I emailed ATI for an answer on a possible revised release date and all I got back was a link to the July press release, which stated an early fall release.
radeon? who cares about the radeon, the all in wonder is the newest and most sexy card out...at least until Nvidia's new card...only to be topped by the 9800 pro
More vaper ware from ATI, they will release a new consumer video card for the Mac only when the 8500 is no longer selling, and then it will one to replace it at $200+. They did this a few years ago with a revision to their PCI card, I e-mailed them for 6 months off and on about its release. Then I bought a Cube and gave my 6400 to my nephew. A few months later they released the 7000, skipping the model that they were going to release compleatly.
They're coming soon, and it'll be the 9700 Pro w/ 128 MB VRAM, not one of the down clocked versions. A month or two, perhaps? MWSF is possible since ATI often intros & ships at MacWorld. MacWarehouse's latest print catalog lists it for $333 so they must think it'll be here soon.
The sad truth is that the smaller market gets the products later. The number of expensive addon video cards that ATI will sell to Mac users is very small. Apple ships a decent card with their machines, and only the PowerMacs can use the upgrade card, and these things aren't cheap. Even the PC upgrade market is small, the Mac upgrade market is tiny. Me and about 11 other guys, I'd guess.
<strong>The sad truth is that the smaller market gets the products later. The number of expensive addon video cards that ATI will sell to Mac users is very small. Apple ships a decent card with their machines, and only the PowerMacs can use the upgrade card, and these things aren't cheap. Even the PC upgrade market is small, the Mac upgrade market is tiny. Me and about 11 other guys, I'd guess. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Counting myself and a couple of friends, one-fourth of that upgrade market resides here.
I understand the business considerations, but how difficult is it to make a few hardware changes and write some OS specific drivers? Particularly since they have other cards that they have already integrated for Macs.
At this rate, I'm guessing we won't see a GeforceFX card from nVidia until next summer, if we're lucky.
Counting myself and a couple of friends, one-fourth of that upgrade market resides here.
I understand the business considerations, but how difficult is it to make a few hardware changes and write some OS specific drivers? Particularly since they have other cards that they have already integrated for Macs.
At this rate, I'm guessing we won't see a GeforceFX card from nVidia until next summer, if we're lucky. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well... getting a product to market is always a lot harder than it seems, and the larger the company and more complex the product, the worse this gets. For starters, writing drivers is a very complex task -- especially with all of the advanced capabilities recently added to OpenGL. Then you have to test the drivers and the hardware in all the Macs that can use it and with all versions of the OS (9, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2 plus minor variants). Verify that it works with the major 3D games & apps, including upcoming ones. Its good to get developers to sign up to take advantage of the new hardware (tough since there will be so few of them), and that means seeding some of them with prerelease hardware. Then you need to consider the production issues, there may be zero hardware changes (just a different flash memory) but you need to carve off part of the run which takes sales away from the PC market. A new box, a new manual, ensure the distribution network knows about it, and get your support staff up to speed.
Yep, its not as simple as writing a few lines of code and slapping the thing in a box. But don't worry, it'll be worth the wait.
<strong>They're coming soon, and it'll be the 9700 Pro w/ 128 MB VRAM, not one of the down clocked versions. A month or two, perhaps? MWSF is possible since ATI often intros & ships at MacWorld. MacWarehouse's latest print catalog lists it for $333 so they must think it'll be here soon.
The sad truth is that the smaller market gets the products later. The number of expensive addon video cards that ATI will sell to Mac users is very small. Apple ships a decent card with their machines, and only the PowerMacs can use the upgrade card, and these things aren't cheap. Even the PC upgrade market is small, the Mac upgrade market is tiny. Me and about 11 other guys, I'd guess. </strong><hr></blockquote>
ATI could get a lot more sales for their cards if they enginered them to cover as much of the potential Mac market as possible, and offer the "best" versions of the cards that they have to offer, as well as a low cost alternative, and engineer the cards so that they fit is the largest number of models as possible, which includes the Cubes. A Cube card fits in a tower, the only difference is the faceplate. Cube owners ARE upgrading their video cards, its one of the reasons they bought Cubes, and are paying premiums over and above the price of a retail 8500 to get video cards that are offer less capabilities than the 8500, this is a potential market that ATI is ignoring. They could have even more sales in the Mac market if they released retail versions of their All in Wonder cards,which have a consumer appeal.
