[Groovy]

This was posted on ars. So i thought many here might want to know this

Thanks to nib, I got my mac radeon pci edition to be quartz enabled on a beige g3. Maybe this tip works for a few more pci video cards out there, hence this new topic!
Open the config file
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Configuration.plist
Now for the fun, notice the following lines:


<key>GLCompositorRequiredClasses</key>
<array>
<string>IOAGPDevice</string>
</array>


Change IOAGPDevice to IOPCIDevice
In general, this config file seems to hold all the parameters that determine wether or not QE will be enabled. Maybe other parameters can be changed in this file as well.
So what's the catch? Apple must have decided that for most users PCI is too slow in memory transfers and would not benefit from having the bus saturated with such traffic. For me, running non intensive tasks such as web browsing, QE over PCI is much faster. Love it.
By the way, the utility Quartz Extreme Check reports that QE is enabled on my pci radeon.

[CheesePuff]

Pretty cool! Thanks for the heads up.

I just got a new Radeon 7000 PCI with 32 MB of DDR VRAM in it and now I can use it in 10.2

[Vanquish]

anyone tried it ? how's performance ? If this works I'll be able to buy that third B&W G3 or Yikes G4. This is wonderful news.

[gdiddy]

Hot Digity Damn! Working here. Not sure what the difference is yet. Nothing really seems faster. What can I try to show me what the BFD is about QE?

G.


Beige G3, Sonnet 54 500 (overclocked to 525!) 768 ram, internal TDK VeloCD 24/10/40, 9 gig apple scsi HD, 40 gig IDE HD, Macally PCI firewire/usb card ATI 7000 PCI QE enabled!

[Developer]

Try transparent window over the DVD Player.

[gdiddy]

Don't have a DVD drive

[gdiddy]

I did just take a look at the "Flurry" Screen Effect and it seems to be about 10 times smoother. Gonna' play some games and see how the that stuff looks...

G.

[pat++]

I tried to change this :

<key>GLCompositorMinimumVRAM</key>
<integer>16</integer>

(and replace 16 with 8) as I only have a 500Mhz iBook.
This had no effect at all....;
anyone ?

[delrossi]

In trying this I found out that unless you duplicate the line
<string>IOAGPDevice</string>
you will deactivate the agp slot
hope this helps

[Simon X]

I try this hack on my B&W G3 with stock ATI Rage 16mb card. Well, it worked but web page loading became really slow, could be just a coincidence so I turned it back.

[cwasko]

Well, that about kicks ass. I have a B&W G3 350, upgraded to a 450 G4. I also have a Radeon Mac Edition. I did this little diddy to it, and now I'm QE'd out. Transparent terminal over DVD! Woohoo! Hot damn!

[DannyVTim]

You have to have a card that is supported to start with. A Rage 128 won't work.

Also, this will work, but it will keep the PCI bus pumping which Apple obviously felt wasn't okay of one needed it for other things. So, if you have a say IDE card which has a hardrive hooked up, you might not be able to pull off both graphics and heavy HD access at the same time.

[silverghost]

Very cool, but my questions is ive got a dual display setup nvidia 4mx in a agp slot, and ati 7000 in a pci slot. Will this make a difference on my ati card?


aloha

[dahorst]

I was resigned to the 'fact' that I wouldn't be able to use QE with my Beige G3 despite having a card that could handle it (Radeon Mac Edition) but was hanging on to the hope that someone savvier than I would figure out a way to do it. Thank you for finding and posting the hint!! I have done the mod, and now I am running QE as well according to Quartz Extreme Check. Not sure how much moment to moment speed I have picked up, but it does seem as if the screen animations in iTunes are speedier. They didn't run well at all prior to Jaguar/QE activation.

Yeeehaw!!

[Meadowfield]

Does anyone know if not having the new X2 cursor is indicative of QE compliance? I've got a Pismo 500 I may want to try this on...

Thanks!

