Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Skip Breakfast · Apr 6, 2005, 02:11 PM

Is there a good technical write up on this somewhere? A lot of you express concern about it, and honestly, I have no idea what the big hoopla is about.

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 6, 2005, 02:12 PM

Many people don't know exactly what it is about they just know they REALLY REALLY need it and are pissed their video card doesn't support it.

Skip Breakfast · Apr 6, 2005, 02:44 PM

While I agree that there's seems to be some panic about it, is it THAT crucial? I went without Quartz Extreme for (maybe)2 years without any problem.

olePigeon · Apr 6, 2005, 02:55 PM

I did a quick search on Google and found this "Best explanation of Quartz 2D Extreme for a n00b?." Seems to make it pretty easy to understand.

Basically Apple's moving more graphics stuff that's traditionally handled by the CPU off to the video card (like the stuff that draws your GUI, shows you images, TEXT, text manipulation, etc.)

If you go here you can stream the WWDC 2004. About 20 minutes in Phil Schiller gives a full demo of Core Image and how it works.

I can tell you now it's absolutely f*cking cool!

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 6, 2005, 02:59 PM

Originally posted by olePigeon:
I did a quick search on Google and found this "Best explanation of Quartz 2D Extreme for a n00b?." Seems to make it pretty easy to understand.

Basically Apple's moving more graphics stuff that's traditionally handled by the CPU off to the video card (like the stuff that draws your GUI, shows you images, TEXT, text manipulation, etc.)

If you go here you can stream the WWDC 2004. About 20 minutes in Phil Schiller gives a full demo of Core Image and how it works.

I can tell you now it's absolutely f*cking cool!

Ya but I thought QE was supposed to do this also. If I take a safari window and jiggle it around the screen my Dual G5 will MAX out both processors, same goes for the DVD player that is supposed to go straight to the video card.

olePigeon · Apr 6, 2005, 03:00 PM

By the way, Phil Schiller gives a *wink* *wink* at Adobe before he does the Core Image demo. Now when you watch the demo, imagine all that stuff in Photoshop and Illustrator!

Man I hope CS 2 has Core Image support.

olePigeon · Apr 6, 2005, 03:03 PM

olePigeon · Apr 6, 2005, 03:04 PM

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
Ya but I thought QE was supposed to do this also. If I take a safari window and jiggle it around the screen my Dual G5 will MAX out both processors, same goes for the DVD player that is supposed to go straight to the video card.

It does, sort of. But not completely. If you read the thread, stuff like the drop shadows and other parts of the UI are still handled by the CPU and not the GPU. The only thing handled by the GPU are the buttons, scroll bar, etc.

When Tiger comes out all that stuff will finally be added to the GPU instead (or so the thread says.) I don't know if anyone is running Tiger out there, but I'd imagine the GUI is Snappy.� Also, the raster engine that displays pictures on your screen is not handled by the GPU either. So when you move the Safari window around it has to redraw all those images and stuff along with the drop shadows. I think Core Image moves a LOT of that stuff onto the GPU now.

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 6, 2005, 03:05 PM

Originally posted by olePigeon:
By the way, Phil Schiller gives a *wink* *wink* at Adobe before he does the Core Image demo. Now when you watch the demo, imagine all that stuff in Photoshop and Illustrator! Man I hope CS 2 has Core Image support.

As far as I know it doesn't.

olePigeon · Apr 6, 2005, 03:07 PM

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
As far as I know it doesn't.

Guess I'll have to wait for CS 3 then, or maybe a Core Image plugin like they did with AltiVec.

Millennium · Apr 6, 2005, 03:07 PM

CoreImage and QE are two different things. CoreImage actually has very little to do with actually drawing anything. It's basically a set of system-level Photoshop-like plugins, allowing you to do nifty things to bitmapped images in realtime. It looks as though it might also be able to inject itself into Quartz as a final step before the image is rendered to screen (after the bitmap to be blitted has been calculated but before it is drawn), but the concept is still the same.

Think of it this way: Quartz creates images, while CoreImage modifies images. They are related to each other, and they can be combined to do some nifty stuff, but they are still two different things with two different purposes.

Superchicken · Apr 6, 2005, 03:20 PM

I've been planning on buying a full license for Photoshop for a while but I will not until Adobe announces full support for Core Image.

Angus_D · Apr 6, 2005, 07:11 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
I've been planning on buying a full license for Photoshop for a while but I will not until Adobe announces full support for Core Image.

So in the meantime you'll keep using that pirated version?

olePigeon · Apr 6, 2005, 07:19 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
I've been planning on buying a full license for Photoshop for a while but I will not until Adobe announces full support for Core Image.

Last version I actually bought was 5.5. My work bought me CS. But since I'm leaving here in a few weeks to work somewhere else that probably won't get me Photoshop, that's the boat I'm in. I'm gonna wait until Core Image is fully supported (hopefully it will) before I actually invest in another copy of Creative Suite.