3D card

[McEven]

I?m wondering if i should upgrade my standard Mac G4. What type of 3D card should i choose?  

-McEven

[Toby]

I moved this to General Gossip as I thought you might get more responses here - fewer people visit the Mod forum...

Toby

[Ace]

First, what kind of system do you have (Powermac?), and what applications (games I'm assuming) do you usually play on it? Also, how much money are you willing to spend?

[Brain]

g force 4,(or is 5 the latest one)
*drools*
ooooohhh, yea
geeeeeeeforrrrrccceeee.....

[Jeb]

it depends on how recent your G4 is... if its a AGP 2x g4 you could get a Geforce mx2 which is pretty nice, and if its a 4x AGP slot, you can get a Geforce 3 or 4 both are great ( i have one )
however if its a older G4, ie a pci g4, you can get a radion 5500 or whatever

A fast Video card and a huge amount of ram will make your computer fly in the jaguar

[Bigpat]

Damn you jeb, damn you to hell.

[Grifter]

I have the GeForce 4 in my new mac, and it does rock... but I've read three times now that the Radeon 7500 has better frame rates on most games (apple's site had the GeForce 4 out performing the Radeon, but it was with different machines).

It all depends on the card you can use... G4 cube's could only be upgraded to a Radeon, but you can't find that card anywhere, because it was a specific size to fit.  Then you could have PCI, AGP2x or AGP4x available on your machine.  Radeon makes a good PCI card that's 32megs and runs most games just fine.  Once you get into the AGP's, any top of the line ATI or Nvidia card will do (you just have to get the right one for your machine).  

[Jeb]

Grifter, thx for eleborating on what i meant...
I've heard that the nivida cards have better drivers...
one side note, ATI is in canada, and we all know how much every american hates canada

[†FiRE Infection]

You can always count on Grift to elaborate eh?

[.vooDoo.]

ya, i had a bad revelation last night when i was playing elite force against some pc'ers(cough suck cough) anyways, i had a 50 ping and they were all above 100 and i was still getting my ass handed to me and i consider myself to be a very good eliter. I NEED A NEW CARD. I didnt think it was necessary considering i have a year old g4 450mhz 512sdram with cable connection, but how much is it for the best card for my machine, i will spare no expense when it comes to my gaming, I NEED INPUT AND WANT TO CRUSH THE EVIL PC'ERS, LOL

[Jeb]

a good video card is fun, cause not only does the game get higher FPS. its easyer to look at, and visualy does the game justice.
My Geforce 3 allows me to run at maximum resolutions on all the latest games,
wolfenstien looks visualy stunning

[Bondo]

Yeppers, despite being 100 MHz below the minimum requirement of RtoCW, I still get awesome fps on high res, high quality due to my GF3.

[Jeb]

yeah the geforce 3 is the way to go, i've seen tests were the Gf4 is slower than the Gf3 on some websites. but with the new doom game, it will make my Geforce 3 obsoliete

[Brain]

i think that ravenshield will also pretty much melt anything less than a gf2(or the ati equivelent)

[Grifter]

A good site for info on your machines is

www.everymac.com

There you can see which video connection you have... and then figure out which video card you can get...

Here's a good PCI based card for not much $$$:

http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=369724

Here's the top of the line ATI (I think it works on both AGP 2x and 4x... someone correct me if I'm wrong)

http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=967178

Here's the article on it:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/radeon_8500/index.html

Hope that helps...

[.vooDoo.]

thank you grif, very helpfull but i still dunno what card i should get,  or how to find out what card i have for that matter. Should i open up my comper to find out?

[Brain]

well,that would b the the easiest way, it should have a sticker(or be etched in tracing, or some other identifying mark) somewhere on the board that tells what it is
if not try tech tool pro
if that fails, tell us what system you have and we may be able to figure it out

[Jeb]

Yeah, i think i heard taht the Geforce 3 will work on 2x AGP slots, even though it says it will only run on 4x.

[Ace]

thank you grif, very helpfull but i still dunno what card i should get, ?or how to find out what card i have for that matter. Should i open up my comper to find out?

Apple System Profiler tells you what kind of card you have last time I checked.

[SiGmA_X]

If I were you, I would replace what ever came with your Mac with at least a GeForce3Ti200 Golden Sample. I would personally recommend putting at least a GeForce4Ti4400 in it, but that is your choice...

And if you want the budget model, get a ATI 8500LE.