Aperture tomorrow's application available today

Question

On these boards there seems to be a lot of complaints regarding the performance of Aperture. I think a lot of it is due to the fact that people do not realize how ahead of its time the application really is. Aperture is the fist imaging application to leverage the power of a graphics card to perform its RAW conversion and image processing. In fact it is surprising that no one has done this as yet.
Image processing is one of the few computational tasks that lends itself to highly parallel processing ie; the image can be broken up into small pieces, each piece processed individually and the recombined for the final result. Not surprisingly graphics cards are highly optimized for this type of processing with each card being able to process several of these little pieces simultaneously. The number of pieces that a card can process is defined by the number of “pixel pipelines” the card has. The fastest card to date the ATI X1900 has 48 of these pixels pipelines compared to the hot card last year at this time the 9800 Pro which only has 8 pixel pipelines. If this processing was not done by the graphics card the maximum number of simultaneous processes would be 2 on a dual core or perhaps 4 on a quad.
As a result of leveraging the power of the graphics card Aperture is able to do RAW conversion and image processing in Real Time. This is a quantum leap in image processing. All the other applications allow you to make approximate adjustments on a low-res version or on a portion of the image. Once you have picked the adjustment the application then goes off and processes the whole image at full resolution while you wait. Aperture does the whole image, at full resolution in Real Time.
The other major change is that with such fast processing Aperture is able to make all adjustments to the original RAW image. There is never any destructive processing on the image. Eg. Prior to Aperture one of the golden rules was always perform sharpening last. This was due to the fact that sharpening is destructive to the image and if you wanted to make a change after sharpening you would have to hope that you had saved the version prior so that you could go back. With Aperture all these rules are out the window. You can sharpen first, then adjust shadow highlight and then exposure as all adjustments are recalculated from the original RAW each time a change is made…in Real Time. Sharpening is not the only destructive process that is done to an image. In Photoshop you can use ‘Adjustment layers’ for some changes that are non destructive but any change that is not available as an ‘adjustment layer’ you can assume is destructive.
Prior to Aperture besides the odd game there really were no applications that took advantage of the processing power of the graphics card. As a result, in general, Macs were equipped with relatively low end video cards. The chart below shows the approximate performance of some common video cards. All performance numbers are from PC testing and are only approximates as not all on same motherboard.
Card...................Memory................Pixel................3DMark 2005
......................Bandwidth (GB).........Pipelines ..........1024 x 768 (Approx)
9600............... 6.4...............................4....................1800
6600(LE)...........16.............................. 8.....................2000
6600GT............16...............................8.....................3000
9800Pro ...........21.............................. 8.....................2600
X1600..............12...............................12...................5000
X800XT.............32.............................16....................6000
X1800XT...........48.............................16....................8000
7800GT.............38.............................20....................7000
X1900.................?..............................48..................10000
As can be seen the standard card that Apple provides even in the PowerMac G5 the 6600 is relatively low end. However it appears things are changing as the new Intel iMacs (consumer grade machines) have the X1600 which is no slouch.
The other thing to note is that last year this time the hottest cards were the 6600GT and the 9800Pro. As can be seen in only 1 year their performance has been eclipsed. We can assume that ATI and NVIDIA will keep on pushing the envelope which will result in cards getting not only faster but cheaper. Currently the biggest demand for these high end cards is PC gamers, 3D animation and some CAD, however with the release of Vista the demand should greatly increase as the minimum recommended card for the full Aero experience is high end with at least 512MB. The increase in card production for Vista should greatly assist in driving down prices. At least we can be thankful to uncle Bill for one thing
As we can see Apple is poised with an application that takes advantage of the cutting edge in technology. So while it may seem a lot today to spend $300 to purchase an Aperture optimum card if you hold on that same card will be $200 in six months and probably $100 in a year. Also in a year should you feel you need a boost in Aperture performance you do not need to purchase a whole new computer. Simply an upgrade to the latest video card should result in a significant performance increase.
While Aperture is the first application to see graphic card based optimization I would not be surprised to see other applications following suit. My guess is if not Lightroom or CS3, CS4 will have at least some filters graphics card optimized. I am also sure this same technology will be used in Final Cut to make more transitions real time.
Comments welcome.

Answer 1

<...>
Let's take a specific example. Open a 12MB Canon 5D
RAW file in both applications and apply Shadows &
Highlights, then immediately scroll around the image
fully zoomed to see the effects (check for noise,
etc.). This is a fairly typical digital darkroom
task that works fine in Photoshop after the initial
few-second hit while it computes the final image.
Smooth scrolling after that. Aperture? A spinning
beachball o' death -- for 90+ percent of current
users. This is NOT the "application of the future",
but rather the "doorstop of today".
