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Trister1 · Jan 21, 2001, 12:15 AM

Diablo II offers me a choice for configuring video, with the OEM Rage Pro in my DP 450 G4, it offers RAVE vs OpenGL. Which is better? Does the card use one over the other? If I sound a bit confused, I thought OpenGL was a Mac OS thing, while RAVE was a driver for the card...

Tominator · Jan 21, 2001, 02:47 AM

Go with the RAVE option. The card can use either, but you'll see better performance with RAVE and there's really not much difference in quality. OpenGL is a fairly open graphics standard that is available for almost every computer platform.

RAVE is an application programming interface that allows programmers to access 3D hardware acceleration. It's part of the Quickdraw 3D graphics toolkit.

Trister1 · Jan 22, 2001, 04:22 PM

So...would anyone recommend ATI vs nVidia vs 3dfx for an upgrade? I thought the ATI Radeon DDR looked ok, but was going to hold out for 64 MB

Jan 22, 2001, 06:40 PM

Get yourself a g-force, they come standard on all macs starting this summer so you might just wait and buy yourself a G4 (rock on!!!!!!) :> )

blizzard · Jan 24, 2001, 12:45 PM

The ATi is actually a better all-around card than the GeForce 2 MX at this point. The Radeon is ATi's highest performance card right now, whereas the GeForce 2 MX is nVidia's 'consumer solution'. The Radeon boasts DDR memory, which is quite a bit faster than the SDR stuff available in the MX. If you look at tests on PCs, the Radeon will beat the MX at everything. However, as so often happens, it all comes down to driver issues; prelimnary tests indicate that the MX is actually beating the Radeon on the Mac platform at this point. It's really anyone's call. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call to ATi to boost their Mac OS drivers to the quality of their PC drivers.

Tominator · Jan 24, 2001, 03:29 PM

That's all provided that someone actually comes out with an off the shelf GeForce upgrade card for the older AGP G4s. Remember, nVidia doesn't make the cards, just the chips on the cards; Apple slaps everything onto cards for their Macs. I don't see any of the other card manufacturers rushing out to support the Mac market, so if you're looking for an "upgrade" then ATi is the only game in town.

Leonard · Jan 24, 2001, 03:38 PM

Right now, Id say the Radeon is your best bet... the best all-around card and faster than the Geforce 2 MX. 3dfx isn't even in the equation anymore. 3dfx is out of business and as far as I know support is in limbo.

This summer should be interesting for 3D cards, with ATI and Nvidia battling it out.

Jan 24, 2001, 10:47 PM

Hopefully this will be a wakeup call to ATi to boost their Mac OS drivers to the quality of their PC drivers.

Does anyone know why ATI drives suck so hard? It seems like ATI has been supplying Macs with video cards and chipsets for many years, and yet they don't have good drivers. It's great that Apple got Nvidia onto the platform so there will be some competition, but I wonder about ATI's committment. If it's been this long already and the drivers still suck, will they even bother to improve them?

Also, were the Rage 128 pro's drivers any good? How can one tell if a video card's drivers are good or not? Seems like a cross-platform comparison would introduce a myriad of other variables besides the drivers.

Tominator · Jan 25, 2001, 01:06 AM

The Rage 128 Pro and old 128 eventually reached something of a mature driver structure, though still not great. They're fairly stable, but lack some speed and have a few bugs. My biggest complaint is the awful image quality at 16-bit color in games. Totally unacceptable.

I'd say the best way to tell if a card has good drivers, from a stability standpoint, is to just run a few games with varying display settings. For performance, it's a little more difficult. Compare it to previous generations of cards and also identical cards in similarly equipped Wintel machines too.

Jan 26, 2001, 06:41 PM

Although nVidia only makes chipsets, wasn't it in their yearly intinerary to market a Voodoo branded product?

Perhaps it was only chipside- as the rest of their business.

Us Mac users have a TON of reasons to look for other graphic rendering solutions. ATI is fine for mid-level work, but what about the true 3D-heavy high end?

Not just for gaming, and not for a large community of users, but a very powerful, extremely stable 3D card does seem like a viable endeavor.
I mean, we've got one of the most closed mainstream system architectures in the world. I wouldn't mind a 350$-600$ alternative to buying a 4500$ SGI low end machine.

The point of course is to market the thing, the more they sell, the cheaper they get. What's a couple months worth of Macworld full-page ads cost?

Trister1 · Jan 27, 2001, 10:47 PM

I wonder if it matters much how much video ram the card has, I mean waiting I don't know how long for a 64mb, when the 32 is available (for the ATI)

lythari · Jan 28, 2001, 08:11 AM

Check out this http://www.barefeats.com/graphiX.htm article for a comparison of the GF2MX to the Radeon.

Trister1 · Jan 28, 2001, 11:03 AM

I noticed at Outpost.com that the Radeon's price has dropped, in the last week or so, from $229 to $209, and then a $30 rebate making it $50 off. So maybe there is another card in the offing, soon. I looked at that link above, though, and as was said above, it seems the Radeon is mostly limited by its drivers.

RWoelk · Jan 28, 2001, 01:24 PM

I believe I read just last week here that new radeon drivers will be released in the next week or so by ATI. Keeping my fingers crossed.

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[This message has been edited by RWoelk (edited 01-28-2001).]