Veni, Vidi, Video (Cards)

[Mr. Lothario]

     I'm going to be buying a new video card pretty soon to replace my GeForce2 MX (AKA The Low-FPS Wonder). In terms of price/performance, the Radeon 8500 and the GeForce4 MX are the best choices. I want to hear from people who have those cards. I'm interested in what speed your CPU is, how much RAM you have, and what kind of framerates you get in what games at what detail levels.

     With a GeForce2 MX in a 733 MHz G4 with 512 MB RAM, I get between 20-30 FPS in Ghost Recon at 1024x768x16, all detail settings as low as they can go. I get between 4-15 FPS in AA, 1024x768x16, all detail settings as low as they can go. I get around 30 FPS in Freedom Force at 1024x768x32, with all settings at maximum (go Omni Group!).

[Jeb]

i get 30fps steady with a geforce 3 with graphics settings at medium (466mhz, 768megs of ram). But i'm waiting for my radion 9600

[kos.viper]

The Radeon 8500 might help you more than a GeForce 4 MX.  Anything faster than those two would create bottlenecks that you don't need.  Are you getting a new comp Loth?  If not go out for one of those $500 AGP processor upgrades and a Radeon 9000, you should see instant FPS improvements.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

You already know my stats with the GeForce4MX Loth, and they are more then acceptable.  But I've heard that the ATI's are supposed to be better for gaming.  Anyone here have an 8500 in a Mac?

[Typhy]

Well, I have an ATI 8500 in a Dual 500 G4, unfortunantly, that uses 2X AGP, so it can't take full advantage of the graphics card.

In my experiences, NVIDIA's are better for gaming. If you will take a look at UT 2003, as it open, it says "Built for NVIDIA". I'll say this, I'd trade my ATI Radeon 9000 for a GeForce 4MX any day.  

[Mr. Lothario]

     I'm going to get a new computer at some point in the misty future. Right now, I'm just looking for a relatively cheap fix to allow me to play games again.

[Jeb]

http://barefeats.com/rad9800h.html
Interesting tests considering that the 9700 wasn't much slower than the 9800, but the tests were done on a G4 1.42ghz with only AGP4x. The 9800 would have a wider margin of ownage on the AGP 8x, but so would all the cards that come with the G5s.

[PsYcO aSsAsSiN]

For your sakes, I hope the 9800 pro 256MB card comes out for Mac...that thing is the best card on the market (yes, better than the 5900 ultra from Nvidia).

[(SEALs) one]

"Times how long Typhy will come in and disagree with ass."

[Typhy]

"Times how long Typhy will come in and disagree with ass."

About 4 hours, one.

Right now, it's a hard comparison to make, since the GeForce FX 5900 and ATI Radeon 9800 Pro can both run every game perfectly ( providing that they're given good computers ).

On the mac side of things, I'd rather have an NVIDIA 5900 than the ATI 9800 Pro, simply because the majority of mac games are built for NVIDIA's.

My Powerbook ( 1GHZ G4, 64MB ATI ) gets about 22 FPS on UT 2003, where as my friend's powerbook ( 1GHZ G4, 64MB GeForce 4 440 ) gets about 45 FPS. UT 2003 is, of course, an extreme example, however, the majority of mac games are built for NVIDIA.

[Recoil //>]

I would say go for the Radeon 9000.  The chipset is identical to the Radeon 8500, the only difference is the 8500 has s-video out.  The Radeon 9000 is about $30 cheaper (don't quote me on that), so unless you plan on outputing DV, might as well save some cash.

It also, of course depends alot on what comp you are running.  On my comp, a Dual 450 you get about 30-40fps with all settings on medium.  On a Dual 1.25, you get about 50-60fps with all setting on high.

[Typhy]

Recoil, one of the reasons that your framerates are so bad is because your Dual 450 G4 has 2X AGP, and the ATI Radeon 9000 is designed to be a 4X AGP graphics card.

[Recoil //>]

Oh, I wasn't complaining about it.  Compared to the Rage128 Pro that came with the machine, it's a huge improvement.  With that, I had to have it set to 800 x 600 with everything on low and I would get about 10fps.