Paul

[dggraphics]

Quartz Extreme Check 1.1 says it's enabled. running two PCI retail Radeon 32MB in BW G3 w/G4 550 upgrade 576MB PC 133. Didn't feel any faster. i did get it to lock up OS X forcing a restart By running DVD player with iTunes in Screen Effects mode with the smallest window size posible transparently over the DVD window with three other Windowshade X'd transparent windows on top of that

[rgoer]

Originally posted by dggraphics:
i did get it to lock up OS X forcing a restart By running DVD player with iTunes in Screen Effects mode with the smallest window size posible transparently over the DVD window with three other Windowshade X'd transparent windows on top of that

Holy crap! I hope you weren't surprised... That sounds like a quartz-rendered suicide note.

[Meadowfield]

'Quartz Extreme Check' says nada for my stock Rage M3P so I thought I'd give this hack a go. 3D cursor, or not...

Unfortunately I couldn't get past /Configuration.plist

Obviously I've bumped into the parameter of my Mac knowledge and assume I should use Terminal from there. Yes? A quick how-to for this Terminal newbie would be most appreciated.

Paul

[tenchi71]

Originally posted by Meadowfield:
'Quartz Extreme Check' says nada for my stock Rage M3P so I thought I'd give this hack a go. 3D cursor, or not...

Unfortunately I couldn't get past /Configuration.plist

Obviously I've bumped into the parameter of my Mac knowledge and assume I should use Terminal from there. Yes? A quick how-to for this Terminal newbie would be most appreciated.

Paul

The way i did it was to log on as root and edit the .plist in text edit. Upon reboot QE Check said it was enabled on my Radeon 7000, but not my Rage Pro (as it should be).
Now, I really don't feel much of a boost in speed, except in CivIII. That had a major speed up. But everything is the same to me. I guess I'm hitting the PCI throughput limit.

System:
G4 400 Yikes
PCI Radeon 7000 32MB
PCI RagePro 16MB
704MB RAM

[Meadowfield]

Originally posted by tenchi71:


The way i did it was to log on as root

Umm... the parameter is a little closer than you thought... How do I do this?

Paul

[Taipan]

Hi!
If you don't want to mess with the Terminal, you can use a program called Pseudo, which allows you to start programs with root privileges. You can drop TextEdit onto the Pseudo Icon and the use TextEdit to modify the file. I haven't checked if Pseudo works with Jaguar, though.

[madhex]

I run a test using Speedrun 1.1.3, and guess what? The graphic speed is actually lower when QE is on.

system:
Beige G3
XLR8 G4-500
ATI Radeon Mac Edition 32MB
384 MB RAM

[ReggieX]

Originally posted by Meadowfield:
I've got a Pismo 500 I may want to try this on.

Originally posted by Meadowfield:
'Quartz Extreme Check' says nada for my stock Rage M3P

Well, duh, you need a Radeon or Nvidia card!

Can't you people read or something? The requirements are right there on Apple's site, in plain english. We went through all this "Will my Rage 128 work with QE?" MONTHS ago.

[Meadowfield]

ABUSE! ABUSE! Or, perhaps, just plain rude. Tough call.

Forgive me for not knowing the difference betw Radeon or Nvidia. After all I'm only a Senior member. Reggi, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Makes for a happier life. Use the extra time to do something productive.

Thanks Taipan and Tenchi71 for your input! But, it looks like we'll have to set our sights on some new hardware... The hack didn't take. Tried both the QE Check and the DVD menu test.

Paul

[fnevitt]

Does anybody know if this hack will work on an iMac G3 slot loading? I would love to get the QE to run on my mom's computer.

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by ReggieX:



Well, duh, you need a Radeon or Nvidia card!

Can't you people read or something? The requirements are right there on Apple's site, in plain english. We went through all this "Will my Rage 128 work with QE?" MONTHS ago.

This is really off topic but do you have the site that you got your 8500 at still? I'm going to sell my 8500 LE 'cause there are some weird pixilation (not artifacting) problems in games using OS 9.

[tenchi71]

OK. Just ran tests with QE on/off.