Not for me, and I have an older computer.
To more exactly recreate your scenario I downloaded a 5D RAW from here:
http://www.jirvana.com/rawlarge/canon5d
And used that. Granted both Shadows/Highlights were a bit jumpier than I normally see (as I work with imported TIFF files) as was scrolling - but not once did I see the beachball at all.
Lightroom by comparison (same file) felt a little faster adjusting, but it's kind of a pointless comparison since it also decreased the image resolution by a factor of four while doing so making live preview less useful as a feature since I had to wait for the image to clear up before I could really see what happened. Scrolling was smoother but still jerky.
Look down there at my specs and tell me they are so unreasonable to be working with a really large RAW file. I don't even think I'm in that upper 10% of Mac users right now.
And exactly which piece of information from Apple was
supposed to make it possible for people to stand a
chance at "realizing" this? Oh, that's right, those
"recommended" hardware specs. How silly of them to
trust the literature and the box.
I would say however the recommendations fail mostly for the 6600 - as I said some people are happy with Aperture on a 12" TiBooks. Some people like you are suffering using Aperture on a fairly powerful computer while at the same time some people struggle to find cracks so that the can install and use Aperture on computers that are below even the minimum specs, so it's a hard thing to say what should be on the list and what shouldn't since people buy the software for different needs.
<...>
For Quake 4, yes. For what Aperture's doing? No
freakin' way. I've done what Aperture's (or Core
Image, depending on how they broke it out) doing with
SIMD instructions and it works just fine.
You are underestimating what is going on there, and Aperture is trying to do it through a general purpose API, not hand tuned assembly. I am pretty sure there are some inefficiencies in all the layers there which will get baked off over time, Aperture is really the first app to make heavy use of Core Image.
Why should Aperture not suffer as greatly at the
hands
of a less dedicated processor?
My point exactly, thanks!
?? - I was actually saying that Aperture would downgrade just as much running on the CPU only as a video-card dependent game would, as it is equally dependent on the specialized features of the video card to perform well.
Have you ever heard about newer video cards
removing features?
Yes.
Not to the extent that API's cannot work around it. I'll admit that was hastily penned.
<...>
It'll suffer if Core Image has to start emulating
things.
So give us an example of something Core Image is doing that may have to be emulated in the future?
Although you walk a fine line complaining the CPU can easily do the same work while at the same time complaining that API performance will downgrade if the API has to switch to use the CPU...
It's not doing that in the case of the 6600 card.
Perhaps its speed-detection routines need
recalibration?
I think you'd see Aperture run an order of magnitude slower by running using only the CPU instead of the GPU.
Actually I think you could even test it. There may be debugging features in the dev kit (perhaps even the same profiler tools you were using) that let you disable use of the GPU by CoreImage and see how well it works.
<...>
Hmm. How big are your RAW files? Shadows &
Highlights is the worst one on the 6600 -- delays are
in the TENS of seconds. This is especially
problematic when trying to scroll around within an
image.
As I said I don't even see a beachball on the 5D files, it's just a little jerky. Normally I work with TIFF files directly which I'll grant are faster than working with RAW.
Any my card is roughly half again as slow as the x800XT card according to the only Core Image tests I've seen on both cards. I think I could say that working with 5D files using a x800XT would in fact be pretty reasonable.
I'm not sure how to note that some power users may
be not be
happy with some cards while other users will
Given this is a "professional" application, who
exactly would be a NON-power user? And trust me,
unless you do ZERO adjustments in Aperture you will
eventually be "unhappy" (understatement of the year)
with the performance on a 6600 card.
Actually I think the people using out-of-spec laptops (or perhaps any laptops) are using it for comparison features more than adjustments, until they get back to a desktop. For that use it would work well even with fairly poor video cards.
Not everyone uses Aperture for the same things.
I do think that card might be there just because
it's shipping
with the Powermacs
Oh, well, that makes it okay to mislead customers
then.
You seem to have missed how that was a critique on my part. I didn't say it was right, just what I thought might be going on there.
On the other hand as we noted your card should behave about as well as my card, I really don't understand what is going on there unless the 6600 drivers and/or CoreImage support is really, really poor.
<...>
But MY point (and the point of many disappointed
Aperture customers) is that HIS point is completely
specious and irrelevant. While Apple's goals are to
be lauded, and even appreciated in a "think tank"
type environment, they chose to unlease this product
upon WORKING PROFESSIONALS. They made promises and
created high expectations. They failed to fulfill
some very critical ones. That is ALL that matters
right now to most people.
