Does my video card ever do anything?

M

macsurfer

macrumors regular

Original poster

• Aug 9, 2002

• #1

I have an ATI Rage 128 Pro 8mb video card in my iMac. I don't play games and I know my video card will not support Quartz Extreme. So the question is, does my video card ever do ANYTHING or does it just sit there reading the paper and drinking coffee all day?

 

Sun Baked

macrumors G5

• Aug 9, 2002

• #2

The video card manipulates a high energy GUN at the back of your CRT, which is sitting there trying to fry your eyeballs by accelerating electrons towards your head.

 

M

macsurfer

macrumors regular

Original poster

• Aug 9, 2002

• #3

Hmmmm....

Funny, but ummm, that doesn't help me!

 

AlphaTech

macrumors 601

• Aug 9, 2002

• #4

Without a video card, you would be reduced to viewing a black screen since there wouldn't be any way for the computer to display what it is doing. With the current OS's being more graphic intensive, you need a better (and faster) video card to keep up. Without a video card to take on the display processing, your computer would run at half speed (if you are lucky). The more graphically intense the application, the more it will use your video card. That is part of the reason why games have minimum requirements, and why even applications like PhotoShop perform better with better video cards (even if the rest of the computer is identical to another).

I saw a performance boost when I upgraded the graphic card in my (formerly my) G4 tower. I went from the Rage 128 (16MB) that it shipped with to the ATI Radeon Mac edition (with 32MB of DDR memory).

That help you any better???

 

M

macsurfer

macrumors regular

Original poster

• Aug 9, 2002

• #5

A little. What applications is my video card being used for? Quicktime? iMovie? Final Cut Pro? iTunes visualizations? My video card is not rendering any of the GUI is it? I'm running 10.1.5. As you can tell, I know very little in this arena....

 

topicolo

macrumors 68000

• Aug 9, 2002

• #6

your vid. card is just acting as a framebuffer unless the programs you're using support openGL.

 

M

macsurfer

macrumors regular

Original poster

• Aug 9, 2002

• #7

What is a frambuffer?

Okay, so QT in OS X uses OpenGL right? The screen savers with disolving pictures, that is OpenGL based, right? The dock magnification is too?

 

bousozoku

Moderator emeritus

• Aug 10, 2002

• #8

Originally posted by digitalvideo
A little. What applications is my video card being used for? Quicktime? iMovie? Final Cut Pro? iTunes visualizations? My video card is not rendering any of the GUI is it? I'm running 10.1.5. As you can tell, I know very little in this arena....

Click to expand...

Everything going to the display is going through the video card. 🙂

 

M

macsurfer

macrumors regular

Original poster

• Aug 10, 2002

• #9

ahhh okay

ahh okay got it so, how does the the type of video card affect say, Quicktime movie playback? Say a Gforce4 or whatever vs. my card?