Looking at platforms objectively [X4U]

[Eugene]

On Sat, Sep 03, 2005 at 09:07:37AM CDT, Michael Elliott <michaelelliott at mac.com> wrote:
: 
: Could you educate me on what the advantages for Quartz 2D Extreme  
: will be?  I've heard the term thrown around, but I don't understand  
: what exactly will be sped up.  (Or not...since I don't know if my  
: iMac G4 1.25 Ghz or iBook G4 will support it!).  What "things we  
: previously had run as effortlessly" will run better now?

Quartz 2D is the API used by an application to draw its contents
to a window, using the CPU to do the commands.  Quartz 2D Extreme
sends these drawing commands to the GPU, letting the video card do
what it does best and off-loading the CPU to do other tasks.  So in
general, "... Extreme" means that the graphics stuff (specifically,
OpenGL commands) been moved from the slower, general-purpose CPU to
the faster, special-purpose GPU.  Of course, all this works only on
supported video cards.


-- 
Eugene
http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/