I DEMAND BETTER GRAPHICS CARDS

[jacobj]

I have been reading the thread re the rumoured new specs for the iMac and am inclined to disbelieve the graphics cards specs, but it did get my blood boiling enough to voice one of my main gripes about Apple.

I have never seen a graphics card (except for the new NVIDIA GeForce 6800 that comes as an optional extra) that made me proud to be a mac user.

Now I am not particularly bothered by the puny graphics card in my PB most of the time, but when I work in Photoshop I do frequently bemoan the lack of crunch.

So I am starting this thread to see if others agree.

Have you noticed that on many of the http://www.apple.com/trailers/ trailer pages there are links to Apple games. I'm not a gamer, but please. I have some friends that are serious gamers and they'd never touch a mac because a) most of the decent games aren't available for mac and b) the graphic cards specs are appalling.

Now Apple clearly want their computers to be at the centre of the digital home and in nearly all cases (for me at least) they are bang on target, but for many the lack of gaming is a huge handicap.

I am thinking of buying another computer, and although I always intend to own a mac, I am thinking that my desktop should be a PC, because I can upgrade to serious hardware whenever I want and can play the occassional game that I want to.

Sorry for the long thread, but let's be honest, Apple's are generally bought by those that like, no, love technology. We want to see graphics at their very best. BUT WE CAN'T and I am protesting.

[Mord]

join the ever growing club

as someone mentioned in the main imac thread apple used to do us proud by giveing us cut of the bleeding edge ati 8MB rage cards with imacs but now a 5200 is the lowest of the low

9600xt should be the bare minimum

[broken_keyboard]

I do think that Apple underestimates the importance of games in selling units.

One thing they could have done would be to work with ID to make the G5 + GF6800 the ultimate Doom 3 box. It may seem like a travesty to do that to the G5, but I think they could have sold quite a few. There are people who are absolutely nuts about this game (I don't understand it)

I'm sure that if programmed correctly, 2 x 2.5 GHz can go faster than 1 x P4 3.6, and we have a faster bus and the same video card. So it should be possible.

[Mord]

i hate the way that people think that all the gpu will affect is games, a 5200 on a g5 is a serios bottleneck and slows down the g5 by quite a bit in most applicatios

[bertinman]

i hate the way that people think that all the gpu will affect is games, a 5200 on a g5 is a serios bottleneck and slows down the g5 by quite a bit in most applicatios

what applications?

office? mail? safari? (the usual apps people run)

3D stuff of course, but most apps don't use 3D at all.

I do just fine with my ati9000, and i develop with opengl all the time.

gamers pay more for their machines and apple lets them by offering graphics upgrades. the 9600 and 9800 are perfectly fine for the games out now and coming out this upcoming year. just a few months ago the 9800 was the best card out there.

[Mord]

buying a g5 to surf and check email is insanely stupid, your 9000 is better than a 5200 a geforce 4mx is better than a 5200 a 5200 is just a crappy card, it's just one dose not expect to get lag on core image effects (as my freind that has a g5 with a 5200 had with the 10.4 beta.

a g5 is a quality mac but a 5200 limits it on what macs should be used for, creative content creation.

[Fender2112]

Now that Apple has fully adopted the DVI interface, perhaps we will see better cards from the manufactures.

[iceTrX]

I think Apple needs to beef up the graphics cards. With Core Image and Video coming, we will see a lot of new applications (from novelties to realtime video filters) that will demand a fast GPU. In the future I think the entire OS interface will be completely driven by the GPU (with no need to waste CPU cycles) and things like video encoding/decoding/realtime filters/image manipulation will be more strenuous on the video card then the CPU, I think this is a reason for Apple to start beefing up the GPU that is included with their machines as we should have the GeForce 6 Series and X800 Series of GPU's included on high end PowerMac G5's with workstation models available with Quadro/FireGL cards. I think the iMac should at least have a X600 (9600) in the high end model.

[broken_keyboard]

I think Apple needs to beef up the graphics cards. With Core Image and Video coming, we will see a lot of new applications (from novelties to realtime video filters) that will demand a fast GPU. In the future I think the entire OS interface will be completely driven by the GPU (with no need to waste CPU cycles) and things like video encoding/decoding/realtime filters/image manipulation will be more strenuous on the video card then the CPU, I think this is a reason for Apple to start beefing up the GPU that is included with their machines as we should have the GeForce 6 Series and X800 Series of GPU's included on high end PowerMac G5's with workstation models available with Quadro/FireGL cards. I think the iMac should at least have a X600 (9600) in the high end model.

