Feel the G-Force!
Written: Jun 11 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast card and affordable...Unlike the new optional G-Force3.
Cons: Lack of ATI driver support as always. Lingering Mac Support.
The Bottom Line: It is a good buy if your looking to upgrade from a Rage 128 or less. Otherwise think twice if your processor speed is slow...performance will vary.
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| DictatorMao's Full Review: ATI Radeon Mac Edition |
To begin I would like to tell you that this Opinion will not be telling the reader specs of the Radeon Chipset. You can find that information on the ATI page at www.atitech.com. This Epinion will be concentrating on ATI driver support and the bugs in the current driver version 1.1.1.
I decided to buy a new video card because my Voodoo3 with "unsupported" drivers from 3dfx were soon to be useless with no more upcoming "unsupported" drivers due to nVidia buying 3dfx.
TO LET YOU KNOW 3dfx HAS GIVEN SOME OF THE BEST UNSUPPORTED DRIVERS AND PERSONAL SUPPORT ON THEIR FORUM I HAVE EVER SEEN!
Now on to the review!
The Bad News
The most annoying thing I keep finding about ATI video cards and drivers is the polygon "mis-alignment" dilemma. There is always those little grey dotted lines running along the perimeters of the polygons that form the 3d world you're in. If you are an avid quake 3 or Unreal player you know what i'm talking about.
This problem doesn't seem to exist in the PC world. Before purchasing my Radeon Mac Edition I went over to my friends house who owns a PC...Athalon 1 GHz. I was playing Q3 Arena on his computer and asked him how come he doesn't have the polygon "mis-alignment". Here are his exact words.
"...it's a driver problem. ATI fixed it."
Well, it sure...everything seems fine and dandy to me. So I went on to purchase my Video Card. I found a great deal on my Radeon Card so I ordered it. When I had everything up and running, I tried Q3. Much to my surprise the driver problems have not been resolved on the Mac Platform! And not even just dotted lines did I see there were empty spaces between "some" polygons which between them showed grey spaces.
The teleporting rail gun (which is a download) had visible and annoying squares around the halo that the gun emitted.
The performance of the video card on my Beige G3/300 with 320 Mb of ram was not impressive. It basically ran what my voodoo3 ran but in 32-bit color. The frame rates were the same also...about 60fps at highest and at 13fps in heavy combat with a lot of bots.
I have taken to account the bottleneck...which is my motherboard bus speed and taking into consideration that this IS a PCI video card and last but not least my Processor speed.
I have the latest version of OS 9 (9.1) and the latest Open GL Version 1.2.1.
Upgrading the processor is in progress.
The Good News
This card does offer "official" support unlike the 3dfx card. (Though ATI HAS sucky support!) And performance-wise for the Mac Platform, this card offers the best performance for the money. It sure beats ordering a GeForce3 MX and paying out the nose for it...and also considering the nVidia card is only BUILT TO ORDER.
So being Mac Enthusiasts we have to wait out the rain and just take what we can get for the time being...
My Own Words
Personally I only bought this card because I had no choice. Either go back to my Rage Pro which came with my computer with only 6 megs of v-ram or keep my Voodoo3 and hope the drivers work for the next OS.
Given a fair choice I wouldn't of purchased this card. nVidia makes better cards and their Tonic drivers are kick-azz! I'm also not rich so that is out of the question. For you with more doe and is looking to upgrade I suggest you wait and buy a whole new computer and get the built to order GeForce3 MX.
Something to think about
My brother has told me (Gezebo on Epinions) that people have purchased other GeForce cards (not sure which ones) and used the Macintosh drivers and they work. You may want to look at web sites such as
Accelerate Your Mac homepage or something for possible hints from other Mac users.
That's all I got for your guys right now...I'll post performance specs as soon as I get my New G4 ZIF upgrade. Good luck and Good Gamin'!!!
The Dictator
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 157
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Epinions.com ID:
DictatorMao
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Member: Mao Lee
Location: Dultuh, MN
Reviews written: 23
Trusted by: 11 members
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