[Fink-Nottle]

A client of mine has ordered a G4/2*1000 and is going to let me have his old G4/400 AGP at a good price. I want to replace the Rage 128 graphic card with something good but I' m wondering if it's worth shelling out for a top of the line card (ie. GeForce 3/4 or Radeon 8500) given the speed of the processor. I don't want to spend extra money if the computer can't take advantage of it and the Radeon 7000 and GeForce 2 cards are much cheaper. Any wisdom here would be appreciated.

(Oops! I forgoto mention that my main concerns are performance in Unreal Tournament, Quake III and Photoshop... in that order.)

[ 02-01-2002: Message edited by: Fink-Nottle ]

[Crazy ebot]

One thing to note is availability for a Geoforce card for the 400mhz G4 AGP. As far as I know, Apple is the only company making Nvidia cards for the Mac, and the 400mhz G4 has a x2 AGP slot, wheras as Apple cards only fit a x4 AGP slot.

Basically, what this means is you can't put a Apple Radeon card into your x2 AGP mac. I've tried - the actual slot is physically different in it's configuration. It also means that you can't put any Apple Nvidia card in there.

This only leaves you with one choice (unless you want to screw around with flashing the ram of a PC graphics card, dodgy stuff), and that is to purchase an ATI retail card, which is currently the Radeon 7500.

In the end, only one option. *sigh* That's how I see it anyway. I'd love to hear of any other options, I'd like to be able to play Tactical Ops on something other than my 16meg ATI card ... :-)

Tobes.

[ranga]

If you can find someone to lend you a PC, I would recommend
getting a PNY Vertio GeForce 2 MX 400 (64 MB) and flashing
it with a Mac ROM. XLR8 has very good instructions on how to
do this. You may not even need to flash the card as some of
the newer ones have the Mac ROM burned in at the factory and
work fine in a Mac out of the box.

I have this card in my G4/400 AGP and it works great. I haven't
had any problems with it and the card is much faster than the
standard Rage 128 Pro.

HTH,

--ranga

[tr]

One thing to note is availability for a Geoforce card for the 400mhz G4 AGP. As far as I know, Apple is the only company making Nvidia cards for the Mac, and the 400mhz G4 has a x2 AGP slot, wheras as Apple cards only fit a x4 AGP slot.

i don't think this has to do with the AGP slot. an AGP slot is an AGP slot is an AGP slot, be it 2x, 4x, or 8x; it's a standard interface. what is different with the apple nvidia card, as well as the apple radeon cards, is that it has contacts for ADC, to power the apple monitors in the systems that have ADC ports. so you are right in saying that an ADC AGP card won't work in a sawtooth (first gen G4 w/AGP).

This only leaves you with one choice (unless you want to screw around with flashing the ram of a PC graphics card, dodgy stuff), and that is to purchase an ATI retail card, which is currently the Radeon 7500.

well, not counting flashing a pc geforce2mx card, there are 3 choices. unfortunately (or fortunately), the solutions are all from ati: Radeon 8500 (AGP), Radeon 7000 (PCI), original Radeon (AGP and PCI).

check out this ques/ans session with ati about the new mac cards:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/...interview.html


as for flashing a pc card, i found this on xlr8yourmac.com:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/..._geforce3.html

personally, i'd go with the 8500...that is, when it comes out, and when i can afford it!


tr

[tr]

Originally posted by ranga:
<STRONG>If you can find someone to lend you a PC, I would recommend
getting a PNY Vertio GeForce 2 MX 400 (64 MB) and flashing
it with a Mac ROM. XLR8 has very good instructions on how to
do this. You may not even need to flash the card as some of
the newer ones have the Mac ROM burned in at the factory and
work fine in a Mac out of the box.

I have this card in my G4/400 AGP and it works great. I haven't
had any problems with it and the card is much faster than the
standard Rage 128 Pro.

