Apple Joins BAPCo

DigitalDame2 writes to tell us Gearlog is reporting that Apple has joined up with Windows benchmarking consortium BAPCo as a full blown member. From the article: "This is significant because it means that Apple has now committed to Windows-based performance testing, and it will influence industry-standard testing methodologies going forward, possibly including Mac OS X testing."

Does MS have a say?

[electrosoccertux]

Is there any way MS could pull the rug out from under Apple if Apple goes further than MS likes? You know, oops, Windows won't activate on Macs anymore. I'm sure the EULA retains MS's right to revoke a license any time they see fit.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Microsoft has nothing to lose.

[joetheappleguy]

Microsoft should be the scene of many high fives (Granted, they would be clumsy, nerd high fives) if Apple facilitates a way to get Windows working in a virtual machine in the new Intel Macs - Microsoft would win because it would mean another copy of Windows sold and Apple would win because that many more would-be switchers would finally have their last objection to getting a Mac removed.

There's a mind-boggling selection of specialty software that runs in Windows that will never get ported to the Mac, and it's very easy to imagine a near future where Windows XP takes a role very similar to X11 today - That of providing a compatibility layer for apps that for whatever reason never get around to being made native to OS X.

The only ones who would stand to lose and should be nervous are the brand name and beige box PC builders, particularly Dell, who easily could see their half of the education market disappear overnight.

I say bring it on!

fact or fiction?

[Pliep]

Whereas everything that can be seen on teh internet seems to be true, nothing about this story can be found on Apple's press page or BAPCo's website. The Apple logo is Photoshopped into the picture that BAPCo uses on their about page [bapco.com].

So, nice headline, but where are the facts?

Re:Vista Graphics could be an issue

[Hes Nikke]

My point was why would Apple throw in a DirectX card into a Mac, when its(DirectX's) sole use will be on Windows.

- cyberjessy

this statement is wrong in so many ways. A "DirectX version Y compatible" G{U is simply a GPU that meets a certain threshold for image processing APIs. The marketing departments at ATi and nVidia have turned around and made it a big selling point that the card in your hands will be able to run with all the features enabled by DirectX version Y.

I submit to you cyberjessy, that Core Image [apple.com] has minimum compatible GPU's that all just also happen to be DirectX 9 compatible. (example 1 [ati.com], example 2 [nvidia.com]) Why? Because the GPU is programable. Core Image needs a programable GPU, and DX9 needs a programable GPU.

Even when negotiating with card vendors, wouldn't it be cheaper to get a custom graphics card with all the DirectX circuitry taken out? Why waste transistors on capability you will never use.

-cyberjessy

there isn't any DirectX circuitry. The GPU tells the host "hi, i'm capable of A, B, C etc" If the host is windows, and all these capabilities meet the minimum requirements for DirectX 9, than DirectX 9 will run, otherwise, i believe it falls back onto DX 8, or some sort of compatibility mode. If the host is a Mac, and these capabilities meet the minimum requirements for Core Image (or even Quartz2D Extreme) than said technology is enabled, otherwise, it falls back on a CPU driven code path that has fewer special effects. Once again, the main GPU capability that Core Image, and DX 9 are looking for are a programable GPU.

I hope that i have at least partially removed that fishing rod from your throat....

Re:Predictions coming as jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true to some degree - but even now, the best OSX apps out there are made by Apple. (OK, and Blizzard.)

My biggest worry isn't about the future of, say, Photoshop on the Mac. My biggest worry is actually smaller open-source projects, like VLC. Now that new Mac users have the option of running Windows (or x86 Linux), will contributors still be motivated to keep developing and optimizing Mac versions?

Unfortunately, THIS issue comes up with the new architecture regardless of what OS it's running. Will anyone keep up the PPC optimizations now that the only computers running PPC are obsolete? I guess I can pray...

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's bullshit. Apple was sitting on what, about three billion in cash at the time? What Microsoft did that legitimately helped was commit to a minimum of five years of making Office for the Mac. The cash was more symbolic than anything.

It used to matter!

[Anonymous Coward]

"processor flamewars were always foolishness: who really cares what processor architecture is underneath?"

It mattered at one time because the Intel architecture was limited by 64K segment sizes. It was limited by the 1M address space of the 8088.

Back in the early days, the choice of processors was important because it determined a lot about how good the operating system could be. People who wrote code had to be aware of processors and it's limitation.

Look at the first mac...the Motorola 68000 gave you a 24 bit address space and it was flat. So you could malloc 4M of memory. Try that in MS-DOS! And because the address space was flat, it became easier to program more interesting things because the programmer was more involved in doing cool stuff and less in manipulating registers to get access to extended and/or expanded memory.

Today, it seems silly; compilers and operating systems paper over the underlying hardware architecture, but at one time *it did matter*.