Radeon 9000 -> GeForce4 Ti

[Nermal]

I'm considering upgrading the Radeon 9000 Pro in my MDD G4 (1.25 GHz, 1.25 GB) to a GeForce4 Ti.

The games I play, and how well they run:
Halo (plays well, but low-res)
Jedi Academy (horrible)
Neverwinter Nights (good)
Quake 3 (excellent)
Warcraft 3 (excellent)
RTCW (good)

And I hope to get Doom 3 once it comes out. Does anyone know whether the performance boost will be "worth it"? The total cost will be around $100-$150, depending on how much I can sell my old Radeon for.

[crazzyeddie]

I would strongly consider that you get a Radeon 9800 instead. The Retail version offers you FSAA and AF overrides for any game. Also the 9800 will be faster, as the GF4Ti is an older card.

[yamabushi]

If you are looking for the best value for your money, this review by Tom's Hardware (http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-charts-16.html) might help. The R9000 and GF4Ti cards are listed in the benchmarks which include DirectX 8 cards.

[amnesiac1984]

I have the same setup as you and jedi academy runs really well, much better than halo. In fact I have a slower CPU than you (Dual 1ghz MDD).

[Nermal]

Originally posted by crazzyeddie
I would strongly consider that you get a Radeon 9800 instead. The Retail version offers you FSAA and AF overrides for any game. Also the 9800 will be faster, as the GF4Ti is an older card.

Yeah, but there's no way I can afford a 9800 :eek:

[Nermal]

Originally posted by amnesiac1984
I have the same setup as you and jedi academy runs really well, much better than halo. In fact I have a slower CPU than you (Dual 1ghz MDD).

I wonder if it being a dual's got anything to do with it, do you know if Academy is MP-aware?

[Dont Hurt Me]

also you have to consider Adc, if you have a monitor with adc you are limited unless you get a $100 adapter for 9800. the geforce 4 titanium will allow a bump in your resolution but you arent going to gain much in frame rates. a higher card will run the higher resolutions better with more candy but they dont give you frames as some would let you think. you have to feed the card and with poor ports and G4s that have slow clocks its pretty hard to feed these cards with a G4. you dont say what os you are using so if using Jag going to panther should help. bumping that ram to a gig or more helps to.

[Nermal]

Originally posted by yamabushi
If you are looking for the best value for your money, this review by Tom's Hardware (http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-charts-16.html) might help. The R9000 and GF4Ti cards are listed in the benchmarks which include DirectX 8 cards.

That was very helpful. Of the 4 games in that list that I play, a GF4 will, on average, make it 61% faster.

[Nermal]

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
you have to feed the card and with poor ports and G4s that have slow clocks its pretty hard to feed these cards with a G4.

Yes, I'm concerned about getting a card that's "too good" for my system. The reason I'm considering the GF4, other than price, is the fact that it is listed as one of Apple's BTO options for my system, and therefore should work well with it (presumably that's sensible logic?).

I'm running Panther, and already have over a gig of memory.

[crazzyeddie]

What Apple says isnt always best lol... a GF4 is nice, but only ok as far as todays graphics go.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Originally posted by Nermal
That was very helpful. Of the 4 games in that list that I play, a GF4 will, on average, make it 61% faster. remember to look at the resolutions at toms hardware, at high resolutions you will notice a difference but also keep in mind these are not open gl frames you are looking at. they are directx. different animal. what resolutions are you playing. why iam asking is because if you take a 9000 vs a geforce4titanium at say 800x 600 there will be almost no difference but as you crank up the resolution the 9000 will fall further back so its not that you are gaining frames you simply are not loosing them as resolutions go higher.

[Nermal]

I suppose I'm making myself look like a bit of an idiot by leaving out all this important stuff :(

Basically, I'm pushing up the res as high as I can, until it gets too slow to play. So for games like Quake 3 and Warcraft 3, I'm running at 1024x768 (the highest this old CRT supports), but Halo's at 640x480.

I realise that OpenGL and DirectX are different, but is it wrong to assume that the performance difference will be similar?

[Dont Hurt Me]

geforce4 Titanium is a Great 1024x768 card, the 9000 is a great 800x600 card when it comes to FPS. those comparisons at toms Hardware are probably being Fed or pushed by a Intel 3.0 or 3.2. remember the dual 1.42 was getting its butt kicked by single 3.0 Intels. I had seen some great comparisons with open gl cards on Mac. i think inside mac games had them. ill look around. There ought to be a lot of Mac users here running a Geforce4Tit. Arn has one but not sure if he games on it. hopefully somebody with a dual g4 can comment.