Yes - good point. It seems a shame for the software guys to do all this hard work to offload stuff to the GPU, and then to ship with a crummy GPU.

If the gap between the CPU and GPU gets too great, it might be faster not to use the new Core Image and Core Video...

[justinshiding]

As much as I'd love to see a 9600xt be a minimum for macs and pcs both. It just doesn't seem to be happening , being these computers (referring to the Imacs) are generally not marketed to people that are going to be using a great deal of highly complex 3d applications or gamers who demand everything turned to high and the resoloution set to the max. They're a consumer machine. What does your average consumer use a computer for , and will a 5200 card do that for them. I would say yes. If you're going to need that extra power...get a powermac where you can actually change the 3d card. On the other hand I totally agree that it seems silly that pm g5's would ship with ship with such a low end card.

On the good side of things , even if the 5200 is a fairly bad card, which it might be, at least it's not nearly as bad as some of the integrated graphics chips low end pcs have. I was looking at benchmarks for the intel extreme integrated whatever...where it was getting 3fps in splitercell (cant recall settings that were used)

[nuckinfutz]

The 5200 fx is the most popular card shipping in Dell and Gateway computers and probably HP too.

The 9600 ATI is used in systems over $1499. The 5200 is a fine card for most Mac users who won't be playing heavy games like Doom III and Half Life.

Remember this imac was supposed to ship 6 weeks ago. It may be the last motherboard for the iMac with AGP as Apple likely moves to PCI Express next year.

Until then if the 17" iMac G5 is available for 1299 it's going to be a hot seller regardless of GPU. That's a nice priced iMac.

[slughead]

The 9600 ATI is used in systems over $1499. The 5200 is a fine card for most Mac users who won't be playing heavy games like Doom III and Half Life.

Uh the 5200 sucks for UT2004 and just about every other FPS released for mac after 2003.

The 5200 was shipped with the 17" imac, it's time for an upgrade.

[CalfCanuck]

Now that Apple has fully adopted the DVI interface, perhaps we will see better cards from the manufactures.

Yeah, this is the only thing that makes me a little optimistic - the move away from unique hardware might be a signal that Apple finally gets it and will move this way in the future.

I'm not demanding bleeding edge stuff, but Apple has been a lagard in this area far too long.

[MacsRgr8]

I do see a slight problem though: 30".

Dual DVI output could mean not being able to get all grfx cards out there to be Mac compatible.
What if ATi don't want (read: too expensive) to build an X800 Pro or XT card with Dual DVI...

ATi has made Retail verisions of their gr8 cards available for Mac without ADC, so maybe they will keep doing so, I mean: just make VGA / DVI cards. Not Apple-specific ones.
Making an X800 card for Mac will be pretty necessary IMHO. Apple needs the competition between nVidia and ATi.

Just let Doom 3 come our way....

[applekid]

I do think that Apple underestimates the importance of games in selling units.

One thing they could have done would be to work with ID to make the G5 + GF6800 the ultimate Doom 3 box. It may seem like a travesty to do that to the G5, but I think they could have sold quite a few. There are people who are absolutely nuts about this game (I don't understand it)

I'm sure that if programmed correctly, 2 x 2.5 GHz can go faster than 1 x P4 3.6, and we have a faster bus and the same video card. So it should be possible.

Games still aren't a big enough selling point for PCs either. A million copies sold at best and over time. Not in an instant. Just getting the gamers to switch alone will only double our small population. Not really enough to get many people switching.

I do think it's unfortunate that the next generation of iMacs won't be good for any high-end gaming. But, it's not like the iMac was made for gaming in the first place. To get angry over it is pretty stupid.

I really don't like the sound of the design and price of the iMacs. I'm ready to be disappointed in the iMac just as a computer. I'm sure consumers will still buy it, but it's sad we have to say good bye to the G4 iMac design.

The only three things you really hope for are: a) These rumors are all complete lies and it'll be better than expected, b) These cards will be upgradable despite what the rumors say, c) Apple somehow improves the drivers of the 5200 Ultra. I find the 5200 Ultra to be quite lacking compared to its PC version.

Anybody in Paris be sure to boo Steve if he says anything about the 5200 Ultras being in the iMacs and not being upgradable.

