Okay, Intel Mac owners: go get it. Max/MSP/Jitter 4.6 beta is here, with support for Intel Macs.
Okay, now everyone else: version 4.6 offers a lot of cool stuff even if you don’t have an Intel Mac. For Mac developers, there’s the ability to write externals in Xcode. And for 3D visual people, I’ve seen some amazing new features and new objects in this release. I haven’t yet installed the beta on my own machines, but what I’ve seen looks incredible: Quartz Composer effects in slab chains for high-performance processing right on the GPU (including video), jit.multiple for advanced processing of multiple geometry effects, and so on. Word on the street is that audio may make its way to the GPU soon, too. That could be reason to save your pennies for a machine with a real video card rather than integrated graphics. (Mac users, that means going to MacBook Pro instead of MacBook.) See comments for impressions from local Jitter ninja vade.
The only bad news here: Max isn’t in beta yet for Windows. But I expect that’ll happen soon.
Let us know how the beta works out for you, and watch for full coverage of what’s new and how to take advantage of it when it’s release officially.
[Update: After an outage Saturday (heavy demand for the Intel-native download, perhaps?), Cycling ’74 is back online as of Saturday evening US time.]