[mac freak]

... without 4X AGP, will the performance gain over a standard 32MB Radeon be worth the hefty $399 pricetag?

Apple's <a href="http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=M8757G/A" target="_blank">new page for it</a> claims it requires a 4X AGP slot, which I'm 90% sure isn't true; from what I've heard, it will work fine with 2X AGP, just not at full speed.

And the AGP slot in my original dual-processor 450 MHz G4 IS, in fact, 2X, right?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Dr Evil]

I don't think the agp speed would be the serious bottleneck in your system. The 450Mhz G4 is going to be the big speed bottleneck. There are numerous sites with benchmarks that show that the GF4 needs a fast processor to be worthwhile. I would suggest picking up a GF3, either flashing a PC version or picking up an Apple OEM one, because there isn't a huge difference in performance and it should be at least half of what an Apple GF4 would cost if you flash a PC version.

I just built a PC solely for gaming, so I have gone through all of the info on video cards. I went with the GF4 Ti 4200 that was only $200, half that of the high end 4600 and the Apple OEM GF4 Ti. The GF3 is very close to the performance of the GF4. The GF3 isn't as powerful at higher resoultions, but in all honesty, you shouldn't play much above 1024x768 anyway.

I hope this helps.

[timster]

Actually, from my experiences, the 2x AGP will be the bottleneck. You probably could save a lot of cash and get the Radeon 8500 instead.

I have a dual-450 G4, and I put a Radeon 8500 in it. I play three diff games at this time right now:

Quake III, RtCW, and Medal of Honor.

And the thing I've noticed with ALL those games. It barely matters what options, resolutions I pick, I don't get any framerate changes.

Quake III timedemo for instance. 640x480 at lowest details, etc.. 72 fps. Scale up all the details and resolutions, and it stays right there at 72fps until I finally select 1600x1200 with max detail, then the fps finally drops to about 69.

RtCW, due to its greater use of textures and detail makes the 2x AGP bottleneck much more apparent. I'm walled in at 22fps regardless of settings.

MOH:AA - same thing. I average about 30-40fps, regardless of settings.

So my guess is that you'd see nearly identical performance results on your computer, if you put a 8500 or a GF4Ti.

Thats my two cents. If somoene have evidence otherwise, I'd like to hear it.

[Chimpmaster]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">Originally posted by timster:
<strong>Actually, from my experiences, the 2x AGP will be the bottleneck. You probably could save a lot of cash and get the Radeon 8500 instead.

I have a dual-450 G4, and I put a Radeon 8500 in it. I play three diff games at this time right now:

Quake III, RtCW, and Medal of Honor.

And the thing I've noticed with ALL those games. It barely matters what options, resolutions I pick, I don't get any framerate changes.

Quake III timedemo for instance. 640x480 at lowest details, etc.. 72 fps. Scale up all the details and resolutions, and it stays right there at 72fps until I finally select 1600x1200 with max detail, then the fps finally drops to about 69.

RtCW, due to its greater use of textures and detail makes the 2x AGP bottleneck much more apparent. I'm walled in at 22fps regardless of settings.

MOH:AA - same thing. I average about 30-40fps, regardless of settings.

So my guess is that you'd see nearly identical performance results on your computer, if you put a 8500 or a GF4Ti.

Thats my two cents. If somoene have evidence otherwise, I'd like to hear it.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">Sounds like you have actually capped your fps at 72. You can upcap this (not sure of the command). There is no way that a machine will give you the same performance at 640x480x16 as 1600x1200x32.

Also, interestingly enough, my fp imac with its 700mhz g4 processor and gforce 2 mx gives better performance than your machine in rtcw.

I get around 50-60 fps at 800x600x32, max settings, and about 30-40fps at 1024x768 with medium settings.

[timster]

No, I dont believe its the fps cap. I've already edited that in the configuration file, and its at 110 or so fps.

Your flatpanel imac gets better performance in rtcw because it has a faster AGP bus, and can swap textures fast enough to keep the video card going.

I have a friend who has a 800mhz tibook, and he ran the same benchmarks I did, and he initially got better performance at 640x480, but then the numbers fell off and got worse the higher the resolutions went, while my framerates remained the same. Again, I think its due to the 4x AGP port in the Tibook.

one other thing i forgot to mention was that I got a slight FPS improvement (about 5-6 fps) if I specified smaller texture sizes (16 bit, low quality) in RtCW.

I'd love for someone to prove me wrong and show me better performance figures with a Radeon 8500 on a 2x AGP system, but I really believe that the AGP port is crashing the party early when the game gets going heavy.

I've put up a simple page with some benchmark information I compiled when I first got the Radeon. It also has a link where you can download a demo to use in RtCW to find out your benchmark. Chimpmaster. Try running that with your iMac and see what numbers you're getting.

<a href="http://greed.blackcore.com/tim/8500.html" target="_blank">http://greed.blackcore.com/tim/8500.html</a>

<small>[ 06-19-2002, 10:45 AM: Message edited by: timster ]</small>

[Northform]

It does require a 4x AGP slot and won't work in a 2x slot at all.