Best NVidia card for dual G5 ?

kalikali
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I'm using a dual G5 2.0 GHz tower, the one that was out in winter 2005. Currently, the machine is using an ATI Radeon x850 XT (256 MB) video card, and its drivers SUCKS !



I'm thinking about changing that card for an NVidia video card, of AT LEAST the same power as the current ATI card, OR better ! What are the possibilities ? What is the best NVidia card available for that machine ? I'm almost certain that the machine can only use an AGP 8x video card, there's no PCI Express/Extreme on it, only the old PCI standard. So I guess my choice is pretty limited.



Any opinion, idea, info, etc ?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Your possibilities are the 6800 Ultra and 7800GT.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    kalikali Posts: 634member
    What are the approximate cost of those two cards ? How can you compare them with ATI Radeon x850 XT ?



    And are you sure they both are AGP 8x compatible ?
  • Reply 3 of 7
    smashbrosfansmashbrosfan Posts: 139member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kali


    What are the approximate cost of those two cards ? How can you compare them with ATI Radeon x850 XT ?



    And are you sure they both are AGP 8x compatible ?



    At this point I'd stick with your current card. On the mac side only the 6800GT is AGP 8x. And as an actual owner of this card on the PC side, I can say the performance is about equal to yours.



    But here's the catch: On OS X, the drivers for both cards are shipped with the OS itself. There are NO driver upgardes aside from those shipped with the point updates. In addition, Apple is showing far more support for ATI hardware at the moment. So whatever problems you're having are probably due to the OS itself. Not the card's drivers.



    I know man, it sucks, I'm partial to nVidia myself. But on the Mac side nVidia isn't the way to go right now.



    What problems are you having? Maybe if you described your problem someone here might know a fix for it.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    kalikali Posts: 634member
    The problems I'm experiencing are pretty hard to describe. They seems to be related to the video card drivers. I'm using Celestia, a full OpenGL 2.0 heavy 3D application which demands a lot to the video card. The main programmer, Chris Laurel (author of Celestia), is using an NVidia card on his own system, so the application is designed more specifically for NVidia cards. Of course, the application is also built to run very well on ATI cards, but some glitches here and there may appear, on an ATI based system. It's just very annoying when it do happens :-(



    Also, the ATI cards are suffering with large textures (4096 X 2048 pixels or bigger), and don't accept more than 8 simultaneous textures. NVidia cards don't have those limitations. This is very important for Celestia, since you may have a scene with, say, a planet and two moons : for each of them, you may need :



    1- one base texture (4096 X 2048 for high quality images)

    2- one specular reflection map (another 4096 X 2048 pixels texture)

    3- one NormalMap texture (another 4096 X 2048 for nice bumps)

    4- one night texture (4096 X 2048 again)



    so this ask to use about 3 x 4 = 12 large textures ! Well, I'm exagerating a bit here, since the moons don't usually need a night texture. This gives about 8 to 10 large textures **simultaneously** ! ATI just can't compete with NVidia here :-(
  • Reply 5 of 7
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kali


    damn, twice the same message, sorry ! (Edited duplicate)



    How do I erase a message on this board ?





    Just leave it and when I take out the trash I will get to it.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    smashbrosfansmashbrosfan Posts: 139member
    I'm familiar with the program. I use it on my Powerbook G4 with an old Geforce 4, and my 2 PC's. one with a Geforce 6800GT and the other with a radeon 8500.



    And the problem you're having isn't an ATi problem. It's a Celestia problem. The Windows version handles texture maps just fine with ATi cards. But the mac port isn't quite as well made. It's exactly what the name implies. A port.



    The program's Mac ATi implementation isn't as good as it should be. But neither is the program's nVidia implelmentation. On the Mac side, I mean.



    In a sense, you're right in it being a problem with the ATi drivers. but it's on the apps end, not the ATi drivers. In truth, at the time the program was being made, nVidia had the definitive lead in both the Mac and PC markets, so that's what the author worked on.



    Anyway, my point is that if you want to use the program at it's best, use a Windows machine. The app's buggy on my Powerbook with it's nVidia card too.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    kalikali Posts: 634member
    No, you're wrong on this. Celestia isn't a port. It's really a cross platform app. It was developped (I know personaly the author) to be multiplatform from the start. Yes, the Mac version lacks few features (QT movies export and an eclipse search), but its menus are more organised than its PC version. The problems I'm talking about don't show on a NVidia card. It's really an ATI driver problem.



    If your version is buggy on your PB, I know exactly why. It's the configuration set in your "celestia.cfg" file. That's all. There are lots of profesional users with a PB (even Chris Laurel is using a PB to run Celestia), and they don't have a problem with it. I'm also using Celestia in the classroom to teach astronomy, on many PC, and they have problems too (video card problems). So it's not just a Mac problem.
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