[Horrortaxi]

Mark 1 vote in the "who gives a rat's ass?" category.

[Mord]

Mark 1 vote in the "who gives a rat's ass?" category.

the fact is that it would cost apple around $25 per 5200 mac to give us a 9600pro for that proformence leap it's stupid that they do not do this, also the lack of availability of mac graphics cards is bad aswell only ati and apple make retail cards and ati cards are overpriced as are the apple ones which there have only ever been 2 of the 6800 dll and the geforce 4 ti, so what your saying is that you dont care if apple is offering a cheapo card in a high end expensive system?

[satty]

I just had a look on the Apple online store. It's additional 40£ for a 9600, so if you need a better graphic card just pay about 2% - 3% more and you get one.

Many people might not need a better graphic card, so why should they pay for it?

[Megaquad]

It would be nice if mac users would assemble and make some kind of petition to add better graphic card in iMac. It is possible that there's still time for Apple to put something else there instead...
We need to send message to Apple that we want to play latest games!

But I think its no use, Apple has a virtue for making consumer machines that are sloooow.

[adamfilip]

I do agree but .. I was just playing unreal 2004 with my g5 and a 5200 ultra card
it was very smooth.. yes it was a pretty low res but very playable

[MacsRgr8]

I do agree but .. I was just playing unreal 2004 with my g5 and a 5200 ultra card
it was very smooth.. yes it was a pretty low res but very playable

Exactly the point.
An expensive new G5 not able to play UT 2004 at high-res settitngs... :rolleyes:

Point is, what is a 5200 doing in a G5 at all. All the components of a G5 are based on speed, speed, speed. There is no 5400 rmp HD in there, no PC 133 RAM or other older and slower technology. But they put a 5200 in it.
I bet many wealthy, but uninformed cosumers who buy a (Dual) G5 don't know about the crappy grfx card. They expect to buy an expensive fast machine which should easily be capable of playing any modern game. But they can't even play UT 2004 a high res and setiings, and blame the G5 for being a slow computer.

[link92]

I have recently bought a Dual 2.5GHz G5, with a nVida 6800 Ultra, and a 30" monitor, knowing fare well how bad the graphics card was, that said, it will mainly be used for things like Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, BBEdit, and a couple of games.

[adamfilip]

why buy the low end..

atleast splurge on a good monitor..

* insert lots of sarcsam *

[MacsRgr8]

I have recently bought a Dual 2.5GHz G5, with a nVida 6800 Ultra, and a 30" monitor, knowing fare well how bad the graphics card was, that said, it will mainly be used for things like Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, BBEdit, and a couple of games.

The 6800 Ultra is a gr8 card!
The best OpenGL card out there at the moment.

BTW... congrats man! what a superMac.... < drool >

[Chaszmyr]

G5s don't need to come standard with a good video card. There are plenty of people who use a G5 who really have no use for a decent video card. As long as it is upgradable (and preferably for a reasonable price, which it isnt) theres no harm.

If the iMac G5 comes out with a 5200 and no upgrade option, though, I'm going to be shocked and disappointed with Apple.

[Horrortaxi]

don't be an idiot :rolleyes:.
Oh no, an differing opinion--run! Kill it! Kill it!

[edesignuk]

Mark 1 vote in the "who gives a rat's ass?" category.Mark a hella lot more that do care, as demonstrated well by the amount of those that have posted their opinions in the various threads in this forum.

[7on]

Don't forget, PC gaming is more niché than the entire community of Mac owners. They're probably the loudest in the industry, however, because gamers are the main ones that push computing to the next level. And if you look at sales, the best selling games are always games that appeal to non-gamers (IE The Sims).

I'm not saying Apple shouldn't put a better card in the next iMac, but there's no need protesting if they don't deliver. Apple wouldn't gain too much from doing so. There's no way a hard-core PC gamer would switch to the Mac even if the $1299 iMac had a 6800 Ultra in it.

[James L]

I am all for better cards, don't get me wrong, but I think people put a lot of emphasis on the video card for the wrong reasons.. for example, the GPU has almost nothing to do with Photoshop (which was mentioned somewhere in this thread). Photoshop is CPU and RAM (especially RAM) based as far as performance goes. Same goes with video editing in apps such as Final Cut. Again, rendering times, etc in Final Cut are all about the CPU and RAM, not about the video card. This would go for Flash too. I would bet if you found benchmarks for apps like these, all on the same machine but with different cards, the difference would be negligable.

