[superblue]

I was under the impression that without QE enabled, you wouldn't see the shadow under the cursor arrow. This is the case on my 500mhz iBook (no shadow). But looking at my newly set-up dual displays on my G4, one running off a supported AGP card, one off a card in the PCI slot (which shouldn't be supported) both screens show the shadow.

What gives?

From Apple: Quartz Extreme functionality is supported by the following video GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 MX, or GeForce4 Ti or any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU. A minimum of 16MB VRAM is required.

733MHZ PowerMac G4, 1.25GB, GeForce 2MX AGP + ATI Radeon 7000 PCI.

[moki]

Originally posted by superblue:
I was under the impression that without QE enabled, you wouldn't see the shadow under the cursor arrow. This is the case on my 500mhz iBook (no shadow). But looking at my newly set-up dual displays on my G4, one running off a supported AGP card, one off a card in the PCI slot (which shouldn't be supported) both screens show the shadow.

No, the shadow under the cursor has nothing to do with whether QE is enabled or not (despite urban legend to the contrary).

[superblue]

I thought that might be the case. So... why does my iBook not have a shadow? And out of curiosity (which is all this is) how does one check if QE is enabled or not?

[voodoo]

Originally posted by moki:
No, the shadow under the cursor has nothing to do with whether QE is enabled or not (despite urban legend to the contrary).

Then why does the cursor shadow not appear on non QE systems, but on QE enebled systems.

Could you explain this a bit better. Dispel the urban myth?

[TheMosco]

I think it has to with the graphics card and whether it can support the shadows.

[sandsl]

You can check if Quartz extreme is on using this app

http://www2.entropy.ch/download/Quar...ck-1.1.app.sit

[superblue]

Originally posted by sandsl:
You can check if Quartz extreme is on using this app

http://www2.entropy.ch/download/Quar...ck-1.1.app.sit

Cheers Luke - that gave me an answer quickly. As expected, the PCI card isn't supported, though I'm still unclear as to why the shadow doesn't appear on my iBook...

[sandsl]

Shadow doesn't appear on your iBook because it doesn't have a supported video card/not enough video memory for Quartz Extreme.

Shadow appears on your G4 because you do have atleast 1 supported video card & have enough video memory.

No, the shadow under the cursor has nothing to do with whether QE is enabled or not (despite urban legend to the contrary).

No it has to do with which video card you are using and the amount of video memory it has.

[ZackS]

The cursor shadow issue has nothing to do with anything. Here are the GENERAL rules.

Code:
              Supported Graphics  | Unsupported Graphics
             --------------------------------------------
New machine |        Always       |      Sometimes       |
             ---------------------+----------------------
Old Machine | Sometimes (W/ Hack) |        Never         |
             --------------------------------------------

Just forget it. Use QE Check for definate answers.

[smeger]

There are two seperate mechanisms. The first is a system API called something like UsesHardwareCursor. The answer is dependent upon your video card. If it returns affirmative, you get a shadowed cursor.

Then, there's QE. This also depends on the graphics card, but it uses different criteria to determine whether or not it's enabled.

Hence, you get the legend that they're one and the same. They're not, but there's a lot of overlap - if your graphics card supports one, it's pretty likely (but not definite) that it'll support the other.

[himself]

QE and shadowed cursors are two separate functions of your video card. QE requires a minimum of 16MB VRAM (can be hacked for less memory) and an AGP slot (can be hacked for PCI). The shadowed cursor requires a video card that has functions specificly for the support of shadows/ alpha channels on cursors in hardware, which is supported (AFAIK) only under newer video cards and Radeon cards on macs, but there may be a few other random cards out there that support that feature. In otherwords, it has nothing to do with VRAM.

•edit• smeger beat me to it...

[moki]

Originally posted by superblue:
Cheers Luke - that gave me an answer quickly. As expected, the PCI card isn't supported, though I'm still unclear as to why the shadow doesn't appear on my iBook...

Cursor shadows have nothing to do with Quartz Extreme -- they have to do with whether the graphics card in question can support large, odd-sized cursors with semi-transparent alpha masks.

[ryju]

so this means there's no possible way for my imac with a 128rage pro (8mb) card to have a shadowed cursor?
Cuz I really want one!

[qnxde]

Well I don't think this is true, I have a non QE machine (tibook 500) and although my standard cursor does not have a shadow, the alternate cursors in the finder (with green + symbol indicating a copy, for instance) are all shadowed beautifully. Also, earlier 10.2 builds had the shadowed cursor enabled on all machines if I remember correctly, thus indicating that it is nothing to do with hardware support, but a software switch somewhere in the OS. Can anyone disupte this?

[ZackS]

They are antialiased for the same reason that IE has the old Mac OS 9 beach ball, they are custom cursors, not the hardware one.