My System:
G4 400 Yikes PCI
ATI Radeon 7000 PCI 32MB
ATI RagePro PCI 16MB
704 MB Ram

QE will only activate on the Radeon.
Now for the results after a fresh reboot with QE off and then another reboot with QE on, test was run 3 times for both. Results are from the 3rd test:

QE Off:
Graphics-201
Harddrive-284
Processor-141
RAM-251
Overall-220

QE on:
Graphics-60
Hardrive-280
Processor-140
RAM-246
Overall-182

So, at least on my system QE is a detriment to performance. You can easily see how much slower it is during the graphics test. I'm back to QE being off...

[ReggieX]

Originally posted by fnevitt:
Does anybody know if this hack will work on an iMac G3 slot loading? I would love to get the QE to run on my mom's computer.

You don't have the hardware, so no.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/q...tzextreme.html
Requirements:
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.

You can find out your video card in Apple System Profiler.

[gdiddy]

Originally posted by tenchi71:
OK. Just ran tests with QE on/off.

My System:
G4 400 Yikes PCI
ATI Radeon 7000 PCI 32MB
ATI RagePro PCI 16MB
704 MB Ram

QE will only activate on the Radeon.
Now for the results after a fresh reboot with QE off and then another reboot with QE on, test was run 3 times for both. Results are from the 3rd test:

QE Off:
Graphics-201
Harddrive-284
Processor-141
RAM-251
Overall-220

QE on:
Graphics-60
Hardrive-280
Processor-140
RAM-246
Overall-182

So, at least on my system QE is a detriment to performance. You can easily see how much slower it is during the graphics test. I'm back to QE being off...

What tests did you do to get these results? I'd like to test my system and see what the outcome is.

G.

[Spirit_VW]

Originally posted by tenchi71:
OK. Just ran tests with QE on/off.

My System:
G4 400 Yikes PCI
ATI Radeon 7000 PCI 32MB
ATI RagePro PCI 16MB
704 MB Ram

QE will only activate on the Radeon.
Now for the results after a fresh reboot with QE off and then another reboot with QE on, test was run 3 times for both. Results are from the 3rd test:

QE Off:
Graphics-201
Harddrive-284
Processor-141
RAM-251
Overall-220

QE on:
Graphics-60
Hardrive-280
Processor-140
RAM-246
Overall-182

So, at least on my system QE is a detriment to performance. You can easily see how much slower it is during the graphics test. I'm back to QE being off...

Probably why it needs an AGP card. I seem to recall back in the long long ago people theorized that if you got QE working over PCI the performance wouldn't be that great.

[Meadowfield]

What tests did you do to get these results? I'd like to test my system and see what the outcome is.

I believe they are using SpeedRun referenced above. Click Here to download your own copy and test for yourself.

Paul

[brainchild2b]

The reason it's slower for you is because you have dual cards, the PCI bus isn't designed to push out that much data. Simple as that. If you read over at arstechnica the guy with one pci video card nearly doubled his performance in frames per second.

[tenchi71]

Originally posted by gdiddy:


What tests did you do to get these results? I'd like to test my system and see what the outcome is.

G.

I ran Speedrun 1.1.3, mentioned earlier on in this thread. Sorry, i forgot to mention that.
And just to reiterate, during the graphics test, you can literally see the difference in speed with it off and on. The test went through the graphics portion MUCH faster with QE off.

[tenchi71]

Originally posted by brainchild2b:
The reason it's slower for you is because you have dual cards, the PCI bus isn't designed to push out that much data. Simple as that. If you read over at arstechnica the guy with one pci video card nearly doubled his performance in frames per second.

I was thinking the same thing after I ran the tests. If I feel up to it I may just take out the RagePro and re-run these tests. Thing is, I like my dual monitor setup, and I don't wish to split the 32MB on the Radeon between the 2 monitors if I go with just one graphics card. So, I'll probably do it just to see if there is any difference, but I'll probably just keep my system as I have it now, as I see no benefit whatsoever.

[Keda]

I see a few references to a Radeon PCI. Which Radeon are you guys talking about? I have an original Radeon PCI and I read that it would cause Jag to crash.

Have you found a way around this, or are you using a newer card?

