC games are written in DirectX, a 3rd system like OpenGL, but they are very different in how they handle 3d Graphics. I don't think Apple will be paying M$ a bunch of cash to get the DirectX software on Mac OSX, so I wouldn't count on it being much different than it is now.

Most cards can handle OpenGL, which works great on Mac. The painful part is specific to architecture.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by PB PM Not really. ATI and other Video Card designers put a ROMs on the Video chips which allow them to work with Mac OSX, OS9, Windows etc.

Please elaborate. If it's that simple, then how is it that PC video cards are so wholly incompatible with Macs?

[PB PM]

Its because of the ROMs. A Mac ATI Radeon can be burned with PC ROMs, but who would pay the extra money? There are some differences, for example support for Core Image, etc on the Mac. The physical card is not much different. Why do Mac gamers pay more for 3rd Party Graphics cards, simple less people buy them and so the price you pay for the ROM development is far higher.

Most cards can handle OpenGL, which works great on Mac.

Yes OpenGL is used by a number of games, but not all. There are four or five types of 3D engines, which include DirectX, and OpenGL. Now if you are a PC game designer, where do you put your money, on 2-5% of the gaming market to make your games run on PPC/Intel Macs, or on 97-95% of your possible buyers? I just don't see the Mac gaming market growing that much untill Apple computers make up more than 15-20% of the Computers used world wide. Believe me, I wish it was not this way. I would love to see more games for the Mac, since I have been a Mac person all my life, but again I wouldn't put too much money on big growth in the Mac gaming market for the next 5-10 years.

[Doxxic]

Yes OpenGL is used by a number of games, but not all. There are four or five types of 3D engines, which include DirectX, and OpenGL. Now if you are a PC game designer, where do you put your money, on 2-5% of the gaming market to make your games run on PPC/Intel Macs, or on 97-95% of your possible buyers?

So OpenGL runs only on video cards with Mac ROMS? Or why else do developers prefer DirectX over OpenGL?

Its because of the ROMs. A Mac ATI Radeon can be burned with PC ROMs, but who would pay the extra money? There are some differences, for example support for Core Image, etc on the Mac. The physical card is not much different. Why do Mac gamers pay more for 3rd Party Graphics cards, simple less people buy them and so the price you pay for the ROM development is far higher.

All in all to me it seems pretty unlogic for Apple to migrate to Intel cores and not to video cards with PC ROMS... Gee why can't they just re-code OpenGL, or put some video Rosetta in between...

[chucker]

[quote=Doxxic]So OpenGL runs only on video cards with Mac ROMS? Or why else do developers prefer DirectX over OpenGL?

No, OpenGL and DirectX have nothing to do with the ROM on graphics cards.

Developers prefer DirectX over OpenGL for the same reason many of them prefer writing Windows-only applications.

All in all to me it seems pretty unlogic for Apple to migrate to Intel cores and not to video cards with PC ROMS.

Because OpenFirmware works well.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by Doxxic So OpenGL runs only on video cards with Mac ROMS? Or why else do developers prefer DirectX over OpenGL? All in all to me it seems pretty unlogic for Apple to migrate to Intel cores and not to video cards with PC ROMS... Gee why can't they just re-code OpenGL, or put some video Rosetta in between...

As chucker said, OpenGL and DirectX have nothing to do with the ROMs. The ROMs are just like the boot ROM that allows OSX to run on your Mac. A graphics card has its own GPU (kind of like a CPU) which allows it to create 3D images, its what Core Image uses to help boost the preformace of your machine. The ROM translates the data OpenGL, DirectX etc, which are sent from the game code to your graphics card allowing you to see 3D images on your screen. Now you might say, well they should all use OpenGL so it works on the Mac, but its not going to happen because developers like the features of some of the other engines far more. Apple used to have two 3D Graphics drivers, Rave and OpenGL, but Rave (aside from half functional Classic Drivers) is no supported any longer.

DirectX has been the mainstay of the PC gaming market since its flexable, but as I noted before, Apple is not likely to pay Bill Gates for the rights to use those graphics drivers, let alone take the time to re-code it to work in OSX. Although the Intel CPU may be better suted to gaming, it will not change your graphics driver support or the ROMs that the card designers use for Mac OSX, the Windows to Apple's Xcode is very different and prevents this. Funny isn't it that the part of OSX that makes it so great is also its downfall when it comes to gaming?

[Anthem]

There was a period where a lot of stuff was written in OpenGL. That's what most of the consoles use.

In Vista, though, it looks like Microsoft is going out of its way to break OpenGL in order to promote DirectX10.

[PB PM]

Yes a few years ago it was one of the best graphics drivers out there, but since 2001-2002 a lot has changed in the 3D gaming demands. OpenGL works great on the Mac since its the only one (that I know of anyway) that works with it right now.

[Unch]

How come Pegasos motherboards manage to be able to use PC GFX cards while using both PPC and OpenFirmWare compatible BIOS and yet Apple can't?

[PB PM]

Is the Pegasos motherboard running OSX? Its not a hardware issue we are talking about it, its ROMs for the graphics cards (physically the cards are the same, a ATI Radeon 9550 is a Radeon 9550 on PCs and Mac) and software ---> Mac OSX.

[Unch]

My question was to Chucker, who was the one who mentioned OpenFirmware. (I guess I should of marked it as such)

To be honest I haven't a clue what you're wibbling on about, and I'm not sure you do either.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Unch My question was to Chucker, who was the one who mentioned OpenFirmware. (I guess I should of marked it as such) To be honest I haven't a clue what you're wibbling on about, and I'm not sure you do either.

The assertion that OpenFirmware is the cause of having separate cards for Macs and PCs is only partially correct. The other cause is that Macs and PCs use a different way of writing to memory. On a Mac the number 4, if stored in an 4bit variable, would be stored like this: "0100" but on a PC, it's like this: "0010". So the video card has to understand both ways of writing data to work on both platforms.

When we switch to Intel CPUs, we'll switch to the PC way of representing data as well. Apple has stated that we won't be using OpenFirmware anymore, either. The current Apple Dev Boxes use a standard PC BIOS, but there is speculation that the final product will use EFI instead, since the standard PC BIOS lacks several features of OpenFirmware, as well as helping to ensure the OS doesn't work on non-Apple hardware (I don't think Windows supports EFI yet, therefore nobody makes boards for it).

Edit: Come to think of it, I'm not sure if OpenFirmware has anything to do with requiring separate cards. I'll have to do some research.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Dave The other cause is that Macs and PCs use a different way of writing to memory.

Specifically, this is called endianness. Macs (68k and PPC) are big endian; PCs (x86) are little endian.

[chucker]

The graphics card have absolutely nothing to do with endianness, as far as I can tell.

[PB PM]

Considering that graphics cards have their own built in memory, its a matter of how that is used, along with its ROMs not the System useable memory. The ROM of the Graphics card is what serperates PC cards from Mac ones. How do I know, well lets see, they use the same Graphics engine (GPU) the same viewable graphics technology. OpenFirmware has nothing to do with it. The issues are, the ROMs needed for you to view graphics in OSX, and the 3D Graphics engines useable in OSX. If there were more engines in use for OSX then it would be easier and cheaper for companies to do so, but there aren't.