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PowerMac G5 performance, and games

J

jamesa

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 7, 2003
31
17
Hi there,

My first post on these forums...! :)

What's brought me out of lurker mode is that there's something I've been dying to know about the new G5s but nobody has really answered.

How does it go at games?

I'm wondering how much a difference the faster bus and things like PCI-X make to the performance for gaming. They're surely going to be more competitive, but by how much...

If anybody could post FPS for any games - or if you have none, maybe download something like America's Army (ftp://armyops:ftp@guinness.devrandom.net:7000/armyops190-mac.dmg.bz2 - warning, big link).

If you could post what games you've tried, their FPS, and your setup (eg dualie with Radeon 9800 and 512Mb RAM) I'd be most grateful :D

-- james
 
Eh?

What does PCI-X have to do with gaming performance?
 
i agree pci-x will have no effect on gaming
since games are centered around the video card on AGP 8x and CPU and Ram.

it should do well

but PCI-X will be used in specialty cards in video editing/compression/cature and storage and other niche market cards that need the bandwidth
 
Re: Eh?

Originally posted by zen
What does PCI-X have to do with gaming performance?
Click to expand...

heh, good point :) I knew something down on the PCI bus had sped up the video card, just forgot it was the doubling of AGP speed as opposed to PCI-X.

My mistake. ;)

Anyone with any chance to run some games on their new Aluminium behemoths?

-- james
 
exaclty waiting for the same thing here !
Hoping someone will EVEr install a game on his G5
 
Re: Re: Eh?

Originally posted by jamesa
heh, good point :) I knew something down on the PCI bus had sped up the video card, just forgot it was the doubling of AGP speed as opposed to PCI-X.

My mistake. ;)

Anyone with any chance to run some games on their new Aluminium behemoths?

-- james
Click to expand...

My Aluminium behemoth is still nowhere to be seen arrrghh! Apple I'm ready now, you can bring it now, you did after all charge me almost 2 months ago..
 
I played WarCraft III on a dual 2.0 G5 with a 23" LCD back at WWDC, and it totally freaking ruled. Completely smooth scrolling even during huge battles. We also tried stunts like opening six different ~100 MB movie trailers, starting them all playing, and then dragging around a semi-transparent terminal window running "top -u". Not a stutter...
 
the answer to the original question is all g5's will be great gamers,but i would go for the 9800 in the machines. fx5200 isnt bad but hardcore gamers will want those extra frame rates & goodies. and if you cant afford it the 9600 for 50 more bucks is a step up from the fx5200.
 
Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
the answer to the original question is all g5's will be great gamers,but i would go for the 9800 in the machines. fx5200 isnt bad but hardcore gamers will want those extra frame rates & goodies. and if you cant afford it the 9600 for 50 more bucks is a step up from the fx5200.
Click to expand...

Good advice...
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1261767,00.asp

Anyone else managed to get some games going on their G5 yet?

-- james
 
Originally posted by jamesa
Anyone else managed to get some games going on their G5 yet?
Click to expand...

Okay, let's make this clear: Almost no one has even gotten their G5 yet, much less have access or the privilege to install a game on it (the only ones who have gotten it are universities, so of course no games on those machines).



irmongoose
 
Originally posted by irmongoose
Okay, let's make this clear: Almost no one has even gotten their G5 yet, much less have access or the privilege to install a game on it (the only ones who have gotten it are universities, so of course no games on those machines).
Click to expand...

The G5's have been shipping slowly for a good few weeks now. Many have gone to regular consumers. Many University ones will have games installed on them too :)
 
Originally posted by AngryAngel
The G5's have been shipping slowly for a good few weeks now. Many have gone to regular consumers. Many University ones will have games installed on them too :)
Click to expand...

Wait a minute, are we talking about now? As in 9/11/2003? Sorry, it's just that I was stuck at two years ago... oh, so very very tragic. Hmm...

Did I miss something?



irmongoose
 
Originally posted by Santiago
I played WarCraft III on a dual 2.0 G5 with a 23" LCD back at WWDC, and it totally freaking ruled. Completely smooth scrolling even during huge battles. We also tried stunts like opening six different ~100 MB movie trailers, starting them all playing, and then dragging around a semi-transparent terminal window running "top -u". Not a stutter...
Click to expand...

It's good to note that it has that much power, but in reality I can't see where a home user needs that much power. Don't get me wrong, I love all the power as much as the next guy, but I can't understand, why a person would spend $1200 more for a dual G5 when a dual G4 would suffice for CPU power and upgrade their video card.

And, most games will remain 32-bit, because 64-bit isn't at the desktop in enough quantities to justify that game developers start producing 64-bit games. Even still, the OS isn't fully 64-bit and until that happens, there definitely won't be any 64-bit software for it.
 
Originally posted by tomf87
And, most games will remain 32-bit, because 64-bit isn't at the desktop in enough quantities to justify that game developers start producing 64-bit games.
Click to expand...

