[Skypat]

Hi,

I have a dual 867 mirror doors G4 with a poor little 32 MB video card. I saw that the new Radeon 9200 with 128 MB of DDRAM is now available in Europe ...

I was wondering if it was worth it (it is not too expensive ...).
It is a PCI card, shouldn't I need a AGP card instead ? What' the difference ?

Thanks

[d.fine]

AGP = Accelerated Graphics Port

PCI = Peripheral Component Interconnect

AGP is specifically for graphics cards, you'll need to check whether your Mac has an AGP slot. AGP cards perform better when it comes to 3D applications and games, stuff like that ...

[a2daj]

I don't believe the Mac Radoen 9200 PCI is available in Europe since it's not shipping in the US yet. With an AGP system, it's always best to replace the existing card with a similar card in regards to interface. So, if you want to improve graphic performance, get a faster AGP card. ATI has the Radeon 9000 Pro with 128 MB of RAM. The 9200 chipset is basically the 9000 but with AGP 8X compatibility. Since the Mac 9200 is PCI, AGP 8X compatibility is a moot point. However, as a card for a second or third display a 9200 is fine. The nice thing with the Radeon 9200 is because of the PCI interface (and thus, lack of Quartz Extreme) you can enable Adaptive Deinterlacing once again in Mac OS X (something lost when 10.2 came out).

With my setup I used for benchmarking my 9200, I had both my 9200 and 9800 hooked up to my dual input monitor. Since I also have a 5.1 speaker setup hooked up via a Revolution 7.1, I could enjoy DVD videos which suffer from interlacing (mostly TV shows) with no interlacing, and then switch to my main display for everything else. But, the Radeon 9200 would be an expensive option just to get adaptive deinterlacing.

[Skypat]

Thanks for your reply.

Actually the 9200 is listed on the French macway website ...

There is an interesting article about the AGP/PCI issue here

[a2daj]

Originally posted by Skypat:
Thanks for your reply.

Actually the 9200 is listed on the French macway website ...

There is an interesting article about the AGP/PCI issue here

It's listed for pre-order at a lot of online shops, but AFAIK, it's not outyet. It should be shortly but it's definitely not available for shipping.

[Luca Rescigno]

If you have a Mirrored Drive Door G4, you should get an AGP video card as a replacement, not a PCI one like the Radeon 9200. You have a GeForce 4MX, which is a low-end video card. Your upgrade options are somewhat limited though. First of all, do you need ADC? If so, that counts out many of your video card options. Secondly, how much would you be willing to spend? If the answer is under $100, your only option really is the Radeon 8500. If you'd be willing to spend a bit more, there are some other options. The Radeon 9600 Pro taken from the rev. A G5s will work in a PowerMac G4 if you make a small modification involving some tape. The other three possibilities are all expensive, high-end video cards with 128 MB of VRAM - the GeForce 4 Titanium, the Radeon 9700 Pro, and the Radeon 9800 Pro. The 9800 Pro is the fastest of the three, while the GeForce 4 and the 9700 Pro both have an ADC port that will work in your G4. They should all run between $200 and $250. You're lucky to own an MDD - the Radeon 9700 works ONLY in the MDD PowerMacs, and not in any of the other models.

[Skypat]

Thanks Luca ! Your post was very interesting to read.

I'll save some money for later... I can't find the radeon 9700 on any shop. And paying top price for a high end card while I never play games is maybe not very smart

Thanks again

[scottlarock]

Will the tape mod for the radeon 9600 work for a sawtooth mac?