Graphic Cards

[onwig]

Right, I tried asking in the chat on GR, but it turned into a debate about blah and blah which is better....

Right, what i want... I would like suggestions to my next upgrade to my graphics card... i have a nvidea 5200 (i think), i have a dual 1.8, 2.5gb of ram, running 10.4.4.

I can't really afford a high end card... but if you say games like CoD 2 or colin macrae might need a high end card (and i know of course, its going to run great with it).

More to the point.. what i don't really want to happen is, spending a fortune on a card, then games just being ported with intel code or w/e you want to call it.... anybody know or can estimate how long games will be made for both?

[BTs_GhostSniper]

I upgraded the card in my Single-1.8GHz G5 Tower to the ATi Radeon X800XT 256MB Graphics Card for about $400 (U.S.).  It seems to run everything really well.  I've seen the card on ebay for as low as $300-350.

[Ethion]

But it's still kind of expensive for him.

As we all said before, you should go with a AGP card, instead of PCI.

And the 9600 meets that demand. If you're going with the 9200 it probably won't keep up with games and stuff, in the end that is. Because it's using PCI.

In my point of view, you shouldn't go with the X800, it's to expensive and you don't need that powerfull card.

[Civrock]

I'd recommend the 9800 Pro with 256MB VRAM. It's much better than the 9600 with only 64MB (there's also the 9600 XT with 128MB btw, but it's very rare on eBay... because not a retail card), a little more expensive therefore, but not as expensive and good as the X800 XT. It will be able to run all 'recent' games, though, including Colin McRae '05 and most probably CoD2 as well. I wouldn't be very confident with anything lower than the 9800 Pro and would even say that it'd be a waste of money.

As for the last question... games will be made for both platforms for at least another year. Not sure if they'll still run that great on PPC later on... but they will run. Developers said that they'll start making x86-only games as soon as they have requirements which are just too high for existing PPC-Macs and Intel-Macs have a good share of the Mac community.

[Ethion]

Theres also http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/71407/wo/6e2FdMkTF7yT2at18M71f5CwpI7/5.0.19.1.0.8.25.7.11.0.3

Another version of the 9600

[Civrock]

http://www.barefeats.com/rad4x.html

[BTs_Mysterio]

http://barefeats.com/rad98pro.html as well. What does 850 XL refer to?

[Civrock]

The X850 XT.

[Ethion]

http://www.barefeats.com/rad4x.html

eeek

[onwig]

ok, thanks for the replys... so... its either this one http://www.macheaven.co.uk/?page=proddetail&prod=12421 for £182.13 inc vat or http://computing.kelkoo.co.uk/b/a/sbs/111601/14326137.html for £298.93 inc vat...

[Civrock]

Heh, yeah, quite pricey in britain apparently. Check eBay UK, usually some much cheaper used ones or even new ones there.

[BFG]

Prices for graphics cards over here are ****ing painful. my Radeon9800pro 128mb cost near on that heh. wiggy id go with civic and the ebay route - or go for the same card as me above (128mb rather than 256) it will be more than happy with the speedy system bus in your G5 as my G4 struggles to keep up with it!