http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/07/11/1210224.shtml
http://www.bitblit.org/gsoc/g3dvl/

I'm outside my element a bit on this subject.. but it made me wonder if this wouldn't have some potential benefit for Mac folks as well... ie. offload of video decode to the GPU.. ie. could a project like VLC (or mplayer or Plex) roll this knowledge in (once it is ready)?

In a word: no.

Basically, there are a number of factors that prevent this GSoC project from being of use to Macs anytime soon.

First is the obvious: Gallium3D is fairly new and only supports Linux. I didn't look very hard but I doubt that there's much activity in porting it to other operating systems as of yet.

Second, even if Gallium3D ran identically well on Macs as it does on Linux, there's still the problem of graphics drivers. From what I can tell, ATI drivers are nonexistant, Intel GMA drivers are experimental, and the NVIDIA driver is incomplete (but still impressive given that they're reverse engineering the entire thing.)

Finally, the GSoC project is implementing MPEG-2 GPU acceleration via generic shaders. Although it's interesting at the technical level (this is the first such open-source implementation that I'm aware of), there are only a few Macs that both have a slow enough CPU and fast enough GPU for this to be useful (specifically, later PowerBook G4s and possibly the AppleTV.)

In a word: no.

Basically, there are a number of factors that prevent this GSoC project from being of use to Macs anytime soon.

First is the obvious: Gallium3D is fairly new and only supports Linux. I didn't look very hard but I doubt that there's much activity in porting it to other operating systems as of yet.

Second, even if Gallium3D ran identically well on Macs as it does on Linux, there's still the problem of graphics drivers. From what I can tell, ATI drivers are nonexistant, Intel GMA drivers are experimental, and the NVIDIA driver is incomplete (but still impressive given that they're reverse engineering the entire thing.)

Finally, the GSoC project is implementing MPEG-2 GPU acceleration via generic shaders. Although it's interesting at the technical level (this is the first such open-source implementation that I'm aware of), there are only a few Macs that both have a slow enough CPU and fast enough GPU for this to be useful (specifically, later PowerBook G4s and possibly the AppleTV.)

bummer.

I was thinking of the Mac Mini with the Intel GMA as a beneficary.

ah well, maybe somewhere down the road.

thanks for the info!