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itommyboy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 26, 2009
569
0
Titletown USA
I'm surprised by the lack of "real life" experiences being posted thus far. I've seen one or two but hoping more start coming in today now that the w/end is here.

Surely by now some people have had at least 2 + days with their new systems...how about some real life impressions of the GT 130?
 

Hellhammer

Moderator emeritus
Dec 10, 2008
22,164
582
Finland
I ordered the 2.93GHz with GT130 and waiting it to be delivered. Estimated date is Wednesday. Can't wait
 

knobby

macrumors newbie
Dec 13, 2008
3
0
I'm surprised by the lack of "real life" experiences being posted thus far. I've seen one or two but hoping more start coming in today now that the w/end is here.

Surely by now some people have had at least 2 + days with their new systems...how about some real life impressions of the GT 130?

Yeah I ordered the 2.93 with the GT130 and have just been told it has been shipped.

Matthew
 

rittchard

macrumors 6502
Aug 12, 2007
351
46
I should have more after the full weekend has past. Thus far I'm very pleased, but as I said elsewhere it's like the honeymoon phase so I don't want to jump to conclusions.

I ran Hellgate London last night for a few minutes - all on high settings, full resolution, and it was running at 40-60FPS the whole time. I will tax the system more once I get a little further along in the game. If you aren't familiar with HGL, at the time of it's release it was probably second only to Crysis in terms of demand on hardware, so it's a pretty good sign.

I just installed Dawn of War 2 so I'll give that a whirl in a bit, as well as Warhammer Online.
 

0087215

Cancelled
Sep 20, 2008
495
36
I should have more after the full weekend has past. Thus far I'm very pleased, but as I said elsewhere it's like the honeymoon phase so I don't want to jump to conclusions.

I ran Hellgate London last night for a few minutes - all on high settings, full resolution, and it was running at 40-60FPS the whole time. I will tax the system more once I get a little further along in the game. If you aren't familiar with HGL, at the time of it's release it was probably second only to Crysis in terms of demand on hardware, so it's a pretty good sign.

I just installed Dawn of War 2 so I'll give that a whirl in a bit, as well as Warhammer Online.

That's a great news! Thanks for the benchmarking and we're waiting for more tests of you to come!!!!
 

ebd.i.am

macrumors 6502
Sep 19, 2006
436
1
Sacramento, CA
I should have more after the full weekend has past. Thus far I'm very pleased, but as I said elsewhere it's like the honeymoon phase so I don't want to jump to conclusions.

I ran Hellgate London last night for a few minutes - all on high settings, full resolution, and it was running at 40-60FPS the whole time. I will tax the system more once I get a little further along in the game. If you aren't familiar with HGL, at the time of it's release it was probably second only to Crysis in terms of demand on hardware, so it's a pretty good sign.

I just installed Dawn of War 2 so I'll give that a whirl in a bit, as well as Warhammer Online.

I don't recall HGL being that demanding.
 

rittchard

macrumors 6502
Aug 12, 2007
351
46
I don't recall HGL being that demanding.

YMMV. Try running it in highest resolution, with all Very High settings. I knew early on at least, some people were having trouble running it without lowering the resolution or detail. It may be much more optimized with the final patch, I don't know.

- - -

Also played first 2 missions in the campaign of DoW 2. At all High detail, the game ran (seemingly) as smooth as it did on my full gaming rig (GTX295, i7). I don't know how to get FPS numbers out of DoW 2, so I'm just going with "feel" - this is with constant camera moving around, lots of units on the ground, constantly zooming in and out. BTW the unit detail in this game when zoomed fully in is amazing!

I should note that this game session finally got the fan going (not loud but I definitely could hear it for the first time) and the top of the unit was definitely getting hot to the touch.
 

itommyboy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 26, 2009
569
0
Titletown USA
On high settings HGL could tax mid range gaming rigs - last year anyway. I thought they shut that game (and company) down completely, no?
 

FoxHoundADAM

macrumors regular
Sep 9, 2008
211
14
Oklahoma
I should have more after the full weekend has past. Thus far I'm very pleased, but as I said elsewhere it's like the honeymoon phase so I don't want to jump to conclusions.

