[xterminator]

when can we expect a mac driver update for the geforce2mx? openGL performance of this card rocks, but RAVE still sucks...

[olePigeon]

Geeze, I hope so. I've stuck an ATI back into my G4 because the nVidia was disappointing.

[snodman]

Hopefully all the nVidia claims for great Mac driver support will bear fruit. They SAID all their driver updates would be unified updates including Mac drivers, but Detonator 6.5 has been officially posted for about 10 days now with no Mac update so far. With any luck, they are just busy debugging the OS X MX drivers.

[RDJL27]

Exactly what they are doing . No but really, their driver team is really impressive. Don't complain about Nvidia, if Nvidia can get them done within 8 months and not make any current problems worse like ATI does, you should all be happy. Depending on coditions, you can tweak it so the Nvidia is MUCH fast then the Radeon and Rage 128 Pro, for instance 2 computers that I've seen offer 2 different results. A 466 with a Nvidia outperforms a 533 with the same card in UT with the same settings, and the 466 has less RAM! It's really odd...

[Castor]

All I can say is that Quake III arena and the Oni demo run like a charm with my Nvidia! i am very happy and imagining improved drivers will make me even happier!

[xterminator]

i'm very interested about the UT performance with a geforce2mx. there are lots of quake3 benchmarks at barefeats, xlr8yourmac and macworld.com but i've never seen any UT framerates!
I only heard that UT performance on 533 machines are really disappointing (cause of the rave drivers)

RDJL27, could you post some more information about your UT/nvidia experiences?

[olePigeon]

UT on my DP 533 with the nVidia was about 25 fps @ 1024x768 with high everything.

With the ATI it was average 40 fps. It's terrible.

However, I heard the exact oposite if you're using UT in OpenGL mode. I've yet to get the OpenGL version to even launch.

[snodman]

The trick with the open GL version is to allocate as LITTLE memory as possible to UT (actually, just the default amount but no extra) and leave as much unassigned real RAM as possible available for the Mac OS to grab when UT is running. OpenGL will double (or more) the RAM usage of the OS while UT is running in OpenGL mode.

[Norm1985]

Yes RDJL27... I would be interested as to where you found out that the GeForce2 MX is "so much faster" than the DDR RADEON if you "tweak" it. Considering MacWorld reports better results with the RADEON as opposed to the GeForce2 MX and Rage 128 Pro and that other reports will agree the RADEON (with better drivers) is a better card.

------------------
Mac OS for productivity.
UNIX for stability.
Palm OS for mobility.
Windows for solitaire.

[xterminator]

25fps?? this is very disappointing. i hope that nvidia will release a driver update as fast as they can. today would be great

do you expect higher UT framerates in openGL mode?
In Quake3 (640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768), the geforce2 is faster than the radeon without any tweaking.

[Norm1985]

Actually, look at MacWorld.com, they have a report about the DDR RADEON vs. GeForce2 MX vs. Rage 128 Pro... The RADEON BEAT the GeForce2 MX in 800x600 and 1024x768. In 640x480, the GeForce2 MX was king.

------------------
Mac OS for productivity.
UNIX for stability.
Palm OS for mobility.
Windows for solitaire.

[mrchin]

I just picked up an OEM Radeon card to replace my Rage 128Pro in my Dual 450. So should I switch my UT to Open GL or leave it on Rave? I haven't even tried to launch it yet. And doesn't that mean like going into the UT .ini file and changing some line to Open GL? I don't wanna have to reinstall UT since it's got like a ton of crap already loaded into it.

[olePigeon]

Keep it in RAVE. ATI actually does that pretty well, more than I can say for nVidia.

Not to mention, I've never gotten the OpenGL version of UT to work properly.

[snodman]

Right, RAVE is to ATI practically what Glide was to 3dfx. The ATI chipsets and drivers have great RAVE optimizations (better than their openGL ones).

[Norm1985]

I believe that Quake III is in OpenGL, and yet still outperforms the GeForce2 MX.

------------------
Mac OS for productivity.
UNIX for stability.
Palm OS for mobility.
Windows for solitaire.

