[ChasingApple]

Hey all, Im currently playing World of Warcraft on my G4 1.25Ghz iMac 17", but the Geforce 5200 64MB card in it blows when trying to render the game in 1440x900 native res. Lowering the resolution has no effect on it and looks terrible.

If I use the VGA adapter that came with my iMac and hook it up to a 17" LCD (native 1024x768) will it run faster then the built in display? I know the built in display turns off when the external LCD is playing a game, so would I be better off using an external to play games?

Please any insights would rock, as I am waiting for someone who has actually done this to give me the skinny before I order a new LCD

Cheers

[tooki]

Based on my understanding of how the iMac G4 mirrors video, you'd see a slowdown of performance, because it would have to render separately onto each display. If reducing the resolution in the program has no effect, then it's likely not the graphics card that's the bottleneck. How much RAM do you have?

tooki

[ChasingApple]

The iMac does the same thing as a powerbook, screen spanning or mirroring, up to the user. The imac display turns off when a 3d application is launched on the external display.

G4 1.25Ghz
768MB ram
80GB HD
Superdrive

I know the geforce 5200 is a POS, especially with pixel shaders. and I believ eI read somewhere that running in nativ eis stll faster then running at lower res because the 5200 has to do more work zooming the lower res to fit the screen. Matter of fact the guy that was head of porting unreal tournament 2004 told me that back when it came out.

[ChasingApple]

Is there any way to turn off the zoom effect when lowering the screen resolution? I do not want it blowing up the lower res and looking crappy.

[ChasingApple]

I can see no one knows just like me. Oh well, ordered the parts for a very nice gaming PC today so I will no longer even try to game on this Mac, lost cause anyway