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All posts tagged "graphics"


Thursday, May 19, 2011

Which Graphics Card is Your MBP Using? Find Out With This Utility

Posted by Jeff Campbell in "Apple Software (OS X)" @ 01:30 PM

http://notebooks.com/2011/05/16/how...-gfxcardstatus/

"If you ever want to know which graphics card your Apple MacBook Pro is using, then gfxcardstatus is the perfect utility. The MacBook Pro has what is called switchable or dynamic switching graphics. When your system needs a lot of graphics processing power for things like video encoding, picture editing or especially gaming, the computer switches from lowered powered integrated graphics to higher powered discrete graphics."

gfxCardStatus is a free, open source utility that lets you know when the MBP is using the higher powered graphics card automatically with a notification on your desktop. The utility rests in your menu bar, and can also be used to manually switch between the lower powered integrated graphics and the higher powered option. This would be a great option if you needed to save a bit of power and don't really need high powered graphics, so if your MBP is using it you can switch back to the other option. Another nice feature is that it can also tell you which programs are requiring the use of the high powered graphics option to see just which app is draining that battery of yours. 


Thursday, November 11, 2010

Snagit Now Available for OS X

Posted by Jeff Campbell in "Apple Software (OS X)" @ 03:00 AM

http://www.macworld.com/article/155...l?lsrc=rss_main

"As someone who writes about a lot of software, I take a lot of screenshots. And while I usually end up using OS X's built-in screen capture tools, sometimes you need a bit more juice. One new option is Techsmith's Snagit, which-after years on the Windows side of the fence-has finally jumped to the Mac."

I've heard of Snagit, which is a pretty versatile screen capture and image manipulation tool, but have never used it myself. I currently use Skitch quite a bit to mess around with images. Now that it is available for us Mac users I may have to give it a try. They certainly make it easy, offering a 30-day trial period to play with it before you spend the $49.95 USD.


Tuesday, June 2, 2009

MacBook Pro Video Warranty Extended

Posted by Jeff Campbell in "Apple Laptops" @ 10:00 AM

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...hree_years.html

"Illustrating the scope of a flaw in older NVIDIA graphics chipsets, Apple has extended its special warranty on the GeForce 8600M GT in certain MacBook Pros from two to three years. Those visiting Apple's support page for the video corruption and failure issues suffered by this portable generation have noticed that Apple has quietly added an extra year to its coverage, giving owners of the affected MacBook Pros free replacements as late as September 2011 depending on the date of purchase."

I had mine in to the Genius Bar a few short months ago for this very reason. This affects the older MacBook Pros, manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008. Per the Apple Support article, look for distorted or scrambled video on the screen or no video at all on either the computer screen or an external display. The last problem is what I suffered through, but they fixed for free so all I was out was about a week with no laptop and my time taking it in and picking it up. This affects the 15 and 17-inch models, and was written about back in October of 2008. Now there is a class action lawsuit about the problem, that includes HP and Dell owners.

NVIDIA is denying that the new uni-body MacBook Pros share the same material in their graphics chips that caused the problem with the older ones so it appears, at least for now, that those models won't suffer the same fate. NVIDIA initially told Apple last year that there was no problem with the chip in the older MBP's too, so I guess we shall see!


Thursday, March 26, 2009

17" MacBook Pro Owners Get Graphic Relief

Posted by Vincent Ferrari in "Apple Laptops" @ 04:00 PM

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=3481

"Apple today posted MacBook Pro Graphics Firmware Update 1.0 (770kb) which addresses the appearance of vertical lines or distorted graphics on the notebook display. According to the about page there are two parts to this process: Installing the firmware update application onto your hard drive. Using the firmware update application to update your graphics subsystem firmware."

Any of you folks have a 17" MacBook Pro? Any of you have any luck with this update? It'll be nice to see if it works because the accusations have been flying that the nVidia 9600 chip is actually defective. If this fixes it, I guess that argument becomes moot. Let us know in the discussions if yours has been resurrected.

(It should be noted that this update does not apply to the 15" MacBook Pro and is only for the 17" model.)


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