HTH,

--ranga</STRONG>

hey ranga, i have one question: have you ever tried using Connectix Virtual Game Station with your geforce 2mx card installed? i thought i read somewhere that it only works with ati hardware, but i could be mistaken.

thanks!

tr

[Crazy ebot]

Originally posted by ranga:
<STRONG>If you can find someone to lend you a PC, I would recommend
getting a PNY Vertio GeForce 2 MX 400 (64 MB) and flashing
it with a Mac ROM. XLR8 has very good instructions on how to
do this. You may not even need to flash the card as some of
the newer ones have the Mac ROM burned in at the factory and
work fine in a Mac out of the box.

I have this card in my G4/400 AGP and it works great. I haven't
had any problems with it and the card is much faster than the
standard Rage 128 Pro.

HTH,

--ranga</STRONG>

Coolio, thanks for the info Ranga & tr. I'll try hunting down that Geoforce MX as the ATI offerings here in Western Australia are pretty pricey. the original ATI radeon was around AU $800 when it first came out (that's about $400 US). Even now they still cost around AU $540 ... the PC geoforce cards seem much cheaaper for the specs. :-)

I've read the XLR8 articles also ... sounded a bit daunting for a novice like me, but if they're burning the mac rom onto the board now ... still, wish I'd bought a computer with a cheap & easy upgrade path.

Cheers,

Tobes.

[ranga]

hey ranga, i have one question: have you ever tried using Connectix Virtual Game Station with your geforce 2mx card installed? i thought i read somewhere that it only works with ati hardware, but i could be mistaken.

I don't know if it works with my current card, but it did work with my
previous card (Hercules 3D Prophet GeForce 2 MX 32 MB). If I can
find my VGS cd, I'll install it and see how well GT plays.

--ranga

[tr]

Originally posted by ranga:
<STRONG>

I don't know if it works with my current card, but it did work with my
previous card (Hercules 3D Prophet GeForce 2 MX 32 MB). If I can
find my VGS cd, I'll install it and see how well GT plays.

--ranga</STRONG>

yeah, i'm thinking about getting a new card, and i'd really like VGS to work with it...good to know that you had succes with VGS using the Hercules. i haven't heard anyone with nvidia cards running VGS...maybe people just don't use VGS, or like psx games. for me, it's one of the only reasons i still boot into 9.


tr

[ 02-05-2002: Message edited by: tr ]

[superlarry]

Originally posted by tr:
<STRONG>i don't think this has to do with the AGP slot. an AGP slot is an AGP slot is an AGP slot, be it 2x, 4x, or 8x; it's a standard interface. what is different with the apple nvidia card, as well as the apple radeon cards, is that it has contacts for ADC, to power the apple monitors in the systems that have ADC ports. so you are right in saying that an ADC AGP card won't work in a sawtooth (first gen G4 w/AGP).
</STRONG>

sorta. a 4x AGP card will work in a 2x AGP slot - it just won't run at full speed. which means a big sacrifice in performance.

i had a rage 128 pro in my 450 MHz cube and i upgraded to a geforce2 mx from a tower. i notice a significant difference, but when i used a powermac 867 Mhz the other day with the same card, the video was practically flying. my point is that for your 400 or my 450, any card higher than a geforce2 mx is probably overkill, especially if the difference in cost between the geforce2 and 3 is still significant.

[Fink-Nottle]

Hi all,

Thanks for the input. Annoyingly the question may have become hypothetical as my client has decided to give the G4 to his daughter rather than sell it to me cheap. Still, this is good info as I do want to upgrade from my iMac as soon as I can convince my wife it's necessary... :-)

Cheers!

[tr]

Originally posted by superlarry:
<STRONG>

sorta. a 4x AGP card will work in a 2x AGP slot - it just won't run at full speed. which means a big sacrifice in performance.
.</STRONG>

i understand that, and it's to be expected, but what i was replying to in my post was Crazy ebot's comment that a 4x AGP card will not physically fit in a 2x AGP slot.