G5, A Gaming Machine?

jmitch · August 3, 2003 11:21PM

Everyone knows how Macs have always been the less preffered system for gaming, due to the video buses that transfered the data between the graphics card and the processor. They are slower than the pc buses. Because of this pc's run 3d games much smoother than Macs, even though Macs have much more powerful processors than pc's, depending on the machine.

With the release of the G5 I'm pretty sure this is all going to change. Now that the new G5 supprts AGP 8X and PCI-X, I believe, as well as the fastest graphics cards out there, Macs will be just as fast if not faster in 3d game performance as pc's, not to mention the G5 has a killer processor that is unbeatable by any of the intel processors out there, and up to 8GB of ram. I would think this would be the most killer machine out there for gaming, no?

cubedude · August 3, 2003 11:46PM

It would be a killer gaming machine, if it had games to take advantage of it. 64bitness isn't going to matter much in a game(or pretty much all everyday tasks). The 8GBs of RAM will help and the 1GHz bus and 8x AGP graphics will help. If a game is well threaded it will help tremendoulsy with a DP machine.

None of this matters without the games.

jmitch · August 3, 2003 11:51PM

Well, I just read in another thread that SimCity 4 for Mac ran particularly slow, that is on slightly older machines. On the G5 it would run flawless no doubt.

serrano · August 3, 2003 11:59PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jmitch

Well, I just read in another thread that SimCity 4 for Mac ran particularly slow, that is on slightly older machines. On the G5 it would run flawless no doubt.

It's a shit port, of shit code.

It's economics my man. Why make a game for 3%? It really only makes economic sense to port games you know will be block busters, block busters in a 3% sense.

jmitch · August 4, 2003 1:16AM

Quote:

Originally posted by serrano

It's a shit port, of shit code.

It's economics my man. Why make a game for 3%? It really only makes economic sense to port games you know will be block busters, block busters in a 3% sense.

Yes, I know about the fact that there aren't many developers developing games for the Mac platform because of such a small market share, but I was talking about the technical aspect if it. The G5 is capable of running hardcore 3d games silky smooth, whereas, before Apple's machines weren't the best choice for 3d gaming, but that has all changed now; now that the G5 is out.

Also, SimCity 4 may be a crappy port, but it should still run flawless on the G5 regardless. The G5 just has so much raw power. I dont know if there will be anything that will bog it down for another 3 years at least. I am refering to 3d applications and such.

zapchud · August 4, 2003 7:03AM

The G5 will be an excellent gaming-machine! Not because it finally supports AGP8x (AGP4x was/is not limiting any current games) and PCI-X, but because of the processor architecture itself, and the fat pipes (the FSB's) to the memory and GPU.

placebo · August 4, 2003 12:24PM

Any machine that can crank out over 300 FPS in Quake III is a gaming machine, if you ask me.

aquatic · August 4, 2003 3:40PM

If you can buy a g5 for games I hate you.

SimCity 4 doesn't use Dual procs

zapchud · August 4, 2003 4:24PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Placebo

Any machine that can crank out over 300 FPS in Quake III is a gaming machine, if you ask me.

Uh... 300?

Almost any modern PC can crank out over 300 FPS in Q3, and most modern powermacs. I'm sure all duals with a processor on and over 800MHz will easily crank out more than 300 FPS with a half-decent graphics card, so that makes alot of gaming machines, Placebo

Aquatic: I can buy a G5 for games if I want, and I will. But luckily, I'll use it for more than games

bunge · August 4, 2003 4:27PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zapchud

Almost any modern PC can crank out over 300 FPS in Q3....

But with sound?

placebo · August 4, 2003 6:33PM

But at a decent resolution?

sushiism · August 4, 2003 8:45PM

bah sod pcs and macs for computer games, seen as most mac games are just pc ports and pc games are really just pathetic rehashes and completely uninspiring garbage then mac gaming is also crappy (however i do

macs) buy a console like a gamecube with ikaruga now theres a real game

cubedude · August 4, 2003 9:02PM

You really like that game, don't you?

sushiism · August 4, 2003 9:38PM

its from Treasure and is the return of highscore based gameplay, who couldnt love it

cubedude · August 4, 2003 11:32PM

I've never even heard of it. Well, I'm not a console gamer, so that's why.

wjmoore · August 4, 2003 11:59PM

You want games? Get a PC or a console. They're a lot cheaper and even if the G5 keeps up in performance there will still be less games on offer.

zapchud · August 5, 2003 1:34AM

Quote:

Originally posted by bunge

But with sound?

Yes, of course.

xmoger · August 5, 2003 2:12AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zapchud

Quote:

Originally posted by bunge

But with sound?

Yes, of course.

Benchmarking with sound enabled on any game as old or lightweight as Q3 is essentially benchmarking the sound hardware. Which isn't even important because once the framerate gets so high that the soundcard is the limiting factor, you're often > 150 FPS. There's a reason benchmark sites disable it.

sushiism · August 5, 2003 6:24AM

Quote:

Originally posted by CubeDude

I've never even heard of it. Well, I'm not a console gamer, so that's why.

bet most console gamers haven't either

jmitch · August 5, 2003 11:19PM

Quote:

Originally posted by WJMoore

You want games? Get a PC or a console. They're a lot cheaper and even if the G5 keeps up in performance there will still be less games on offer.

Excuse me for saying, but "EVEN IF THE G5 KEEPS UP IN PERFORMANCE"?!?!?!?! The G5 is already way ahead of the game, and IBM is already working on their next chip!!

zapchud · August 6, 2003 3:01AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jmitch

Excuse me for saying, but "EVEN IF THE G5 KEEPS UP IN PERFORMANCE"?!?!?!?! The G5 is already way ahead of the game, and IBM is already working on their next chip!!

Let's not turn this into a "Is the G5 faster than the x86-competition"-thread, but there is no way you can know that the G5 is "way ahead of the game" at games. The code games consists of is often pretty rough code that's just made to work, and not much optimized for speed (on the mac side). Even if the G5 is better hardware-wise at games, you'll still be held back by the typical code quality.

The G5 is though, alot better suited for typical game code than any PowerPC-desktop-architecture has ever been. Extensive OOOE hardware, grand, fat FSB, double, independent FPU's will really be killer hardware, especially for us used to the G4 and less.

G5, A Gaming Machine?

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