Actually, it does make sense. With Panther we saw the introduction of Quartz Extreme, which was not supported on machines with less that 16 or 32MB graphics cards (I forget which).

Now with Tiger there will be a further cull of machines with anything less than a 64MB graphics card for a feature of the OS. It has nothing to do with the CPU (which you so impolitely pointed out was 'current' - way to go on proving an irrelevant point).


First, all Quartz Extreme was (and that's ALL) is just that it optimizes/speeds up the GUI display by off loading some of the processing onto the Graphics Card. If you're graphics card doesn't support it, what do you lose? Well, the CPU has to do some of the work, and other parts may not be done at all. But of all that Panther offered, QE was of minor importance (it sped up the UI, but didn't produce extra benefit). It got buzz (because its hard to buzz non-visual stuff), but it certainly isn't reason to say "My card isn't supported, the update blows!".

As for CoreImage, as it was stated, if your card isn't supported, then certain aspects of the frameworks must be done by the CPU vs. the GPU, but that doesn't mean the update doesn't offer anything because CoreImage can't offload to the GPU. And that only means something once you get apps that use CoreImage...

Does anybody have any idea which video cards in existing machines support CoreImage? A list, perhaps, would be helpful?

From the previews, Tiger offers a lot more than just core image/video. For supported cards (I think 64mb and above) applications that manipulate photos and video (iLife) will notice a significant boost in speed. The real improvements in Tiger will be worth the upgrade. Spotlight will change the way you manage files. The functionality exists (in a limited way) now with applications like Butler, Launchbar, and Quicksilver. These alone have changed how I find files on my computer now. Other new features like the new iChat and Quicktime, as well as Dashboard and Automater will be much welcomed additions. Add to that improvements under the hood (better developer tools, optimized Power PC compilers, synchronization with the latest BSD) make Tiger a great upgrade.

On topic, I won't be using Google desktop, because searching functionality is excellent on OSX (unlike Windows) and with Quicksilver/Launchbar/Butler near instantenous.

Does anybody have any idea which video cards in existing machines support CoreImage? A list, perhaps, would be helpful?

Go to this page:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/core.html

At the bottom, on the right, lists the system requirements. All desktops and powerbooks being sold today support it.

As it says on the page:
The performance gains and features supported by Core Image ultimately depend on the graphics card. Graphics cards capable of pixel-level programming deliver the best performance. But Core Image automatically scales as appropriate for systems with older graphics cards, for compatibility with any Tiger-compatible Mac.

Xeni Jardin and Tim O'Reilly point out that this is being misreported. That is not what Google CEO Eric Schmidt said.

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/30/google_desktop_for_o.html

"He was fairly equivocal, saying that it was a hard problem, requiring a whole separate project, not just a port, because of the differences in the operating systems. He made no announcement of actual plans to deliver the product, or even that Google was actively working on it."

This has nothing to do with Tiger, the Mac OS, video cards or anything else. Why would anyone want Google (or any other third party for that matter) to index all of the information on their hard drive? Does anyone really believe that this information can or will be kept confidential? Do you really want this information in the hands of a "for profit" company? How much money could be made from Google selling this info? How much damage could occur if this information is stolen from Google? It seems to me that a user would be voluntarily sacrificing their security by installing something like this.

No thank you Google - I can find my info on my own hard drive with nearly no effort.

Just because you don't need it must mean no one else in the one need that function! Could it be conceivable to you that some of us has more information than you have?

all this talk about graphics cards/ core graphics and stuff not being supported in Tiger- give it a break! OS X is the only OS out there that gets significantly faster with each release and it runs fine on older hardware. OS X.1 barely ran on my 300MHZ clamshell. OS X 3.5 runs pretty well. You can't say the same about Windows, or most flavors of Linux.. Am I going to cry if Tiger doesn't run on my clamshell? No. I am content to continue using Panther until the machine stops working...

This is about Google Desktop. Go to the forums if you want to talk about graphics cards.

Anyway, Google Desktop has a big flaw - it indexes all users' files in one place. One user can search for something and see results and information from another user. Big security hole there.

I'll wait and see how Spotlight turns out.

Could you possibly post your reply in a grammatically understandable form please? Are you saying that you have so much more information than I do that you need Google to manage it for you, or that you have more information about this particular subject than I do? If the latter is true, please post this additional information so that I may be as knowing as you.

Thanks in advance.........