[Skypat]

Hi

I have a black MacBook right now, with 1GB of RAM installed.

So far it feels very fast, very responsive. I even found MS Word (non native) to be responsive (launch time is a bit long). I compared many applications with my dual 2.3Ghz G5 loaded with 6 GB of RAM (ATI X800) and the MB behaves very well, with faster launch on many programs (Safari, Pages, etc.). iMovie and iDVD works really fast on the MB.

On the graphic side however, I downloaded the universal demo of "Videoator" http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos.../videator.html . It uses a lot core image I think to tweak pictures made by the iSight.

As Photobooth, it displays live thumbnails of effects applied on the image. I don't know if the problem comes from the app or from the MB, but while the G5 displays every effects without a problem, the MB displayed almost none of them. That's a bit dissapointing and I guess it has to do with the graphic chip (GMA 950) ?

If someone has a MB with 2GB of RAM ... it would be great to download the demo andtry it to see if I am the only one to have the problem ... Thanks!

Thanks for your feedback

[harrisjamieh]

I ran the app on my MacBook, currently with 768 RAM, and performance was awful - with the pre built multi effect things - where you choose a set from the top drop down menu, most of the time the preview screen would just black out as though it was giving up.

This could be made worse on my machine as I currently do not have matched RAM sticks, and since the program is using the graphics card, it would have slowed it down.

I also ran the app on my iMac Core Duo, and it ran sooo much better - a little jerky in some places, but almost perfect

[Skypat]

How is PhotoBooth doing on yours ?

[TerryJ]

I just tried Videator on my MacBook 2.0/2GB and it wasn't too great, really. I was hoping that the bigger ram would make a difference, but it stutteered on many of the effects, particularly with the pre-made sets from the drop down menu. It seemed that it would be fine for the first couple of filters then it just ran out of steam and the editing window would stay at black after that. This app is definitely too demanding for the GMA950 I think. Making me wonder what else out there might be too much for it to handle that I might encounter.....

[harrisjamieh]

Photobooth on mine is perfect - very smooth. Oddly enough, it is twice as good as it is on my iMac, which stutters terribly in Photobooth (note to self: must sort that out, as it never used to be like that)

[Skypat]

Ok ... good to know that. I wanted to see by myself a good example of the limitation of the GMA 950, think I found it.

By the way, I downloaded a HD video (XmenIII trailer 1080) and it played perfectly.

[Eug Wanker]

Re: Testing Core Image:

Another app would be iMaginator. ($49, but with free 30 day full demo)

There's also Image Tricks. (Freeware)

[stuffedmonkey]

Not suprising really. The GMA 950 technically supports core image - since it has the shaders needed. It dosen't have any power behind it however.