I ran Hellgate London last night for a few minutes - all on high settings, full resolution, and it was running at 40-60FPS the whole time. I will tax the system more once I get a little further along in the game. If you aren't familiar with HGL, at the time of it's release it was probably second only to Crysis in terms of demand on hardware, so it's a pretty good sign.

I just installed Dawn of War 2 so I'll give that a whirl in a bit, as well as Warhammer Online.
Do you have windows installed on your mac?
 

imfrog2002

macrumors 6502
Oct 20, 2007
316
0
I got my new 24" iMac yesterday and I love it. I'm not a huge gamer, but the games that I have played have been great in terms of performance. Granted, the most intense game I own is SIMS 2... Either way, I'm impressed with it. Some hardcore games might not agree, but it's a huge step up from the integrated graphics in my Blackbook...
 

itommyboy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 26, 2009
569
0
Titletown USA
1.0 Windows Exp Rating 1 :(

I finally got some time tonight and have vista up and patched. Running smooth and all but can't find graphic card drivers and it's only showing generic vga. Nothing from Nvidia seems to work for gt 130 on the desktop or mobile side. :( I'm sure I'm overlooking something easy as it's been a long day. More to come.
 

SydneyDev

macrumors 6502
Sep 15, 2008
346
0
I finally got some time tonight and have vista up and patched. Running smooth and all but can't find graphic card drivers and it's only showing generic vga. Nothing from Nvidia seems to work for gt 130 on the desktop or mobile side. :( I'm sure I'm overlooking something easy as it's been a long day. More to come.

Put the grey OS X disk in when Windows is running. There should be drivers on there...
 

itommyboy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 26, 2009
569
0
Titletown USA
Put the grey OS X disk in when Windows is running. There should be drivers on there...

Thanks Syd I did realize that. As I said one of those days.

Showing GT130 now but still a windows index rating of 1 due to graphics card. That's gotta be driver issues - I sure hope anyway. :confused:
 

PeterQC

macrumors 6502a
Jun 30, 2008
727
0
Is this card even out? I mean, can you buy it from anybody else then Apple?
 

itommyboy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 26, 2009
569
0
Titletown USA
Is this card even out? I mean, can you buy it from anybody else then Apple?

Quite honestly I don't think everyone is real sure yet. I finally got Vista Home Premium patched, tweaked and flying (boot camp). It lists the card as a 9800 variant.


Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8435 @ 3.06GHz (3051 MHz)
Operating System: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium, 32-bit (Service Pack 1)
DirectX version: 10.0
GPU processor: GeForce 9800 X
Driver version: 178.46
Stream processors: 64
Core clock: 529 MHz
Shader clock: 1323 MHz
Memory clock: 792 MHz (1584 MHz data rate)
Memory interface: 256-bit
Total available graphics memory: 1779 MB
Dedicated video memory: 512 MB
System video memory: 0 MB
Shared system memory: 1267 MB
Video BIOS version: 62.94.74.00.05
IRQ: 23
Bus: PCI Express x16 Gen2
 

rittchard

macrumors 6502
Aug 12, 2007
351
46
On high settings HGL could tax mid range gaming rigs - last year anyway. I thought they shut that game (and company) down completely, no?

Just shut down this year, but you can still play the Single Player version, thankfully. I actually love the game and felt it was unfairly maligned, but that's a different topic.

Foxhound, yes, I am running Windows 7 Beta 64bit, with the only available drivers from nVidia.

iTommy, those numbers look the same as what I saw from my drivers, but my card was actually listed as the GT 130.

- - -

Yesterday I ran the iMac for about 6 hours straight. First 2 hours was all Mac stuff, just generic things like surfing, photos, Youtube, converting some videos with Quicktime Pro, iTunes and updating my iPhone, also finished my taxes.

