i got the geforce 4 mx card in my dual 867, is it worth me upgrading to the 9700 in a few months. i do a lot of video and photoshop work where the mx is just fine but i wanna play the new doom,quake and UT comming out next year. is the mx good enough to play them at 1280-1024 on the 17 Studio.
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How good is the GeForce 4 MX
- Thread starter Mr Jobs
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Re: How good is the GeForce 4 MX
The G4MX is a fine card I have it in my new Dual/Ghz/DDR it was $100 less then the ATI9000. There is a big but here though. If you want to run the latest upcoming and greatest games you will want to upgrade in the future. That is why I got the G4MX in the first place because I plan on upgrading to the ATI9700 or the nVidia GeForce5 when it comes out. Either of these new cards will cary with it a ton of ram, all sorts of hardware lighting and texturing and will also be about 4x faster then the G4MX.
The G4MX is a fine card I have it in my new Dual/Ghz/DDR it was $100 less then the ATI9000. There is a big but here though. If you want to run the latest upcoming and greatest games you will want to upgrade in the future. That is why I got the G4MX in the first place because I plan on upgrading to the ATI9700 or the nVidia GeForce5 when it comes out. Either of these new cards will cary with it a ton of ram, all sorts of hardware lighting and texturing and will also be about 4x faster then the G4MX.
Re: How Good Is The G4MX Card
I too have a 867 Dual PowerMac and the Gforce4 card is "okay." I say okay because of the slow down in games because of either the 32MB of RAM on the card or the fact that Mac games "STILL" depend on the processor for painting rather than using the memory on the Video Card. I would wait for newer games to come out that use the video memory and certainly upgrade to something more than 32MB of ram. Especially if you are like me and want to play your games in the default resolution for your monitor of 1280x1024x32. Hope that helps.
P.S. If you really have money to spend, get a PC to play your games, because the Mac rules for everything, but for games, it still stinks. Check this link out below.
http://www.drunkgamers.com/switch0001.shtml <http://www.drunkgamers.com/switch0001.shtml
I too have a 867 Dual PowerMac and the Gforce4 card is "okay." I say okay because of the slow down in games because of either the 32MB of RAM on the card or the fact that Mac games "STILL" depend on the processor for painting rather than using the memory on the Video Card. I would wait for newer games to come out that use the video memory and certainly upgrade to something more than 32MB of ram. Especially if you are like me and want to play your games in the default resolution for your monitor of 1280x1024x32. Hope that helps.
P.S. If you really have money to spend, get a PC to play your games, because the Mac rules for everything, but for games, it still stinks. Check this link out below.
http://www.drunkgamers.com/switch0001.shtml <http://www.drunkgamers.com/switch0001.shtml
I have a GeForce 4 MX, by default, and the 4MX has 64 MB RAM not 32 as stated above. For the latest games its quite good:
Warcraft3: 1280 res all details: great!
UT: even 1600 res all details is still cool, but resolution overkill IMHO
Q3: 1280 all details: couldnt be much better
Black&White: 1024 all details: does its job really good. Dont know if UT2003 will still be good with that card, but it should.
Yeah, the PC has games as dogs have fleas, but to the Mac come only the cream of the crop games
I dont even miss CS...!
Warcraft3: 1280 res all details: great!
UT: even 1600 res all details is still cool, but resolution overkill IMHO
Q3: 1280 all details: couldnt be much better
Black&White: 1024 all details: does its job really good. Dont know if UT2003 will still be good with that card, but it should.
Yeah, the PC has games as dogs have fleas, but to the Mac come only the cream of the crop games
I dont even miss CS...!
Wait until the new games come out
Your talking about buying a new video card for games that aren't available yet. Save your money and buy the latest and greatest video card when the games you want to play are released.
This assumes of course that you are unhappy with the GeForce 4 MX when Doom and UT 2003 arrive.
Your talking about buying a new video card for games that aren't available yet. Save your money and buy the latest and greatest video card when the games you want to play are released.
This assumes of course that you are unhappy with the GeForce 4 MX when Doom and UT 2003 arrive.
Re: Re: How Good Is The G4MX Card
Whether or not a game is CPU dependent is not based on the Apple at all but totally based on the software developer and how the create the game. Unreal Tournament is a perfect example of a CPU dependent game and it is CPU dependant on the Mac and the PC.
Whether or not a game is CPU dependent is not based on the Apple at all but totally based on the software developer and how the create the game. Unreal Tournament is a perfect example of a CPU dependent game and it is CPU dependant on the Mac and the PC.
my friend has a very nice PC with a
GF4MX w/ 64VRAM and it plays all the games you could think of like a dream, the nVidia cards are better in my opinion.
Wait for the nForce cards to come out anyways.
And in UT2k3, it's meant to be played with an nvidia card. Even says so every time you play it.
GF4MX w/ 64VRAM and it plays all the games you could think of like a dream, the nVidia cards are better in my opinion.
Wait for the nForce cards to come out anyways.
And in UT2k3, it's meant to be played with an nvidia card. Even says so every time you play it.
Doom III was demonstrated by John Carmack using the ATI9700 and at the time he said that he would only use the best and fastest hardware available to demonstrate it and that the ATI9700 was it and is and was the only card that would play the game properly.