The only reason that ATI is not shipping thier latest chip in a retail version is becouse it would steal sales from the 8500. Don't forget that the "BTO" version has been out since last summer. They dont see a real market in the Mac community so they are only doing what they have to so they dont loose Apples mobile chip sales to Nvidia.
They'd also sell more if they released them earlier.
the longer something is in the market, the more people will buy it.
Who's going to buy the 9700, knowing the GeFX is around the corner? (hoping that it will be released quickly).
Had they sold it the same day teh new Powermacs shipped, they'd have sold a lot of those, either as bto or as replacement for some GF4MX and 9000 Pros.
Same goes for games:
"it's a small market, so we give it little priority." thus the release gets delayed and the market becomes even smaller, and then their next product release is going to be like " it's a tiny market, so we don't do it at all".
If it's all about how big the market is, why the heck can you get Linux catalysts drives and run a Radeon 9700 Pro RIGHT NOW??!?!?! nVidia has Linux drivers for all their cards too, apparently you can't even flash any retail GeForce4 Ti cards.
Ridiculous. The good thing about this is I'll be able to pick up a PC version for cheap by the time the Mac one is out and flash it. Think about it, if we can just flash the BIOS for Mac and make it work, how f*ckin hard could it be for ATI to actually release the damn card? It isnt.
<strong>If it's all about how big the market is, why the heck can you get Linux catalysts drives and run a Radeon 9700 Pro RIGHT NOW??!?!?! nVidia has Linux drivers for all their cards too, apparently you can't even flash any retail GeForce4 Ti cards.
Ridiculous. The good thing about this is I'll be able to pick up a PC version for cheap by the time the Mac one is out and flash it. Think about it, if we can just flash the BIOS for Mac and make it work, how f*ckin hard could it be for ATI to actually release the damn card? It isnt.</strong><hr></blockquote>
There's a big difference between publishing the basic Linux drivers so a bunch of hacks and geeks can get it running, and putting out a Mac product for the non-computer savvy.
I think ATI/Apple support all the features through OpenGL extensions, as it was always the case with new hardware features.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If my memory is good, in a previous thread about open GL they said that Apple did not wanted Open GL extensions. There was only Open GL with a lack of many specialized stuff coming from Nvidia or ATI.
<strong>If my memory is good, in a previous thread about open GL they said that Apple did not wanted Open GL extensions. There was only Open GL with a lack of many specialized stuff coming from Nvidia or ATI.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That all changed with the release of Jaguar. Its OpenGL implementation is to the 1.4 spec and includes a very substantial list of extensions, including vertex and fragment programs. Even ATI's triangle tesselator is supported. I suspect that upon release of the 9700 (or shortly thereafter), developer's will have access to additional extensions so that most of the 9700's features can be used.
<strong>they said that Apple did not wanted Open GL extensions.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, if not more, there are Apple-specific extensions in OpenGL (as I saw on developer.apple.com) as of 10.2, so they must have changed their mind. Which is a good thing.
That all changed with the release of Jaguar. Its OpenGL implementation is to the 1.4 spec and includes a very substantial list of extensions, including vertex and fragment programs. Even ATI's triangle tesselator is supported. I suspect that upon release of the 9700 (or shortly thereafter), developer's will have access to additional extensions so that most of the 9700's features can be used.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And to think, not too long ago it seems The GPU hierarchy was very distinctivly
nvidia Geforce
3dfx Voodoo
Ati Rage(what a pathetic card)
then all of a sudden WHAM! radeon, death of voodoo and now the radeon 9700 is out performing geforce4s(in some fields)....thats definatly quite the change a pace.
all I can say about the mac radeon 9700 is THE SOONER THE BETTER!....the original radeon was released exclusively on macs for a while as a statement of atis continuing support of apple...then every subsequent radeon, or so it seems, has been released on pcs first and macs second, or pcs first then macs get only one or two orf the many versions available on pcs.
Thanks to Apple's OpenGL drivers we have never seen the full capability of the Geforce3 or Geforce4 cards. Hell, even Giants the first game for OSX only AND wriiten to take advantage of many features specific to the Geforce3 when it came out had a bunch of video options shaded out in the game. Jaguar brought some of these features into the OS but by that time Giants is selling for $19 and MacPlay really isn't into going into it and updating it for that. My point? Jobs stands on stage and touts all these features that to this day we have never realized and it's because of the OpenGL drives Apple releases.
