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milhous · Aug 31, 2002, 02:11 AM

Ok, I have a test for you guys.

Could you please turn on CPU monitor and after doing so, can you enable dock magnification. As you scrub through the dock as it's resizing the icons on the fly, can you tell me if your CPU monitor is drastically spiking or is it remaining constant as you do this? Can you also just drag a Finder window around and see if the CPU spikes?

I'm just trying to get a feel of how QE is handling this sort of stuff. My friend and I who both have Quicksilver 867's with geforce2mx's are noticing spikes when we do this. My friend's uncle's G4500 with a Radeon 8500 is also noticing spikes when scrubbing through the dock and moving Finder windows. I just want to see if the GeForce4Ti is going to make a difference in stuff like this. When you post, also list what model Mac you're running as well as how much RAM you have. Thanks.

cdrgonzo20 · Aug 31, 2002, 04:32 AM

I have a G4 733, 512mb ram... I think everybody's hope for Quartz Extreme was really somewhat overblown. For what it does it is great, all of the things that were once somewhat iffy (dock magnification, genie effect, multiple video streams) are a lot more solid. However, the CPU does still spike to a little over 50% when doing dock magnification. The GeForce Ti, or any other graphics card will not solve this problem in X.2.

The good news is that the GeForce Ti is a great card, and runs every game (except MoH) at full quality and rediculously high settings. Max Payne, which I personally believe looks better than MoH, can run full quality with antialiasing and not drop below 30 fps, most of the time pushing 60 fps. Warcraft III plays like a dream, no issues whatsoever.

So, your not going to be able to run 5 quicktime movies while toying with the dock smoothly, but things that were questionable in 10.1 are now very solid. Don't buy the card for Quartz Extreme performance, you'd be wasting your money. Buy it for games (some may say your still wasting your money), dual display support, and generally better graphics performance.

Buck_Naked · Sep 2, 2002, 09:47 PM

I will say everything seems to be working great together.
Faster
Smoother
Responsive
Castle Wolfenstein works awesome and plays great.
Max Payne, great too.
I watched the CPU monitor on my machine and it will jump up to (I'm just guessing/estimating) 25% to 35%.

TheMosco · Sep 2, 2002, 11:52 PM

think Secret says that 10.2.1 is supposed to optimize Quartz Extreme better for some configurations.

oscar · Sep 3, 2002, 04:27 AM

QE is at its infancy, its the first opengl windowing system, im aware of, so I'm sure the kinks will be worked out. Just imagine, Apple tweaking it, and in 2-3 years when the graphics card make the 8500 look like a ATI 128m one word "Sweet"

eddiecatflap · Sep 3, 2002, 10:41 AM

..thats the exciting thing about X - the future.

LeeG · Sep 3, 2002, 08:23 PM

yeah, that's what the future's gonna be like, the future's gonna rule!

Footy · Sep 3, 2002, 11:05 PM

Concidering buying a Ti card myself for my 867. Can someone tell me about the install as pertaining for software. Will my 867 just regocnise it when I restart after the install?

Thanks

ratlater · Sep 4, 2002, 06:00 AM

Originally posted by Footy:
Concidering buying a Ti card myself for my 867. Can someone tell me about the install as pertaining for software. Will my 867 just regocnise it when I restart after the install?

Thanks

Yes, if you buy the Apple card it should just work.

-matt

Buck_Naked · Sep 4, 2002, 09:47 AM

Originally posted by ratlater:

Yes, if you buy the Apple card it should just work.

-matt

Yes it will 'Just work'
I replaced the GF3 in my Dual800 with no problems/ drivers/ headaches.
Honestly though. Some times I'm hard pressed to tell much of a difference in day to day tasks with the GF4.
But games will be a whole other story.

Footy · Sep 4, 2002, 09:56 PM

Originally posted by Buck_Naked:

Yes it will 'Just work'
I replaced the GF3 in my Dual800 with no problems/ drivers/ headaches.
Honestly though. Some times I'm hard pressed to tell much of a difference in day to day tasks with the GF4.
But games will be a whole other story.

Thank you!

My next question would be to ask in what ways will I notice a real differance with the Ti compaired to my MX2 card? Gaming? Well, the few games I have seem to run fine with my current card. But I am planning of buying the new version of Hornet Korea for OSX from Graph Sim when it comes out in a few months. Hmmm....

bradexample · Sep 4, 2002, 10:17 PM

the difference in games between the 2mx and the 4ti (i've had both in my dual 533) is mainly the ability to run at higher resolution with no performance penalty. quake 3 on the 4ti running at 1280x1024 is faster than the 2mx at 800x600, and looks so much sweeter. worth 400 bucks? that's a very personal decision. quartz extreme on dual-displays is a nice plus. now if only i could justify the cost of the powerlogix dual gig upgrade......

Footy · Sep 4, 2002, 10:28 PM

Originally posted by bradexample:
the difference in games between the 2mx and the 4ti (i've had both in my dual 533) is mainly the ability to run at higher resolution with no performance penalty. quake 3 on the 4ti running at 1280x1024 is faster than the 2mx at 800x600, and looks so much sweeter. worth 400 bucks? that's a very personal decision. quartz extreme on dual-displays is a nice plus. now if only i could justify the cost of the powerlogix dual gig upgrade......

Damn, guess I'm going to have to buy one.

Thank you.

Edit: Now how do I do this without my wife knowing? Anyone?

Naaa, I have and idea.

Footy · Sep 5, 2002, 06:59 PM

Oh my God!!! I did it, I just went over to Apple's site and click a few bottons. The GF4Ti has just been ordered, now how to pay for it.

Anywho, I think I'm excited about it since one of my favorite sims of all time is being ported over the OSX as we speak.

Think this baby will help it run?

I used my wife again too, since it's her being a teacher that gets me the education discount. I'll "thank" her later

but I wont say what for.

Blake Bowden · Sep 7, 2002, 01:30 AM

I recently ordered and received one of the new 1ghz DP Mirror powermacs with the standard Radeon 9000. Although it was a decent card, and fairly good gaming performance I wanted a little more. I just got back from Fry's tonight and bought a Titanium GF4...what a difference. It's not just games, but the overall feel of the OS seems faster..for example scrolling in IE seems alot smoother and snappy. Weird thing is that I put in the drivers CD and it said that it was incompatible with the current system. I assume Jaguar has the GF4 Ti drivers built in. Overall pretty happy with it...off to play Q3 team arena!