[Cadaver]

From MacCentral.com

At this week's Macworld Conference & Expo, graphics card and chip maker ATI Technologies Inc. is showing off a forthcoming card that may be of interest to gamers looking to get the most out of the potential of their Power Mac G5 systems -- the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Special Edition.

The new card address two complaints of some high-end users considering ATI's current top-end retail for Mac users -- the absence of an ADC connector, and a total of 256MB of on-board video RAM, twice what the current Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition card includes -- useful for high-resolution, graphically intensive games that load large amounts of texture and geometry data into the card's memory.

Based on the same design as the OEM card that ATI produces for Apple for certain Power Mac G5 models, the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Special Edition features the same moderately higher clock speed as the existing Mac retail product.

ATI desktop product manager Stan Ossias explained to MacCentral that the current Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition features DVI instead of ADC -- the interface used by Apple's flat panel displays -- because ATI wanted to offer the card both to G5 users and to Power Mac G4 users. Because of the Radeon 9800 chip's power consumption rates, Power Mac G4s lack sufficient juice to power both the card and the monitor.

Apple's solution to that problem with the Power Mac G5 is to use an AGP Pro slot -- which it's logically similar to the AGP slots found on G4s, it provides more power to the card, making it possible to keep both the card and an ADC monitor attached to the card sufficiently charged. As a result, the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Special Edition is exclusively for the Power Mac G5 and cannot be installed in older systems.

Look for ATI to offer specific release schedule information soon; the card will retail for US$469 once it's released. ATI plans to continue to offer the existing Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition card as well.

While pretty expensive at $469, it's similar in price to the PC version of the 256MB 9800 Pro.
And for those who might have wished they spent the extra money on a better video card when they ordered their G5, this is good news, I'd say.

After this card is released, I'd expect to see a lot of G5 9600 Pros and 128MB 9800 Pros on eBay.... See? Everyone will benefit.

[Lateralus]

I just want ATI to release a better PCI Mac video card. Such as the 9200. As well as a nice AGP card for the Mac mid-range, even a previous generation 9500 Pro.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
I just want ATI to release a better PCI Mac video card. Such as the 9200. As well as a nice AGP card for the Mac mid-range, even a previous generation 9500 Pro.

Take a look at that MacCentral link and look at the bottom couple of paragraphs. ATI is ready to release a new PCI video card, too.

[Lateralus]

Schweet..

Thanks for pointing that out.

[CIA]

Finally, Doom III at reasonable framerates. 8-)
Actually, all considering, I'm looking forward to what Carmack does to Doom3 in regards to the G5. He, or I should say Id in general, have always been pretty good about optimizing stuff for the Mac. I bet that the 64bit G5 and a high end video card make for a great experience. I'd also say that we won't see the true G5 goodies untill awhile after the initial release of Doom3.

[MindFad]

Ah, *the* card you will want for playing DOOM III. And Halo, of course.

Has an ADC, cool. But not for G4s—not cool. Ah well.

[RayX]

Don't count on a 9800 Pro running Doom III at a decent resolution and not without lowering graphics settings.

There are already games *now* (eg. Call of Duty) that eat this card.

[redJag]

I can play Call of Duty on max settings at 1280x1024 on a GeForce4Ti. I think the 9800Pro should be able to play Doom III at reasonable FPS on normal settings, at least.

[Hydra]

I thought Carmack said he was going to cap Doom 3 at 60 fps.

-Jerry C.

[MindFad]

Originally posted by Hydra:
I thought Carmack said he was going to cap Doom 3 at 60 fps.

-Jerry C.

You don't notice a difference between 60FPS and 300FPS as it is. The goal with gaming nerds is to get it above 60FPS and keep it consistently above that for the smoothest possible gameplay. As soon as it drops below this framerate is when you start to see framerate drops, especially drops that affect gameplay (in your 20s). As for DOOM III and the Radeon 9800, I was talking about at 640x480, of course. I'm sure people are expecting to run the **** at 1280x1024, but they're going to be sadly mistake, as with Halo. Pixel shaders take a lot out of your graphics card. And with DOOM III, We're talkin' 640x480, maybe 800x600 at most until newer cards hit the market. Unless you sacrifice geometry and effects to achieve higher resolutions on your monitor. Still, it's going to be an amazing game, at least graphically.

[CIA]

Considering how long D3 has been in development, it's pretty impressive that they designed a game from the start that would still tax graphics cards at it's release. I'd rather have the game capped at a solid 60FPS and get high res graphics with all the goodies turned on, then 3 billion FPS @ 320*240 interlaced with everything on low. I mean, you only see the frames if your moniter refresh rate can keep up....
Where is nVidia during all this? They've been quiet over that last few months...

[fizzlemynizzle]

Thumbs up on the ADC connector but thumbs down on the 256 megs of RAM. 256 meg cards have been out on the PC for a while and there are no games that benefit from it. It's just a gimmick.

[RayX]

Originally posted by fizzlemynizzle:
Thumbs up on the ADC connector but thumbs down on the 256 megs of RAM. 256 meg cards have been out on the PC for a while and there are no games that benefit from it. It's just a gimmick.

