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kefkafloyd posted:Hey all, Cool, I'll check it out. Always wanted a decent Apple podcast. Welcome To Macintosh is OK but I think the guy stopped.
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Jun 8, 2019 07:25
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Mu Zeta posted:"3840x2160 at 30Hz (HDMI)" thanks!
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Jun 8, 2019 16:10
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For anyone who's curious, I'm listening to the WWDC session about the new hardware driver APIs. The summary is that Apple is trying to move several classes of kernel extensions to "system" extensions. KEXTs run inside the kernel and are therefore inherently potential security / stability / performance problems. Writing and debugging KEXTs is hard, much harder than writing application code. System Extensions are based on new APIs which allow some classes of KEXT to be rewritten as userspace processes, where they cannot access all the computer's memory, crash the system by doing something slightly wrong, accidentally create a gaping security hole due to a minor coding mistake, and so forth. Catalina will have System Extension APIs for USB, serial, and network interfaces. They mentioned that support for other classes of devices will come in future macOS releases, and said that we can expect post-Catalina releases to start removing KEXT based support for device classes that have had System Extension APIs long enough to see developer adoption. (Catalina will still support all Kernel Extension classes.) They're not just doing this for device drivers, but also for other types of software that currently require KEXTs, such as third party antivirus and security software. (Which is great news. gently caress trusting AV software vendors to write KEXTs, they're the absolute worst.) Thread relevant and notably absent: any discussion of whether System Extensions will cover things like GPU drivers any time soon. USB/serial/network are relatively low performance devices where the overhead of doing the driver in userspace usually doesn't matter. It's probably much harder to push GPU drivers out of the kernel. I would expect that for some time to come, GPU drivers will still need to be KEXTs, and therefore still need to be signed etc.
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Jun 8, 2019 20:58
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Apologies if this a commonly asked question but I've gone back a few pages and not seen anything so: What are my best options for modest gaming on Mac? I've got a 2015 MBP at the minute with onboard graphics. It's fine for anything casual, but anything more advanced than that is basically impossible. I'm definitely not looking to play triple A games here, but even something moderate like Artifact or Firewatch isn't really doable. Would the Radeon in a 21" retina iMac be enough? I know these aren't really gaming graphics cards but if they're 'good enough' that's fine. And any experience with eGPU? It all seems like a bit of a faff and probably much easier if I'd got a newer MBP with USB 3.
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Jun 9, 2019 10:41
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Major Ryan posted:What are my best options for modest gaming on Mac? Build a separate budget gaming PC or buy a laptop on sale with a Pascal GPU or a 1650. Treat that as a gaming console. For casual/not input lag sensitive games you can use Steam in-home streaming or Parsec to steam to your MBP or even iPad.
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Jun 9, 2019 11:13
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eames posted:Build a separate budget gaming PC or buy a laptop on sale with a Pascal GPU or a 1650. Treat that as a gaming console. It's depressing that this is the correct answer. I'd really rather not bother with having to run another machine and/or janitor a windows machine but it's by far the cheapest and most sensible option. quote:For casual/not input lag sensitive games you can use Steam in-home streaming or Parsec to steam to your MBP or even iPad. Yeah, actually not thought about this. Might be an interesting option. I guess if I hold out long enough something like Stadia might work too.
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Jun 9, 2019 13:25
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Top spec iMac 21" with Vega BTO option should suffice. But I'm sad to say you'd be better off with a Hackintosh or separate PC.
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Jun 9, 2019 13:26
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Major Ryan posted:
I meant stream not steam but yeah, it works much better than one might initially expect. I was going to mention Stadia but we don't know how well it really works and if your internet connection would allow that. Having Pascal or Turing for low latency hardware encoding via NVENC is key, though Vega drivers might have improved. The nice thing about streaming is that your client machine stays silent and cool while you get solid 60FPS. I used to stream to my 2015 MBP from time to time and it worked very well with everything but latency sensitive shooters like Overwatch. You really want a high refresh rate panel for that anyway. There's some hope that the gaming on macOS situation will improve in the future (Apple Arcade, big Intel iGPU improvements, 7nm dGPUs) but for now a second windows machine is the way to go.
