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Compatibility: Object-Specific Changes

Object-Specific Changes


This is a list, sorted alphabetically, of discontinued objects, or changes to object features or messages in Max 8.

The line Object

There were some inconsistencies in the line objects timing and message generation. There are three primary differences in the versions of the Max 8 line object:

  1. In situations where the distance that the line has to travel is less than or equal to 1, and the individual line steps (the distance between each grain) is less that 0.4, the output will be floating-point even if the line object does not have a float argument.

  2. In previous versions of the object, the first value was sent out immediately, and the duration was actually therefore one grain shorter than desired. The first value is now sent out after the first grain, and the duration now matches the requested period.
  3. In situations where the grain does not divide equally into the ramp time, the increment is calculated differently, allowing the total time of the ramp to be more accurate.

If you have patches that are dependent on the old behavior, you can use the compatmode message or attribute to return to the previous behavior.

By default, compatmode is off for newly instantiated line objects.

Quicktime Objects

With the release of Max 8 as a 64-bit only application, the use of Quicktime has been deprecated. This also means that objects that depended on the availability of Quicktime have been discontinued. This includes:

  • spigot~
  • jit.avc
  • jit.broadcast
  • jit.qt.broadcast
  • jit.qt.effect
  • jit.qt.videoout

OpenGL Context Providers

Objects that create contexts (such as jit.world, jit.window, and jit.pwindow) are now created with sharing enabled by default.

jit.grab

If present, jit.grab will open the FaceTime video device by default on Macintosh computers.

jit.window

The @fsmenubar attribute is no longer functional, and enabling fullscreen on jit.window will always hide the menubar. Use the Max messages hidemenubar and showmenubar for equivalent functionality.

jit.world

Matrix output in jit.world now uses asynchronous readback, causing the output to be delayed by a frame from the main display window, and allowing for more efficient matrix output. To enable synchronous readback set the matrix_mode_async attribute to 0.

On Windows, jit.world now defaults to drawing at 60 frames per second.

See Also

Name Description
Technical Notes Technical Notes
Converting Older Max Documents Converting Older Max Documents
Changes in the Max Environment Changes in the Max Environment
Platform-Specific Compatibility Issues Platform-Specific Compatibility Issues