Macs

i would love to see this running on macs :(
i don’t mind paying for this program if it would run on a mac…
or do someone know why i can’t see the render window(it becomes gray) of vvvv running in virtual pc??? does it have to do something with the dxrendering not being done on osx??? please some help because i’m hooked to vvvv but can only use it in a borrowed pc :(

the problem with the gray renderer on virtual pc seems to be caused by virtual pc not providing any hardware acceleration for directx.

let me leak to you that i find the idea to run vvvv on other platforms highly interesting, but there is nothing yet in the making to achieve that goal…

is there no chance, porting the acceleration to OpenGL OSX is using OpenGL too?

i’d say porting is no way. we are rather talking about a complete rewrite…

It would be far cheaper and easier to buy a cheap windows PC, even a laptop, than port vvvv! To be honest vvvv is the main reason Im still a windows user!

thanks for the help but i’m not sure i understood what kiilo is trying to say!!! can you please try to explain it again???

vvvv is based on directx, macs use opengl similar but not the same! The directx is a major part of the power of vvvv. Have you looked at edo?

directx mainly responsiple for drawing graphic objects (like polygons 3d objetcs with textures etc) with the help of a graphic card.

opengl does the same in a different way.

in principle everybody who had the inclination and time could come over and add an additional set of nodes for doing the stuff we already do in directx also in opengl. so apply at meso for a summer internship and imagine a separate Category OGL in the menu, and all your beloved quads and ropes and states and blends and shader nodes rewritten for ogl.

personally i see this more as a waste of effort, as there are no real advantages using ogl other than a vague cross platform compatibility option.
as there are many subtle differences though, there will never be a 1:1 patch compatibility between the render engines if you still want to do everything fast. and vvvv is made for running fast and down to the metal - which i see as an antithesis of having it cross platform.

and note: the unfortunate main reason why the current vvvv will never be released for mac is because vvvv is written in delphi and the compiler is not available for mac. so beg at http://www.borland.com or http://www.freepascal.org. for now it means rewriting all of the code, and its perhaps cheaper to just ship out free pcs to anybody than wishing to do that.

and finally - even if we´d start to port to the mac version right now, i expect all of you wanting shiny new intel ibooks when we are ready (which would run vvvv on a blazingly fast softpc)

to quote Steve Jobs: “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new”

one important difference between opengl and dx is that microsoft usually is much faster in introducing new features. on one hand this causes api-mess, but on the other, they are more up to date in making use of new hardware capabilities. hence with opengl new features are introduced more thoughtful, since there is different interest groups involved (not just one company like with direct x from microsoft). but on the cost of mostly being a bit behind dx.

guess the solution is the new mac book pro, with windows as second operating system installed!

maybe this emulator will work: http://www.kberg.ch/q/index.php?sid=210982&p=0

cannot test myself right now, but seems promising

since today there is a new Intel iMac where i work. of course somebody installed WIndows. i quickly installed beta10 without problems.
see screenshot : http://vvvv.org/tiki-browse_image.php?imageId=2052
sanchs retro machine ran with stable 60 fps.

Also power book pro works fine! : )

oh guys am I happy not to have to answer this question anymore.

Now next people will want to have a Playstation 3 port.- or maybe symbianOS.

it seems to be in discussion to implement the windows API directly into os x 10.5 leopard
will this finally make possible to run vvvv natively in os x without having a copy of windows xp installed on the intel mac?
or did i misunderstand something here?

i doubt that actually…if apple implements all the stuff vvvv requires (ie. direct x, direct show, driver architecture, FAT32/NTFS…) they create another windows…so why not use windows.

i don’t see the big problem installing bloody windows as a second operating system on a mac…if u insist on using a mac for vvvv.

correct me if i’m wrong…

vvvv has stability problems when ran on Mactel via BootCamp.
(or, say, windows has stability problems when run on apple hardware)

and running windows on a macbook pro turns the computer into a nuclear heater…
but, yeah, it’s nice to have vvvv running on a mac…
(right now, vvvv is the only reason why i installed windows on my mac).

franzi: as for the heat problem try do some undervolting with rmclock, and/or disable the highest multipliers. When I undervolted my cpu the maxtemp decreased 20 degrees.

@kapetanski: how much performance do you loose when downtuning the Intel Mac? could you take, say: the retromachine or an even more complex patch and compare the framerates (using the “PerfMeter” Module or “Timing” Node)?
How is the overall Performance of vvvv on the Macbook? I need the information for a little comparison of suited Notebooks for vvvv.

Note to us @ vvvv: We should devise and pubblish some benchmarks to test the performance of vvvv. Then we can list them on a Wiki Page.

PPS: I have to advertise the vvvv.Splash.Screen.Contest. Make and pubblish your splashscreens. Right now, I’m negotiating for some rewards. A vvvv license for the lucky winner would be nice, wouldn’t it?

@franzi, nuclear heater: by default vvvv tries to run with 100% cpu. this is a good thing if you want highest performance. You may use MainLoop to slow down vvvv - this will assist the cooling system for the little box. See also this thread here