Mac Hardware and Software |OT| - All things Macintosh

RDreamer said:
Sold off my old Macbook Pro from 07 to a friend of mine for 300 bucks. Feels weird, but I have a sort of sentimental attachment to that thing, and it was strange watching it go. Felt like giving away my baby that I'd been through a lot with. Oh well, there are plenty of design projects in the future for this one. Maybe I'll bond with this, too :P
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Does your name stand for Radical Dreamer?

And 07 was 5 effin years ago. Why does the passage of them in the 2000s seem to go by so fast?

Anyways, any know if gaming at 1440x900 on the rMBP is particularly ugly, fuzzy..etc? Looks like most modern games (BF3, COD, Skyrim, just Cause 2..etc) run well on high at that res. but YouTube doesn't show dpi.

And another CPU question: is there significant difference between 2.3 and 2.6ghz?
 
The Modbook Pro gets official, CEO Andreas Haas talks success in an iPad world

modbook-2012-press-shot-2.jpg

It's easy to see his point -- the iPad and most Android tablets are certainly limited as tools for creative professionals. The Modbook Pro, on the other hand, gives the user full OS functionality on a stylus input device. With the base configuration, you're getting a 2.5GHz, dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (upgradable to a 2.9GHz, dual-core Intel Core i7), up to 16GB of RAM and up to either a 1TB HDD or 960GB SSD, for starters -- this is very much a real computer. On top of all of that is a pen system that offers 512 pressure levels on its 1280 by 800 pixel display.
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:O
I waited soo long for this. All the modbook communities died out...
 
Jobiensis said:
So it's a modified MBA? Interesting.
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modified MB Pro. I admired Axiotron's resilience but macbooks that can be modified are an endangered species :/

Edit: It's a revamped company so I wish they had figured out a way to modify the Airs instead. the 13" Pro is the mac computer I'm least likely to buy primarily because of that shitty screen which was passable in '09 but is just embarrassing right now. I'd trade the upgradeability of this ModBook Pro for an 11" ModBook Air.
 
JayDub said:
Does your name stand for Radical Dreamer?

And 07 was 5 effin years ago. Why does the passage of them in the 2000s seem to go by so fast?
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Yeah, my name does. I used to go by Radikal_Dreamer, and actually do on a few forums still. I really grew to kind of dislike all that though so I shortened it.

And yeah it doesn't feel like it was 5 years ago, yet at the same time it feels like forever. Weird.
 
RDreamer said:
Yeah, my name does. I used to go by Radikal_Dreamer, and actually do on a few forums still. I really grew to kind of dislike all that though so I shortened it.

And yeah it doesn't feel like it was 5 years ago, yet at the same time it feels like forever. Weird.
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Ha! Me too! Except I used to go by the plain Radical_Dreamer.
 
Greyface said:
:O
I waited soo long for this. All the modbook communities died out...
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I'm a little confused. I didn't know companies can make devices of their own that run OSX and legally sell them. Or do they get around it because it's literally a modified MBP?
 
Are there any rumors suggesting that boot camp will allow windows installations on external hard drives?

Now that a good portion of the Macs available use SSDs and storage is a real concern and now that USB 3 and Thunderbolt interfaces are available, I would think that it would be a worthwhile feature.
 
Felix Lighter said:
Are there any rumors suggesting that boot camp will allow windows installations on external hard drives?

Now that a good portion of the Macs available use SSDs and storage is a real concern and now that USB 3 and Thunderbolt interfaces are available, I would think that it would be a worthwhile feature.
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It is possible on the new MacBook pro using thunderbolt..

I've found that I still need to have an internal partition on the primary drive, but 5GB was enough. Without an internal partition, the windows installer seems to balk at installing on the external.
 
Robobandit said:
It is possible on the new MacBook pro using thunderbolt..

I've found that I still need to have an internal partition on the primary drive, but 5GB was enough. Without an internal partition, the windows installer seems to balk at installing on the external.
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Interesting. I'd prefer USB 3 just for the wider selection of drives but this is encouraging.
 
