Quartz compositor
| Quartz compositor | |
|---|---|
| Basic data
|
|
| developer | Apple |
| operating system | OS X |
| category | Window system |
| License | Proprietary |
| www.apple.com | |
The Quartz Compositor is the window system with managers of OS X . Its main tasks are the administration and display of the windows and the preprocessing and forwarding of input events .
Each window content is saved as a raster graphic ("bitmap"). It contains additional information such as the position (including Z index) and display format, the alpha channel (transparency) and information necessary for edge smoothing. The application represents its content by writing its information in this bitmap. This can be done via one of the responsible subsystems ( Quartz 2D , QuickDraw , OpenGL , Cocoa etc.). Quartz Compositor combines the individual windows and calculates the displayed image. With this method, the information received (alpha channel) and further preprocessing filters, the display can be made very effective (e.g. minimization effects, window overview, ...).
In its role as window manager, Quartz Compositor also has an event management system that temporarily stores, filters and forwards events such as keystrokes, mouse movements and clicks. Every program that displays windows has its own event manager, which Quartz Compositor fills with the events that affect its windows.
Quartz Extreme
Since Mac OS X 10.2 , Quartz Compositor has been expanded to include Quartz Extreme , whereby the graphics are displayed using OpenGL . The individual windows are textures in a 3D context. As a result, the accelerated display capabilities of modern hardware are used directly, which significantly speeds up the interface display.
Quartz Extreme has correspondingly higher hardware requirements: To activate it, Apple requires a Macintosh with a graphics card with at least 16 MB graphics memory ( GeForce 2 MX , ATI Radeon , Intel GMA or newer) and controlled via AGP or PCI Express becomes. In fact, Quartz Extreme only needs a 3D graphics card that can display textures that do not have a power of two, so it also works with PCI graphics cards (such as the Radeon 7000/9000) and with 8 MB graphics memory, but you need the third-party program PCI Extreme! To activate it, and the high load on the PCI bus can impair the playback of DVDs, for example.
In Mac OS X Tiger Quartz 2D Extreme (Q2DE) was also introduced, which increases the speed of the display of 2D elements in a comparable way and expands the display options. Although the system is included in the scope of delivery, it is not activated by default for reasons of stability and because it is not yet supported by all graphics card drivers. Currently, it still has to be activated using the Quartz Debug tool, part of Xcode 2.0, and is not permanent, so it will not be saved on shutdown. For permanent activation it would be necessary to edit a configuration file directly.
See also
Web links
- "The Graphics and Windowing Environment" - Apple's documentation for Mac OS X ( Memento from September 25, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- Quartz Services Reference (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