[snodman]

Quake III is openGL for sure. At 32 bits the Radeon really shows well. On paper the Radeon is a better card than the MX, although the standard GF-2 benchmarks mostly ahead of the Radeon on PCs. The MX compares to the regular GF-2 much like a G3 does to a G4 on a Mac. The MX is missing some rendering pipelines, but is still based on a fast processor. In some games there isn't much of a penalty using an MX, but in games that push a card to the limits you really see the difference. The only way an MX will beat a Radeon on a Mac is if the NVIDIA drivers are way better than the ATI ones. It could happen, but the rev 1 drivers we have today for both cards give the Radeon some clear edge.

[Cake]

Originally posted by xterminator:
i'm very interested about the UT performance with a geforce2mx. there are lots of quake3 benchmarks at barefeats, xlr8yourmac and macworld.com but i've never seen any UT framerates!
I only heard that UT performance on 533 machines are really disappointing (cause of the rave drivers)

UT under Rave looked so bad on my 533DP that I popped in my Voodoo5 from my old Beige G3 just so I could run UT under Glide!
The frame rates were definitely improved over my old system, but with my V5, UT is blisteringly fast! (well, much better than I'm used to!)
I'll get some specific numbers and post them here asap.

[xterminator]

could you post some geforce2mx framerates too? then we can compare them.

[ginoledesma]

I'm curious. As the GeForce2MX card is OEMed by Apple, who will be doing the driver update? Will it be Apple or nVidia?

[Cake]

Originally posted by xterminator:
could you post some geforce2mx framerates too? then we can compare them.

OK, I had to work all night (on an amazing series for PBS, so I'm not complaining) and I'm kinda tired, but I ran the city intro of UT (v.436) at High and Low quality with my Voodoo5. I have a 533DP/384Mb RAM/OS9.1. Here's what I got:

• Everything on High (World Texture,Skin detail,Decals on,Dyn. Lighting on,Min Desired Framerate set to 0)
• 640x480 43.81fps
• 800x600 43.54fps
• 1024x768 42.30fps
• 1280x1024 38.65
• Everything on Low(World Texture,Skin Detail,Decals off,Dyn. Lighting off,Min Desired Framerate set to 0)
• 640x480 46.32
• 800x600 45.47
• 1024x768 44.56
• 1280x1024 41.55

I need a bit of sleep, but I'll do the GeForce2 MX later today. I'll also reload UT and run the Wicked400 demo for both cards (I think it requires v.400 of UT).
See you all then!

[RDJL27]

Sorry guys, haven't checked back here in a while. As it goes, I shut off VM on both machines, allocated the same amount of RAM to each UT App, and ran the tests. They tested nearly the same, at 1024x768 on the 466 got 31, and the 533 got 35. 800x600 it was 39, 43. Diddn't do the low res, all were done on all high textures. Oh one more thing, just like on the PC side, these MXs can be overclocked.... The problem with the current drivers is how the work with Rave, and games. They just don't do well. Another thing, the Nvidia does better at some games then others, it LOOKS like Oni runs faster with the Nvidia, in a few days I'll get the FPS results (there are Dev. Codes). Oh yes, one last thing, the Macworld reports some of you read with the Radeon winning, those were ATI reports. Nvidia offered reports showing the oposite. But now it seems even more different then the reports had shown.

[Norm1985]

I have gotten 46FPS on 1024x768 on RAVE with a RADEON on Unreal Tournament.

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Mac OS for productivity.
UNIX for stability.
Palm OS for mobility.
Windows for solitaire.

[Norm1985]

RDJL27, I really feel you have a bias against ATi or for nVidia... You need to be objective with these tests. By the way, I am planing on getting an Ultra card when and if it comes for Mac from nVidia! That's better than the RADEON, but the MX is worse than the DDR RADEON!

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Mac OS for productivity.
UNIX for stability.
Palm OS for mobility.
Windows for solitaire.

[RDJL27]

I am being objective, I was giving the results I got, as well as the truth... I diddn't actually say one was better then the other, the results are different everywhere you look. You are the one lacking objetivity, for you just said the Radeon is better, it's not just wait till OS X.... Apple diddn't just decide to get the other card because it was different, but because ATI was doing poorly, compare the Radeon results on a Mac to a PC....

[Milio]

Originally posted by ginoledesma:
I'm curious. As the GeForce2MX card is OEMed by Apple, who will be doing the driver update? Will it be Apple or nVidia?

It's a very good question. On the PC side, the card manufacturers have their set of drivers based on the NVIDIA ones, and then there are the drivers directly from NVIDIA. Either work, the drivers from NVIDIA are obviously more up to date, but the manufacturer's drivers may offer additional features either specific to their card, or just to add neat stuff.

