This is a simple how-to check to determine if you have Quartz Extreme (QE) and Core Image (CI). It seems that OSX 10.6 “Snow Leopard” doesn’t state that if you have both of it enabled or not. Prior to this , in order to determine if hardware acceleration was indeed working , one would take a look at System Profiler to check if both Quartz Extreme and Core Image are enabled or not. Apple has removed this functionality in OSX 10.6. Its because , all Intel Macs (yes, including Intel GMA 950) are capable of both Quartz Extreme and Core Image. There is no need to display if both of it is supported or not.
Anyhow it has a major drawback for Hackintosh users , as there is no way to determine if hardware acceleration is indeed working or not. There is no way to tell by looking at system profiler , to check if your injectors such as NVEnabler or your EFI strings are working correctly or not. However , don’t panic and don’t yell around saying that there is no way to check if you have hardware acceleration or not. I’ve included simple steps to determine if hardware acceleration (QE/CI) is working or not
There is no way to tell if QE/CI is working with then new system profiler.
Note : Another thing to note , Apple has removed support for GeForce 5 series graphics card in Snow Leopard and as well as pre ATI X1000 series (i.e X300 , X600 , 9600 , 9550). You may get it to work with Leopard , so do try Leopard instead of Snow Leopard
1st Method
This is the easiest method of all time. All you have to do is run Chess application. Fire it up and play chess. Now if you are able to move the piece . Congraluations , hardware acceleration (QE/CI) is working.
If you aren’t pleased or if you do want to check if it really works. I’ve included other alternative methods. Do continue to read
2nd Method
Check if screensaver works. Its fairly simple to do. All you have to do is go to System preferences and then select Desktop and Screen saves. Select Screen savers tab and do test out a screensaver. If you see a blank screen , it means that your Graphics acceleration is not working !
3rd Method
Test out Dashboard (Press F12) (or F3 if you’re using Apple Aluminium Slim Keyboard). Drag and drop a widget . If you see a ripple-like effect (or cool effects) when you add a widget. Congratulations everything is working
There are other ways to test as well for instance running DVD Player. Downloading and playing mac games such as Neverball.
4th Method (thanks to iHack)
Try Front Row. If Front Row works , QE/CI is in place , otherwise it wouldn’t work at all !