I would skip the Radeon 9700 Pro and wait for nVidia's next-generation card (expected to be announced in mid-November), or even go so far as to wait until the updates in Spring 2003.
The GeForce 4 MX is a lot faster than the 2 MX, but it's most definitely NOT going to run Doom 3 smoothly at 1280x1024, and you'll miss out on the pixel shader effects that are required to use full detail.
If you're familiar with Windows versions of nVidia's cards, the GF4 MX in your dual-867 is about as fast and feature-equipped as the GF2 Ultra, though of course that had 64 MB of memory on it (and was much more expensive when new).
The GF4 MX you have is actually pretty unique, since (outside of the 17" widescreen iMac) all GF4 MX models are otherwise 64 MB, including the one that was available before the current PowerMac iteration.
The GeForce 4 MX is a lot faster than the 2 MX, but it's most definitely NOT going to run Doom 3 smoothly at 1280x1024, and you'll miss out on the pixel shader effects that are required to use full detail.
If you're familiar with Windows versions of nVidia's cards, the GF4 MX in your dual-867 is about as fast and feature-equipped as the GF2 Ultra, though of course that had 64 MB of memory on it (and was much more expensive when new).
The GF4 MX you have is actually pretty unique, since (outside of the 17" widescreen iMac) all GF4 MX models are otherwise 64 MB, including the one that was available before the current PowerMac iteration.
By the time the GF5 come out ATI is supposed to be releasing an update for the ATI9700 or a completely new card.
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Nope... they tried running doom III on a laptop with a mobile ATI 9000 and were actually very impressed. I just wish that the powerbook would switch to rdram or at least DDR... and better processors- motorola sucks. Then the powerbook would really be a fine gaming machine when it gets the mobility 9000 in the next couple-few months.
What did you mean by nope? All I said is that when he's doing his demos that he's been using the ATI9700. Also what do you mean that they wish they would switch to RDRam or at least DDR? DDR400 due out by early next year shows a significant advantage over the fastest RDRam which is technically maxed at the moment. Not to mention the insane licensing fees that RDRam has.
GF4MX ain't all that
In my opinion (and experience) the Geforce 4 MX is a pretty ordinary card, not much better than a Geforce 2 MX. It's aimed at basic consumers. Even a Geforce 3 is substantially better.
If you're serious about games, and especially the amazing upcoming stuff, you need something better. A geforce 4 mx WILL end up being the bottleneck in a system like yours.
I wouldn't want to run Doom III on less than a full Geforce 4, and preferably whatever is the best at the time.
According to Carmack, the upcoming nVidia card makes all of his past work, including Doom III, obsolete. Personally, this makes me wet my pants.
And speaking of carmack comments, I wouldn't pay too much attention. Of course he ran on an ATI 9700. He's trying to sell the thing... he would have been using the best hardware he could get. BTW, out of curiosity, what sort of computer was he using? A mac or a PC? I'd be interested to know. I'd assume a PC.
Oh.. another quick point is that while RDRam is horribly expensive it IS extremely fast. DDR400 is starting to get close, and things like the nForce2 motherboard get amazing speeds from it due to completely overhauled architecture, but DDR400 is still really very immature technology, and at least on the Pentium4 RDRam is still the choice for the top end of performance.
In my opinion (and experience) the Geforce 4 MX is a pretty ordinary card, not much better than a Geforce 2 MX. It's aimed at basic consumers. Even a Geforce 3 is substantially better.
If you're serious about games, and especially the amazing upcoming stuff, you need something better. A geforce 4 mx WILL end up being the bottleneck in a system like yours.
I wouldn't want to run Doom III on less than a full Geforce 4, and preferably whatever is the best at the time.
According to Carmack, the upcoming nVidia card makes all of his past work, including Doom III, obsolete. Personally, this makes me wet my pants.
And speaking of carmack comments, I wouldn't pay too much attention. Of course he ran on an ATI 9700. He's trying to sell the thing... he would have been using the best hardware he could get. BTW, out of curiosity, what sort of computer was he using? A mac or a PC? I'd be interested to know. I'd assume a PC.
Oh.. another quick point is that while RDRam is horribly expensive it IS extremely fast. DDR400 is starting to get close, and things like the nForce2 motherboard get amazing speeds from it due to completely overhauled architecture, but DDR400 is still really very immature technology, and at least on the Pentium4 RDRam is still the choice for the top end of performance.
When Doom 3 was most recently shown to the public (at QuakeCon in August), it was running on a Radeon 9700 using a Pentium 4 chip (either 2.2 or 2.4 GHz).
As for Carmack's comments, remember that he said that the best experience with Doom 3 as of now, not when the game will be released, is with a Radeon 9700. By the time the game is out the door I'm sure the 9700 will be relegated to "not quite the best" status.
And yes, I have heard that ATI may well put out a 9700-on-steroids model late in the fall, but we'll have to see how it compares to the NV30.
As for Carmack's comments, remember that he said that the best experience with Doom 3 as of now, not when the game will be released, is with a Radeon 9700. By the time the game is out the door I'm sure the 9700 will be relegated to "not quite the best" status.
And yes, I have heard that ATI may well put out a 9700-on-steroids model late in the fall, but we'll have to see how it compares to the NV30.