If you want to make Final Cut and Photoshop faster, get a kick ass CPU, tons of RAM, and very important, the fastest hard drive you can find. These things will have much more of an impact on PS and FCP than a better GPU will.

Now, having said that, for 3D modelling, for games, and for the fact that we have an OS that is making more and more use of the GPU I would love to see better cards, though I love the 9700 in my PB!

Cheers!

[MacsRgr8]

I'm not saying Apple shouldn't put a better card in the next iMac, but there's no need protesting if they don't deliver. Apple wouldn't gain too much from doing so. There's no way a hard-core PC gamer would switch to the Mac even if the $1299 iMac had a 6800 Ultra in it.

I don't think the hardcore PC gamers would ever switch, but if an iMac G5 should sell as a family computer, games should be able to on it run very decently. If dad goes out and buy an iMac, dear teenage son could go out and buy Doom 3 for Mac, and find out that dad's iMac isn't fast enough for it running at high settings what you would expect from a new G5 iMac.
IMHO if a Tower G5 can CTO an Radeon 9600 for an extra $ 50, then an iMac G5 whose grfx card probably won't be upgradeable (as usual), should at least have one model with a better grfx card than the ultimate low-end.

It's like Apple is telling you that if you buy an iMac, you shouldn't run games on it. But it is the cosumer computer, and consumers like to play games.

Ofcourse, it would be a gr8 option if the grfx card would be replaceable, and then this whole discussion will be obselete.
:p

[Frobozz]

Yeah, this is the only thing that makes me a little optimistic - the move away from unique hardware might be a signal that Apple finally gets it and will move this way in the future.

I'm not demanding bleeding edge stuff, but Apple has been a lagard in this area far too long.

That's half of it. The other half, for high end cards at least, is adoption of PCI Express instead of AGP. Apparently all the next cards coming out from ATI and nVidia are native to PCI-E, which means they would have to do extra engineering to port it to a AGP bus. In the case of nVidia, this isn't a big deal since they don't make the boards... unless their chips are somehow optimized for PCI-E?

[Mord]

Oh no, an differing opinion--run! Kill it! Kill it!


so you don't care that a crucial componenet that is in half apples "power" line is total under proforming crap that drags down the entire system?

i'm annoyed at apple cheaping out and saving $25 per mac and giving us a 5200 in top end system, and you should to, to say i dont care is childish and makes you look like a zealot that would support apple if they went back to useing 68k cpu's :mad:

[jhu]

I am all for better cards, don't get me wrong, but I think people put a lot of emphasis on the video card for the wrong reasons.. for example, the GPU has almost nothing to do with Photoshop (which was mentioned somewhere in this thread). Photoshop is CPU and RAM (especially RAM) based as far as performance goes. Same goes with video editing in apps such as Final Cut. Again, rendering times, etc in Final Cut are all about the CPU and RAM, not about the video card. This would go for Flash too. I would bet if you found benchmarks for apps like these, all on the same machine but with different cards, the difference would be negligable.

If you want to make Final Cut and Photoshop faster, get a kick ass CPU, tons of RAM, and very important, the fastest hard drive you can find. These things will have much more of an impact on PS and FCP than a better GPU will.

Now, having said that, for 3D modelling, for games, and for the fact that we have an OS that is making more and more use of the GPU I would love to see better cards, though I love the 9700 in my PB!

Cheers!

as has been mentioned earlier, i don't think a better video card will offer that much of a benefit to the average user. it's basically for games. the effects that osx uses doesn't really require a very powerful graphics card (although personally i like to turn off all eye-candy). and for 3d-modelling, yes a better graphics card may help. but the final render is completely cpu dependent anyway.

[iceTrX]

Photoshop is CPU and RAM (especially RAM) based as far as performance goes. Same goes with video editing in apps such as Final Cut.

If you want to make Final Cut and Photoshop faster, get a kick ass CPU, tons of RAM, and very important, the fastest hard drive you can find. These things will have much more of an impact on PS and FCP than a better GPU will.

I didn't mean now. I meant in the future (if) photoshop starts using the GPU for calculations (mentioned by jobs in the last keynote), and since CoreImage and CoreVideo will probably be used in a lot of applications (I'm betting quite a few apple applications will) and those realtime filtering effects that were demonstrated require a fast GPU.

