pouët.net

fuckings to apple.

category: general [glöplog]
FF00FF/00FF00 and a nice gpu.. Then we're talking :p
added on the 2006-05-17 10:49:49 by Hatikvah Hatikvah
apple should:
- sell macos for PCs, there will be a * massive * switch to macos as they have the chance to be ahead since a few year.
- stop selling hardware that pretends to be different from PCs when they are not.
added on the 2006-05-17 11:14:58 by krabob krabob
Guess what we really need is a gaming laptop for demos, as the requirements are about the same. Apple make cheap laptops for web, word processing etc. and pro laptops for more serious stuff, no gaming hardware.
added on the 2006-05-17 11:51:18 by psonice psonice
IBM ownz!!!
Have you noticed that every next-gen games console has an IBM CPU?
added on the 2006-05-17 12:45:51 by xernobyl xernobyl
No, but I did notice that half the people posting their delusions in this thread are in dire need of a tour through Clueville.

Still holding out for the first one to start bitching about how Apple is making expensive hardware. Don't forget to bitch about the dollar -> euro ratio k thx!
added on the 2006-05-17 13:46:50 by Shifter Shifter
and do forget about the VAT. I mean, that's better the blame apple than actually have a clue too!
added on the 2006-05-17 13:53:48 by _-_-__ _-_-__
krabob: i see you have understood alot about macosx and apple hardware. hah.

and stefan, i dunno shit about the gfxcard but i doubt that apple would put it in there if it couldnt atleast handle the interface. me no worried.
added on the 2006-05-17 15:28:41 by gemini gemini
"sell macos for PCs, there will be a * massive * switch to macos as they have the chance to be ahead since a few year."
bullshit.
a) most users don't have any reason to switch
b) apple would be stupid to willingly enter the maintenance hell that is general PC hardware. making an OS that only has to run on a small number of well-specified hardware configurations is several orders of magnitude easier than having to work with the masses of badly designed and not standard compliant hardware out there. that's what killed BeOS, and it would go down the same way with macos.
added on the 2006-05-17 15:53:21 by ryg ryg
what would be a good demodev laptop ?
i was about to consider buying some sony 13" vaio that is able to switch between integrated intel gpu and nvidia 7400, so that you can decide between battery life / performance

too bad that macbook pros have ATI gpus :/
i was disapointed by my 9800pro and my next gpu will be a nvidia one
Quote:
i was about to consider buying some sony 13" vaio that is able to switch between integrated intel gpu and nvidia 7400, so that you can decide between battery life / performance

Oh god, that is the most awesome idea I've heard today (but let me guess -the 7400 is connected on the regular PCI bus) :)
added on the 2006-05-17 17:13:04 by Shifter Shifter
Would it not be more clever to have a gpu that could downclock when not busy? And for instance spin up when loading opengl/d3d fullscreen (or windowed for specifik apps). And thus being able to shut down cooling fans etc..
added on the 2006-05-17 17:36:14 by Hatikvah Hatikvah
shifter> honnestly i don't know what this nvidia 7400 gpu is capable of, i just want to find something that can run modern 3d and that last more than 2 hours
hey, if anyone finds a pc laptop gpu that a) runs modern 3d, b) doesnt eat battery+weigh a ton and c) isnt extremely expensive (and comes in laptops that arent extremely expensive and heavy) then let me know.

the closest i got to finding that so far is an ati x700.. anything slower+older isnt worth having, anything better seems to only be in stupidly expensive laptops. oh well.


added on the 2006-05-17 18:03:43 by smash smash
KANADA : that's what my gf6800 go does (i think). well in any case, the fans are much noisier when i'm doing graphics stuff, and the battery lasts loads longer when i'm only doing word processing.
Apple = good to medium hardware + excellent, rarely used software.
3% of the worldwide number of computers are Apple's Macintosh, the huge majority of the rest are PC with windows. Linux is mainly used in network environment and niche market like distributed computing (3D movies computations, grid computing).

Apple have a culture of elitism and look to some point like the Amiga culture: power with ease of use. But with Apple you get something at sometimes really expensive price. And sometimes is often! However the final result is a well integrated system: everything on the Apple line is about quality and good selection but the commercial stuff and M$ merchandising is there too.

Personnaly, the MAC is great but I don't have paid for: I use parents computer. At 1450€ for a dual core @ 1,83Ghz, an ATI X1600 w 128MB RAM, 1,5 GB of DDR2 663MHz, 17" LCD screen, it's not fast enough. I talk about the system reactivity. The cause is emulation: lots of software are ppc while the intel core duo is an x86 architecture. Rosetta translate in real time the PPC instructions to x86. That's running but it's not fast enough (only the PPC instructions are translated, all API calls to the system procedures are yet in Intel, some games don't feature sound because drivers aren't emulated yet, some have glitches, ... It's not ready yet).

The hardware is not good enough for the price but the OS is really great: simple and efficient, you don't loose your time in useless things. The OS is Unix / BSD based but tweaked at the Apple sauce: better but not standard. For example when I bootcamp XP and copy a CD to the HD, if I play mp3, it's quite sure I'll get glitches on the music. On OS X, no! The OS isn't perfect however but better than XP because filesystem, system architecture is better designed.

