Radeon 9700 News

ryukyuryukyu
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Looks like it's going to be a few more months until we see this card.



<a href="http://www.macgamer.com/news/item.php?id=6319"; target="_blank">Radeon 9700 at MW</a>



Who knows, maybe we'll see GeForce FX by then too.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    dstranathandstranathan Posts: 1,717member
    [quote]Originally posted by ryukyu:

    <strong>Looks like it's going to be a few more months until we see this card.



    <a href="http://www.macgamer.com/news/item.php?id=6319"; target="_blank">Radeon 9700 at MW</a>



    Who knows, maybe we'll see GeForce FX by then too.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yup, and just in time to be a OEM or BTO option in new Mac pro G4 towers, no doubt.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    lemon bon bonlemon bon bon Posts: 2,383member
    Yeah. Any G4 speed bump and this card will be a solid games/work machine.



    However, any 970 and this card will be an amazing work and play machine.



    And there's the Geforce FX. AND Ati's answer to that soon after.



    AND, by the time the 970's ship, Nvidia will have their 'bump' to the FX card which should be even more impressive and Ati will have their answer to that!!!



    All in all, when you've seen what these cards can do...a pretty good year for graphics cards on the Mac.



    Anything that's shifting a quarter of a million polygons upwards at 1600 by 1200 with anti-aliasing is pretty incredible in my book.



    Lemon Bon Bon
  • Reply 3 of 10
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    the 9700 has been the best, but you can't drool over something that has been out for so long, the next industry leader card is the Nvidia FX, apple should work on getting this...at least until the next ATI card comes out
  • Reply 4 of 10
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    double post



    ...and oh yeah, Nvidia is good at drivers, ATI sucks



    [ 01-12-2003: Message edited by: ast3r3x ]</p>
  • Reply 5 of 10
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,458member
    [quote]Originally posted by ast3r3x:

    <strong>the 9700 has been the best, but you can't drool over something that has been out for so long, the next industry leader card is the Nvidia FX, apple should work on getting this...at least until the next ATI card comes out</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Considering there still isn't any software that really takes advantage of the 9700's features I think there is still plenty of drool factor left.



    And ATI's drivers for the Mac should be a lot better than in the past -- they have a new team writing them now, and they aren't just co-op students out of the local university.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    dygysydygysy Posts: 182member
    This is my biggest gripe, probably even as much as the speed issue.



    I just can't understand why a graphic card can already be available on a PC for several months and it will still be several months before the 9700 is available for the mac.



    Why can't ATI work on both firmware versions at the same time, is it really too much to ask?
  • Reply 7 of 10
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,458member
    [quote]Originally posted by dygysy:

    <strong>This is my biggest gripe, probably even as much as the speed issue.



    I just can't understand why a graphic card can already be available on a PC for several months and it will still be several months before the 9700 is available for the mac.



    Why can't ATI work on both firmware versions at the same time, is it really too much to ask?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Its probably more the drivers than the firmware. One way to look at it is that ATI is likely selling every 9700 that comes off the production line already, so having only 1 box, marketing to only 1 market, and developing drivers for only 1 platform saves them money initially and helps them recoup the cost of developing the thing in the first place. Frankly, shipping the Mac version 4-6 months later isn't really going to impact their sales much at all. Its also possible that Apple wants to bundle it before ATI retails it, but we'll only know that when it arrives...
  • Reply 8 of 10
    ryukyuryukyu Posts: 450member
    [quote]Originally posted by Programmer:

    <strong>Frankly, shipping the Mac version 4-6 months later isn't really going to impact their sales much at all.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I'm sure this is true, but it does tend to reinforce people's impressions that Apple is behind the curve, or a second rate "citizen" in the personal computer industry.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    xypexype Posts: 672member
    I think it's also partly due to the fact that ATI had messed up drivers unlike nVidia with their unified driver architecture which allowed them to ship the GeForce3 on the Mac first. ATI rewrote their drivers for the 9700 again so this may have caused a delay - the 9000 was availible pretty fast, since it used the "old" Radeon Catalyst drivers already used for the 8500. Once the 9700 drivers for the MacOS are ready we will likely see 9700's successor for the Mac appear roughly at the same as the PC counterpart.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    [quote]Originally posted by dygysy:

    <strong>I just can't understand why a graphic card can already be available on a PC for several months and it will still be several months before the 9700 is available for the mac.



    Why can't ATI work on both firmware versions at the same time, is it really too much to ask?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    It's the drivers that are slowing it down and from what I gather they are completely changing the way they do drivers for the Mac with the 9700 and that takes time.



    In somebody elses word from <a href="http://insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ArticleID=6838"; target="_blank">here</a>.



    [quote]The Radeon 9700 is currently triumphing over anything else on the PC side, and ATI's strategy for producing the Mac version has shifted a bit with this product. Instead of doing a line-for-line rewrite of the drivers, ATI's Chris Bentley explains they are instead wrapping the PC driver in a sort of abstraction layer. They are reordering the input data, shifting from how the Mac represents the it to make it what the drivers expect. This copying is currently only incurring a 3% hit, which could be optimized even further down the road.



    The good news for Mac gamers is because they are leaving the PC drivers in tact, the Mac Radeon 9700 drivers will have near feature parity with its PC counterpart. While the ATI team is hoping to have it ready well before Macworld New York, there's no release date even estimated yet. Bentley did note they have very little driver work left to do other than bug fixes.<hr></blockquote>



    Also if the drivers are easier to develop there s some promise that the lines might be more readily shifted to the mac.



    [quote]<strong> the 9700 has been the best, but you can't drool over something that has been out for so long, the next industry leader card is the Nvidia FX, apple should work on getting this...at least until the next ATI card comes out </strong><hr></blockquote>



    I believe the FX is due in January and ATI's answer is due in February. That of course is for the PC world at least. Personally I prefer ATI but that might be because my current girlfriend is Canadian and I have been brainwashed.



    [ 01-12-2003: Message edited by: Telomar ]</p>
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