[iceTrX]

Since the 5200 is on the list of supported chips for CoreImage I wonder how well it will perform in all those realtime video filters and such that were demonstrated.

CoreImage Supported graphics cards:


ATI Radeon 9800 XT

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

ATI Radeon 9600 XT

ATI Radeon 9600 Pro

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

ATI Mobility Radeon 9600

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra

NVIDIA GeForceFX Go 5200

NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra

[jhu]

I didn't mean now. I meant in the future (if) photoshop starts using the GPU for calculations (mentioned by jobs in the last keynote), and since CoreImage and CoreVideo will probably be used in a lot of applications (I'm betting quite a few apple applications will) and those realtime filtering effects that were demonstrated require a fast GPU.

the problem with using the gpu for calculations is that the precision just isn't there. gpus, as i understand them, are just really massive simd processors. i think that current nvidia gpus use the equivalent of single-precision floating point (32-bit) and ati gpus use 24-bit fp. someone might want to check up on that though.

[Maxx Power]

Games still aren't a big enough selling point for PCs either. A million copies sold at best and over time. Not in an instant. Just getting the gamers to switch alone will only double our small population. Not really enough to get many people switching.

You are forgetting the fact that gamers don't usually PAY for their games. There is but a million sources on the internet where games are found. I only buy games from eBay, since you can have them for practically just the shipping price. All of the people i know who plays games a lot don't pay for their games, not that i'm saying this should be done, but it is a fact.

People generally uphold the attitude "incase i want to play games, my computer will be capable" an emergency type of response when buying computers. This is enough to sell powerful computers people won't or don't need. Just look at the red-hot lucrative SUV market in the automobile industry right now. People buy of need, as well as desire, and when the corporates design something for you (without your direct input), they will make sure to market and distort the reality to make you think you NEED the machine when you only need 10% of its features. And they argue in the disguise of "upgradability" or "futureproof" when we know the last thing they want is a true "futureproof" system, then no one will be buying any more computers....

[link92]

My only problem is how to fill the screen...

[Mord]

Since the 5200 is on the list of supported chips for CoreImage I wonder how well it will perform in all those realtime video filters and such that were demonstrated.

CoreImage Supported graphics cards:


ATI Radeon 9800 XT

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

ATI Radeon 9600 XT

ATI Radeon 9600 Pro

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

ATI Mobility Radeon 9600

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra

NVIDIA GeForceFX Go 5200

NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra

not very well i can tell you.

[jefhatfield]

buying a g5 to surf and check email is insanely stupid, your 9000 is better than a 5200 a geforce 4mx is better than a 5200 a 5200 is just a crappy card, it's just one dose not expect to get lag on core image effects (as my freind that has a g5 with a 5200 had with the 10.4 beta.

a g5 is a quality mac but a 5200 limits it on what macs should be used for, creative content creation.

even though the pc world has the better cards first, the back end of pre press is still mac centric and most designers still prefer macs even though pcs have been viable for design and graphics for some time now

also on the software side of things, os x has to get back end font management up to the level they had with os 9 in order to make efficient printing and pre press management...apple inc has lagged on this and os x developement in general has not lived up to expectations

on graphics cards for laptops, apple inc is even further behind...high end, but still affordable pc laptops can be had with 256 mb mobile graphics cards making their laptops fine for gaming on the run and intensive graphics instructions

[iceTrX]

the problem with using the gpu for calculations is that the precision just isn't there. gpus, as i understand them, are just really massive simd processors. i think that current nvidia gpus use the equivalent of single-precision floating point (32-bit) and ati gpus use 24-bit fp. someone might want to check up on that though.

You are correct on that ATI uses 24-bit precision all the time. nVidia does 16/32bit partial precision, they use 16bit when 32bit isn't needed for a speed increase.

[iceTrX]

on graphics cards for laptops, apple inc is even further behind...high end, but still affordable pc laptops can be had with 256 mb mobile graphics cards making their laptops fine for gaming on the run and intensive graphics instructions

Not true. The 15" and 17" powerbooks come with the Radeon 9700 mobility which is the most powerful laptop GPU available on a Mac or PC (at least until the new 9800 mobility starts showing up, which I hope is included in the next powerbook revision). The amount of video memory means very little from 128mb to 256mb in almost everything except doom3.

[neoelectronaut]

Uh the 5200 sucks for UT2004 and just about every other FPS released for mac after 2003.

