Any hack to enable core image

[Macmadant]

I know this has probably been, posted before, but does anyone know any any kind of hack or code, to enable core image on older graphics cards, core image can run on these cards, its just apple hasn't bothered to to it

Hi.
You all say that in order to use Core Image, that we`d need a video card capabile of rendering with pixel/vertex shading effects.
And that the G4 iBooks wernt compatible.
News flash everyone, the 9200s used in the G4 iBooks are basically Radeon 8500s that are clocked slower and have 1 of their normal 2 texture mapping units taken out. In other words, a 4x1 pipeline/TMU based graphics processor. You might also be interested to hear that the 8500/9200 are pixel/vertex shader capible. Upto the spec of 1.4.
Info on parts of GPU specific to Core image (imo)
Specifications of the 9200 chipset:
SMARTSHADER
DX8.1 Programmable Pixel and Vertex Shaders. Pixel Shader version 1.4 supported with up to 22 instructions. Vertex Shader 1.1 supporting up to 128 instructions.

FULLSTREAM hardware accelerated deblockin of internet video streams
VIDEO IMMERSION II digital video features, including advanced adaptive de-interlacing algorithm, temporal filtering, and video gamma enhancement for enhanced movie playback.
It appears that the compatible cards on Apples list are either Pixel/Vertex shader v2.0 or 3.0 compatible. Which would leave me to belive that the Core Image setup needs some sort of shader branching and loop support.
Heres more news, the 9200s, like the 8500s, being shader 1.4 GPUs, do actually have a basic capabilty for branching & shader looping. Which means that with a little work on Apple part, the Core Image aspects could be made to run on 9200 chipsets, just with shorter shaders, and more of them, rarther than one longer shader instruction. Which would take up more video memory, but with 32Mb there, its more than possible.
Also, the card supports Fullstream, which while it is a PC centered feature, is easyily adapted to macs. As its another shader effect that can apply post filter effects to images & videos, and clean them up, removing pixelation/blockyness, which according to the Apple website, is another feature of core image.

So it seems to me, with what information we have, that if Apple actually bothered, we could have the full feature set of core image running smoothly on our G4 iBooks. If they make the effort. Which i cant see them doing to

so this shows it can be done but apple doesn't want people to stay happy with their machines, they want you to buy new ones,, anybody know how to get it workin

 

[eXan]

Of course Apple is trying to make as much money as they can.

Why do you think Aperture in not officially supported on non-dual core PowerMacs, iMacs and older PowerBooks G4?

 

[Macmadant]

don't get mad about it

 

[portent]

CoreImage is enabled on every Mac with Tiger; the video card is only used to accelerate the effects. You may lose some eye-candy like the Dashboard ripple, but the same functionality is offered whether you have a CoreImage video card or not.

 

[superbovine]

I know this has probably been, posted before, but does anyone know any any kind of hack or code, to enable core image on older graphics cards, core image can run on these cards, its just apple hasn't bothered to to it

so this shows it can be done but apple doesn't want people to stay happy with their machines, they want you to buy new ones,, anybody know how to get it workin

most image API get released before a lot of hardware supports their features. the specs for opengl 1.4 were out early, but it took awhile for consumers to get a hand on cards that were affordable. In other words the features are for developers, so they make software to run on CoreImage. It takes a few years for games to be developed. Whenever their software comes out in a few years, a lot more people will have newer macs. Another thing is why would you write a API (CoreImage) to not use newer features of newer graphics cards? Apple cannot help that video cards get more advanced each year.

This is how the computer industry works. New dev kits come out and get seeded to developers early on so they can get to market their products. In the graphics world this is how is done, even in the PC world. Whenever Microsoft comes out with a new Directx ver or OpenGL release a new ver beta cards are released to certain people to and develop stuff for the new cards. They have to make the standards for they make the sofware. It goes the same for xbox 360 or ps3. game companies had dev kits and hardware to test their software.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_Image

Core Image, mostly being 2D, only makes use of the GPUs Pixel Shaders, Vertex Shaders are not used. This means the more Pixelshader-Pipelines a GPU has, the better will be the performance. VRAM-bandwidth is also of utter importance, a wide memory bus and fast clock greatly help performance.
However, if a suitable graphics processor is not available, Core Image will fall back to the next best option - using the Altivec processing abilities of the G5 and G4 processors, or just executing in 'normal' code on a G3. Core Image will automatically adopt the fastest approach for a given machine architecture. However, realistically, real-time processing requires a compatible GPU. When the Altivec-fallback is used (Apple recommends this for final rendering, most likely because VRAM-readback on AGP is very slow), Core Image performance scales almost linearly with the number of CPUs and their clockspeed.

Basically any Mac-compatible GPU that supports at least second-generation Shaders, more specifically the ARB_fragment_program OpenGL Extension or Pixelshader 2.0/DirectX 9 on the PC, can also do Core Image.
This means the following GPUs are supported (as of March 2006):
[edit]
ATI
ATI Radeon (mobility) X1600 XT
ATI Radeon (mobility) X1600
ATI Radeon X800 XT
ATI Radeon 9800 XT
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
ATI Radeon 9600 XT
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
ATI Radeon 9650
ATI Radeon 9600
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
ATI Mobility Radeon 9550
[edit]
Intel
Intel GMA 900 (Developer Transition Kit)
Intel GMA 950
[edit]
NVIDIA
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 DDL
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT DDL
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 LE
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (flashed PC-Card)
NVIDIA GeForce 6600
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 (flashed PC-Card)
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Go
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Note: The Geforce FX 5200 is only barely suited for Core Image due to poor Pixelshader-Performance. With most Macs the CPU is faster in rendering, so Apple disabled Core Image Support for it and chose not to support the 5200 in its Photography Software Aperture.

at least on the ATI 9200 the Mac ver doesn't support the features you need. However, I believe the PC comes closer to the required specs.

there isn't a hack.