I was going to install and test some more games, but I ran out of time as I had a gaming session set for Warhammer Online. Started the game up, and proceeded to run at all High settings for close to 4 hours non-stop. During that time, I watched the FPS numbers bounce from around 30-60 depending on where I was, but eventually I was just lost in playing the game. Great experience, the 24" screen is gorgeous, and everything looked wonderful. Not a single slowdown, crash or issue throughout all 4 hours, even in the newest scenario (Twisting Tower) which involves an 18v18 PvP battle. Now I don't know if they've tweaked the performance on this the last couple days, but it was even lagging my "real" PC gaming rig. On the iMac it was running smooth as silk. The only "lag" I saw, oddly enough, was during the animation when you fly to another area, which is completely irrelevant since it's not during gameplay.

The top of the iMac got warm, but not hot to the touch as it did with DoW 2. As far as fan (or other) noise, pretty much non-existent, particularly compared to the game sounds.
 

0087215

Cancelled
Sep 20, 2008
495
36
Just shut down this year, but you can still play the Single Player version, thankfully. I actually love the game and felt it was unfairly maligned, but that's a different topic.

Foxhound, yes, I am running Windows 7 Beta 64bit, with the only available drivers from nVidia.

iTommy, those numbers look the same as what I saw from my drivers, but my card was actually listed as the GT 130.

- - -

Yesterday I ran the iMac for about 6 hours straight. First 2 hours was all Mac stuff, just generic things like surfing, photos, Youtube, converting some videos with Quicktime Pro, iTunes and updating my iPhone, also finished my taxes.

I was going to install and test some more games, but I ran out of time as I had a gaming session set for Warhammer Online. Started the game up, and proceeded to run at all High settings for close to 4 hours non-stop. During that time, I watched the FPS numbers bounce from around 30-60 depending on where I was, but eventually I was just lost in playing the game. Great experience, the 24" screen is gorgeous, and everything looked wonderful. Not a single slowdown, crash or issue throughout all 4 hours, even in the newest scenario (Twisting Tower) which involves an 18v18 PvP battle. Now I don't know if they've tweaked the performance on this the last couple days, but it was even lagging my "real" PC gaming rig. On the iMac it was running smooth as silk. The only "lag" I saw, oddly enough, was during the animation when you fly to another area, which is completely irrelevant since it's not during gameplay.

The top of the iMac got warm, but not hot to the touch as it did with DoW 2. As far as fan (or other) noise, pretty much non-existent, particularly compared to the game sounds.

Thx for sharing your experience with us... I've already ordered an iMac with the 4850, so hopefully I will get a faster graphic card with the same amount of noise as you have now...
 

jmpage2

macrumors 68040
Sep 14, 2007
3,224
549
I'm curious what the reasoning is for getting the GT 130 over the 4850 since the 4850 is only $50 more and should be quite a bit faster.

Is there a specific reason that the GT 130 is desirable other than the marginally lower price?
 

rittchard

macrumors 6502
Aug 12, 2007
351
46
I'm curious what the reasoning is for getting the GT 130 over the 4850 since the 4850 is only $50 more and should be quite a bit faster.

Is there a specific reason that the GT 130 is desirable other than the marginally lower price?

I think impatience is the number one reason lol. Depending on your personality, 4 weeks can be nothing or seem like an eternity.

The only other reason for me is I've been in the nVidia fanboy camp for most of my years as a gamer. In general (and people can argue this), it seems like game developers (particularly the last couple of years) have skewed toward nVidia, so they've generally had fewer compatibility issues with new game releases.

In addition, given the rumors about the delay time on the 4850 having to do with Snow Leopard, this may also hold true in the future on the Mac side as well.

This is just a personal thing, but I'd rather deal with some lesser performance in exchange for better overall compatibility.
 

Shivetya

macrumors 68000
Jan 16, 2008
1,669
306
I'm curious what the reasoning is for getting the GT 130 over the 4850 since the 4850 is only $50 more and should be quite a bit faster.

Is there a specific reason that the GT 130 is desirable other than the marginally lower price?

We have no proof that it is faster in the iMac implementation. We cannot even get the agreeing answers from Apple itself as to whether or not the 4850 is the mobile or desktop chip.

As such, many of us are simply waiting till we know the true numbers, let alone state of drivers. If anything the 4850 inclusion is a boon to the hackintosh crowd
 
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