Felix Lighter said:
Interesting. I'd prefer USB 3 just for the wider selection of drives but this is encouraging.
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In my experience, windows will not boot from a usb drive. It bluescreens right after the windows logo.. and I'm not sure that the windows installer will even let you pick a usb drive as an install target.. but I haven't tried that.

With thunderbolt, the disk is treated as if it was an internal drive and is recognized by the windows installer as disk 0
 
Robobandit said:
In my experience, windows will not boot from a usb drive. It bluescreens right after the windows logo.. and I'm not sure that the windows installer will even let you pick a usb drive as an install target.. but I haven't tried that.

With thunderbolt, the disk is treated as if it was an internal drive and is recognized by the windows installer as disk 0
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windows doesn't boot from a usb drive? is this just in bootcamp or with all windows machines too? that seems ridiculous.
 
So guys,

Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse?

I'm leaning towards the trackpad since I'm loving the gestures on my MBP with Lion; I figure I can just stick with my Logitech MX mouse and use that whenever I feel like using a mouse. Best of both worlds.
 
btw, anyone else have wifi drop-out issues with Lion?

I got my new MBP last week and it came installed with Lion 10.7.3; I was plugged into ethernet for the most part so I'm not sure if it's just Lion, or if it got cooked when I upgraded to 10.7.4.

Essentially, the wifi drops out completely (fails to see any networks); upon restart it works again, but shortly after it drops out.

Super frustrating.
 
rinse82 said:
So guys,

Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse?

I'm leaning towards the trackpad since I'm loving the gestures on my MBP with Lion; I figure I can just stick with my Logitech MX mouse and use that whenever I feel like using a mouse. Best of both worlds.
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magic trackpad for sure (i have both btw). the magic mouse is nowhere near as comfortable for gaming as other mice. it's easier to do gestures on the trackpad versus the magic mouse too.
rinse82 said:
btw, anyone else have wifi drop-out issues with Lion?

I got my new MBP last week and it came installed with Lion 10.7.3; I was plugged into ethernet for the most part so I'm not sure if it's just Lion, or if it got cooked when I upgraded to 10.7.4.

Essentially, the wifi drops out completely (fails to see any networks); upon restart it works again, but shortly after it drops out.

Super frustrating.
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i don't use wifi that often, but i've been running lion since release and i have never noticed this. it might be unique to you, though others should confirm.
 
This would probably go better in the OS X thread, but since this is on the front page I'll be lazy. What's up with hardware accelerated video on OS X? 1080p H.264 in a standard container is definitely being decoded by the CPU in Quicktime X, which seems concerning for a notebook. 720p is fine. Late 2011 13" MBP, so 1080p video still plays fine, but I'd like to minimise heat and power usage if I can.

It looks like work has been done implementing Intel's decoder closely on Windows with the qsdecoder ffdshow library, but OS X seems out in the cold for now.
 
Well I love my new rMPB. Doom 3 at retina resolution with ultra settings is amazing and very nostalgic. One thing that bothers me is how hot this thing gets. I mean the KEYBOARD even gets hot. Pressing down the W key to move forward was uncomfortable as the key itself felt more than warm.

Thoughts?
 
Solideliquid said:
Well I love my new rMPB. Doom 3 at retina resolution with ultra settings is amazing and very nostalgic. One thing that bothers me is how hot this thing gets. I mean the KEYBOARD even gets hot. Pressing down the W key to move forward was uncomfortable as the key itself felt more than warm.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Mine is the same way, particularly with Skyrim.

Gaming under OS X or windows?
 
I had promised myself I wouldn't buy a retina MacBook this gen, but I noticed it was in stock at my local Best Buy and couldn't help myself. The screen is even better than I thought it would be. Absolutely beautiful. I'm still a bit nervous about app support, but the canary build of Chrome has retina support and that is by far the most important app for me so I'm happy.
 
Dineren said:
I had promised myself I wouldn't buy a retina MacBook this gen, but I noticed it was in stock at my local Best Buy and couldn't help myself. The screen is even better than I thought it would be. Absolutely beautiful. I'm still a bit nervous about app support, but the canary build of Chrome has retina support and that is by far the most important app for me so I'm happy.
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Once you see that screen, it is REALLY hard to resist!
 
