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Most Powerful Video Card a B&W G3 Can Handle?
- Thread starter EvieSigma
- Start date
Very unevenly. The Voodoo 5 was usually ranked as "about equal" to cards like the GeForce 256 and the best versions of the Rage 128, while the Radeon was a fairly solid GeForce 2 contender. Not to say it was uniformly slower, the Voodoo would run certain glide-optimized games (I believe Unreal Tournament was a good example) better than anything else but would sort of generally fall down in other areas. It lacks hardware T&L (which puts it at the same level as the cut-down Radeon 7000) and *also* lacks offboard texture support, which by the time it came out marks it as positively archaic, but it does have a full-screen Anti-Aliasing mode that can make games running at more CPU-friendly low resolutions and color depths look *almost* as good as the same games running at a higher resolution on other cards, so if it wasn't for the iffy drivers (remember, the company went out of business shortly after its release) you could maaaaybe make a case for it in a machine to *strictly* run only late-90's vintage Classic OS software. But by most technical measures the Radeon (or a GeForce) is a much better card overall.
So... to take a step back, I'm going to switch sides and play devil's advocate for just sticking with the Rage 128 in the B&W, or *maybe* getting a Radeon 7000 if a cheap one pops up. Is the goal here to try to make the ULTIMATE OS 9 3D GAMEZ MACHINE? Because if that's the case the OP would be *waaaay* better off getting *any* AGP-equipped G4 tower. The going rate for a working one is less than the cost of one of the video cards that we're discussing here (at least before shipping) and it's going to be a *far* better machine than an upgraded B&W. (Seriously, it's not even going to be close.) On the other hand, if the goal is to run "contemporary" late-90's 3d games the Rage128 in the B&W is already "pretty decent"; it's faster than anything that came built into any Apple machine before the tray-loading iMacs (and even then it's about a tie), it's faster than any Voodoo card (most of the time, anyway) up through the Voodoo 3... really, it's pretty well matched to the CPU power of the computer. Equip it with something like a Radeon 9200 and you're going to find yourself CPU-bound more often than not, and it's *definitely* not worth the money to upgrade a B&W with one of the rare 500+mhz upgrade cards they made for it. (Swapping in a 400mhz G4 ZIF if a pull from a Yikes G4 lands in your lap for free? Sure, that's how mine ended up with a G4. But a G4 really doesn't make much difference most of the time.)
In short, unless you're *really* in love with the B&W getting a better G4 tower would give you far more bang for the buck. Just throwing that out there.
I actually will be having a 400MHz ZIF from a Yikes coming in a few days for a low price...
And while I could get a G4, in my experience getting a good one is very expensive. Sawtooths aren't bad but MDDs and Quicksilvers are nuts on eBay!
And while I could get a G4, in my experience getting a good one is very expensive. Sawtooths aren't bad but MDDs and Quicksilvers are nuts on eBay!
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Just to clarify a bit -- although it may already be clear...
ATI sold a Radeon Mac Edition PCI card. Then, later, they released the Radeon 7000 Mac Edition PCI card. Still later, there was the Radeon 9200 PCI card.
The benchmarks Gorgonops linked shows the relative performance, plus his great discussion of the technical details.
There were "hacked" versions of the 7000 and the 9200 and if this was done right the cards work just as well as an authentic Mac Edition of the same model number. So, for example, if you decided you wanted a Radeon 7000, despite the sometimes lower performance than the original Mac Radeon, there is no reason not to get one of the $30 or $25 Sapphire Radeon 7000 cards that has been converted to Mac use. And, in fact, it has the advantage that you get 64 MB of VRAM as opposed to the 32 MB on the ATI version of the 7000.
The original post about the 7000 you linked to on Ebay was a little confusing. Don't avoid it because it's a hacked card, avoid it until you've considered the other options.
