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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac OS X > QuartzExtreme: how do I know if it's on

QuartzExtreme: how do I know if it's on
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Jun 15, 2003, 01:36 AM
 
How do I know if things like Quartz Extreme, anti-alising, etc are currently on? Anyone got any ideas?
     
tr
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Jun 15, 2003, 01:56 AM
 
     
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Jun 15, 2003, 02:08 AM
 
Originally posted by bstone:
How do I know if things like Quartz Extreme, anti-alising, etc are currently on? Anyone got any ideas?
Look at your mouse cursor. If it has a shadow, Extreme is on. No shadow, it isn't.
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Jun 15, 2003, 02:48 AM
 
Originally posted by tr:
Quartz Extreme Check

tr
Yup it works!!! Hurray!!
     
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Jun 15, 2003, 06:14 AM
 
I know my Quartz Extreme is on when my computer GUI frickin' freezes!
     
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Jun 15, 2003, 09:52 AM
 
Quartz Extreme Check works but another way of checking is to set your desktop image to change every so often. Watch it when it changes from one picture to another. If it fades smoothly to the new picture QE is on. If it pops to the new picture, QE is off.

The mouse shadow thing is not true...urban legend.
     
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Jun 15, 2003, 11:47 AM
 
Originally posted by cgc:
The mouse shadow thing is not true...urban legend.
Why? My QE supported Macs have a mouse shadow, my non QE supported Macs do not.
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Jun 15, 2003, 06:46 PM
 
Originally posted by Art Vandelay:
Why? My QE supported Macs have a mouse shadow, my non QE supported Macs do not.
The mouse shadow has to do with if your video card supports hardware cursors. moki explained this better a while ago, but either there was a video card that supported quartzextreem but no mouse shadow, or vice versa.

So it is not "proper" means of checking.
     
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Jun 15, 2003, 06:54 PM
 
Originally posted by kupan787:
The mouse shadow has to do with if your video card supports hardware cursors. moki explained this better a while ago, but either there was a video card that supported quartzextreem but no mouse shadow, or vice versa.
Yes, it's coincidental that cards that support hardware cursors with alpha channel (I think that's it) also support Quartz Extreme, but the two features are in fact independent.
There are third party cards that support Quartz Extreme but not shadow cursors and the opposite might be possible too.
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Jun 15, 2003, 07:26 PM
 
Originally posted by kupan787:
The mouse shadow has to do with if your video card supports hardware cursors. moki explained this better a while ago, but either there was a video card that supported quartzextreem but no mouse shadow, or vice versa.

So it is not "proper" means of checking.
Then why does the mouse shadow dissapear when I connect my Powerbook to the TV (when QE is turned off) and reappear when QE is turned back on again?!!
     
tr
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Jun 17, 2003, 05:41 PM
 
Originally posted by Busemann:
Then why does the mouse shadow dissapear when I connect my Powerbook to the TV (when QE is turned off) and reappear when QE is turned back on again?!!
really? that's weird. have you run the QE check both when you connect to tv and when you aren't?

tr
     
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Jun 18, 2003, 04:44 AM
 
Originally posted by tr:
really? that's weird. have you run the QE check both when you connect to tv and when you aren't?

tr
yes, when it is connected it says QE is off - disconnected and the app says qe is on

I also remember when i installed last years wwdc jaguar beta on my old 450mhz g4, it had mouse shadow. On 10.2 final there were no shadow. I definately think apple use the shadow to determine if qe is on or off.
     
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Jun 18, 2003, 07:02 AM
 
Figuring out whether QE is on or not is, as you found, pretty difficult to do. It is not the same as having a hardware cursor.

I don't know much about QE, but I do know about hardware cursors since Mighty Mouse tells the OS to use 'em even if they're not officially supported. If the videocard doesn't support hardware cursors, they's not on. Period. But if it does, there are some other tests that are applied on a per-screen basis. So, you can have a shadowed cursor on one and a non-shadowed cursor on another, using the same video card with two screens plugged in at once.

I don't know what the tests used to determines whether a particular screen uses hardware cursors are, by the way.
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Jun 18, 2003, 08:54 AM
 
I run 3 monitors. 2 go through a radion 8500 AGP, and are QE accelerated. The third goes through a Radeon 7000 PCI, and is not accelerated by QE. All 3 have the shadow curser. QE can not be determined by whether or not you have a shadowed curser.

When Jag first came out, I had an original Radeon running one monitor and the 7000 running the other 2. Only the AGP is accelerated, but until the October Radeon update, I had no shadow curser on the AGP, while the unacclerated monitors on the PCI always had the shadow curser.

Do a search for Moki's explaination a while back. It will tell all. But no...shadows have nothing to do with QE.
     
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Jun 20, 2003, 05:57 PM
 
I have a Dual 1.25, with a Radeon 9000 Pro.

Originally, I had a 17" CRT hooked up with a VGA cable. and there WAS a mouse shadow.

But I just bought a Samsung 172T LCD and hooked it up with a DVI cable and this is NOT a mouse shadow.

Strange.
     
   
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