[[PHH] Wulfi]

i have a G4 Quicksilver 867. i believe it has a Geforce 2 in it. i'm getting very low frames in ut2k3. is this the cards short coming or is it the buss system? if i get a better card will the game be playable?

[a2daj]

The card is definitely part of the problem. Not sure how much RAM you have but if you have less than 512 MB, that can be a bottle neck. You're also near the lower end of the requirements for the game in terms of CPU.

[Vash]

Yea, the card isn't doing much at all actually. One of my 867 G4s has a GF4 MX in it, and it can't play UT2k3 no matter how low I set everyting(even 640x480 got same low fps). It's gotta be the CPU/bus speed. So don't waste money on a new card that will do nothing. Oh, and mine has 600 something mb of RAM, which should be enough for such a game to play with lowest settings.

[[PHH] Wulfi]

thanks for the advice. i think i'll hold off on this one. i think i'm just gonna save up for a good PC game rig and quit worrying about gaming on a Mac. i love my Mac and will do everything else on it but game. i would buy a G5, but i don't think that would be a wise move because you never know if they're gonna release Quake 4 or Doom 3 for it. i know they demoed D3 on a mac but who whats to wait a year after the release for it.

[nforcer]

Originally posted by [PHH] Wulfi:
thanks for the advice. i think i'll hold off on this one. i think i'm just gonna save up for a good PC game rig and quit worrying about gaming on a Mac. i love my Mac and will do everything else on it but game. i would buy a G5, but i don't think that would be a wise move because you never know if they're gonna release Quake 4 or Doom 3 for it. i know they demoed D3 on a mac but who whats to wait a year after the release for it.

Like yourself, I have mostly given up gaming on the Mac. My comp (a 1.5 year old G4 flatpanel iMac) is simply not fast enough to play any of the recent games decently. I use my Mac for shareware/freeware gaming and everything else, but for a dedicated gamer, I needed something else.

Instead of getting a PC, a cheaper alternative is to buy an Xbox. The major PC games (Doom 3, Half Life 2, Deus Ex 2) are all going to be released on the Xbox. And there are always a few "exclusive" good games like Halo/Halo 2 (the first of which will only be exclusive for about a month or two longer). Plus, MS is selling Xboxes at a loss, in addition to not having first place in the market, so you don't directly advance the monopoly that competes directly with the Mac (Windows)

The only downsides I see are lack of a keyboard and mouse, which can be critical in an FPS game. And of course, framerate issues which seem to creep up in every game where there is a lot of action going on. You also won't have access to map editors, or other fine tools. But for $1700 less (a high end PC will be required to play the aforementioned games decently) than a PC, and the knowledge that you don't have to give MS a profit for Windows while being able to enjoy the major new action games, was enough to get me to buy one.

[Wulfi]

ya, i see what you're saying. but i'm gonna ignore the xbox. sorry. i have a hard enough time coming to grips with the PC thing. egads, a bill gates driven system. so, i need the keyboard mouse combination. plus i play online a lot. you can't play ladders at the cool sites on xboxes, or at least yet. so, it's PC i guess for the game scene.

[sleepyrenderer]

Originally posted by nforcer:
Instead of getting a PC, a cheaper alternative is to buy an Xbox. The major PC games (Doom 3, Half Life 2, Deus Ex 2) are all going to be released on the Xbox. And there are always a few "exclusive" good games like Halo/Halo 2 (the first of which will only be exclusive for about a month or two longer). Plus, MS is selling Xboxes at a loss, in addition to not having first place in the market, so you don't directly advance the monopoly that competes directly with the Mac (Windows)

The XBox is actually an incredible steal if you need the equivalent of a Media Center PC. Just grab a modchip and then install XBox Media Player. Then you can ftp movies/photos/music to the HDD and play them on your TV, or share them on your main system using XNS or SMB and stream them over, it's really pretty amazing.

It's also a good emulator platform (the big plus being you use a console gamepad and a TV for input/output).

Go here if you want to watch the TechTV coverage to get a feel for XBMP:
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/newweb/info_screens.htm
(get the high quality version of the video)