Gary Whitta said:
Once you see that screen, it is REALLY hard to resist!
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Agreed.. I decided I wanted one as soon as it was announced.. I made the mistake of going to a local best buy and they had just finished setting up the display unit and I saw it in person.. and I couldn't pull out my wallet fast enough.
 
Looking ata few late 2011 MBPs but I have a question.

Looking at the difference between the 6750 (512Mb) and 6770 (1GB), the cores between the two are the same, the clock speed is higher on the 6770 so the most obvious difference is the 1GB VRAM.

Is VRAM used primarily for screen draw stuff etc? I will be using this machine to do some moderate 3Dmodeling and rendering, but won't CPU speed and RAM have a bigger impact on that than VRAM? I know the GPU can help with open cl interactive rendering but I am not sure how much of a part VRAM actually plays in that.

Close to pulling the trigger on one but I can keep looking if the GPU VRAM is critical to my usage. Otherwise this thing is stacked with SSD and 16GB RAM and anti glare screen
 
Is there any possibility of the obtaining the displays for the new iPad and MBPr without the machines themselves? I'm not interested in the apps or power of those devices (I haven't use a 15" laptop since the second-gen MBAs were released :/), I only want them because of the damn screens...
 
Robobandit said:
Agreed.. I decided I wanted one as soon as it was announced.. I made the mistake of going to a local best buy and they had just finished setting up the display unit and I saw it in person.. and I couldn't pull out my wallet fast enough.
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Just picked up mine today, too. Dat screen.

Nice update from my early 2010 MBP 13".
 
Yoshiya said:
This would probably go better in the OS X thread, but since this is on the front page I'll be lazy. What's up with hardware accelerated video on OS X? 1080p H.264 in a standard container is definitely being decoded by the CPU in Quicktime X, which seems concerning for a notebook. 720p is fine. Late 2011 13" MBP, so 1080p video still plays fine, but I'd like to minimise heat and power usage if I can.

It looks like work has been done implementing Intel's decoder closely on Windows with the qsdecoder ffdshow library, but OS X seems out in the cold for now.
Click to expand...
There is work being done in this regard, but it seems to go forward at a very slow pace. There's been some progress in VLC and I'm using the VLC version linked in the blog post at the moment. GPU acceleration is still hit or miss for me, though. Sometimes the video stutters and I have to disable GPU acceleration, other times it's fine. It's probably going to be better once VLC 2.1.0 stable is released.
 
Krelian said:
There is work being done in this regard, but it seems to go forward at a very slow pace. There's been some progress in VLC and I'm using the VLC version linked in the blog post at the moment. GPU acceleration is still hit or miss for me, though. Sometimes the video stutters and I have to disable GPU acceleration, other times it's fine. It's probably going to be better once VLC 2.1.0 stable is released.
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Thanks for the link. It looks like it has the same limitations as the Quicktime X implementation - my temps were actually slightly higher during playback of 1080p content in that VLC build. Must still be in software.
 
sc0la said:
Looking ata few late 2011 MBPs but I have a question.

Is VRAM used primarily for screen draw stuff etc? I will be using this machine to do some moderate 3Dmodeling and rendering, but won't CPU speed and RAM have a bigger impact on that than VRAM? I know the GPU can help with open cl interactive rendering but I am not sure how much of a part VRAM actually plays in that.

Close to pulling the trigger on one but I can keep looking if the GPU VRAM is critical to my usage. Otherwise this thing is stacked with SSD and 16GB RAM and anti glare screen
Click to expand...

VRAM these days is a generic technical term to refer to the memory that is directly coupled to the graphics processor, usually through some high bandwidth channel. A portion is always used for the frame buffers - xRes*yRes*4bytes for 32bit colour * number of buffers - but while that is critical the vast majority of VRAM is spent on 3D functions (storing textures, vertex info, AA processing, etc).

