Quartz 2D Extreme ? Just Internet Rumours?

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Level 1

10 points

Quartz 2D Extreme ? Just Internet Rumours?

Hi everyone, long(looooong) time reader, 1st time poster. You guys and girls have helped me and i'm sure thousands others with your cumulative wisdom. Alright enough flattery, here's my issue :

I've read many articles about this mysterious hidden technology in TIger called Quartz 2D Extreme, which is different from just Quartz Extreme. I would like to know the way to enable this technology to give it a try (or find out if its already enabled...)

Please reply back on this post with any instructions or personal experiences.

Thanks a lot all.

- Hamza

Posted on Oct 12, 2005 9:54 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 12, 2005 11:48 PM in response to Hamza Khan

From the marketing info page ( http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextreme/), Quartz Extreme is a superset of technology that includes Quartz 2D and OpenGL.

"When you move, resize and scroll windows in real time on Mac OS X, you're witnessing the power of Quartz Extreme. Combining the performance of modern graphics cards and OpenGL with the visual quality of the Quartz 2D window-compositing system, Quartz Extreme delivers responsiveness you won't find anywhere else."

Here is some info on compatibility with Quartz Extreme: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301347

Hope that helps.

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Answer 2

Oct 13, 2005 1:24 AM in response to Hamza Khan

Quartz Extreme and Quartz Exteme 2D are two separate things. Quartz Extreme has been around for awhile now, but Quartz Extreme 2D is new and a part of Tiger but disabled by default. The only way to turn on Quartz Extreme 2D is to install the Developer's Tools and enable it through the Developers' Tools. It'll be off again on restart. Apple turned it off by default because it hindered performance instead of aiding performance, but I hope they'll eventually work out the kinks.

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Answer 3

Hamza Khan Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 13, 2005 1:46 AM in response to Hamza Khan

Kaan : My question is in reference to Quartz 2D Extreme, which is a new technology as explained by MacGallant. I'll put up a link to a very good article about it.

Mac : That is certainly a method, but unfortunately I do not have the Developer Tools installed and don't want to reinstall Tiger...i have read somewhere that there is way to manually modify a preference file somewhere, but am not sure how.

Thanks to both anyway.

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Answer 4

Oct 13, 2005 8:35 PM in response to Hamza Khan

From what I recall, you don't have to reinstall Mac OSX to install the Developers Tools. Anyways that was the case when I had Panther and installed the Developers Tools for compiling the Linux version of JBuilder to run on Mac OSX Panther. It's just of folder with Xcode and other programmer utilities.

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Answer 5

Chachi

Level 4

2,525 points

Oct 13, 2005 11:37 PM in response to Hamza Khan

Hi Hamza,

Check out this hint on MacOSXHints.com. Make sure to read through all of the comments below the hint as well as the hint itself.

Hope this helps...

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Answer 6

Hamza Khan Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 26, 2005 8:57 PM in response to Hamza Khan

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/14

read it, here's what my pref file says :

bplist00Ô & 'BackingCompression_Quartz2DExtremeEnabled[DisplaySetsCGSInterocitorSelectModeÓ '

ugly aint it ?

so whats next ? if anything ?

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Answer 7

Chachi

Level 4

2,525 points

Oct 26, 2005 9:13 PM in response to Hamza Khan

Hi Hamza,

Yep, that's what binary looks like when you try to open it in a text editor. Are you sure that's all of it though? If you truly want to read the file you either need to install the Developer tools and use "Property List Editor" to open it or you can read it a couple of different ways in the Terminal. Here's one way using the Terminal application:

1.) Launch the Terminal application
2.) Type the following command and hit return:

defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver

What's next is up to you. I'm confused as to what you want us to tell you next.

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Answer 8

Hamza Khan Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 26, 2005 11:47 PM in response to Hamza Khan

Hey, thanks for the reply.

What i want to do is

A. see if Quartz 2D Extreme is enabled
B. if it is not, learn how to enable it
(preferably without having to install cumbersome developer tools)

BTW , the last entry in the file when i open it using terminal and the method you showed is

Quartz2DExtremeENabled = 1;

i assume that means it is enabled and all this has been nought for nothing except a delightful geek research expedition.

Thanks all !

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Answer 9

Chachi

Level 4

2,525 points

Oct 26, 2005 11:50 PM in response to Hamza Khan

Hi again Hamza,

Type the following into the Terminal application and hit return:

defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver Quartz2DExtremeEnabled

If the above command returns the number 1 then it is enabled. If it returns the number 0 (or anything other than 1) then it is not.

Hope this helps...

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