<strong>My point? Jobs stands on stage and touts all these features that to this day we have never realized and it's because of the OpenGL drives Apple releases.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I guess if Apple is serious about tackling the higher end content creation market again, they'll have to get better in that department (and as it seems, they are getting better slowly).
I think one of the problems the GeForce3 had is that it was released at a time where OSX was too new for developers to put solid drivers out of the box in no time and OS9 was not worth the hassle.
I think now the time of improved drivers is coming and if Apple will transform it's powermac line into machines that albeit lacking a bit in the mhz department can perform solidly in other areas (which means Apple will have to offer a tinsy bit more options) they will see more people switching (back?).
Comments
The sad truth is that the smaller market gets the products later. The number of expensive addon video cards that ATI will sell to Mac users is very small. Apple ships a decent card with their machines, and only the PowerMacs can use the upgrade card, and these things aren't cheap. Even the PC upgrade market is small, the Mac upgrade market is tiny. Me and about 11 other guys, I'd guess.
<strong>Even the PC upgrade market is small, the Mac upgrade market is tiny. Me and about 11 other guys, I'd guess.
If I manage to get a Mac in a month or two, that will be 12. A dozen is almost a market you can go for!
<strong>The sad truth is that the smaller market gets the products later. The number of expensive addon video cards that ATI will sell to Mac users is very small. Apple ships a decent card with their machines, and only the PowerMacs can use the upgrade card, and these things aren't cheap. Even the PC upgrade market is small, the Mac upgrade market is tiny. Me and about 11 other guys, I'd guess.
Counting myself and a couple of friends, one-fourth of that upgrade market resides here.
I understand the business considerations, but how difficult is it to make a few hardware changes and write some OS specific drivers? Particularly since they have other cards that they have already integrated for Macs.
At this rate, I'm guessing we won't see a GeforceFX card from nVidia until next summer, if we're lucky.
<strong>
Counting myself and a couple of friends, one-fourth of that upgrade market resides here.
I understand the business considerations, but how difficult is it to make a few hardware changes and write some OS specific drivers? Particularly since they have other cards that they have already integrated for Macs.
At this rate, I'm guessing we won't see a GeforceFX card from nVidia until next summer, if we're lucky.
Well... getting a product to market is always a lot harder than it seems, and the larger the company and more complex the product, the worse this gets. For starters, writing drivers is a very complex task -- especially with all of the advanced capabilities recently added to OpenGL. Then you have to test the drivers and the hardware in all the Macs that can use it and with all versions of the OS (9, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2 plus minor variants). Verify that it works with the major 3D games & apps, including upcoming ones. Its good to get developers to sign up to take advantage of the new hardware (tough since there will be so few of them), and that means seeding some of them with prerelease hardware. Then you need to consider the production issues, there may be zero hardware changes (just a different flash memory) but you need to carve off part of the run which takes sales away from the PC market. A new box, a new manual, ensure the distribution network knows about it, and get your support staff up to speed.
Yep, its not as simple as writing a few lines of code and slapping the thing in a box. But don't worry, it'll be worth the wait.
<strong>They're coming soon, and it'll be the 9700 Pro w/ 128 MB VRAM, not one of the down clocked versions. A month or two, perhaps? MWSF is possible since ATI often intros & ships at MacWorld. MacWarehouse's latest print catalog lists it for $333 so they must think it'll be here soon.
The sad truth is that the smaller market gets the products later. The number of expensive addon video cards that ATI will sell to Mac users is very small. Apple ships a decent card with their machines, and only the PowerMacs can use the upgrade card, and these things aren't cheap. Even the PC upgrade market is small, the Mac upgrade market is tiny. Me and about 11 other guys, I'd guess.
ATI could get a lot more sales for their cards if they enginered them to cover as much of the potential Mac market as possible, and offer the "best" versions of the cards that they have to offer, as well as a low cost alternative, and engineer the cards so that they fit is the largest number of models as possible, which includes the Cubes. A Cube card fits in a tower, the only difference is the faceplate. Cube owners ARE upgrading their video cards, its one of the reasons they bought Cubes, and are paying premiums over and above the price of a retail 8500 to get video cards that are offer less capabilities than the 8500, this is a potential market that ATI is ignoring. They could have even more sales in the Mac market if they released retail versions of their All in Wonder cards,which have a consumer appeal.
The only reason that ATI is not shipping thier latest chip in a retail version is becouse it would steal sales from the 8500. Don't forget that the "BTO" version has been out since last summer. They dont see a real market in the Mac community so they are only doing what they have to so they dont loose Apples mobile chip sales to Nvidia.
the longer something is in the market, the more people will buy it.
