Limited GPU Support for OpenCL and h.264 Acceleration in Snow Leopard

http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html

If you check Apple's Snow Leopards specs the following GPUs are supported for OpenCL and h.264:

The most glaring omission for OpenCL is for desktops with ATI GPUs, namely the HD 2400XT, HD 2600Pro, HD2600XT, and HD3870. Now it's not like these GPUs can't support GPGPU operation since they already do so in Windows under ATI's own CTM and Brook+ language. ATI's OpenCL drivers for Windows should be available soon, they were promised for H1, and if it turns out the HD2xxx and HD3xxx series is capable of supporting OpenCL but only in Windows and not OS X it'd be very disappointing. Somehow I don't think Apple envisions iMac users having to use Boot Camp to use OpenCL accelerated apps.

I'm hopeful that the list is still incomplete since the Quadro FX 5600 isn't included even though is the same architecture as the result of the nVidia 8xxx and 9xxx series and is Apple shipped and supported. I can understand Apple not listing the HD3870 and upcoming GTX 285 and Quadro FX 4800 since they are third-party aftermarket parts even if they may well work.

The other thing is that Apple lists the 9400M as required for h.264 acceleration in QuickTime X. I'm assuming the higher 9600M GT, GT 120, and GT 130 are also supported since they were released after. But what about the 8600M GT, 8800GS, and 8800GT which have the same PureVideo 2 video processing engine? And what about other GPUs? The Unified Video Decoder in the HD2600 has feature parity with PureVideo 2 even though it was released earlier and even the ATI X1600 and X1900 and the nVidia 7000 series has partial h.264 hardware acceleration capabilities. And you'd think these older Macs would benefit more from having GPU accelerated decoding than newer Macs anyways. Certainly, the HD4850 and HD4870 should be supported.

I'm bringing this up because I'd encourage everyone who cares to bring the issue of OpenCL and h.264 GPU support up with Apple. Apple retracted on removing the Firewire port from the 13" MacBook (Pro) due to user reaction so it's certainly possible and they'd be most receptive now that Windows 7 is shaping up pretty well. It'd be great if Apple could support OpenCL and h.264 acceleration back to the HD2xxx series and maybe even the ATI X1xxx and nVidia 7xxx series for h.264. Apple should also consider supporting GPU acceleration not just for h.264 but also VC-1/WMV and MPEG4/DIVX/XVID since it's the same video processing unit being used.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

 

i mean... whatever.

it will probably work as expected.

in september we will know and can throw a hissy fit if it doesn't.

 

I'll jump on the band-wagon.