[Esotu]

Hello Macnn members. Thanks for looking at this thread.

I am pretty "n00bish" when it comes to computers. I've never tinkered inside one before, never known what system bus does, how memory works, etc. So, please bear with me. I'm a mac user, have been all my life, but mainly use my mac for games. Yes, a true mac gamer. I know PCs are much more qualified for games, but I can't support Pentium or Windows - it's just not right. I've been going to LAN parties with all my PC friends, and, well, as you can guess, am constantly made fun of

I'm always the slowest computer there, with the worst FPS and choppiest game play.

Now I know Macs aren't meant for games really, but when you can get a PC for $800 that easily outperforms my G5 that costs $1300, it's discouraging. I just have a feeling that I'm really just not allowing my G5 to perform at it's maximum potential.

So here's my question. I want to know ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, whether it's hardware, software, tweaking, etc. that will make my computer faster. Is there anyway to totally tweak my machine out for gaming?

Any advice or words of wisdom would be MUCH APPRECIATED! Thanks again for taking a look.


And if this belongs in another category of the forums, please move it! Sorry for any inconvenience.

[jamil5454]

First off, get the DP2.5 with at least 2gb RAM. Then you'll want the GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL and overclock that as high as it will go. MAKE SURE you have the latest Nvidia drivers for the card, as this is important to Macs. Turn off Antialiasing and Anisotropic Filtering when in fast gameplay because generally these don't help you play better at a LAN party. And someone standing a few feet back won't notice it. These two things reduce performance the most. But, I'm still sad to admit, a single athlon64 coupled with 1gb RAM and a Geforce 6800GT will kick any Mac's butt, at only a fraction of the cost. I, myself, am a PC gamer, but I'm trying to change my lifestyle to only let Macs into my world of computing and consoles into my world of gaming. There are, however, some games that keep me from selling my aging PC - Doom3, Halflife+Mods, Halflife2+Mods, Call of Duty, UT2004, NWN, Deus Ex 1&2, Baldur's Gate1&2, Icewind Dale1&2, FFXI, and a couple others. I know some of these have Mac versions, but to be honest, run like crap compared to the PC version. I have, though, made a nice iMovie project with the pics from my Corpus Christie, Texas trip last Thanksgiving. I'll post it someday when I'm finished with it.

[Mafia]

Originally posted by Esotu:
Hello Macnn members. Thanks for looking at this thread.

I am pretty "n00bish" when it comes to computers. I've never tinkered inside one before, never known what system bus does, how memory works, etc. So, please bear with me. I'm a mac user, have been all my life, but mainly use my mac for games. Yes, a true mac gamer. I know PCs are much more qualified for games, but I can't support Pentium or Windows - it's just not right. I've been going to LAN parties with all my PC friends, and, well, as you can guess, am constantly made fun of

I'm always the slowest computer there, with the worst FPS and choppiest game play.

Now I know Macs aren't meant for games really, but when you can get a PC for $800 that easily outperforms my G5 that costs $1300, it's discouraging. I just have a feeling that I'm really just not allowing my G5 to perform at it's maximum potential.

So here's my question. I want to know ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, whether it's hardware, software, tweaking, etc. that will make my computer faster. Is there anyway to totally tweak my machine out for gaming?

Any advice or words of wisdom would be MUCH APPRECIATED! Thanks again for taking a look.


And if this belongs in another category of the forums, please move it! Sorry for any inconvenience.

i'm assuming you got the 1.6 ghz single? if so first things first get RID OF THE 5200 video card, put in a radeon 9800 pro, or a 9600xt if you can find one. get lots of ram, 2 gb should do, but get more if you want . if games are still choppy after all that try turning stuff down inside the game. i think the crappyness of your gameplay has got to be the stock video card in that bad boy. also if you want to dish out some more cash and help some, get a 10000 raptor drive and install your games on there. btw my dual 1.8 with radeon 9600xt blows away a lot of the crap i see at lan parties.

[jamil5454]

Most games (unless for some reason Mac games are specially built) don't take advantage of dualies. But, the only way to get those higher mhz is to get a dualie, so... Mafia, the 9600XT is the gaming bottleneck in your system, but is still a good card. I have its older version - the 9600pro in my gaming rig. A 9800pro will get 1.8-2x the performance of a 9600XT, and a Geforce6800 Ultra will get 1.8-2x the performance of a 9800pro. This is assuming ATI and Nvidia drivers on Mac follow the same trend as on PC. Also, you might want to get an Nvidia card, because historically they're known to perform better in OpenGL, which is what the Mac uses. (Although ATI is currently rewriting their OGL driver but probably won't make it to the mac for quite some time).


Oh yeah, the best bang:buck for a gamer right now is the 256Mb Geforce 6800GT. It's basically a Geforce 6800 Ultra but with slightly lower clock speeds. The main performance factor (after adequate memory) in video cards is it's fillrate. Here's a good way to estimate performance of diff. video cards, although their different architectures change their real-world fillrate performance:

Multiply clockspeedxnumber of pipes in GPU.

9600XT - 500mhz x 4(1) pipes = 2.0 billion t/s
9800pro - 380mhz x 8(1) pipes = 3.04 billion t/s
6800Ultra - 400mhz x 16(1) pipes = 6.4 billion t/s

[Esotu]

Great! Thanks for the good replies.

My question is where can I buy one of those Geforce 6800GT cards? And how much do they cost?

Also, is there anything I can turn off that takes up resources?

Thanks so much!