Call of Duty does. (See the readme file included with it)

[Truepop]

I have a friend who thinks the same way about the extra 128MB of RAM. He would say something like it is like having a big dick but no where to put it.

However I have other friends with max'd out PCs and swear by 256MB video cards.

I am stuck at 8MB of Video RAM on my PowerBook but hope to get at least 64MB soon. I am too am hoping the 256MB card is just the first stone and N'Vidia comes out with one and the 128MB card prices will fall a bit.

[MindFad]

Some games, and near future games, will definitely take advantage of the extra video memory. All of those higher resolution textures and higher res models have to go somewhere. Having 256MB is certainly not a gimmick. Cards actually being able to take advantage of games using more and more effects may be another question, though. Having the space might not mean squat if your card is underpowered for the game anyway. It could be like having a 256MB GeForce 2 for DOOM III (as an example for games 2-3 years from now). A 256MB 9600 will be ass in 2 years. Sure, you've got plenty of memory—but the card blows performance-wise for the games currently. In this sense I think people could take it as a gimmick—and the fact that some people actually seem to believe that extra RAM means extra performance. A 256-MB Radeon 9600 Pro is *no* faster than a 128-MB Radeon 9600 Pro. It's certainly overkill for a lot of games today—but many of these games are older anyway.

The gaming world is on the way to a very nice transition, graphically speaking, in the next 2-3 years. I guarantee it. Gameplay, on the other hand ... well, hopefully developers get their heads outta their asses.

[MindFad]

Originally posted by CIA:
Considering how long D3 has been in development, it's pretty impressive that they designed a game from the start that would still tax graphics cards at it's release. I'd rather have the game capped at a solid 60FPS and get high res graphics with all the goodies turned on, then 3 billion FPS @ 320*240 interlaced with everything on low. I mean, you only see the frames if your moniter refresh rate can keep up....
Where is nVidia during all this? They've been quiet over that last few months...

320x240, huh? It's true, though. If I could keep it consistently at 30FPS and above, I'd be a very happy DOOMer, but I'm not holding my breath with my current setup. Don't get too excited about that 60FPS—it ain't gonna happen on many systems.

And it is an amazing job they've done on the game. I'm really psyched about it. I'd be even more psyched if MacSoft or Aspyr announced they were bringing Half-Life 2 for the Mac. I thoroughly j¡zz my pants. Environmental physics and crazy AI, baby!

[osxisfun]

i have a question.

I own a dual 2 gig g5 and 2 apple 20" lcds both hooked up via the default (9600?) vid card... one dvi one adc...

when i have DOZENS of windows open, expose will "stutter" as it tries to shrink all those windows down. when i less it works just fine.

(my vram is cut in half btw since i am driving both lcds with the same card)


my question is this:

Does anyone know if expose does indeed use Vram to handle this expose effect (shrink all windows) i think it does since its openGL related? maybe i am running out a vram? or its it a cpu thing?

if vram realted, then buying this card with all that ectra vram be a good fix? i guess another fix would be to buy the new pci card so it could use its own vram too.

thanks

[olePigeon]

Screw Quake III tests. Everyone should run Diablo II. You can have a dual Opteron with 4GBs of RAM and a 256MB Radeon XT and it'll still slow to 20 fps when you turn the minimap on and someone casts meteor storm.

[CIA]

I think thats due more to poor coding then the computer/graphics card you run the game on.

[fizzlemynizzle]

Some games, and near future games, will definitely take advantage of the extra video memory. All of those higher resolution textures and higher res models have to go somewhere.

My observation has been that games lag far behind the leading edge cards. By the time a game comes along that can take full advantage of the hottest newest card, that card will be one or two revisions behind. I have a Radeon 8500 64meg in my PC and it can handle most if not all of the latest games with aplomb. Max Payne 2 screams at 1280x1024 full detail.

[Cadaver]

If I had $500 just lying around, I'd probably pick one up. But, I don't think I go shifting my finances around just to afford one. I'll probably stick with my 9600 for now.
On my dual 2.0, the 9600 even runs Halo at 1024x768 with 2xFSAA and both vertex/pixel shaders just wonderfully.

[mjankor]

Call of Duty readme actually states

"Solution: Call of Duty uses a lot of detailed textures, and in the normal course of play works best with at least 32M-64M of VRAM on your video card."

No where does it say that 256 meg of Vram will make the game better.

My old R9600 64MB kills this game at 1680x1050. I can't actually see (although i know the framerate has improved) any difference between my old 9600 and the 9800 G5SE in this game.

Halo on the other hand is a very different story. :-)

[entrox]

You know, gaming isn't the only thing you can do with a graphics card. I can fill up those 256MiB with a single 3D texture in about a quarter of a second. Right now I'm doing visualisation of computational fluid dynamics on a SGI Onyx, and let me tell you: people doing volume rendering need GIGABYTES of memory to do so interactively. More memory on cheap hardware (in comparison to an Onyx) is a welcome thing.

[Lateralus]

Was it necessary to dig up a 6 month old thread?

[mjankor]

And what do you have against archaeology :-)