I would guess that since Apple hasn't released updated Radeon drivers, even though ATI has for the retail card, that we shouldn't count on Apple to come through for us.

[Norm1985]

ATi was doing poorly because of their driver support... Not because of their hardware... The DDR RADEONs do have better results than any other card except for the nVidia GeForce 2 GTS, Pro, and Ultra.

------------------
Mac OS for productivity.
UNIX for stability.
Palm OS for mobility.
Windows for solitaire.

[Cake]

Originally posted by Cake:
OK, I had to work all night (on an amazing series for PBS, so I'm not complaining) and I'm kinda tired, but I ran the city intro of UT (v.436) at High and Low quality with my Voodoo5. I have a 533DP/384Mb RAM/OS9.1. Here's what I got:

• Everything on High (World Texture,Skin detail,Decals on,Dyn. Lighting on,Min Desired Framerate set to 0)
• 640x480 43.81fps
• 800x600 43.54fps
• 1024x768 42.30fps
• 1280x1024 38.65
• Everything on Low(World Texture,Skin Detail,Decals off,Dyn. Lighting off,Min Desired Framerate set to 0)
• 640x480 46.32
• 800x600 45.47
• 1024x768 44.56
• 1280x1024 41.55

I need a bit of sleep, but I'll do the GeForce2 MX later today. I'll also reload UT and run the Wicked400 demo for both cards (I think it requires v.400 of UT).
See you all then!

Here are my NVIDIA GeForce2 MX results:

• Everything on High/32-Bit/Rave (World Texture,Skin detail,Decals on,Dyn. Lighting on,Min Desired Framerate set to 0)
• 640x480 38.31
• 800x600 27.25
• 1024x768 17.71

• Everything on High/16-Bit/Rave (World Texture,Skin detail,Decals on,Dyn. Lighting on,Min Desired Framerate set to 0)
• 640x480 45.10
• 800x600 39.54
• 1024x768 31.68

I guess the GeForce doesn't support 1280x1024 because the highest I could go in the video preferences in UT was 1024x768.
Sorry I didn't have time to run the Wicked400 tests on both cards yet - real life often intrudes on my fun.

[Norm1985]

None of RAVE supports resolutions higher than 1024x768 in Unreal Tournament. This includes the nVidia GeForce2 MX ADC, ATi RADEON ADC, ATi RADEON Retail, ATi Rage 128 Pro, etc.

------------------
Mac OS for productivity.
UNIX for stability.
Palm OS for mobility.
Windows for solitaire.

[This message has been edited by Norm1985 (edited 02-19-2001).]

[xterminator]

thanks for this benchmarks. UT Performance with the nvidia card is really disappointing. I think if I would buy a 533SP or DP now, I would choose the Radeon, because i play more UT than Q3.
I hope the MacOS X Drivers will be full featured with FSAA and Bump Mapping (on both cards)

If anybody here has a g4/533 384megs and a Radeon, please post some UT benchmarks!

thx

[Norm1985]

Even with Quake III Arena, you'll get better results with the ATi RADEON 32meg DDR ADC than with the nVidia GeForce2 MX 32meg SDRAM ADC. It was proven in several tests I've viewed. The only time you won't get better results is if you put your resolution to 640x480. Other resolutions you'll get better results.

------------------
Mac OS for productivity.
UNIX for stability.
Palm OS for mobility.
Windows for solitaire.

[oscar]

These games should all be run in opengl, as I think you'll get better results with that, rather then rave

[Norm1985]

Except for Unreal Tournament... For some odd reason, on Mac OpenGL in Unreal Tournament (and ONLY in Unreal Tournament), you actually get worse results and graphics quality on RAVE.

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Mac OS for productivity.
UNIX for stability.
Palm OS for mobility.
Windows for solitaire.

[macway]

The Radeon card is about the best thing ATi can do and the Geforce2 MX is "worst" thing nVidia can pump out their doors, right? That pretty much says it all. I mean, if the G2 MX even comes close to the Radeon (which it does) and sometimes even beats it I think that bodes well for the future as we'll be getting more high-end nVidia cards (geforce 3 for one) as we go along.

[This message has been edited by macway (edited 02-20-2001).]

[Cake]

My feelings exactly, macway.
I'm glad ATi's there for competition purposes, but NVIDIA is the future of high-end cards for the Mac as far as I care.