Who's going to buy the 9700, knowing the GeFX is around the corner? (hoping that it will be released quickly).
Had they sold it the same day teh new Powermacs shipped, they'd have sold a lot of those, either as bto or as replacement for some GF4MX and 9000 Pros.
Same goes for games:
"it's a small market, so we give it little priority." thus the release gets delayed and the market becomes even smaller, and then their next product release is going to be like " it's a tiny market, so we don't do it at all".
That's a great infernal cycle.
G-news
Ridiculous. The good thing about this is I'll be able to pick up a PC version for cheap by the time the Mac one is out and flash it. Think about it, if we can just flash the BIOS for Mac and make it work, how f*ckin hard could it be for ATI to actually release the damn card? It isnt.
<strong>If it's all about how big the market is, why the heck can you get Linux catalysts drives and run a Radeon 9700 Pro RIGHT NOW??!?!?! nVidia has Linux drivers for all their cards too, apparently you can't even flash any retail GeForce4 Ti cards.
Ridiculous. The good thing about this is I'll be able to pick up a PC version for cheap by the time the Mac one is out and flash it. Think about it, if we can just flash the BIOS for Mac and make it work, how f*ckin hard could it be for ATI to actually release the damn card? It isnt.</strong><hr></blockquote>
There's a big difference between publishing the basic Linux drivers so a bunch of hacks and geeks can get it running, and putting out a Mac product for the non-computer savvy.
I fear that the use of a radeon 9700 under open GL 1,3 is a waste of power.
<strong>Open GL 1,3 is far from supporting all the advanced technologies inside the radeon 9700 (in the PC world direct X 9 isn't still released).
I fear that the use of a radeon 9700 under open GL 1,3 is a waste of power.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think ATI/Apple support all the features through OpenGL extensions, as it was always the case with new hardware features.
<strong>
I think ATI/Apple support all the features through OpenGL extensions, as it was always the case with new hardware features.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If my memory is good, in a previous thread about open GL they said that Apple did not wanted Open GL extensions. There was only Open GL with a lack of many specialized stuff coming from Nvidia or ATI.
<strong>If my memory is good, in a previous thread about open GL they said that Apple did not wanted Open GL extensions. There was only Open GL with a lack of many specialized stuff coming from Nvidia or ATI.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That all changed with the release of Jaguar. Its OpenGL implementation is to the 1.4 spec and includes a very substantial list of extensions, including vertex and fragment programs. Even ATI's triangle tesselator is supported. I suspect that upon release of the 9700 (or shortly thereafter), developer's will have access to additional extensions so that most of the 9700's features can be used.
<strong>they said that Apple did not wanted Open GL extensions.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, if not more, there are Apple-specific extensions in OpenGL (as I saw on developer.apple.com) as of 10.2, so they must have changed their mind. Which is a good thing.
<strong>
That all changed with the release of Jaguar. Its OpenGL implementation is to the 1.4 spec and includes a very substantial list of extensions, including vertex and fragment programs. Even ATI's triangle tesselator is supported. I suspect that upon release of the 9700 (or shortly thereafter), developer's will have access to additional extensions so that most of the 9700's features can be used.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's a good new.
nvidia Geforce
3dfx Voodoo
Ati Rage(what a pathetic card)
then all of a sudden WHAM! radeon, death of voodoo and now the radeon 9700 is out performing geforce4s(in some fields)....thats definatly quite the change a pace.
all I can say about the mac radeon 9700 is THE SOONER THE BETTER!....the original radeon was released exclusively on macs for a while as a statement of atis continuing support of apple...then every subsequent radeon, or so it seems, has been released on pcs first and macs second, or pcs first then macs get only one or two orf the many versions available on pcs.
<strong>My point? Jobs stands on stage and touts all these features that to this day we have never realized and it's because of the OpenGL drives Apple releases.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I guess if Apple is serious about tackling the higher end content creation market again, they'll have to get better in that department (and as it seems, they are getting better slowly).
I think one of the problems the GeForce3 had is that it was released at a time where OSX was too new for developers to put solid drivers out of the box in no time and OS9 was not worth the hassle.
I think now the time of improved drivers is coming and if Apple will transform it's powermac line into machines that albeit lacking a bit in the mhz department can perform solidly in other areas (which means Apple will have to offer a tinsy bit more options) they will see more people switching (back?).