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Dennis the Phantom Menace · Sep 27, 2002, 01:04 AM

I just got a new dual ghz w/ the Ati Radeon 9000 and RtCW (Wolfenstein) looks horrid! Is it just me? Is it just the game? How does RtCW play on a GeForce 4 Ti? I'm seriously pondering an upgrade.

duboy · Sep 27, 2002, 01:25 AM

Dennis, i just put in a ti 4600 and RtCW looks great, it's nice and smooth and the colors are great. now i'm going to try QIII and MOA:AA :-D i don't know how it compares to a 9000, but i can tell you it whoops ass :-)

Kenneth · Sep 27, 2002, 04:25 AM

Are you serious? I'm about to get the dual 867 with the Radeon 9000 Pro as BTO and play some games. What's your setting for RtCW?

D'Espice · Sep 27, 2002, 04:44 AM

Basically, the R9000 is the R8500 without the second Pixel Pipeline and without the second Vertex Shader. Therefore, the R9000 is slower than the R8500 when it comes to games.
The looks of 3D apps however should be the same, probably it's a driver thingy.

littlegreenspud · Sep 27, 2002, 05:23 AM

I have a "old" dual gig with a Geforce 4 Ti. I maxxed out all the graphic options at 1280x1024 and still get 50-60 fps.

Quake III the same as above but 200-240 fps - heaven

But don't mention Soldier of Fortune...

nana4 · Sep 27, 2002, 07:49 AM

The Radeon 9000 is a bargain basement card, with performance to match.

Boochie · Sep 27, 2002, 09:16 AM

Perusing the /System/Library/Extensions folder, it appears that there are no drivers specific to the Radeon 9000 in Jaguar. I guess it must be using the 8500's drivers. Perhaps that accounts for the suboptimal performance.

Originally posted by Dennis the Phantom Menace:
I just got a new dual ghz w/ the Ati Radeon 9000 and RtCW (Wolfenstein) looks horrid! Is it just me? Is it just the game? How does RtCW play on a GeForce 4 Ti? I'm seriously pondering an upgrade.

Dennis the Phantom Menace · Sep 27, 2002, 01:46 PM

I noticed that there weren't any 9000 specific drivers as well. Unless Apple posts some new miracle drivers, I had better save my pennies for a Gf Ti. It's just a bummer that I wasted my time with this card.

Boochie · Sep 27, 2002, 02:46 PM

Bear in mind that there aren't any GeForce 4Ti-specific drivers yet either -- that card uses the GeForce 3's drivers.

Originally posted by Dennis the Phantom Menace:
I noticed that there weren't any 9000 specific drivers as well. Unless Apple posts some new miracle drivers, I had better save my pennies for a Gf Ti. It's just a bummer that I wasted my time with this card.

TimmyDee51 · Sep 27, 2002, 04:53 PM

That, and the GeForce4 Ti has twice the video RAM. I think I'm getting the Radeon 9000 because I don't want the anemic 32 MB GF4 MX but I don't have the cash for a Ti.

jcadam · Sep 28, 2002, 12:13 AM

I just removed the stock GeForce4MX from my new DP 867 and slapped in a Radeon 8500 mac edition.

While playing RtCW, I noticed a rather drastic performance DROP with the Radeon 8500. This does not make any sense. Perhaps RtCW doesn't work well with ATI cards. C'mon id software, what the f***?

I've also noticed that performance gets even WORSE (unplayable) once you install the RtCW 1.33 update.

Then, maybe ATI drivers suck. I know for a FACT the GPU on the Radeon 8500 is superior to the GF4MX, so I have to blame this on software.

I don't have any other 3D FPS games to test with, so I'm not sure if this issue is limited to RtCW (perhaps all QuakeIII-based games) or not. I DO know Quartz Extreme works fine.