However the price is too expensive: at 200€ to 300€ less, it could be reasonable. However I think this is a strategy: Steve don't want tons of users, he wants to get a pool of faithful users and keep them for years through all the changes of his computer line. Money? He gets loads selling Ipod and musics at itunes.com. 1 billion tracks already sold, you understand then where does the Steve's money comes from. At £179 for the mp3 player the Ipod is, you understand that the money collected is HUGE!
The Apple's hardware is well supported but is not the cream nor the top of the top: ie the 160 GB SATA WD HD could be replaced by a 150 GB SATA Raptor for interresting performance, the Video Card is totally underclocked (at least 30% lower frequency than the same card sold for a PC), noise is supportable but I'm sure that with the Imac it could be totally removed using huge copper heat spreaders. The "superdrive" is not super: really noisy, a bulk philips DVD-RW drive is at least 5 times less noisy and cost only 56€ for same perfs. The sound equipment is great: flat integrated loudspeakers sounds like a real hifi system and the sound card is a special one from Intel (44 Khz is low resolution, we can raise it to 196 KHz using any sound program: but is it useful?). So on average the hardware could have been a bit better.

Bootcamp is in my particular case not better than a beta: I've visual artefacts on the screen in all application (desktop, and GL / DX applications) using the ATI driver supplied by Apple: I don't have any using the standard (no driver) VGA driver supplied by XP. For my particular Imac overclocking of the Video Card was a failure: no overclocking was possible while others have successfully raised frequencies to PC standard or even higher.

For laptops, I think that both Apples and PCs are too hot: put your hand on the keyboard and you'll understand!
Laptops were at first techno gadgets and still are for a huge number of people: this is a new fashion accessory.
Useful for businesmen to show their powerpoint presentations and make some excel graphics.
For gaming this is a no no: you need total immersion to get pleasure, however I'm not alone (and some others can find this great).
DVD playing in the train / plane is a popular application for those computers.
However laptops came to be obsolete: mobile phones now have huge powers and previous competitors moved from CPU market to mobile phone like Motorola.
Mobile PSP enable to store movies on a card and are far more transportable than a laptop.
Whatever Laptops tend to kill the desktop PC computer market: those who travel a lot don't want to move tons of hardware during a travel.

Apple's brand image is all about luxury: Apple = Rolls Royce of computers.
The result is great: you get peace of mind, no drivers problem because you don't have any download for this! And yes the OS is really great.

But no, you'll not see a massive switch to Mac OS X even if it's hacked and "ported" to PC hardware:
because loads of people don't even know what an OS is!
So they don't know better ones exist!
Linux is for geek and others OS too: Windows is preinstalled on Dell's and others big saled brands.

For demo coding, the MAC can be used to make great things:
the 2nd DVD is full of programs and SDK to develop programs (perhaps Steve wants people to make program for its OS, for FREE!!!), but it will not be as performant as a PC.
Steve is a 2nd Bill with more style and a different strategy.

For general development, the Apple OS is easier than Windows, a port from PPC to Intel is apparently quick, and the OS is great: it remembers me the Amiga OS with less Guru (but there is kernel panic and others bug reported to Apple!).

At least changing from XP to OS X isn't something really disturbing: it's simply coming from the mess to something a bit more ordered and simple!

I think Apple leads in something:
lots of technologies have been available on Mac before PC like USB / Firewire / Wifi (airport) and the fact it's well designed computer products please the weaker sex!
For me the Mac is a test plateform: new technologies for geeks / richs tested and then integrated onto the PC market at a lower price.
added on the 2006-05-17 21:59:34 by ep ep
hey !?
could you please stop bloating every thread you join ?
kthxbye
smash, i just bought a decent thing lightweight laptop with an x1400 in it two weeks ago, for 1100 euros which i think is quite ok. i'm unsure if this x1400 is supposed to be better than the x700 though. sure it's a higher number, but meet the family sucks on it. is it supposed to suck on mobile cpus?
added on the 2006-05-18 00:51:28 by skrebbel skrebbel
eh. that is, on mobile gpus
added on the 2006-05-18 00:51:47 by skrebbel skrebbel
ep you do realise that you've done the longest post in pouët?
added on the 2006-05-18 01:09:00 by xernobyl xernobyl
who want to fund me a new laptop?
added on the 2006-05-18 08:57:40 by quisten quisten
last good thing by apple was OS X (and i have to give em some praise them for it).

moving from 680x0 -> ppc -> x86 is typically their thing.. everything has to be emulated. when i saw the first ppc mac i had to laugh. i couldn't believe how slow it was. a 601PPC@60 seemed to not be able to beat my 68030@16 atari falcon. this was due to the totally lame emulation shit. now they did it again.

sometimes i think apple is completely dependent on two consumer groups:
1) fashion designers who know nothing about technology and couldn't configure a system to save their lives.
2) fanboys, fanatic PC haters, etc
the first one being the most important because they have no clue what to do with their money.

apple should forget about hardware and completely devote themselves to software. with maybe one exception being the ipod.
added on the 2006-05-18 09:49:04 by earx earx
3) loads of well-known musicians who need proper software and stabile systems to compose their zax (consult guide on Underworld for an example)
4) people into video production
5) sane people who do not wish to expose themselves to security threats
6) home users who find the UI or OS far more stabile and understandable then windows

if I could (that means, had the money and stuff), I'd also use a mac, no matter the family.
added on the 2006-05-18 09:59:08 by kelsey kelsey
ep: Thank you for your long post. It was a nice report and gave me more insight on the mac cpu switch.
added on the 2006-05-18 10:16:59 by Psychad Psychad
everyone: concerning mac scene and slow macs. I don't see the problem. I got a Macintosh SE/30 and it is a great scene machine. It can't run the latest demos but it can run the oldest demos and mods!
added on the 2006-05-18 10:17:45 by Psychad Psychad
skrebbel: mmm, the x1400 is allegedly worse than an x700 (i did look at one with it in tho).. it's something like an x1300 with a faster clock, which is itself a slightly upgraded x300, which is the low end of the radeon series. (like erm.. gf6200 equivalent).. so yea, it probably will suck on that :)

about the only comparison site i found for mobile gpus is this one:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison_of_Grafic_Cards_update.130.0.html


added on the 2006-05-18 10:18:15 by smash smash

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