OpenCL Supported Graphics Cards Leaves Some Intel Macs Behind

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OpenCL Supported Graphics Cards Leaves Some Intel Macs Behind

Posted 06/10/2009 at 3:43:33pm | by Arvind Srinivasan

snow leopard landing page

A perusal of the specs and features pages for the upcoming OS X Snow Leopard has revealed a lot of extra information that Apple neglected to mention thus far.

For example, if you were looking to some of the speed boosting technology that Apple featured in the keynote with your Intel Mac, namely OpenCL and H.264 Video Acceleration, you could be out of luck. OpenCL is only supported by the following graphics cards:

NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, Geforce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130, ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870.

These graphics cards are all dedicated ones, which means all Macs with Intel Integrated Graphics will not be able to take advantage of the improvements.

H.264, on the other hand, will only work with Macs with NVIDIA 9400m GPUs, which is essentially limited to the unibody line of MacBooks.

This is a huge disappointment, because OpenCL is one of the key speed boosters in Snow Leopard, as it allows programs to use power from the GPU when it is not in use. H.264 acceleration is mainly used to improve video playback, as it uses the GPU to encode and decode video instead of using the CPU. This frees up the CPU for other use.

COMMENTS: 18

TAGS: Snow Leopard, Unibody, os x 10.6, gpgpu, opencl, h.264 acceleration

COMMENTS

Question?
Submitted by maclover on Wed, 2009-06-10 13:42

So were you saying that my Macbook unibody bought in October will still work fully with Snow Leopard?

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Ok really confused
Submitted by maclover on Wed, 2009-06-10 14:05

Does this mean that October Unibody macbooks are compatible with OpenCL or not?

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From what I've read- if you
Submitted by homemaderobot on Wed, 2009-06-10 17:11

From what I've read- if you have a Unibody Macbook, it will take advantage of this feature. The distinct advantage that Pro users have is that they have "2" video cards to work with.Unibody Macbook = Yes

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9400M IS IN THE MAC MINI ALSO
Submitted by JUSTRICHPOWER on Wed, 2009-06-10 18:52

THANK YOU APPLE FOR HELPING US MAC MINI CUSTOMERS

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Unibody?
Submitted by boswellb on Wed, 2009-06-10 21:02

I got a white macbook in Feb of this year, and it has the NVIDA GeForce 9400M. I didn't think they referred to the white ones as unibody. Otherwise I speculate that I will be able to take advantage of the improvements.

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Ya you can
Submitted by maclover on Wed, 2009-06-10 22:27

Ya I am pretty sure you can, by white ones I think they mean the ones prior to the first unibody releases (October), since they had Intel integrated graphics.

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1st gen Intel iMac
Submitted by MetFanJay21 on Thu, 2009-06-11 06:10

So if I have a 1st gen Intel iMac (white one with "the chin" - May 2006), and I have a ATI Radeon x1600 in it, I'm left out too ?? I mean, I LOVE my Mac, but this sounds like an M$ move all the way.

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You're not the only one...
Submitted by Ben on Thu, 2009-06-11 06:29

My Aluminum iMac that I bought in October 2008 won't support this feature either. I would have, for sure, expected this feature to work on my iMac, given that it's not even a year old.

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boo hoo
Submitted by chauncey007 on Thu, 2009-06-11 08:51

I have a real problem with people purchasing technology and then being upset when something new comes out that won't work with their system. "sounds like an M$ move all the way". Well... it sounds like technology evolves, and Apple can't do it for free, or to accommodate all past generations.

Dude, at least you don't have to run vista/7/xp or whatever else is out there.

Thanks Apple. I still love you, even though I can't take total advantage of everything new.

Sorry for the bullets, this comment system needs a paragraph feature...

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Calm Down
Submitted by Quayzar on Thu, 2009-06-11 13:30

Calm down dude. No one hear is saying they would rather have Windows or anything like that. What many are simply stating (especially the one with the October '08 iMac) is it's lame that a major feature of an OS that simply uses resources already at hand via software can't just because they don't want to have to write new drivers or firmware required. It's also lame that if someone buys a computer very recently like after the first announcement of an OS that the OS in question can't take advantage of the hardware at hand even though there are no physical limitations (i. e. there are all the necessary hardware for it to work already installed but still needs software). I fully understand the onward progression of technology (my G5 tower will finally be behind an OS version with Snow Leopard and I have no problem with that) but this isn't because of a change as drastic as a shift from Power PC to x86 as that required entirely different code for even mundane tasks. No, this is simply a feature that address resources through a rather ingenious bit of software but is not being supported on all relatively compatible hardware because some people don't want to have to cobble together new drivers for older (not even a year old in many cases) tech. I will concede that part of the blame is on the graphics card companies themselves and their flaky, apathetic nature with Apple. In the past graphics problems have plagued many great models including the first Unibody MacBooks or even the first white iBooks back when then the chips where actually unsoldering themselves from the logic board during normal use. Let's face it the graphics card companies have been terrible to Apple for years and I think Apple is in part to blame. Apple needs to step it up a bit with these companies. Perhaps they are now with Open CL and ever growing market share but it's a shame that it took this long just to get them to halfway care. That said Mac OS still is all kinds of awesome and totally pOwnes ALL!!!!!!!!!! :) P.S. My MacBook Pro will not be supported but I am still really excited about Snow Leopard.

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sooooooo my Mac Pro Tower
Submitted by Nekollx on Thu, 2009-06-11 13:04

sooooooo my Mac Pro Tower (early 2008 edition) with a ATI Radeon HD 2600 won't get any benefits from upgrading?

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slow adoption
Submitted by b_dubb on Fri, 2009-06-12 10:01

i'm thinking that some of these issues are going to slow adoption of Snow Leopard. i have two macs on my desk - a G5 PowerMac and a Mac mini intel GPA. neither would get any perfomance boost from SL. granted the features in SL are pretty kick ass. and the price point for upgrade is low.

i'm rambling. time for a nap

b

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open cl
Submitted by magyarman on Fri, 2009-06-12 12:54

Sheesh. With my 2.4Ghz 24" iMac, just over a year old, and a Radeon HD2600, do I get any benefit from upgrading?Look, I get the advancing technology argument, and didn't squirm when the price of my machine dropped just after I bought it. But c'mon, how 'bout a little more support than this. The damn thing is just a year old, and already the upgrade doesn't apply. Again I say, "Sheesh."

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Good
Submitted by Dans on Fri, 2009-06-12 14:33

yes innovation in this way have a great site thank you

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Backwards compatibility
Submitted by Imagine Engine on Sat, 2009-06-13 21:31

My hope is that Apple will update the supported GPU list by the time Snow Leopard is released. I have a MacBook Pro running an Intel Core 2 Duo processor that supports Snow Leopard's 64-bit code but with an ATI X1600 GPU I don't make the list of supported GPU to use OpenCL. I'm sure there are several Apple customers using an iMac, Mac Mini or MacBook that don't fit the supported GPU list for OpenCL graphics. We can't just change the graphics GPU like a Mac Pro can and I'm not rushing out to buy another Mac just to use OpenCL especially when I'm still paying off this one.

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OpenCL petition
Submitted by jod on Tue, 2009-06-16 14:14

Here is OpenCL petition, please sign in: http://petition.romcok.eu/ , thx :) . if you miss your GPU in this petition, please, report it to petition@romcok.eu.

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