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Jun 9, 2019 14:19
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I'd like to think that Apple will eventually - now that they're back on board with the notion of allowing tower PCs to exist - just make a regular Mac, to sit between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, that can just be a nice but slightly smaller tower, perhaps even with the old cheesegrater front, that can hold a nice i7 or something, a single one of those modules set up with a single, powerful GPU, and one or two extra PCIe slots, and like dual memory channels with four DIMMs. I don't think people would even mind if there was some Apple Tax on this thing, even if they're just going to bootcamp it, because it'll probably still represent better value than a maxed out Mini and an eGPU.
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Jun 9, 2019 14:37
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Apple will never make a non-Pro upgradable PC. We're exceedingly lucky they made another Mini. At some point in the not-so-distant future they'll switch from Intel to their ARM chips, which will probably allow them to make everything even smaller and less upgradable.
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Jun 9, 2019 15:18
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Krispy Wafer posted:Apple will never make a non-Pro upgradable PC. We're exceedingly lucky they made another Mini. At some point in the not-so-distant future they'll switch from Intel to their ARM chips, which will probably allow them to make everything even smaller and less upgradable. I don’t see them replacing the Pro line with ARM chips so I don’t see them splitting the laptops and iMacs up either
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Jun 9, 2019 16:30
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Bob Morales posted:I don’t see them replacing the Pro line with ARM chips so I don’t see them splitting the laptops and iMacs up either That's the problem, what do they do with pro and business users after they switch from Intel? Unless they can run a pretty fast x64 virtualization, they'll need to maintain both platforms. I think we're going to end up with a business/pro line and then ARM everywhere else. The MBA and Mini will be replaced by an iPad and an external monitor dongle.
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Jun 9, 2019 17:03
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The ARM chips are going to be more impressive than you think, and 90% of their pro machines are thermal throttled down to less than pro levels anyway.
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Jun 9, 2019 17:05
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American McGay posted:... and 90% of their pro machines are thermal throttled down to less than pro levels anyway. Lol, what? Are you referring the i9 problem they had that got fixed with a firmware update?
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Jun 9, 2019 21:31
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So I was on eBay late last night and impulse bought a g4 12 PowerBook in great condition for $50. My question is anyone have a guide to upgrading it’s hard drive to an ssd? Also, a good place to buy a new battery or two? It’s cool as a writing (offline) machine at coffee shops I figure. (Like a type writer but less annoying and new hipster).
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Jun 9, 2019 21:35
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American McGay posted:The ARM chips are going to be more impressive than you think, and 90% of their pro machines are thermal throttled down to less than pro levels anyway. Yeah, the current A12X has a TDP of 7W. If they made it with a TDP of even 14W it would be an absolute monster. Well, it already IS a monster, but it would be laughably fast.
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Jun 9, 2019 21:37
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LionArcher posted:So I was on eBay late last night and impulse bought a g4 12 PowerBook in great condition for $50. My question is anyone have a guide to upgrading it’s hard drive to an ssd? Also, a good place to buy a new battery or two? It’s cool as a writing (offline) machine at coffee shops I figure. (Like a type writer but less annoying and new hipster). The main issue is that it uses a PATA drive, so I think OWC is the only place to get an ssd and it won’t be all that fast. I’m sure you can find a replacement guide at ifixit. It shouldn’t be too hard.
