video card question
Hey all:
Glad that I discovered this forum. PC user (Compal CL56)saving up to make the switch. My goal is a 15" PB but I have a video card question. I coach basketball and I edit our gamefilms on the computer. The work is pretty amateur. I use pinnacle studio to make my game films now so I'd just use iMovie and iDVD I suppose. Does it matter whether I get the 64 or 128 MB video card as an amateur? My current PC has 128 but I was into gaming and such when I bought this one. Sorry for the rambling post but opinions are appreciated. I'd like to keep the cost as low as possible. I know that's tough with Apple but I know I want to make the switch 'cause I'm tired of Norton and McAfee and viruses and the blue screen of death.
Thanks
Scott
Glad that I discovered this forum. PC user (Compal CL56)saving up to make the switch. My goal is a 15" PB but I have a video card question. I coach basketball and I edit our gamefilms on the computer. The work is pretty amateur. I use pinnacle studio to make my game films now so I'd just use iMovie and iDVD I suppose. Does it matter whether I get the 64 or 128 MB video card as an amateur? My current PC has 128 but I was into gaming and such when I bought this one. Sorry for the rambling post but opinions are appreciated. I'd like to keep the cost as low as possible. I know that's tough with Apple but I know I want to make the switch 'cause I'm tired of Norton and McAfee and viruses and the blue screen of death.
Thanks
Scott
Comments
Originally posted by scoopman
Hey all:
Glad that I discovered this forum. PC user (Compal CL56)saving up to make the switch. My goal is a 15" PB but I have a video card question. I coach basketball and I edit our gamefilms on the computer. The work is pretty amateur. I use pinnacle studio to make my game films now so I'd just use iMovie and iDVD I suppose. Does it matter whether I get the 64 or 128 MB video card as an amateur? My current PC has 128 but I was into gaming and such when I bought this one. Sorry for the rambling post but opinions are appreciated. I'd like to keep the cost as low as possible. I know that's tough with Apple but I know I want to make the switch 'cause I'm tired of Norton and McAfee and viruses and the blue screen of death.
Thanks
Scott
Tiger will suck on 64 MB. You really need the 128.
Originally posted by lundy
Tiger will suck on 64 MB. You really need the 128.
Would it really make that much of a difference? Being a Powermac G4 FW800 owner, I want to upgrade to a Core Image compatible card but I don't want to add any more noise so the Radeon 9800 is out of the question. OWC has modified 64MB 9600 cards (fanless) in stock for a $109.00.
If 64MB is not enough to make a difference, I'm not going to spend the money. Any other opinions?
Originally posted by BeigeUser
Would it really make that much of a difference? Being a Powermac G4 FW800 owner, I want to upgrade to a Core Image compatible card but I don't want to add any more noise so the Radeon 9800 is out of the question. OWC has modified 64MB 9600 cards (fanless) in stock for a $109.00.
If 64MB is not enough to make a difference, I'm not going to spend the money. Any other opinions?
This is one of those potentially paradoxical things, like trying to kill brown recluse spiders sometimes makes more of them.
With Tiger, there is a lot of demand for space on the video card's memory. All correctly-coded Quartz drawing can be cached there, and this is on top of the Quartz Extreme textures that are stored there since Jaguar.
The video card in OS X has its own video-virtual memory system, wherein VRAM pages are written out to main memory using the classic LRU method when current video data needs to be put into VRAM.
So with these increased demands, and also the possibility of inefficient programming with the new Cocoa drawing model, it is possible that running Quartz 2D Extreme could actually cause a program to run SLOWER than it would on software drawing. This is the case if there is a lot of paging in the GPU's VM system. Such paging is more likely if the amount of VRAM is on the low side.
Originally posted by lundy
So with these increased demands, and also the possibility of inefficient programming with the new Cocoa drawing model, it is possible that running Quartz 2D Extreme could actually cause a program to run SLOWER than it would on software drawing.
Thanks. With the lack of solid benchmarks of Quartz 2D on older machines with older cards, it's hard to measure the benefits of such purchases. I think I'll pass on the 9600.
But, if you dont go in for the latest and greatest, iMovie will run fine on a Powerbook G4 with the 9700 64mb ram. If you have the cash, upgrade to the 128mb ram Superdrive model.
If you want to save a buck or two, I know that Finalcut Express runs fine on a an iMac G4 with 64mb of ram on a 5200 - worse specs than any of the current Powerbooks.
Then again, I mostly do DTP work, no gaming really...
Originally posted by pyriX
Whole desktop line has just been upgraded, I'm guessing that notebooks will be upgrading son, maybe WWDC05.
But, if you dont go in for the latest and greatest, iMovie will run fine on a Powerbook G4 with the 9700 64mb ram. If you have the cash, upgrade to the 128mb ram Superdrive model.
If you want to save a buck too, I know that Finalcut Express runs fine on a an iMac G4 with 64mb of ram on a 5200 - worse specs than any of the current Powerbooks.
i agree with pyriX... if you would like to hold out see if and what June 01-14 brings in terms of powerbook line
otherwise, if you're going to go with powerbook for video editing, you might as well invest in the DVD superdrive version and 128mb of vram. this along with the radeon 9700 mobility and the 512mb ram it now comes with, should be sweet