Er, I was in CompUSA yesterday playing UT2k4 on a 1.8 G5 with the 5200 in it. It ran like a dream. What the hell are you talking about?

[FuzzyBallz]

Bleh bleh bleh, get a PC as your 2nd system, and you'll have a crap load of gfx card options.

[edesignuk]

Bleh bleh bleh, get a PC as your 2nd system, and you'll have a crap load of gfx card options.Are you serious? You expect your average family to splash out on two computers just because their kids wanna be able to play games here and there? They'll just buy the PC and be done with it.

[Mord]

even though the pc world has the better cards first, the back end of pre press is still mac centric and most designers still prefer macs even though pcs have been viable for design and graphics for some time now

also on the software side of things, os x has to get back end font management up to the level they had with os 9 in order to make efficient printing and pre press management...apple inc has lagged on this and os x developement in general has not lived up to expectations

on graphics cards for laptops, apple inc is even further behind...high end, but still affordable pc laptops can be had with 256 mb mobile graphics cards making their laptops fine for gaming on the run and intensive graphics instructions

i'll buy macs even if there are pc's 3x the speed because of os x. this dose not mean i want a slow ass mac apple should be at the forfrount of technology and they are with the ppc 970 but this is not reflected with the gpu's, because they can get away with it is no excuse. they need to get back to the formlar of the original imac and b&w g3 give them both damn good preformence with the powermac in the lead with upgradeability now we have the g5 powermac with underpowered 5200 cards with slow ass imacs in the pipeline is the rumored specs are true, frankly i dont care how the competeion has intel extreme intergarted crap apple should take the lead at the low end the medium end and the high end and they can do this without makeing a $299 wallmart mac but with a competeively priced all in one g5 machine that apple can be proud to benchmark against pc's just like they did with the original imac.

(sorry to focus on the imac and the powermac but it seems the most relevent to the subject, the same go's for the ibook powerbook and emac)

[Jimong5]

Er, I was in CompUSA yesterday playing UT2k4 on a 1.8 G5 with the 5200 in it. It ran like a dream. What the hell are you talking about?

I think UT 2k4 is more CPU centric. I avoided the Geforce 4 MX when I bought my Dual 867, because it was so horrible, so i got a 9000. recently I got my hands on a 9700 with ADC, and tried all my games again... some flew along beautifully (like WC 3, doesnt even stall with 200 guys on the screen) and others (UT 2k4) showed very little improvement. it was there, but nowhere near as noticible as the jump on WC 3. even Halo runs great now. I can run halo at maximum everything 5 FPS FASTER than my old 9000 at minimum everything.

I guess wht im trying to say, is games vary on their engine design.

[Mord]

fyi even a geforce 4 mx has i higher fill rate than a 5200 :rolleyes:

[adamfilip]

Why cant apple just setup the g5 so that it can accept any pc agp card
as long as there is a driver. for it


the pc and mac versions arent that different

[macsrus]

I personally think the video cards in the macs are fine....
If I wanted to play leading edge games I would run the on my c ustom built PC

[Mord]

I personally think the video cards in the macs are fine....
If I wanted to play leading edge games I would run the on my c ustom built PC

a video card dosent only affect games god damn it it affects the entire system :mad:

[MacsRgr8]

a video card dosent only affect games god damn it it affects the entire system :mad:

Exactly!

Especially once apps start using CoreImage.

Kinda paradox:
Steve mentions the faster GPU speed increase than CPU speed increase, and wants to use the GPU more: CoreImage.
Rumored iMac G5: GeForce 5200.... :confused: :rolleyes:

Not the best advertisement for CoreImage to put in the weakest grfx card...
Developers will be happy too :(

[Horrortaxi]

Mark a hella lot more that do care, as demonstrated well by the amount of those that have posted their opinions in the various threads in this forum.
So my opinion is in the minority. So what?

[edesignuk]

So my opinion is in the minority. So what?So nothing, just as you were putting your "mark" down, I put mine.

[macsrus]

Don't forget, PC gaming is more niché than the entire community of Mac owners. They're probably the loudest in the industry, however, because gamers are the main ones that push computing to the next level. And if you look at sales, the best selling games are always games that appeal to non-gamers (IE The Sims).

I'm not saying Apple shouldn't put a better card in the next iMac, but there's no need protesting if they don't deliver. Apple wouldn't gain too much from doing so. There's no way a hard-core PC gamer would switch to the Mac even if the $1299 iMac had a 6800 Ultra in it.

