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Rev. B 12" PB and a cinema display

QCassidy352

QCassidy352

macrumors G5
Original poster
Mar 20, 2003
12,194
6,368
Bay Area
well, with all this talk of new PMs and displays (tomorrow???), it will soon be time for me to get my new cinema display. :D

However, I am a little worried. My rev. B 12" powerbook has a relatively weak graphics card with only 32 MB of video memory. Is hooking a 20" LCD up to it going to significantly tax the graphics card? Am I going to notice slowdowns on other tasks that make use of the graphics card?

I play a good bit of warcraft 3, and I'm afraid that the display will so tax the powerbook that I won't be able to play on the cinema display. Thoughts?
 
I would also be a little hesitant about that. Try asking someone at the Apple store. It would be fine for PPT presentations and such, but games are another story.

Best wishes,
JOD8FY
 
hmm... anyone know for sure? What kind of video card would it take before this weren't an issue?
 
Don't worry

The Rev. B or DVI 12 inch powebooks will be able to handle the 20 inch LCD or any other Apple display. 32MB of video memory is fine for any 2D application, and as attractive as OSX is, I seriously doubt it will bog down your graphics processor. I have an old school 12inch Powerbook 866Mhz and it works on my 17inch VGA LCD flawlessly. Some of the visual effects may seem slightly less fluid in animation, but that would likely be a product of your CPU's speed.
 
my 867MHz 12" PB would intermittently freeze for split seconds while playing McSebi's "Pac the Man." that was on the built-in display, and of course the GPU on that is identical to the one you have.

my new 1.33GHz 12" PB is perfectly smooth with PTM.
 
Rod Rod said:
my 867MHz 12" PB would intermittently freeze for split seconds while playing McSebi's "Pac the Man." that was on the built-in display, and of course the GPU on that is identical to the one you have.

my new 1.33GHz 12" PB is perfectly smooth with PTM.
Click to expand...

I thought the Go5200 was better than the Geforce 420 in the Rev A? Also, were you using it in clamshell mode?

I remember every game I played on my old Rev A was choppy and barely playable compared my Rev B.
 
tekno_geek911 said:
I thought the Go5200 was better than the Geforce 420 in the Rev A? Also, were you using it in clamshell mode?

I remember every game I played on my old Rev A was choppy and barely playable compared my Rev B.
Click to expand...

you're right, the card on the rev. B 12" is much better than on the rev. A. He said he was playing on the built in display, so not clamshell...
 
tekno_geek911 said:
I thought the Go5200 was better than the Geforce 420 in the Rev A? Also, were you using it in clamshell mode?

I remember every game I played on my old Rev A was choppy and barely playable compared my Rev B.
Click to expand...

my bad. I'm mixing up nVidias. if only the version C 12" got leftover radeon 9600 parts from the 15" and 17" PBs that went to 9700s. oh well! at least I upgraded to 9600 pro in my G5.
 
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