Is a stock 450MHz sawtooth video card ok for 10.3?

sc_marktsc_markt
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I read here that 10.3 requires the following video cards:



"Supported video cards: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 MX, or GeForce4 Ti; any ATI AGP RADEON card. A minimum of 16MB VRAM required."



I recently was given a 450MHz sawtooth powermac that has the stock ATI 128 rage pro card w/16Meg video ram. So do I need to buy a better video card to run 10.3 in all it's glory (i.e. to take advantage of Quartz Extreme)?



Thanks in advance to all who answer.



(One other note: This is my first G4 powermac and its the first time I've used OS X ( 10.2.8 ) for an extended period of time. I have to say I am really impressed at how fast it is. Of course, I haven't tried to copy and drag a few thousand files in the finder yet...)

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Those are the specifications required for Quartz Extreme and a number of the effects used in Panther. The rotating screen used for fast user switching requires these video specs, and so do the full-screen fade effects used for some screen savers and for the rotating desktop pictures.



    Looks like that page has a footnote that isn't referred to by anything. Footnote 1 isn't referenced in the main text. But let me assure you, it'll work with your stock video card. It just won't look quite as cool and it won't be quite as fast. But Panther requires:



    iMac

    PowerMac G3, G4 or G5

    PowerBook G3 or G4

    iBook

    eMac

    128 MB of RAM

    Built-in USB



    Your computer easily matches those specifications (well, as long as it has the required RAM but I'm guessing it does).
  • Reply 2 of 4
    sc_marktsc_markt Posts: 1,402member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Luca Rescigno

    Those are the specifications required for Quartz Extreme and a number of the effects used in Panther. The rotating screen used for fast user switching requires these video specs, and so do the full-screen fade effects used for some screen savers and for the rotating desktop pictures.



    Looks like that page has a footnote that isn't referred to by anything. Footnote 1 isn't referenced in the main text. But let me assure you, it'll work with your stock video card. It just won't look quite as cool and it won't be quite as fast. But Panther requires:



    iMac

    PowerMac G3, G4 or G5

    PowerBook G3 or G4

    iBook

    eMac

    128 MB of RAM

    Built-in USB



    Your computer easily matches those specifications (well, as long as it has the required RAM but I'm guessing it does).



    Luca,



    Thanks. I'll guess I have to wait another week for 10.3 and see how it runs. If it runs as fast as it does now (from what I've read, it should run somewhat faster), I won't buy another video card. Just as long as Q.E. works.



    I've got 768MB of ram.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    QE DOESN'T run unless you have one of the video cards you listed in your original post. It takes a powerful card to offload some of the effects onto the video card, but you can still run OS X fine with your stock video card.



    If you want to pick up a QE-capable graphics card, though, you could certainly get a GeForce 4MX for pretty cheap. They're under $100 at many places, and they're not the best for games but they're no slouch either, and they fully support QE.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    You can pick up a Radeon 8500 from eBay for pretty cheap these days, and the 8500 is still a very nice video card.



    And if you have a PC handy, you can flash a PC 8500 to mac.
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