Basically, it's like an "L0" cache - it's the fastest memory for the processor to work with. If you run out of VRAM, the processor needs to start swapping data in and out from main memory (the 8-16GB DDR3 RAM) which is slower both because of the bandwidth and the fact that there are other, non-graphics aspects using it constantly. Some game consoles go even a step further, building large on-chip caches (when on chip you latency goes up and bandwidth goes down) in addition to whatever VRAM they use, simply because having enough fast, local memory is so important.

tl;dr it's hugely important for 3D but not super important for daily use...though it's probably more important as screen resolution goes up and screen rendering performance goes down.

...all of that being said if you're doing modelling there are a variety of situations that stress different aspects of your machine. If you want faster real-time rendering, you'll like more VRAM. But if you're not using openCL or playing more intensive games, then the CPU comes into play more. It depends on the app and what you use it for...
 
Crazymoogle said:
*lots of awesome info*
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Thanks!

To get more specific I will be using maya, CS5 and some light video editing on OS X, and on the windows side I will be using 3DS max and rhinoceros. Rendering inVRay in all of these

I mostly do architectural, product, and hard surface modeling and rendering. There is a chance I will be doing some light development in Unity, but my focus would still be on hard surface modeling for that environment.

The rMBP still has me leery (i expect maya to provide support for the display sometime in 2015 :p) so I am looking at older systems. I have found some good deals but most I am running into are the 512GPU versions.

Thanks again!
 
sc0la said:
To get more specific I will be using maya, CS5 and some light video editing on OS X, and on the windows side I will be using 3DS max and rhinoceros. Rendering inVRay in all of these
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Yeah, definitely a professional load out. In my experience it's hard to tell exactly how much it helps; the best you can do is just look up what OpenCL does for you in those apps and then maybe do a few google searches to see what users in the hardcore modelling forums have to say.

In the desktop space, it's interesting because you would want not the latest and greatest but instead a solid workstation card (i.e.: ATi FireGL stuff). They usually cost a ridiculous amount and are several generations behind in performance and VRAM, but because they support the specific rendering features for Maya, CAD, etc they are usually as fast or faster than the gamer card counterparts. In a render-heavy environment it's hard to say if the card would load up VRAM or simply expect less and load up main memory instead.

Still, I think looking at older systems is a perfectly good idea. Professionals have been using that or much worse for years. My hunch is that while double VRAM might help, I wouldn't leave a 20% discount deal off the going price on the table for it. CPU and memory are still very important and I would just make certain it has some of the elemental stuff, like discrete video (which you can't expect to see on the 13" models, for example).
 
Crazymoogle said:
Yeah, definitely a professional load out. In my experience it's hard to tell exactly how much it helps; the best you can do is just look up what OpenCL does for you in those apps and then maybe do a few google searches to see what users in the hardcore modelling forums have to say.

In the desktop space, it's interesting because you would want not the latest and greatest but instead a solid workstation card (i.e.: ATi FireGL stuff). They usually cost a ridiculous amount and are several generations behind in performance and VRAM, but because they support the specific rendering features for Maya, CAD, etc they are usually as fast or faster than the gamer card counterparts. In a render-heavy environment it's hard to say if the card would load up VRAM or simply expect less and load up main memory instead.

Still, I think looking at older systems is a perfectly good idea. Professionals have been using that or much worse for years. My hunch is that while double VRAM might help, I wouldn't leave a 20% discount deal off the going price on the table for it. CPU and memory are still very important and I would just make certain it has some of the elemental stuff, like discrete video (which you can't expect to see on the 13" models, for example).
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I am using an '07 iMac C2D so almost anything is a step up :p. This is mostly for personal and school work so I don't need a screaming beast to meet work deadlines. Looking at 2.2 ghz late 2011 15", 16GB DDR3, and 128 SSD. not sure the "going rate" but at $1550 I am saving $800 versus a new retina MBP after tax etc. As beautiful as the rMBP is... :(
 
My 2008 MBP processor is dead and the computer doesn't boot up anymore. Apple said it would cost 500$ to replace, but I'd rather pour that money in a new rMBP than keep an old one alive.