[Dont Hurt Me]

here try thishttp://www.insidemacgames.com/hardware/ click on the 9800 in the video reviews and they do a very in depth comparison on your dual 1.25 with everycard you can put in that thing. enjoy:)

[Nermal]

Except that don't compare with the nVidia cards, apparently they couldn't get hold of any :(

BTW, I've only got a single 1.25, but I guess that doesn't make much difference. I've never owned a duallie (Mac or PC) so I'm not sure how much difference it makes in the "real world".

[CubeHacker]

Getting the Geforce4 would allow you to turn your resolution up, and perhaps some graphics options up without much loss in framerate. However, framerate is more dependant on CPU speed, so a new video card wouldn't help you get much faster framerates over what you have now. A Radeon 9800 Pro, while an awesome video card, would be way overkill for your computer.

[Nermal]

I'm not going to get a 9800, so this is just a hypothetical question:

The ATI website says that the 9800 requires OS 10.2.5. Does this mean that it won't work at all in OS 9? Or does it just mean that some of the advanced features won't work?

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by Nermal
I'm not going to get a 9800, so this is just a hypothetical question:

The ATI website says that the 9800 requires OS 10.2.5. Does this mean that it won't work at all in OS 9? Or does it just mean that some of the advanced features won't work?

It will function like a Radeon 8500 on OS 9, if it works at all.

[MacsRgr8]

Originally posted by Nermal
I'm not going to get a 9800, so this is just a hypothetical question:

The ATI website says that the 9800 requires OS 10.2.5. Does this mean that it won't work at all in OS 9? Or does it just mean that some of the advanced features won't work?

I'm afarid that there will be no grfx acceleration at all in Mac OS 9: 2D (QuickDraw, QuickTime) nor 3D (Rave, OpenGL).

[Nermal]

Right, the 9800 is definitely out of the question then. I might wait for the GF4Ti to drop in price a bit before buying. Or at least wait for the release of Doom3 so I can see how well it runs on my Radeon.

[BIGgui_X_]

Where cna you get a geforce 4 TI to fit in a dual 1.25 G4 ?? except from apple, i cant find any !!

thay are still very expensives !!

thansk !!

[lewdvig]

Too expensive actually. For the money, you can almost get a 9800pro.

At certain point the G4 is going to bottleneck the 9800p. At that point you can tunr up the details and effects like FSAA and AF w/o adversely effecting fps. It's a fine balance that will differ by game, but it is worth it.

I have the exact same MDD and consider it unsuitable for gaming. I have been considering getting the GF4 too, but the cheapest I can find one is $300 CDN. That is a stupid price.

I paid $350 for the 9800np in my PC which I flashed into a 9800xt.

[lewdvig]

Originally posted by Nermal
Right, the 9800 is definitely out of the question then. I might wait for the GF4Ti to drop in price a bit before buying. Or at least wait for the release of Doom3 so I can see how well it runs on my Radeon.

The Doom III alpha showed the 8500/9000 and GF4 are almost equally bad at DoomIII.

The extra ram will make a difference though. The pretty graphics in D3 are a result of BIG texture maps, bump mapping, stencil shadows. The GF4 handles all of these things better.

[Nermal]

Originally posted by BIGgui_X_
Where cna you get a geforce 4 TI to fit in a dual 1.25 G4 ?? except from apple, i cant find any !!

thay are still very expensives !!

thansk !!

$309.49 (http://www.welovemacs.com/nv.html) :)

[alxths]

I think I remember hearing that new games like Doom 3 won't run on geforce 4s...? On PCs at least, I believe it's because they have no directx 9 support...

But I dont really keep up to date on these things so, who knows...

edit: oh, and why has no one yet mentioned the 9600?

[Nermal]

Because it needs a G5.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Originally posted by alxths
I think I remember hearing that new games like Doom 3 won't run on geforce 4s...? On PCs at least, I believe it's because they have no directx 9 support...

But I dont really keep up to date on these things so, who knows...

edit: oh, and why has no one yet mentioned the 9600? Nermal is referring to Geforce4 Titanium. not 4mx that you are thinking about which is an increase of the 2mx. Geforce3 is still a better card then a 4mx. Doom3 will need this or better and 64mb min.