Now, in my opinion, in order to hack these cards properly, the serial Flash must be replaced with one of greater capacity. Some folks just write in edited Mac firmware, but it's missing pieces to make it fit (PC versions of the cards came with flash chips with half the capacity of the Mac version). Mostly this edited firmware works fine, but there can be issues like no display until some point in the boot process - displaying at power up is sometimes one of the things edited out for space.
I like the R7000 from Sapphire. I've used it down to 7.6.1 (without drivers) and with the acceleration drivers in 8.6 with a little work. That's after replacing the flash chip and flashing in the full Mac firmware, of course.
I get confused about flashing the 9200. Apparently there were some different versions on the PC side with lesser or greater performance but all called 9200 (some suffixes like SE) and there was a 9250 as well. If anyone knows a source that sorts that out, showing where the Mac version liesin the taxonomy, I'd love to read about it.
ATI sold a Radeon Mac Edition PCI card. Then, later, they released the Radeon 7000 Mac Edition PCI card. Still later, there was the Radeon 9200 PCI card.
The benchmarks Gorgonops linked shows the relative performance, plus his great discussion of the technical details.
There were "hacked" versions of the 7000 and the 9200 and if this was done right the cards work just as well as an authentic Mac Edition of the same model number. So, for example, if you decided you wanted a Radeon 7000, despite the sometimes lower performance than the original Mac Radeon, there is no reason not to get one of the $30 or $25 Sapphire Radeon 7000 cards that has been converted to Mac use. And, in fact, it has the advantage that you get 64 MB of VRAM as opposed to the 32 MB on the ATI version of the 7000.
The original post about the 7000 you linked to on Ebay was a little confusing. Don't avoid it because it's a hacked card, avoid it until you've considered the other options.
Now, in my opinion, in order to hack these cards properly, the serial Flash must be replaced with one of greater capacity. Some folks just write in edited Mac firmware, but it's missing pieces to make it fit (PC versions of the cards came with flash chips with half the capacity of the Mac version). Mostly this edited firmware works fine, but there can be issues like no display until some point in the boot process - displaying at power up is sometimes one of the things edited out for space.
I like the R7000 from Sapphire. I've used it down to 7.6.1 (without drivers) and with the acceleration drivers in 8.6 with a little work. That's after replacing the flash chip and flashing in the full Mac firmware, of course.
I get confused about flashing the 9200. Apparently there were some different versions on the PC side with lesser or greater performance but all called 9200 (some suffixes like SE) and there was a 9250 as well. If anyone knows a source that sorts that out, showing where the Mac version liesin the taxonomy, I'd love to read about it.
ArmorAlley
Well-known member
I did what Gorgonops suggested and this is why I offered up my 1000MHz Sonnet upgrade processor. I got a server Rev. 2 board instead (450MHz) and bought an MDD. The MDD is now my ultimate Mac OS 9 games machine and the B&W G3 is the machine for Mac OS 8.6 (and the games that ran on it up to then). That it allows Civ on a 1980x1200 monitor is wonderful, even if you have to squint.
You're running Civ. on a B&W? How are you doing that? Are you successfully using civfathack or some such? I can't get it to run on my S900 with 750fx upgrade.
Just for larfs I was trolling Craigslist to see what they're going for there and I stumbled across this guy selling a Radeon 9200 PCI:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/sop/5813475882.html
$50 or offer seems sort of steep for a local sale but I'll throw it out there if you want to try to find someone in the area to try to snag it for you and ship it.
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John_A
Well-known member
Actually, it would be nice to have an updated gpu chart comparison. Comparing all the notebook gpus, pci and agp cards that were ever made for pre osx. Settling on a couple of benchmark routines, and then let the forum members contribute with the results from their own machines. Could be interesting with different systems/os versions/drivers.
Would probably be a very long and informative list.
Edit: Useful information that also could be handy, Qd3d rave support, opengl version support etc.
Would probably be a very long and informative list.
Edit: Useful information that also could be handy, Qd3d rave support, opengl version support etc.
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ArmorAlley
Well-known member
Apologies for hijacking this thread.