...as well as the fact that 64-bit games would be no faster, and probably slower.

Originally posted by tomf87
Even still, the OS isn't fully 64-bit and until that happens, there definitely won't be any 64-bit software for it.
Click to expand...

...oh, so no-one made PPC native Apps before the OS was? As I recall, it took a long time before even the majority of the system was PPC code, and I think some of OS 9 is still in 680x0 code.

OS 10.2.7 has the enhancements required to address more than 4GB RAM, and that is the only major thing that 64-bits do for us at the moment, until there is a requirement for 64-bit integer calculations in desktop apps.

Optimising for other achetectural changes (e.g. altivec) will give big boosts, though this has nothing to do with the G5 being 64-bit.
 
Originally posted by AngryAngel
...as well as the fact that 64-bit games would be no faster, and probably slower.



...oh, so no-one made PPC native Apps before the OS was? As I recall, it took a long time before even the majority of the system was PPC code, and I think some of OS 9 is still in 680x0 code.

OS 10.2.7 has the enhancements required to address more than 4GB RAM, and that is the only major thing that 64-bits do for us at the moment, until there is a requirement for 64-bit integer calculations in desktop apps.

Optimising for other achetectural changes (e.g. altivec) will give big boosts, though this has nothing to do with the G5 being 64-bit.
Click to expand...

Unreal Tounament 2004 is a 64Bit game, though Im not exactly sure when the mac release will be.
---------------------------
Well, actually, the G5 has, I believe, a 42bit memory address, so it is not true that the G5, being 64 bit, can theoretically address the huge amount (up into the exabyte amounts) of RAM( though 42 bit goes up way into the terabytes, so I dont think it is a problem right now)
 
Originally posted by tomf87
It's good to note that it has that much power, but in reality I can't see where a home user needs that much power. Don't get me wrong, I love all the power as much as the next guy, but I can't understand, why a person would spend $1200 more for a dual G5 when a dual G4 would suffice for CPU power and upgrade their video card.
Click to expand...

It's all about the bus speed.

An 800Mhz bus will be far more beneficial than the anemic 167Mhz bus found on all current G4s. Games will finally be able to utilize the maximum bandwidth of the DDR SDRAM. Sure, the CPU and GPU of a G4 tower may be fine, but it doesn't matter as long as it is constrained by a slow bus.
 
I will post FPS for games such as X-Plane, Elite Force, Elite Force 2, Medal of Honor, Medal of Honor: Spearhead, Unreal Tournament 2003, Sim City 4, F/A-18 Hornet: Opertion Iraqi Freedom, Master of Orion 3, WarBirds, Wolfenstein, Ghost Recon, and Max Payne.

THAT IS, when I get my 1.8 GHz G5 with a Radeon 9800 Pro.

WHICH I ORDERED IN EARLY JULY THROUGH THE EDUCATION STORE.

My ORIGINAL ship date was 09/02/03

BUT, for no apparent reason, they DELAYED it a whole month to 09/29/03.
 
Originally posted by AngryAngel
...as well as the fact that 64-bit games would be no faster, and probably slower.
Click to expand...
Check out this thread over at Ars Tech:
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?q=Y&a=tpc&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=9080959175&p=1

The long and short of it, if you don't want to go through the 13 pages; poorly written code runs way better on the G5 than on the G4. Furthermore, most games are ports, and by their nature are not going to be well written pieces of software.

-- james
 
Originally posted by voyagerd
I will post FPS for games such as X-Plane, Elite Force, Elite Force 2, Medal of Honor, Medal of Honor: Spearhead, Unreal Tournament 2003, Sim City 4, F/A-18 Hornet: Opertion Iraqi Freedom, Master of Orion 3, WarBirds, Wolfenstein, Ghost Recon, and Max Payne.

THAT IS, when I get my 1.8 GHz G5 with a Radeon 9800 Pro.

WHICH I ORDERED IN EARLY JULY THROUGH THE EDUCATION STORE.

My ORIGINAL ship date was 09/02/03

BUT, for no apparent reason, they DELAYED it a whole month to 09/29/03.
Click to expand...

voyagerd, I feel your pain :)

Apple have two ship dates, apparently - the one that is displayed is either the "worst case" or "most likely case"; if you ring Apple up, ask them for the "best case" ship date (it's actually termed something like "as soon as", I think). That's the best time the computer could be delivered.

It :mad: me that Apple haven't yet managed to get their inventory system to a stage where it's relatively accurate for the customer.

-- james
 
My brother just got his G5 earlier today. It's a 1.8 GHz model with 512 MB RAM.

I forgot to check which video card it has, but I'll check it tomorrow when I go to set up his net connection. I'm assuming it's the fx5200 though.

If you want though, give me a list of things to do, and I'll test em out.

Games are pretty much a no go though, unless I download America's Army. The only games I own are the original Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament.

But any other apps or actions you want me to test, just let me know, and I'll do my best to test it all.

enoch
 
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