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Jun 9, 2019 22:02
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LionArcher posted:So I was on eBay late last night and impulse bought a g4 12 PowerBook in great condition for $50. My question is anyone have a guide to upgrading it’s hard drive to an ssd? Also, a good place to buy a new battery or two? It’s cool as a writing (offline) machine at coffee shops I figure. (Like a type writer but less annoying and new hipster). Just get an mSATA to IDE adapter and then a serviceable mSATA like the Samsung 850. Wouldn't trust any IDE/PATA drives as they're slowly being phased out. Newer Technology batteries are your best bet among the five zillion battery vendors. Hope you won't mind the occasional gawker with the "why so thick" comments.. Might also want to get a spare AC adapter or two.. Also might want to get an 802.11n or 802.11ac adapter that still has OSX 10.4/5 support as the built in 802.11b/g might be too primitive for some places (as well as being inherently insecure) Binary Badger fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jun 9, 2019 |
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Jun 9, 2019 22:14
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Binary Badger posted:Just get an mSATA to IDE adapter and then a serviceable mSATA like the Samsung 850. Wouldn't trust any IDE/PATA drives as they're slowly being phased out. Thanks for the advice. Looks like the adapter and an ssd will run me just shy of a hundred. Newer technology’s batteries no longer have the g4 PowerBook in stock... as for the wireless I’ll plug into Ethernet at home to get everything up and running (photoshop 7 and final draft 7 anyone?) and then out and about no wireless. It will be a straight up typewriter basically. (I’m only throwing an ssd in there for boot time and putting a lot of music on there because why not). LionArcher fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Jun 9, 2019 |
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Jun 9, 2019 23:33
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LionArcher posted:So I was on eBay late last night and impulse bought a g4 12 PowerBook in great condition for $50. My question is anyone have a guide to upgrading it’s hard drive to an ssd? Also, a good place to buy a new battery or two? It’s cool as a writing (offline) machine at coffee shops I figure. (Like a type writer but less annoying and new hipster). How handy are you with soldering irons and other tools? G4 PowerBook batteries consist of a bunch of standard 18650 Li-Ion cells and a controller board inside a plastic case. New 18650 cells are easy to get, so you can rebuild the battery pack to brand new capacity. These days a rebuild may be the only option. I can't imagine anyone's making new batteries for any G4 model, and any new old stock you can find is going to be just as flat even if it's still sealed in its original box because lithium ion battery chemistries, especially from that time, don't last more than 5 years from date of manufacture (if that much). (If I was going to do it, I'd ebay a second battery and do that one first.)
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Jun 10, 2019 08:00
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Lazyhound posted:asinine product idea: a kit to mount a Mac mini logic board in an ATX case, with a TB3–>PCIe breakout board.  https://egpu.io/external-gpu-desktop-mac-mini-r9-fury-x/ Gyshall posted:Just started a new job and I'm using a MacBook pro 2017 model. http://shop.caldigit.com/us/Docking%20Stations/Thunderbolt%20Station%203?product_id=163 http://shop.caldigit.com/us/Docking%20Stations/Thunderbolt%20Station%203?product_id=164 There’s USB-C ones that do dual display too but I don’t think Apple supports them (specifically DP multi stream transport) for whatever reason still. There’s various TB3 docks and I’m sure a few do dual display, albeit might be like 1 HDMI, 1 DP or USB-C/TB passthrough for video, but I think the more elaborate ones might require a power brick, so not as portable use friendly I imagine.
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Jun 10, 2019 08:54
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Wow, they want to move the system folder to its own protected partition too, guess they wanna make it super hard to modify the system in Catalina, starting to look like Windows..
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Jun 11, 2019 00:37
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dosdude isn't doing a patcher for the catalina wine mixer?
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Jun 11, 2019 00:39
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Nope, he says on MacRumors forums that 1- it's a lot of work, 2 it's super hard to get Catalina to run on non Metal GPUs and frankly the experience would suck running unaccelerated. He does say he is going to work on Catalina patches but they're not going to work as smoothly as the previous OSes did. Think of how comically slow your Mac runs in safe mode, especially 5K iMacs, now imagine that as the default speed everything runs in even with the full system loaded. Binary Badger fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 00:46
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The three people left with 2011 MacBooks that still work are gonna be pissed
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Jun 11, 2019 01:07
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That new 15" 8-core i9 is an rear end-kicker https://barefeats.com/rmbp-2019-vs-2018.html  There's a $200, + .2GHz model above that one too
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Jun 11, 2019 01:14
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What a shame that Adobe PhotoSlop doesn't really improve too much, diminishing returns after 5 cores.. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Photoshop-CC-Multi-Core-Performance-625/ Basically they tell you stick with a quad-core or hexacore if you're only going to do PhotoShop.
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Jun 11, 2019 01:27
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Bob Morales posted:The three people left with 2011 MacBooks that still work are gonna be pissed Only I could find out my 2011 Air isn’t supported by the current OS this way.
