[shocktrooper]

I�ve been doing a lot of online gaming recently, and have become interested in upgrading my 533 MHz G4's video card for better game performance. I do not, however, have a solid understanding of the relationship between the video card and game performance, and so am unsure what card would best serve my needs.

To begin, installed right now is the GeForce2 MX that came with my G4. While this card has served me well, I find it increasingly difficult to compete with the other jokers who have bigger and better processors and video cards. My initial research (and impulse) was to replace it with the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition, but I became unsure whether my system would be able to drive this card adequately enough to justify the expense.

A lot of my confusion stems from conflicting opinions. Some people I have spoke with have said to go for it because the video card is more crucial than the processor speed in gaming; others, however, have said almost the opposite, maintaining that my machine�s processor speed would not be able to wring any justifiable frame rate increase from the 9800 Pro. I have also perused a number of forums and found just as much divergent opinion.

On top of that, ATI isn�t any help, since they don�t really indicate what machines would benefit most from the 9800 Pro. All the tests I have looked up seem all to be on 1 Ghz single or dual machines or better, which is really no help to me at all. Another concern is that the 9800 Pro apparently does not support OS 9 (you have to use OS X 10.2.5 or better). While I boot into classic less and less these days, I still occasionally need to.

Buried in the above are a number of unstated questions, which I will sum up as follows:

1. In a nutshell, to what degree do the video card and processor work together and how does this affect the gaming experience?
2. What kind of performance increase could I realistically expect to see were I to install the 9800 pro? Would my machine even be able to drive this card adequately enough to justify its expense?
3. Could I ever boot directly into OS 9 with the 9800 Pro?
4. If the 9800 Pro is not the answer for my system, what video card do you think would be, and would it allow me to boot directly into OS 9?

I guess those are the most important questions I can think of right now. If there is any additional information that you think I should know regarding this issue, I would be very glad to hear it.

For the record, I do intend to pounce on a G5 sometime late next year, when the processor speeds upgrade and the hardware has matured a bit more; but in the meantime I don�t want my online gaming to suffer. Incidentally, I will be posting this message to a couple other forums at this and other web sites.

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can give me,


- Shock Trooper

[rhogue islander]

I think that a 9800 Pro retail would probably be overkill, unless you plan on a new machine or cpu upgrade in the near future. I doubt that your machine is maxing out the capacity of the gf2 mx as it is.

Instead of spending all that money on a 9800 Pro, a better strategy might be to purchase a cpu upgrade (OWC has a single 1.25ghz cpu upgrade for $449) and then go ahead and get a faster graphics card later.

Just think: every operation on your machine would be significantly accelerated.

At that point I would recommend an Ati 9000, 9100 or Geforce4ti.

[bstone]

I got a Radeon 8500 128mb card in my Sawtooth G4. I love it!

[reader50]

You would benefit from an upgrade to an 8500 or 9000, enough to see a visible frame rate increase. Going to the 9800 Pro on your current system would give little additional benefit in today's games, and might or might not benefit future games. Between the 8500 and 9000, the 8500 is marginally more powerful.

The 9800 will boot into OS9, but there will be no graphics acceleration.

The 8500 or 9000 are the likely best bets, especially if you play games that run faster in OS9. Future games will require those cards or better for decent performance, along with far more CPU. Neither Doom3 nor Half Life 2 would play well on your system unless you upgraded the video card and the CPU.

If you do plan to seriously upgrade the CPU, then you would see a benefit from choosing the 9800 over the other cards.

[csimon2]

Having recently done a number of upgrades at work for our 500mhz macs, I can say that without upgrading the processor, a new video card isn't going to help all that much. I purchased some Radeon 8500s to replace the Rage 128 Pro we had already installed. Playing games that aren't too old (UT, Quake 3, Harry Potter, Jedi Knight II, MoH) with the 500mhz G4 did not result in that great of a jump in framerates or quality in OS X. It was certainly an improvement, but it didn't make the kind of noticable jump I was expecting. (Playing in OS 9 was much improved however with this setup.) But, after installing a 1.4GHz G4 upgrade from OWC, the improvements were tenfold. Framerates were at least double of what I achieving before and made many of the games much more playable.

OWC currently has a bundle of their excellent Mercury Extreme Processor G4 1.25 (which can be easily overclocked) and a GeForce4MX for $520. I have the GeForce4 Titanium in my Dual G4 1.25 and it rocks. The MX isn't as powerful as the Ti, but for your system, I imagine it would be more than enough. Afterall, your system is more limited by the motherboard and bus speed than anything else. BTW, a Radeon 9800 Pro doesn't even reach its full potential in a Dual G4 1.42GHz machine. So, yes, the 9800 would be overkill.

[DrBoar]

Started with adding a ATI 8500 in a G4/400. Now framerate was indepenedent on resolution (Quake III 320x240 to 1280x1024, the highest I tested) So the card was outpacing the CPU to that res at least. The ATI 218pro card gor into trouble above 800x600

Adding a faster CPU would outpace the ATI128 at lower resolutions a 1.2 Ghz well below 640x480
That card will match a 1.2 Ghz G4 up to 1280x1024 or so. So unless you play curren games at 1600x1200 you really do not need a 9800 card. when you really need a 9800 card you will need more then G4s anyhow...

[jfinete]

Either the Radeon 8500 or 9000 would be a good upgrade for any G4. Both cards cost about the same and have similar performance. The 8500 card has VGA and DVI ports while the 9000 has DVI and ADC ports and includes a DVI-VGA adapter. So if you have one of Apple's ADC monitors, get the 9000.