[drHo]

i have a Radeon Mac Edition (PCI) on my B&W G3 450 running jaguar (QE ON!!) nope it doesnt crash 10.2, i think that only happens when u have 2 cards and one of them is the Radeon Mac Edition. i took out my stock rage 128 and replaced it with the radeon me, i dont have room for 2 monitors. also from what i've read the ORIGINAL Radeon Mac Edtion Retail is a much better card than the newer Radeon 7000, only thing it doesnt have is the dual-monitor support http://www.macaddict.com/forums/Foru...ML/000194.html
(i cant use anyways)..so QE should work much better if you have a standalone Radeon ME PCI...i do and let me tell ya..with QE on everything is quiker....from web-browsing to iTunes visualiser..it now runs at a steady 30fps, i can now use the suck-in, or genie effect on the dock with no slow down. too bad there is no OSX support for the king of all MAC-PCI cards: The Vooddoo 5500 64MB VRAM!!! damn that would be sweet!!

[tenchi71]

OK, here we go again.
Just want to let you guys know that I noticed I did not have the Radeon 7000 PCI in the 66Mhz slot. So I moved it there and ran the test with one card, then both. Each test was run as before, 3 runs of SpeedRun 1.1.3 for each configuration, full reboot between each test. Here are my results:
------------------------------------------
Both Radeon and Rage in the machine:
QE Off
Graphics-228
Hardrive-286
Processor-140
RAM-250
Overall-226
QE On
Graphics-103
Hardrive-283
Processor-140
RAM-248
Overall-194

Just the Radeon in the Machine:
QE Off
Graphics-228
Hardrive-287
Processor-141
RAM-251
Overall-227
QE On
Graphics-105
Hardrive-286
Processor-140
RAM-250
Overall-196
--------------------------------------------
So what can we deduce from all this? Well, first thing, since moving the Radeon to the faster PCI slot, I doubled my QE scores. this says that there DEFINITELY is a bandwidth issue with running QE on on a PCI bus. QE is just thirsty for bandwidth!
Secondly, if you notice, with QE off, I did not see the same improvement when moving the card, meaning that this is a CPU issue, not bandwidth, as I hit the wall with what the graphics card does with QE off, even on the 33Mhz slot.
Also, my scores were almost identical whether I had only the Radeon installed, or both video cards in the system (no other PCI cards are installed). And my scores are STILL faster not using QE. And just like before, you can actually SEE the difference in speed during the graphics test. I think everyone is getting some kind of placebo effect going on. I know I did at first, until I ran these tests.

[FunandBlindness]

Is anyone using the hack with SCSI cards on the bus as well? I have a B+W 450 with the stock Adaptec card and a 2930cu as well as the MAC Radeon 7000. Will enabling QE overload the bus?

[iamnid]

There are some interesting articles on this at xlr8yourmac.com

Also, instead of manually hacking, there is a utility which will do it for you:

http://www.versiontracker.com/morein...6006&db=macosx

hope that helps someone.

[CheesePuff]

Originally posted by iamnid:
There are some interesting articles on this at xlr8yourmac.com

Also, instead of manually hacking, there is a utility which will do it for you:

http://www.versiontracker.com/morein...6006&db=macosx

hope that helps someone.

Oh so weird. I was going to make an applciation to do this with the same exact name. Heh...

[tenchi71]

Originally posted by CheesePuff:


Oh so weird. I was going to make an applciation to do this with the same exact name. Heh...

Awwww.... Just call it CheesePuffy Extreme App!

[oeyvind]

Quotes from Mike Paquette:

Make sure you make a backup of your system before trying this hack. Make sure you understand how to back it out should your system become unusable. The results of this mod may not be safe on all systems. The 'improvement' from enabling PCI DMA only affects windows whose contents are not being updated. PCI DMA transfers are much slower than AGP DMA transfers, and tie up the PCI bus. This has the effect of degrading performance of high bandwidth tasks such as DVD playback significantly. PCI DMA texture transfers may interact with other PCI cards to produce unexpected results, as bus availability and transfer latencies change.