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Jansar · Jul 14, 2002, 12:12 AM

I have a Macintosh Cube G4...
500 MHz, 256 MB RAM, Radeon 7500, 30 GB HD (that's extremely damaged and maxed out)

I want to see if anyone else has a computer similar to this one and comment on it's game performance. I have to say, this computer is not too old and its game performance SUCKS. I can't play anything anymore, and no matter the setting, the game runs the same slow speed all the time. Could it be because of my hard drive or something? I feel that I've spent so much on a graphics card that does absolutely nothing.

Is my computer really this bad?

Kevlar · Jul 14, 2002, 12:45 AM

What games are you talking about?

Chimpmaster · Jul 14, 2002, 01:02 AM

Yeah jansar, some more detail would be useful.

I am running a g4 imac with 384mb ram. Its faster than your machine but i would say within the same ballpark performance wise.

I get acceptable performance on games like return to castle wolf - im playing it online regularly with decent frame rates and am able to compete on pc servers meaning my performance cant be too bad.

I get around

50fps at 800x600x32 with medium settings and sky on low detail (i found that setting on high severely cripples frame rates).

Now thats in osx. In os9 i get around 10-15 fps better...

Now I do have a 700mhz g4 as opposed to your 500mhz and a gforce 2 mx as opposed to your radeon, but your performance shouldnt be that much worse than mine. Id expect you should be able to get at least 35-40fps at the same settings in x and around 50fps in os 9 for rtcw. And faster for quake 3.

Games that arent 3d intensive should run fine too...

cdhostage · Jul 14, 2002, 02:40 PM

I don't play demanidn games, so I DUnon. Perhaps I should play a modern shooter sometime. The most demanding computations my graphics card has done is drwaing Civilization 3 screens. THe time it tajkes between turnsis appalling of course, with a huge map the route finder is hopeless. Well, it's the salemsnae problem again anint's it'/

Mark XV · Jul 15, 2002, 03:00 PM

got a cube 450 radeon with 400someRam
perfect game machine
plays wc3 like a charm

rampant · Jul 15, 2002, 04:34 PM

If by "charm" you mean "like ****", then I beleive you. o_O

Jansar · Jul 19, 2002, 03:34 PM

Well, I actually think it's my hard drive. Not only is it maxed out, but it's the closest to destroyed a hard drive can get. I'll try to fix it, and hopefully it will run nicer.

calamar1 · Jul 24, 2002, 09:29 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by cdhostage:
I don't play demanidn games, so I DUnon. Perhaps I should play a modern shooter sometime. The most demanding computations my graphics card has done is drwaing Civilization 3 screens. THe time it tajkes between turnsis appalling of course, with a huge map the route finder is hopeless. Well, it's the salemsnae problem again anint's it'/<hr /></blockquote>Make sure you are not using Quartz to draw the screens in Civ III. The dialog that pops up when you first start it asks you about it (if you got rid of the dialog, hold shift/cmd/opt (one or more of those, i forget which) to bring it back. That will make it run much better. Much better. The text won't look as good, but it's a small price to pay.

i'm rather curious if Quartz Extreme will make that function workable for Civ III in the future, or if it just requires more horsepower. As for the time between turns, nothing can be done about that (and PC users complain about it too). i find that the time between turns is minimized if i keep to standard maps, or that if i use larger ones, to reduce the land mass.

HTH...