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Question about 2600 XT performance

S

schreck

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 21, 2007
191
0
New England
I know that this has been addressed before, but it was under slightly different circumstances. I've got a quad penryn based Mac Pro with the standard ATI card. The problem that I've been having is that whenever I have Google Earth open on my 20inch ACD at 1/2 screen size, everything seems glitchy. It moves slowly from one location to another and switching between spaces is not rapid.

I'd like to know if this is to be expected or could I possibly have a junk graphics card? How would you expect this card to act under these circumstances? Just looking for some opinions. Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Alex
 
Keep in mind that Google Earth is a nice balance between your internet connection and your video card.

Spaces is rapid for me on the GMA 950 and X3100 on a Dell 24" LCD.
 
Eidorian said:
Keep in mind that Google Earth is a nice balance between your internet connection and your video card.

Spaces is rapid for me on the GMA 950 and X3100 on a Dell 24" LCD.
Click to expand...

Definitely. I'm on a university connection, and we're typically around 8mbps. I understand that the functionality of the programme itself may change when in use, but I don't see why switching between spaces would lag thanks to an internet connection.

Also, your mentioning that spaces is rapid with your integrated Intel graphics is the exact reason why I asked. I had a MacBook before this and could run Google Earth no problem and switch between spaces without batting an eye. I just expected a little more out of a dedicated card driving a single wsxga+ monitor. :)

Is this what you'd expect?
 
I know there are plenty of people around here that own the new Mac Pro already with this card. I'm seriously honest, and I'd appreciate your opinions. Is this how the card should perform?
 
Post the complete specs of your machine. You're giving us nothing to go on. It might not even be the video card. How much RAM, HD size, CPU speed how much space used on the hard drive? Once we have the specs we can then determine if it's something to with the specs, or something else.

For example, not knowing how much RAM you have, it could be the amount of RAM.

Is anything else running at the same time? What does activity monitor say?
 
Kosh66 said:
Post the complete specs of your machine. You're giving us nothing to go on. It might not even be the video card. How much RAM, HD size, CPU speed how much space used on the hard drive? Once we have the specs we can then determine if it's something to with the specs, or something else.

For example, not knowing how much RAM you have, it could be the amount of RAM.

Is anything else running at the same time? What does activity monitor say?
Click to expand...

schreck said:
I've got a quad penryn based Mac Pro with the standard ATI card.
Click to expand...

I think it might be the drivers then.
 
It's certainly not the RAM. I've got a total of 4GB, and I barely hit 2GB when running Google Earth with other applications. Also, I've got two 500GB hard drives, both of which have only ~150GB taken up. And like I said, quad Penryn based CPU. 2,8GHz.

If it is just the drivers, would 10.5.2 perhaps help resolve the "problem"?

Thanks,
Alex
 
schreck said:
I've got a quad penryn based Mac Pro with the standard ATI card.
Click to expand...

Yeah Eidorian, that's like telling us he has an iMac. It doesn't give us any config info. Did he add RAM, remove RAM, reinstall a lower MacOS. I can ASSUME it's the standard config and end up going on a goose chase.
 
Ok, thanks schreck. Sounds like it's unlikely it's RAM then. I assume that's 4 x 1GB sticks with 2 sticks of RAM on each riser in the slots closest to the motherboard.

10.5.2 could resolve it (it could be a driver issue), but I hadn't heard of issues, yet, with the current drivers. I did hear some rumors that some graphic benchmarks seemed slow.

Have you tried any games, if you have any?

Like you say, you have lots of HD space available.

hmmm....
 
I don't know what you mean by <<glitchy>>, but I can tell you that google earth on my 8-core new mac pro looks perfectly fluid, despite the mac runs 8 boinc projects... with as large a window I can make on my 22" lcd (1680x1050, should be the same for the 20" ACD I suppose)

And of course, the video card is the stock ati 2600...

phjo
 
The things you mentioned, Spaces, Google Earth, multitasking, etc... run very fluidly on my 24" iMac; it's certainly not a hardware limitation on your Mac Pro.
Probably the video driver, or the motherboard chipset drivers.
Are you certain that your Leopard installation is healthy?
ie: is it factory, or did you install it?
 
I've noticed that with Google Earth under Windows, I get a much smoother experience than I do with Google Earth under Leopard. None of the lag on the OS X side is present. This is with the same hardware – 2.66 GHz Quad, 4 gigs of RAM, and an HD2600 XT card.
 
Kosh66- I have not tried any games on this thing yet. I'd absolutely love to, but have yet to get a version of XP and still don't possess any Mac orientated games. I do plan on doing that at some point though. And you're exactly right, I have 4 1GB sticks. 2 on riser A closest to the motherboard (Apple's Hynix stock RAM), and 2 on riser B (OWC) in the first two slots.

snickelfritz- Just received the tower last Wednesday, 23 January with Leopard (10.5.1) installed.

Strange, isn't it? I thought through a lot of this before posting (as I should have, I didn't want to waste anyone's time) with no luck. Perhaps 10.5.2 will help.


EDIT: My goodness. I have it open in another space right now at full screen size, and it's running perfectly. No lag between spaces at all. Haha, I have no idea what could be going on here..

Edit #2.. I guess I had to use it for a bit longer. Spaces- slow. Exposé.. even worse. Only running one Safari window, iTunes and Google Earth. This is sick. My MacBook did better than this. The second I close Google Earth it's perfectly fine. But, any computer within the last five years that runs OSX should be able to handle two windows.

I understand that Google Earth could be a bit slow on OSX, but this is still pretty bad. I'm really only relating this to my experiences with the programme on my Intel GMA950 MacBook.
 
is the problem with spaces ONLY when Google Earth occupies one of them? how about when the spaces are occupied with other programs? I have the 2600 XT card and i have been running all four spaces with programs various Adobe CS3 programs, handbrake, iTunes... and I only had lag once (and that was when I was batching large files in PS, ripping a DVD from handbrake, and converting a 150 page document to a PDf file)
 
The lag is only when using Google Earth. It seems to run fine with I have other programmes running such as Light Room, iPhoto, etc.
 
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