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Faster PCI video card?? (PowerMac 8500)
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Junior Member
Join Date: Oct 2002
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Well, I'm thinking that slow video is now the bottleneck on my 8500. The system runs really well overall, but scrolling and things like that really crawl.
First of all, do you think a better video card will help? If so, what is a good one that is relatively cheap? I'm not really concerned with 3D/gaming performance, just need quick 2D for graphics, web browsing, and whatnot. Thanks guys..
-Jason
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Here and there
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Yes, a faster video card can make a huge difference. The best PCI video card available for Macintosh is the ATI Radeon 7000 PCI (or was it 7500 PCI?). It should improve performance big time.
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"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one
pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside,
thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting GERONIMO!"
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Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2002
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jasonyates,
To chime in: The best PCI graphics card that I ever had running in my G4 was a flashed Visiontek GeForce2MX 64MB. It flew under 9, and worked well under early (10.0.x) releases of OS X. With the advent of 10.1, however, the card stopped working in X (oh, a sad day indeed). I purchased a Radeon 7000 32MB for compatibility with X (10.1 -> 10.2.2) and have been happy. For Photoshop, Office and the Java IDEs that I run, 2D performance has been trouble free. For OpenGL games, you'll notice the PCI bus, and absence of HW T&L - but I managed to play through RTCW at ~30fps, give or take (but state in your post that this isn't your primary concern anyway).
A new vid card should help - but you are also constrained by your system bus - running between ~40-50MHz (depending on processor speed). At 45MHz, you've got a peak bandwidth of (4.5x10^7 Cycles/sec * 4Bytes/cycle = 180MB/sec). This is assuming that your PCI slots are only 32 bits wide (I don't think that the 8500 had a 64bit PCI slot for video, and I can't find documentation from Apple detailing this). By way of comparison, the 100MHz bus based Yikes! had a peak bandwidth of 800MB/sec to the video card sitting in the 64bit slot.
Ultimately you should see some improvement - but its hard to say how much. Out of curiosity, are you upgrading from the on-board video, or another 3rd party card? You might even consider a used Rage 128 Pro if you can find one cheaply enough.
/cincinnatus
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Junior Member
Join Date: Oct 2002
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I'm upgrading from the onboard video. I also have a Voodoo3 card but it doesn't do much better without the right drivers. I could probably make the Voodoo card work, but since I am not into gaming I thought there might be a card with better 2D performance out there. The Voodoo drivers are "beta" and designed primarily just to allow you to use the 3D acceleration in games.
As far as the ATI cards go, do they have their own software for setup, or is it just integrated into the Monitors/Sound control panel or whatever?
-Jason
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Here and there
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Forget the Voodoo3. I�ve had one in my PowerMac 7300, it�s great for 3D games but the 2D acceleration is just terrible, even more than that. So stay away from that video card.
As for the ATI: I don�t know for sure, but I think they have both, their own software plus they can be configured with the Monitor/Sound Panel. Not sure though, depends on the card. Why is that an issue anyway?
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"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one
pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside,
thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting GERONIMO!"
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