Prompted by reading that the new Mac mini does not have a graphics card that will support the Core Image features so heavily promoted in yesterday's Apple Keynote at Macworld. I have done some hunting to see what is supported. The new ish Tiger site on Apple.com has no requirements for Tiger, only promotion of the new features.
The graphics cards supported are, quoting from the Hong Kong Apple site
The performance gains and features supported by Core Image ultimately depend on the graphics card. Graphics cards capable of pixel-level programming deliver the best performance. But Core Image automatically scales as appropriate for systems with older graphics cards, for compatibility with any Tiger-compatible Mac.
Supported graphics cards:
ATI Radeon 9800 XT; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro; ATI Radeon 9700 Pro; ATI Radeon 9600 XT; ATI Radeon 9600 Pro; ATI Mobility Radeon 9700; ATI Mobility Radeon 9600; NVIDIA GeForceFX Go 5200; NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra.
These cards are available in today’s PowerBooks, Power Mac G5s and both the 17-inch and 20-inch iMacs
End Quote
So who misses out then, well all the current iBook purchasers (ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 with 32MB of DDR SDRAM), older PowerBooks and the Mac mini (ATI Radeon 9200 with 32MB of DDR SDRAM with AGP 4X support), not that surprising, given price points, but sure to cause some upset when it isn't quite like the glossy demos. Core Image will scale back to function on these slower cards however. The quote above may change, but it is something to bear in mind if you are getting the bargain that is the iBook 12inch or indeed the Mac mini.
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