I agree...
All modern video cards give sufficient performance for everyday computer use.... Except for 3d rendering applications and games...

I do not agree as some suggest here that video cards have much effect in normal applications or in overall system performance

[jhu]

Why cant apple just setup the g5 so that it can accept any pc agp card
as long as there is a driver. for it


the pc and mac versions arent that different

it's because of the way devices are enumerated on x86 and mac. first, pc cards have x86 code in their rom which openfirmware can't currently understand. second, that rom is intended to interface with the pc bios. you'd need to rewrite the rom to interface with openfirmware.

you could conceivably modify openfirmware such that it can emulate x86 code and be able to interface with the device's rom.

i don't know if this works in osx, but under linux you can actually use the pc version of cards because the linux kernel attempts to detect and use everything it finds without interfacing with whatever system rom is in place (for the most part).

[jefhatfield]

Not true. The 15" and 17" powerbooks come with the Radeon 9700 mobility which is the most powerful laptop GPU available on a Mac or PC (at least until the new 9800 mobility starts showing up, which I hope is included in the next powerbook revision). The amount of video memory means very little from 128mb to 256mb in almost everything except doom3.


say wha? the ATI mobility radeon 9700 has 64 mb ddr ram, not 128 mb

i have seen pc laptops in the midrange of the powerbook line price with 256 mb ddr ram graphics cards

that being said, for other reasons, i still prefer powerbooks and ibooks to any pc laptop line...if i had to get a pc laptop next, i would choose a sony laptop

[Mord]

for the love of god dont even think of getting a sony vio they have crappy intergrated ghrphics and very low max ram limits like 512 or even 256MB

1st off as the other guy said dont select a card based on vram it dose not directly represent proformence the speed of the ram and the speed of the gpu are bigger factor when we are dealing with more than 64MB vram it made a big difference in sub 32mb cards but now it makes cery little difference for example a 15" pb with the 128MB 9700 option is only about 6% faster in games the difference is tiny.

sure a 256MB 9700 would be better but the only laptops that have 256MB 9700's are bricks.

i'd bet good money that the powerbooks 9700 with 64MB vram would beat a laptop with a 9600 that has 256MB vram because all of that ram is not saturated.

the vram gradeing of cards took allot of people off guard when they bought cheaper cards because they were "128MB cards" but when they started to use them they proformed like geforce 2's (cough 5200 cough)

[Mord]

it's because of the way devices are enumerated on x86 and mac. first, pc cards have x86 code in their rom which openfirmware can't currently understand. second, that rom is intended to interface with the pc bios. you'd need to rewrite the rom to interface with openfirmware.

you could conceivably modify openfirmware such that it can emulate x86 code and be able to interface with the device's rom.

i don't know if this works in osx, but under linux you can actually use the pc version of cards because the linux kernel attempts to detect and use everything it finds without interfacing with whatever system rom is in place (for the most part).

fyi some pc geforce 2's worked out of the box which is to this day unexplaned, the roms are not in any x86 code or ppc code they are just like a filter between openfirmware/bios and the card makeing a dual platform card would not be hard to do

[jhu]

fyi some pc geforce 2's worked out of the box which is to this day unexplaned, the roms are not in any x86 code or ppc code they are just like a filter between openfirmware/bios and the card makeing a dual platform card would not be hard to do

that's interesting. any other documented cards that can do that? on the other hand, i'll bet that if you put that in a sun running solaris, it wouldn't work.

[Nermal]

Some Open Firmware-based systems, such as the Pegasos, will happily use 'PC' video cards. I'm not too knowledgeable about the internals of a Mac, but surely Apple can do something to let generic cards work.

On another note, maybe we should all band together and try to convince a third-party (eg. Asus, Gainward, Powercolour or whoever) to produce Mac-compatible cards. According to nVidia, there is no technical reason why nobody other than Apple makes Mac-compatible cards ('Other board manufacturers may build Mac Geforce add-in boards'), the companies just don't see it as a big enough market. But if we all get together then there may be a slim ray of hope :)

Thank you for your email. Other board manufacturers may build Mac Geforce add-in boards however since the market is much smaller for Mac add-in boards, there are no companies that are currently producing add-in Geforce boards for the Macintoshi platform. Apple is the only company that is currently manufacturing cards for the Macintosh platform.