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."

Comments

Consider the business case

[jcr]

Maybe Microsoft should license Mac OS X.

  You probably meant this facetiously, but if you look at the numbers for what MS blew on the Longwind debacle, and what it would cost them to buy a license for OS X, it makes sense.

When Apple was in the same boat with Copland, they were able to buy NeXT to recover from the disaster. MS has just spent several billion on a failed development project, they're going to ship SP4 six years late and pretend it's Longwind, and they really need to consider whether it's a good business decision to keep throwing good money after bad, trying to update their botched VMS knock-off.

The Evil Empire has killed off all of the other OS's they could buy, with the possible exception of Solaris. An OS-X license would cost them a couple of billion at a minimum, plus a hefty ongoing royalty, but it would cheaper than what they're doing now. As a bonus, life improves drastically for their users. Something to consider.

-jcr

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.

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 has minimum compatible GPU's that all just also happen to be DirectX 9 compatible. (example 1, example 2) 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....