Re: My program causes MacBook Pro to use NVidia graphics processor
Re: My program causes MacBook Pro to use NVidia graphics processor
- Subject: Re: My program causes MacBook Pro to use NVidia graphics processor
- From: Michael Diehr <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 19:02:31 -0700
On May 17, 2010, at 6:41 PM, Dave Keck wrote:
>> I'm in rather the opposite boat -- my app does NOT trigger the switch to NVIDIA, and my OpenGL calls fail (actually, it's more complicated that this as it's a screensaver and a helper app) but it sounds like if I simply link my bundle to one of the GL frameworks (even if I don't need it?) that will auto-trigger the NVIDIA usage?
>
> The user's Energy Saver settings affects which card is used (better
> battery life vs. higher performance.) Not sure if that helps you
> though, since changing the value on my system requires logging out.
On those macbook pros (that have 9600 and 9400M) it's no big deal, since the 9400 is a very functional card by itself. OpenGL stuff will work, just slower.
This year's model however combines a good NVIDIA 330 with an "Intel HD" card. The Intel card is, I will say, "interesting", by which I mean "open GL doesn't really work on it".
Not sure if it's the card itself or the drivers, but I'm fresh off a hate-fest for the Intel GMA950 on Win32 systems -- a graphics card which has "interesting" support of OpenGL, and will do fun things like give you a hardware renderer (that doesn't support pbuffers) if you have one monitor, or a software renderer that does (but is 100x slower) if you have 2 monitors plugged in.
I had been assuming that the GMA 950s problems were due to the notoriously sh*tty OpenGL drivers on Win32 systems.
However, after seeing the latest macbook pros, I'm wondering if perhaps it isn't the Intel graphics hardware itself that is the problem? I suppose it could still be that Apple is using drivers sourced from Intel? Who knows.
Rumor is that due to some licensing terms, apple couldn't pair the NVIDIA 330 with a low power NVIDIA card, like they did with the 9600/9400 series last year, resulting in this franken-beast.
While I'm ranting, let me also express my love for Apple's newfound policy of having strange, undocumented side-effects (the OpenGL hardware depends on which libraries you link to and how many monitors are plugged in???) This begins to feel oddly familiar after doing a bunch of win vista/win7 development. :)
/end rant_______________________________________________
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