El Capitan

[James Steele]

Agreed. It wasn't clear to me if "legacy" video cards can take advantage of this however.

I tested it today. I installed El Capitan on my 5,1 Mac Pro (separate partition), and the 5770 is NOT Metal compatible. Kinda sucks, however the OS runs just fine. Which means my 1,1 will be able to run El Capitan just fine as well... Upgrading the graphic card to get Metal on a 5,1 is no biggie, however on a 1,1 it might be more difficult, as these older Mac Pros need 32bit EFI.

Yeah... I have a 5770 also and Metal looks very cool. Especially for apps like FCPX. Probably worth upgrading the graphics card for I suppose. Although, since the new MacPros don't have slots, it's not something you could take with you to the new machine.

[Babz]

This talks about which Macs will be able to take advantage of Metal.

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/ ... tans-metal

Looks like I'm good to go w/ my 2012 Mac Mini. The stuff they were showing in the keynote from Adobe looked quite promising. Love the idea of an OS update that boosts performance. Hoping to squeeze more life out of this Mac. I've sat out Mavericks and Yosemite. I've heard some reports that Yosemite was more sluggish than Mavericks. If El Capitan adds any kind of performance boost, I'll be jumping all over it right away.

Babz

P.S. I don't use SSDs so I haven't kept up with things like Trim. But I thought Trim was irrelevant for Macs. Can someone explain what the previous comments about Trim were about and why it matters?

[cuttime]

This talks about which Macs will be able to take advantage of Metal.

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/ ... tans-metal

Hmm, that didn't clear anything up for me and my AMD Radeon HD 6770M. Not at all clear what is a newer card using the AMD nomenclature. And the test program Metal.zip on
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/C6nf/GQb4HZZoH
--an unknown file from a Russian only site? Yikes, no thanks! I'll be watching this topic to see how it all shakes out, but yes, better performance is always better than more features, IMHO. It is about time Apple went down that road again. Who knows, maybe El Capitan will even be snappier!

[bayswater]

Interesting sentence from a 10.11 preview:

permission repair has been relegated to the command line tool.

Maybe Apple has finally worked out how to deal with permissions, or maybe they're just making it more difficult to deal with.

[Morpheo]

Hmm, that didn't clear anything up for me and my AMD Radeon HD 6770M. Not at all clear what is a newer card using the AMD nomenclature. And the test program Metal.zip on
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/C6nf/GQb4HZZoH
--an unknown file from a Russian only site? Yikes, no thanks!

um, that's because this little test app was written by a russian person who happens to be a very reliable programmer....... It's legit and runs fine, I used it to check the 5770 compatibility on mine.

[mikehalloran]

Interesting sentence from a 10.11 preview:

permission repair has been relegated to the command line tool.

Maybe Apple has finally worked out how to deal with permissions, or maybe they're just making it more difficult to deal with.

It's also possible that change won't survive beta.

Hmmmm... How many apps can I think of that were ever affected by Repair Permissions? Exactly four: DP 5, DP 6, DP 7 and DP 8, especially the last two.

Perhaps it's not Apple that has to "deal with permissions". Hmmmm?

[bayswater]

Permissions comes up on the Logic lists too. But maybe not so much elsewhere.

[monkey man]

Since when did Apple decide to not bother going beyond the .5 update mark? Was it Mavericks or Mountain Lion? Was it possibly even earlier? I know most of you guys seem to love it, but for my little pea brain this is just annoying.

Somehow I equate every major (read: New-flavoured) OS update with a step closer to the obsolescence of my Mac Pro... and inevitably some software... and possibly hardware. Seems like just the other day the big, bold move was to move to Mavericks, the exotic beach. Well, I'm there now, lying on my towel in the sun, and everyone's leaving or already gone. I haven't even updated past 10.9.2 yet, something I've been looking forward to in the hope that it'd fix the "having to restart Finder to enable pic or link drag 'n drop from Safari... every 3 to 10 drags" problem.

Sorry. Must be gettin' old. Just wish the world would concentrate on growing up, rather than "forward", which in my world is outwards, really.

Carry on... forward. Don't mind me; I'll happily lie here on the ol' towel and play with this stick I found...

[David Polich]

Just as Snow Leopard was really a working
version of Leopard, and Mountain Lion was
the workibg version of Lion, Yosemite was the
working version of Mavericks. I hope
El Capitan is just Yosemite V2, but I doubt
that. I'm on Yosemite (10.10.3) which is rock
solid for me, I think I'll just skip El Capitan
and wait for the OS that comes after it.

[billf]

Since when did Apple decide to not bother going beyond the .5 update mark? Was it Mavericks or Mountain Lion? Was it possibly even earlier? I know most of you guys seem to love it, but for my little pea brain this is just annoying.

It's because of the model of yearly new upgrades for the OS. I don't like it. It might be fine for those who just use Macs for social media, but it's just too fast for those who try to run stable studios.

Somehow I equate every major (read: New-flavoured) OS update with a step closer to the obsolescence of my Mac Pro... and inevitably some software... and possibly hardware.

True, although Mac Pro 1,1's can be made to run the latest OS and the old tower models ups to 5,1 are built like tanks, so we should be good for a while longer.

The good news is that all Macs currently supported on Yosemite will be supported in El Cap. So at least there is that.

[Morpheo]

True, although Mac Pro 1,1's can be made to run the latest OS and the old tower models ups to 5,1 are built like tanks, so we should be good for a while longer.

The good news is that all Macs currently supported on Yosemite will be supported in El Cap. So at least there is that.

fwiw I can confirm that the procedure to install El Capitan on a 1,1 is exactly the same as it was for Yosemite. Even the boot.efi is the same.

[Morpheo]

I hope
El Capitan is just Yosemite V2, but I doubt
that. I'm on Yosemite (10.10.3) which is rock
solid for me, I think I'll just skip El Capitan
and wait for the OS that comes after it.

With or without Metal, El Capitan will feel like Yosemite on steroids even on older hardware. 10.10 is rock rolid for me as well, but honestly I can't wait to upgrade.

[HCMarkus]

The name El Capitan, representing a rock formation within Yosemite, certainly suggests the new OS will be a refinement, like SL or ML.

El Capitan is also the name of a San Diego high school, but this fact seems, somehow, less relevant.

[bayswater]

El Capitan is also the name of a San Diego high school, but this fact seems, somehow, less relevant.

Not much less relevant for those of us unfamiliar with California minutiae.

I heard the same thing about the signals sent by the name, along with specific references to tightening up OS X rather than loading in pile of new buggy features. There was also a reference to Apple having heard a general lack of satisfaction with its recent QA performance.

[monkey man]

More importantly, there was an awesome track in Gran Turismo 4 called El Capitan. It had a great rhythm and flow to it, especially in F1 cars. I was so sad to see it go.

Since when did Apple decide to not bother going beyond the .5 update mark? Was it Mavericks or Mountain Lion? Was it possibly even earlier? I know most of you guys seem to love it, but for my little pea brain this is just annoying.

It's because of the model of yearly new upgrades for the OS. I don't like it. It might be fine for those who just use Macs for social media, but it's just too fast for those who try to run stable studios.

Exactamindo, Billy.