I’ve been doing a lot of online gaming recently, and have become interested in upgrading my 533 MHz G4's video card for better game performance. I do not, however, have a solid understanding of the relationship between the video card and game performance, and so am unsure what card would best serve my needs.
To begin, installed right now is the GeForce2 MX that came with my G4. While this card has served me well, I find it increasingly difficult to compete with the other jokers who have bigger and better processors and video cards. My initial research (and impulse) was to replace it with the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition, but I became unsure whether my system would be able to drive this card adequately enough to justify the expense.
A lot of my confusion stems from conflicting opinions. Some people I have spoke with have said to go for it because the video card is more crucial than the processor speed in gaming; others, however, have said almost the opposite, maintaining that my machine’s processor speed would not be able to wring any justifiable frame rate increase from the 9800 Pro. I have also perused a number of forums and found just as much divergent opinion.
On top of that, ATI isn’t any help, since they don’t really indicate what machines would benefit most from the 9800 Pro. All the tests I have looked up seem all to be on 1 Ghz single or dual machines or better, which is really no help to me at all. Another concern is that the 9800 Pro apparently does not support OS 9 (you have to use OS X 10.2.5 or better). While I boot into classic less and less these days, I still occasionally need to.
Buried in the above are a number of unstated questions, which I will sum up as follows:
1. In a nutshell, to what degree do the video card and processor work together and how does this affect the gaming experience?
2. What kind of performance increase could I realistically expect to see were I to install the 9800 pro? Would my machine even be able to drive this card adequately enough to justify its expense?
3. Could I ever boot directly into OS 9 with the 9800 Pro?
4. If the 9800 Pro is not the answer for my system, what video card do you think would be, and would it allow me to boot directly into OS 9?
I guess those are the most important questions I can think of right now. If there is any additional information that you think I should know regarding this issue, I would be very glad to hear it.
For the record, I do intend to pounce on a G5 sometime late next year, when the processor speeds upgrade and the hardware has matured a bit more; but in the meantime I don’t want my online gaming to suffer. Incidentally, I will be posting this message to a couple other forums at this and other web sites.
Thanks in advance for any guidance you can give me,
Shock Trooper
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