What's the easiest way to get some files from my 2008 model to a new one when it comes? Mainly just music and a few big Pro Tools sessions for work.
 
Cudder said:
My 2008 MBP processor is dead and the computer doesn't boot up anymore. Apple said it would cost 500$ to replace, but I'd rather pour that money in a new rMBP than keep an old one alive.

What's the easiest way to get some files from my 2008 model to a new one when it comes? Mainly just music and a few big Pro Tools sessions for work.
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Take out the HDD and put it into an enclosure.
 
Yoshiya said:
This would probably go better in the OS X thread, but since this is on the front page I'll be lazy. What's up with hardware accelerated video on OS X? 1080p H.264 in a standard container is definitely being decoded by the CPU in Quicktime X, which seems concerning for a notebook. 720p is fine. Late 2011 13" MBP, so 1080p video still plays fine, but I'd like to minimise heat and power usage if I can.

It looks like work has been done implementing Intel's decoder closely on Windows with the qsdecoder ffdshow library, but OS X seems out in the cold for now.
Click to expand...
QT X does do hardware accelerated H.264 decode. I get about 10% CPU usage decoding a 4mbit/s video on the latest Air. You sure the video you're running is not running in Perian or something?

If you see QTKitServer in activity monitor then it's not being decoded using QT X but the old QT 7 framework.

qtkit-server.png


Edit: Tried a 1080p 10mbit/s trailer and I still get 10%.
 
Cudder said:
And then it will just act as an external drive? I'm a n00b when it comes to this stuff, do you have a link on how to do this?
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yea, you can look through all the files like an external drive. You should try to plug the external drive into your old mac to, it may boot. Ive had the wire connecting the drive to the motherboard go twice.
 
My retina Macbook creaks when I pick it up or press on the right side sometimes :(
It's not a big deal or anything, probably just a slightly loose screw or something.
I guess I'll make an appointment at an Apple store once I go back to school in August.
 
corn_fest said:
My retina Macbook creaks when I pick it up or press on the right side sometimes :(
It's not a big deal or anything, probably just a slightly loose screw or something.
I guess I'll make an appointment at an Apple store once I go back to school in August.
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Yep do it now before later. Gotta milk that applecare.
 
corn_fest said:
My retina Macbook creaks when I pick it up or press on the right side sometimes :(
It's not a big deal or anything, probably just a slightly loose screw or something.
I guess I'll make an appointment at an Apple store once I go back to school in August.
Click to expand...

Had the problem where the hinge was slightly off on my current pro. It ended up fraying some of the wires so that the display went completely wonky, had to get it fixed. Just do it now.
 
hrm... I'm now two weeks into rMBP ownership.. still waiting for best buy to get the 512GB model in stock.. but now they've got $110 off of the 256GB model and $140 off of the 512GB..

Thinking of getting my $110 back and just keeping the 256.. I can always buy another thunderbolt external if I need a massive media repository or a bunch of games on here..
 
Has anyone got one of the newer airport expresses? Getting some slow throughput from mine, and despite changing channels to the least occupied, still have issues with stuff like pled streaming. Wondering if it's worth going to the new setup with a dual antenna, or just getting a power line adaptor to get it a non-wireless connection to the main airport extreme?
 
Robobandit said:
hrm... I'm now two weeks into rMBP ownership.. still waiting for best buy to get the 512GB model in stock.. but now they've got $110 off of the 256GB model and $140 off of the 512GB..

Thinking of getting my $110 back and just keeping the 256.. I can always buy another thunderbolt external if I need a massive media repository or a bunch of games on here..
Click to expand...

Just get a NAS. I just picked up a Synology and have been streaming stuff to my MBA no problem.
 
AndyboyH said:
Has anyone got one of the newer airport expresses? Getting some slow throughput from mine, and despite changing channels to the least occupied, still have issues with stuff like pled streaming. Wondering if it's worth going to the new setup with a dual antenna, or just getting a power line adaptor to get it a non-wireless connection to the main airport extreme?
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I don't have any answers for you (I'm considering getting one actually) but could you tell me if the optical out can passthru 5.1/DTS from a macbook?
 
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