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Jun 11, 2019 01:28
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Binary Badger posted:Wow, they want to move the system folder to its own protected partition too, guess they wanna make it super hard to modify the system in Catalina, starting to look like Windows.. Like windows how? I need to revisit that wwdc session video, wasn’t paying close enough attention, but what I remember the speaker talking about is that it’s a newer betterer way of implementing SIP, which has already been preventing users from writing to /System for some time. It’s not quite a separate partition btw, they’re taking advantage of the APFS capability to have multiple volumes share one disk partition. The stuff I’m kinda vague on: he was talking about the new-for-Catalina system software update process and I think it sounded like they were going to lean on APFS multi volume technology quite a bit to make the process less complicated and more reliable. Probably something like creating a new volume for the upgraded /System, setting it up, then switching which /System is the active one. There was something in there about a new category of links, firm links, to allow such a switchover to be easy and clean. Something else in that talk that you should like: they’re (finally) making diskutil restore aware of APFS volumes and snapshots. You will be able to do things like diskutil restore a specific volume snapshot from one APFS partition to a different APFS partition, with a choice between overwriting an existing volume in the target or creating a new one.
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Jun 11, 2019 02:14
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What's New in Apple File Systems is the relevant session. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/710/ One benefit of both the snapshots and the new method of creating /System is that we'll FINALLY get rollbacks for system updates without having to do a reinstall.
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Jun 11, 2019 03:29
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Bob Morales posted:That new 15" 8-core i9 is an rear end-kicker Christ how big is the sample image that it takes 177 seconds to enlarge to 400%?
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Jun 11, 2019 03:38
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Pakistani Brad Pitt posted:Christ how big is the sample image that it takes 177 seconds to enlarge to 400%? He doesn’t specify anywhere that I can find, but from the program’s homepage: quote:PhotoZoom Pro 7 not only creates larger images than any other software (up to 1 million by 1 million pixels), it also produces higher quality results.
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Jun 11, 2019 03:43
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Binary Badger posted:What a shame that Adobe PhotoSlop doesn't really improve too much, diminishing returns after 5 cores.. Considering the completely ground-up rebuild of Photoshop is being released later this year, I wouldn't discount more cores making a big difference in the next 3-5 months.
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Jun 11, 2019 04:05
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Noticed 2015 rMBP on Apple Canada refurbished today. Bought one for work and one for home to replace my dying 2012.
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Jun 11, 2019 05:08
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Escape Goat posted:Noticed 2015 rMBP on Apple Canada refurbished today. Bought one for work and one for home to replace my dying 2012. They’re on the US store as well. Seems like a lot of money for a 2015 though. On a related note, would Apple still repair a delaminating screen on a 2015? For free?
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Jun 11, 2019 13:02
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Escape Goat posted:Noticed 2015 rMBP on Apple Canada refurbished today. Bought one for work and one for home to replace my dying 2012. Possibly. Within 4 years of the original purchase date.
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Jun 11, 2019 14:42
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Did the MacBook Pro get a spec bump last week? Wife needs a new MBP, Costco is selling a "2.3GHz" i5 13.3" one while the Apple Store is selling 2.4GHz models as base. I would just wait from Apple but the configurations I like (512 SSD) aren't available for a week. If there was a bump it complicates my wait, although 100MHz by itself probably isn't much to worry about. Still wish 16GB models were more prevalent from any retailer, though. finally  my 2013 air.
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Jun 11, 2019 15:58
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Hed posted:Did the MacBook Pro get a spec bump last week? The 2018 13" Pro was a 2.3, the 2019 is a 2.4. The turbo increased from 3.8 to 4.1 as well. So yes, there was a spec bump. But make sure the one you are looking at isn't a 2017 model (only dual core) or nontouchbar (also dual core and slower than the touchbar dual core)
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Jun 11, 2019 16:08
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Adoramo has the 13" (2.4GHz 16GB 512GB) Silver for $100 less than Apple so that might be worth looking into
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Jun 11, 2019 16:10
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https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/06/11/broadcom-renews-rf-chip-supply-deal-with-apple-for-two-more-years Apple just renewed its agreement with Broadcom for WiFi, trackpad controllers, other parts. Good, maybe we might also see the return of the Airport Extreeeeeeeeeme with their own Velop-like answer. Maybe.
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Jun 11, 2019 16:27
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