<...>
I don't see your point as fully valid because it IS working for many people today, yes it's a subset of the Apple community but it's not as if everyone was let down. In your case you obviosuly were, but in other cases people got what they expected. I did. After seeing the previews I got exactly the software I was expecting.
Those defending Apple are blinded to seeing or even
acknowledging this point, much less conceding it.
Problems cannot be fixed until they are acknowledged
and Apple fan boys (not saying you are one!)
attacking people on for being unsatisfied with
Aperture and finding it unusable for one reason or
another are not helping the situation.
I sympathise with people in your situation, where you have a computer that really should be capible of running the software at full tilt but cannot.
However many such people don't just vent and move on. They must come and post EVERY time someone actually says they like the software. After about ten or twenty of the same comlaints for the same user, I have to say - we get the point. It's obvious the software is doing you no good. Get a refund, I think anyone who complains loudly enough to Apple can do so though they don't make it easy.
I don't know if that is the case for you as I don't really follow posting history. But I would say it's perfectly valid to correct posters that over-generalize problems and make people think that ALL users suffer from them when they do not. I only post corrections when I see that to be the case - if people want to complain about specific setups that's perfectly valid and helpful to potential purchasers. What is not helpful is making an x800XT user stay away from the software thinking the experience is going to be a nightmare when in fact it would be far better for them.
Similarly, telling these upset customers "See, you
just need to ignore your pain and appreciate how
GRAND AND WONDERFUL Apple is for "seeing" the future!
All hail Apple!" is also pointless. It may be
informative, but it doesn't take away any of the
sting and it doesn't get them a refund and (worst of
all) doesn't suddenly make Aperture usable.
It's not saying that at all. It's just saying that Apple put a lot of thought into the software and is really leaning heavily on some leading edge technology, so give them some slack and recognize that in just a year or two the performance concerns will not really be there for newer users and possibly for some older ones. It may not help now but it's pointing out these problems are more short-lived than they would appear, and that the approach is sound (which I still think it is). Some people seem to think that Aperture performance problems are simply unsoluable, and the original post addresses that.
<...>
Well, hopefully the PCI-X cards come soon. In the
meantime I'll just continue to disagree with the
assertion that the 6600 is a "low-end" card. I run
some REALLY SOPHISTICATED software on that card on my
Windows PC. There's no excuse why it can't handle
something like Aperture, which is CHILD'S PLAY by
comparison.
<...>
I'm not saying low-end either, more like mid-range. I consider my Radeon 9800 to be bit dated at this point as well and the 6600 is around the same level of performance.
I'm not saying they aren't. The wrong track they're
on is being lazy writing software -- the super-wazoo
card is NOT NECESSARY for Aperture. Heck, you even
say yourself that your lowly old ATI video card is
running it in realtime. I think the developers just
didn't test the application with the 6600 (and
probably several other cards).
I do wonder if that is the case (6600 testing). However I don't think they are being lazy exactly - I think they simply focused more effort in getting the Core Image API the way they wanted it and less on tuning actual cards.
Given the timeframe of software release I'll bet most of the developers were working with Quad G5's though, not the newer dual-core models... probably rectified by now although perhaps they just all jumped to prototype Intel Powermacs (or whatever they will be).
This is a shame,
since that's what they sell as the default in
Powermacs. On a positive note, this is why I expect
this problem to be fixed. Now that developers are
aware of the performance issues on the 6600, plus the
fact that they've sold a lot of them, leads me to
believe (hope) my performance issues will melt away
(like butter, even!) with the next point release.
Please, please, please...
I have the same hope. You'd think it would be a focus of Aperture though since as you say that card is default on all new Powermacs and they would seemingly want the software to shine there.
I wonder how much they are reliant on the nVidia driver performing well though, to that extent their hands may be somewhat tied.
<...>
So how about giving the application away for free
until it's good enough to be sold at retail? Why
does everybody cut Apple slack on this when it's an
EXPENSIVE and PROFESSIONAL application? Are those
same apologists as forgiving when they have to wait 6
months for updates to their favorite game to make it
playable? Of course not. So why are they THAT
demanding on a $40 application and yet so forgiving
on a $500 too? It makes absolutely no sense to me.
<...>
But the application is ready for prime time for some users. Some of the early bugs were glaring to be sure but it's definitely a very solid applciation at this point, especially when you look at Lightroom and use the two apps for any length of time. Aperture really is a finished product with a fair amount of polish to it when you look at all the little things it handles well and the detail that has gone into it.
That's the only option available to some people --
anyone with a PCI-X video card, for example. The
more interesting question is why do others choose to
attack these customers and defend Apple? Who screwed
who here, for goodness sake? Some people really need
to back off on their koolaid intake...
My goal is simply to clarify on what confgurations people may see problems - and where they may not.