Want h.264 GPU assisted processing in Snow Leopard? Better have an Nvidia 9400M or better.

Snow Leopard is bringing with it many notable speed improvements, memory management techniques, and space saving features that are worth more than the surprising though greatly welcomed $29 price tag. Perhaps one of the greatest features that Snow Leopard will bring is that of the CPU offloading cycles to the GPU to speed up tasks when things get hot and heavy. As long as you have an Intel equipped Mac and a graphics card from the following:

• NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, Geforce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130

• ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870

most of the benefits of Snow Leopard and GPU processing will be yours to have. However, if you’re a big h.264 supporter and were looking forward to enjoying h.264 GPU accelerated fun, I’m sorry to say that you’re going to be waiting for quite a long time. It seems that only Nvidia 9400M cards and greater will support h.264 acceleration. While this may be the end of the world to some, for others it will merely be a reason to upgrade. What’s your take?

Source: Crunch Gear

Author: Mike Norris

visit my website

Gadget lover, smartphone collector, and beer connoisseur. I've been writing about gadgets for three years now and loving every minute of it. Outside of the digital landscape, I enjoy being active outdoors. I'm always up for a good conversation, so feel free to drop me a line!