Hi Trag,
I'm running Civ. I 1.12 on Mac OS 9.2.2 more or less perfectly. Screen redraws sometimes leave the placenames offset. It crashes the odd time, but I save frequently so the benefit of the big monitor compensates for the mild inconvenience. Gameplay on a 450MHz G3 at 1920x1080 is not that much faster than on my IIfx driving a 1172x870 monitor, it has to be said.
Here is a picture of it I took just now:
As to why it can run on PowerMac, I don't know. I don't remember ever applying a patch although there is a CivFatMac folder beside the application. I can send you the patch, if you wish. I'm sure that this will not infringe forum rules.
If I can help you to get Civ up and running on your S900, then I'll be glad that I was of some help,
aa
Hi Trag,
I'm running Civ. I 1.12 on Mac OS 9.2.2 more or less perfectly. Screen redraws sometimes leave the placenames offset. It crashes the odd time, but I save frequently so the benefit of the big monitor compensates for the mild inconvenience. Gameplay on a 450MHz G3 at 1920x1080 is not that much faster than on my IIfx driving a 1172x870 monitor, it has to be said.
Here is a picture of it I took just now:
As to why it can run on PowerMac, I don't know. I don't remember ever applying a patch although there is a CivFatMac folder beside the application. I can send you the patch, if you wish. I'm sure that this will not infringe forum rules.
If I can help you to get Civ up and running on your S900, then I'll be glad that I was of some help,
aa
ArmorAlley
Well-known member
What exactly are your criteria?
Will your machine be for playing games? If so, which kind of games? 3-D shooters?
If not, what kind of apps to have in mind: CAD? DTP?
The message that I'm taking away from this thread is that, if you are buying a Radeon card, be absolutely sure that it has T&L built-in (Rx000), all such Radeons are better than the card than the Rage 128, the Rage 128 isn't all that bad actually, and that Voodoo cards are not worth the money. I've forgotten what was said about nVidia cards. The LowEndMac site has good info on GPU comparisons for games like Quake 3.
Will your machine be for playing games? If so, which kind of games? 3-D shooters?
If not, what kind of apps to have in mind: CAD? DTP?
The message that I'm taking away from this thread is that, if you are buying a Radeon card, be absolutely sure that it has T&L built-in (Rx000), all such Radeons are better than the card than the Rage 128, the Rage 128 isn't all that bad actually, and that Voodoo cards are not worth the money. I've forgotten what was said about nVidia cards. The LowEndMac site has good info on GPU comparisons for games like Quake 3.
ArmorAlley
Well-known member
There *is* a Mac copy of Deus Ex. I'm in Paris at the moment in the game. It is a game that likes a Radeon...
dr.zeissler
Well-known member
No, DeusEX works with 8MB Voodoo2 Card.
bunnspecial
Well-known member
This has not been my experience in any way, shape, or form.
BTW, Quartz Extreme IS enabled in Tiger(and Leopard, if you have a G4 and do some extra work) if you have a Geforce 5200 or 6200. The 5200 is usually recommended due to bandwidth constraints on the bus.
I flashed a PNY branded 256mb FX5200, and it does great in a B&W or Yikes!. The card I have is dual VGA.
I'll also add in that in Tiger, even the Rage 128 isn't THAT bad. A 7000 or 9200 wakes up the computer a lot, but the Rage 128 is workable especially if you turn off the animations.
But plenty of people have reported it. Do note the general claim is that the performance hit from enabling QE is very often not immediately obvious, or even present at all unless the system is stressed in certain ways:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/OSX/quartz_extreme_PCI_mod.html
Anyway, it's great that it works fine for you, but it doesn't change the fact that these systems have less than half the bandwidth to the video card as even the first Sawtooth AGP G4, and given what all these systems are worth these days (basically nothing) if OS X performance is a priority it makes very little sense to go hunting for the "best" PCI graphics card for a B&W when you can probably get a whole G4 that will perform loads better for the same price or less.
And, also, as noted previously, the OP wants something that works well in OS 9 and the 5200/6200 is essentially useless in that scenario.
