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| 07-27-11 / 01:35 AM : OSX Lion : HiDPI mode available (cjed) |
| ArsTechnica provides a full review of MacOSX Lion (as before wtih all MacOSX versions). We notably learn that Resolution Independance feature, present since Tiger however not enabled, is finally available. However it will provide the double scale only, as with iPhone. Then on a 1680x1050 display (native resolution) controls and text will be larger, however the available space for windows will correspond to space available in 840x525 mode at standard scale, that is only usable for web pages reading. On a 27' imac (2560x1440 native resolution) the available space will the same as with 1280x720 mode in standard scale, that is suitable for most of applications. The result will however not be better than upscaling found on LCD displays (selected resolution below native one, and stretched image to the whole screen/pixels), at least for double scale (that is selected resolution a half the native one). Moreover upscaling provides many scales (depends from the selected resolution). Initially the Resolution Independance feature was aimed at providng same physical size for controls, whatever screen native resolution (pixels density), and then sharper controls and text, thanks to HiDPI displays. The limited scale available and displays density however leads to the opposite (the controls are zoomed, and arent's sharper). |
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| 07-26-11 / 01:29 AM : Hollywood Brass available (cjed) |
| Hollywood Brass is available (introductory price until July, 31 - 795$ for the Diamond version, and 495$ for the Gold one, announced for early August). We can watch stunning videos here, and audio demos are expected next week. |
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| 07-21-11 / 08:50 PM : Audio softwares / MacOSX Lion (cjed) |
| First compatibility statements for audio applications with MacOSX Lion are available here and there. Notably Logic Pro (and proably Logic Express as they share same base features) is compatible with 10.7, however Kontakt 4 only works in 32 bit mode. The latest PLAY 3 seems working, however we still have to check for audio and Midi interfaces drivers (Echo Audiofire may work as they use generic Apple's Firewire driver). |
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| 07-21-11 / 08:23 PM : New mac mini / 2010 model (cjed) |
| The new mac mini is provided without superdrive (external USB model priced 79 $), a thunderbolt port, a Core i5 processor (2,3 Ghz or 2,5 Ghz) or Core i7 2,7 Ghz (as an option, 100$ only), dual core however with TurboBoost and HyperThreading, an Intel HD3000 chipset or a Radeon HD 6630M (256 Mb of dedicated GDDR5), and 2 or 4 Gb of DDR3 at 1333 Mhz. A 256Gb SSD option is available for 600$. The server model (priced 999$) brings a quad Core i7 at 2Ghz, and the 256Gb SSD only option is available for 400$ more (550$ with both the SSD and a 750 Gb 7200 rpm hard disk). However it only features the Intel HD 3000 chipset. The base memory is 4Gb (2Gb on the entry level model), however we still have to replace both modules to reach 8Gb (required to achieve max performance and for audio applications). The Core i5 processor at 2,5 Ghz is up to twice as fast as previous Core2 Duo 2,4 Ghz one (also thanks to the faster memory bus), and the server model is up to three times faster. The Radeon HD 6630M dedicated graphics card is also up to two times faster than the Nvidia 320M chipset (see here and there). |
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| 07-14-11 / 06:41 PM : Adobe Flash 11 beta (cjed) |
| Adobe provides a beta version of Flash 11, that brings among other Stage3D (we can watch demo videos here), 64 bit support, etc. |
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| 07-14-11 / 06:37 PM : Cocos2D for iPhone available (cjed) |
| The final version of Cocos2D framework for iPhone is available. |
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| 07-05-11 / 01:52 AM : Google Swiffy : Flash to HTML5 (cjed) |
| Following Adobe, Google provides Swiffy, a Flash to HTML5 converter. It however only supports Flash 8 and ActionScript 2.0 (and a subset of their features). |
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| 07-05-11 / 01:35 AM : Samples streaming and SSD (cjed) |
| Streaming large samples libraries (like EastWest Pianos or Hollywood Strings Diamond) requires the load of many “small’” files (about 4000 100 KB to 1 MB files per instrument). Loading of an 1 GB instrument that is about 4000 small files then takes about 20s for samples access (fast HDD drive with 5 ms average access time) and 10s for samples read (fast disk with at least 100 MB/s sequential read speed). Using a Firewire 800 connection, the average streaming speed doesn’t go higher than 52 MB/s, that is the access time is the limiting factor (not the disk sequential read speed nor the Firewire connection max bandwidth). This is why SSD are very relevant for audio samples players (more than for video), as they provide 25 times faster access time (average 0,2 ms), and at least 2,5 times faster sequential read speed.a |
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| 07-05-11 / 01:25 AM : 10.6.8 : OpenGL / Quartz faster (cjed) |
| Performance of OpenGL under MacOSX 10.6.8 is better (11 percent faster than with previous versions), as well as Quartz (also 11 percent faster overall, and two times faster than 10.6.6 for text). However User interface test is slower (15 percent slower than 10.6.6 and 25 percent slower than 10.6.5), as well as thread test. |
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