How does the Ti4200 fare under X?

[lepidotós]

Especially Leopard. I'm guessing the speed hit vs. my 9800 isn't worth it for Mac OS 9 support on the Quicksilver, but I'm curious as to if it's a horrible experience or not.
Side question, how noticeable is the difference between a 4200 and a 4600?​

 

[Intell]

Nearly every card that is supported by OS 9 is not a good card for Leopard. CoreImage is the defining thing here, every card that is a CoreImage card is not supported by OS 9.

 

[lepidotós]

I know they're not ideal, but how not good is the question I'm interested in. My only experience with an OS 9 card with Leopard was on Oddball, and a single 450MHz G4 and a Rage 128 8MB isn't really going to be as performant as dual 800s and a Ti4x00. I also was wondering about Tiger.​

 

[Amethyst1]

Well, I've had Leopard on a 12" PowerBook, and its FX5200 isn't very... good at all. I found Leopard's GUI to be acceptably zippy, but noticeably "heavier" than on my 15" or 17" PowerBooks with a fully CI-capable Mobilty Radeon 9700. So I'd be inclined to say the Ti4200 should be better than the bottom-of-the-barrel FX5200, but I'd look into turning off all the graphical niceties such as the 3D Dock (the translucent menu bar is turned off automatically on non-CI GPUs).

 

[WindowsXPuser]

Well, I've had Leopard on a 12" PowerBook, and its FX5200 isn't very... good at all. I found Leopard's GUI to be acceptably zippy, but noticeably "heavier" than on my 15" or 17" PowerBooks with a fully CI-capable Mobilty Radeon 9700. So I'd be inclined to say the Ti4200 should be better than the bottom-of-the-barrel FX5200, but I'd look into turning off all the graphical niceties such as the 3D Dock (the translucent menu bar is turned off automatically on non-CI GPUs).

I'd go the other way around: the FX 5200 would have smoother performance than the Ti 4200. The FX supports Core Image, the Ti doesn't. In my experience that does make a difference.

 

[666sheep]

In case of non-CI (but Q/E) capable GPU overall UI smoothness in Leopard will rely mostly on CPU, so the faster one you do have, the better. In gaming, leaving CPU alone, Ti4200 will be much better than aforementioned FX5200. Ti4600 will show its advantage over 4200 mostly in higher resolution gaming, especially with AA enabled.

 

[Amethyst1]

The FX supports Core Image […]

Not quite.

 

[B S Magnet]

Well, I've had Leopard on a 12" PowerBook, and its FX5200 isn't very... good at all. I found Leopard's GUI to be acceptably zippy, but noticeably "heavier" than on my 15" or 17" PowerBooks with a fully CI-capable Mobilty Radeon 9700. So I'd be inclined to say the Ti4200 should be better than the bottom-of-the-barrel FX5200, but I'd look into turning off all the graphical niceties such as the 3D Dock (the translucent menu bar is turned off automatically on non-CI GPUs).

I can corroborate the “heaviness” feel of the FX5200, albeit in a Power Mac G5. The FX5200 is so effective it’s able to leap tall buildings at a few frames per second.

The responsiveness of the FX5200 in the G5, versus the 9700 in the PowerBook, becomes apparent when you’re either opening multiple windows or using QuickLook: with exception, the latter GPU handles these more smoothly and responsively than the former.