This is a simple how-to check to determine if you have Quartz Extreme (QE) and Core Image (CI). It seems that OSX 10.6 “Snow Leopard” doesn’t state that if you have both of it enabled or not. Prior to this , in order to determine if hardware acceleration was indeed working , one would take a look at System Profiler to check if both Quartz Extreme and Core Image are enabled or not. Apple has removed this functionality in OSX 10.6. Its because , all Intel Macs (yes, including Intel GMA 950) are capable of both Quartz Extreme and Core Image. There is no need to display if both of it is supported or not.
Anyhow it has a major drawback for Hackintosh users , as there is no way to determine if hardware acceleration is indeed working or not. There is no way to tell by looking at system profiler , to check if your injectors such as NVEnabler or your EFI strings are working correctly or not. However , don’t panic and don’t yell around saying that there is no way to check if you have hardware acceleration or not. I’ve included simple steps to determine if hardware acceleration (QE/CI) is working or not
There is no way to tell if QE/CI is working with then new system profiler.
Note : Another thing to note , Apple has removed support for GeForce 5 series graphics card in Snow Leopard and as well as pre ATI X1000 series (i.e X300 , X600 , 9600 , 9550). You may get it to work with Leopard , so do try Leopard instead of Snow Leopard
1st Method
This is the easiest method of all time. All you have to do is run Chess application. Fire it up and play chess. Now if you are able to move the piece . Congraluations , hardware acceleration (QE/CI) is working.
If you aren’t pleased or if you do want to check if it really works. I’ve included other alternative methods. Do continue to read
2nd Method
Check if screensaver works. Its fairly simple to do. All you have to do is go to System preferences and then select Desktop and Screen saves. Select Screen savers tab and do test out a screensaver. If you see a blank screen , it means that your Graphics acceleration is not working !
3rd Method
Test out Dashboard (Press F12) (or F3 if you’re using Apple Aluminium Slim Keyboard). Drag and drop a widget . If you see a ripple-like effect (or cool effects) when you add a widget. Congratulations everything is working
There are other ways to test as well for instance running DVD Player. Downloading and playing mac games such as Neverball.
4th Method (thanks to iHack)
Try Front Row. If Front Row works , QE/CI is in place , otherwise it wouldn’t work at all !
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
#1 by thegreatdeceiver - September 13th, 2009 at 08:06
darn, I was hunting ghosts for two days, hehe.
thank you for the explanation.
cheers
.-= thegreatdeceiver´s last blog ..First Update to Snow Leopard: 10.6.1 =-.
#2 by digital_dreamer - September 15th, 2009 at 23:16
Nice tips!
Interestingly, on my Core i7 system (3.4GHz 920), I can run Chess, rotate the board and move a piece, albeit a little slowly. The difference is, however, noticeable from a QE enabled system.
Same with some Screensavers: Flurry runs, but flickers. Again, not the same performance with the CPU doing all the heavy lifting.
I think it’s quite a testament to the CPU and the bandwidth available in being able to pull this off without GFX hardware.
regards,
MAJ
#3 by Rishi - September 20th, 2009 at 22:30
I thought method one was hilarious. Who would’ve thought chess would come in so handy for diagnostic purposes?
#4 by iHack13 - September 21st, 2009 at 06:32
prasys,
I think FronRow doesnt work without QE CI on snow (?)
should be an easy method . check yourself
#5 by Pradeesh - September 21st, 2009 at 23:49
Good idea I’ll include it
#6 by pkdesign - September 27th, 2009 at 04:28
Aaahhh, now I see why I can’t play DVDs on my system! Thank you Parsys for the tip!
The question is how to fix it? My video card is a Nvidia GeForce 7300GT.
#7 by pkdesign - September 27th, 2009 at 13:35
Brilliant. Went to netkas site and found that all I had to do was add GraphicsEnabler to my boot.plist and voila! QuartzExtreme and Graphics Acceleration!
#8 by daniel - October 14th, 2009 at 13:02
I can play chess, but I don’t get the ripple for the widget.
The screen saver works, but OpenGL Extension Viewer says my renderer is Apple Software Renderer.
I don’t think these tests are reliable unless you get it all to work, and I actually trust the OpenGL Extension Viewer the most (must install, 3rd party)
#9 by highlander - October 25th, 2009 at 14:56
HI
i found out the easiest test is to install iMovie 09
it will let you know if your video card suport QE or not
but funny thing on my hackintosh with 3870 is that i am running leopard 10.5.7 with iMovie 09 on 1 hard drive
without any problem
second hard drive is running with snow leopard (which after few days of going crazy for the video card to run, finally got it)
but i tried to install iMovie 09 and it showed me that i need a video card with QE ( it is same dam card, which it is running great on leopard)
i dont know why i can run same machine with leopard but not on snow leopard
anyone have any idea?
#10 by Pete - November 10th, 2009 at 08:54
A very quick way to see is if the menu bar is translucent or not. You need QE/CI to have it translucent AFAIK.
#11 by Fabio - November 21st, 2009 at 00:27
I’ve no QE enabled (10.6.2) because front row and dvd player don’t start. I have a nVidia 9500 GT 1024 MB, how can I enable qe?
I try with EFI string and osx86, dsdt patcher, graphicsenabler option, nvcap… without success!
Anyone can help me?