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If you own a PCI-X/AGP PowerMac G5 and have been lamenting the fact that there are absolutely nothing especially worth buying on the market for playing WoW, you'll be pleased to know you don't have to get an ATI X800 and suck it up.
I bought an nVidia 7800 GS with the 5.70 firmware off eBay. I went to eBay because NewEgg and the like weren't about to go into the warehouse and check stickers for me. eBay to the rescue.
I met up with some of the firmware hackers on strangedogs.com -- these are the guys that make custom firmware for ATI and nVidia cards to make them work/work better on Macs.
I got myself a 7800 GS OC off eBay for around $320 (They usually sell for around 200 but once the auctions get updated when you find out they are using the right firmware, 5.70 (which can be re-flashed) the auctions go nuts.)
I shipped it out last week to NVFlash from Strangedogs.
I got an email on Saturday that says he got the card.
I got another email an hour later that said it had been flashed and was being tested.
I'll get it this week.
And I'm freaking out. I can't wait.
This is the best video card you can get for an AGP Mac. All the new machines are PCI Express which is awesome, but doesn't help my dual G5 much when I can only use PCI-X and AGP! I wasn't about to replace this machine with 4GB of RAM and around a TB of storage with a new Mac Pro just so I could use PCI Express video cards, so I'm quite pleased that I was able to hook this up.
I'll post an update when the card comes in. I've been using a few different revisions of the ATI RADEON 9800 cards over the last few months. They're quite good and don't cost much, but you really can't dial up the detail. Supposedly the 7800 will not be a huge improvement over the X800's until you full-screen on a Cinema display and really let it rip. I can't wait.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
I am absolutely amazed at the MAC video card prices in this thread. I currently game on a windows box with an X800XL that I paid $300 for almost 2 years ago now. I bet you can get my card now for half of that if you try hard. You MAC guys get housed on prices something serious.<img src=
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I still have an old Radeon 9600 Pro in my Power Mac, Just the other day I bought a ATI Radeon x1600 for my windows PC, Im getting 45-60FPS with all settings on high. Im loving it. Within the next few months, I will probably have to upgrade my video card in my Power Mac though.Contact Info: AIM/YIM: iKastang
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Primerib:
You have no idea.
There is no shortage of ultra-high-end video cards but when it comes to gaming cards and home-use cards we're totally shortchanged.
I'm paying total over $400 for this 7800 with a reflash and test.
An ATI 9600 for the G4 retails for over 200 USD.
An ATI 9800 Pro for G5-only (big AGP) is under 150 USD.
ATI X800? 350+ USD.
So this 7800 GS is the best you can get or flash at this point -- everyone is moving to PCI-Express (as they should) but with the severe lack of options from the two big gaming card vendors it is really an unfortunate state of affairs.
I'm anticipating full-slide max-ed out 1680x1050 (my 20" Cinema Display is my primary monitor) at 4x FSAA and an average of 50+ fps. If I can keep my FPS to 30 in 40-mans I'll be content as can be. I think I'll probably have to lower my settings when I'm in a dungeon to really be happy, however.
I'll be parking myself in the Great Forge and outside the IF Bank and at the mailbox in Org to see what happens. I should get it by Friday. He said he'd be shipping it out on Tuesday evening.
The guy I have doing the flash is awesome. He spent a lot of time with me telling me which cards would work, which certainly wouldn't, and what the best matches were for the machines in the house. Additionally, he was spot-on. There was hardly any difference between the ATI 64M card Devrandom has in her G4 and the 128MB 9800 -- the bus on the graphite G4 DA machines just can't handle that card anyway so its totally overkill.
She'll either be getting a Frankenmac custom intel Mac or an iMac 17" shortly. She was cursing her G4 in SM Armory.
She mostly solos so it isn't a big deal when its her or a small group. But when there are a lot of monks running around and everyone going bonkers her video will drop to single-digits. Yeah.
I don't know how she does it.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
wow mac cards are way high :(
thats almost as much as my card and i can get over 100 FPS sometimes in WoW,i got a 7950GX2.What else is there to do at 3:00am?? -
Posted By: emoryIf you own a PCI-X/AGP PowerMac G5 and have been lamenting the fact that there are absolutely nothing especially worth buying on the market for playing WoW, you'll be pleased to know you don't have to get an ATI X800 and suck it up.
I'm running an ATI Radeon X850XT on a PCI-X PowerMac G5 and I play the game with every available video option maxed out. What am I missing out on? I don't raid, so I guess maybe I'm not pushing it as hard as you would be. -
Posted By: Ompalumpathats almost as much as my card and i can get over 100 FPS sometimes in WoW,i got a 7950GX2.
In AV... 9 FPS -
Posted By: Lurzmog
Posted By: emoryIf you own a PCI-X/AGP PowerMac G5 and have been lamenting the fact that there are absolutely nothing especially worth buying on the market for playing WoW, you'll be pleased to know you don't have to get an ATI X800 and suck it up.
I'm running an ATI Radeon X850XT on a PCI-X PowerMac G5 and I play the game with every available video option maxed out. What am I missing out on? I don't raid, so I guess maybe I'm not pushing it as hard as you would be.
Please tell me your CPUs, RAM, and FPS outside the Bank in Ironforge.
I'd like to know.
I have dual 2.0 G5's, 4GB of RAM.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
Posted By: Dreadmoon / Slimme
Posted By: Ompalumpathats almost as much as my card and i can get over 100 FPS sometimes in WoW,i got a 7950GX2.
In AV... 9 FPS
Er.... I get more than that on my MacBook -- not MBP, but plain ole MB. Maybe "downgrade" to one of these. Apple sells certified pre-chewed Macbooks for $800... -
I have Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro with the ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB and my frame rate averages around 40-50 FPS with all the goodies turned on. Never seen it drop below 25Fps.
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Geren, you better not be using GLFaster with that kind of FPS. You should be seeing 120 fps+
Posted By: gerenI have Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro with the ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB and my frame rate averages around 40-50 FPS with all the goodies turned on. Never seen it drop below 25Fps.
intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
Posted By: emory
Please tell me your CPUs, RAM, and FPS outside the Bank in Ironforge.
I'd like to know.
I have dual 2.0 G5's, 4GB of RAM.
I've got a dual 2.0 G5 w/2.5GB of RAM. As for FPS outside the bank in IF, that could prove problematic since, you know, I'm a Horde player. But I checked just now and I've got 20-25FPS outside the bank in Orgrimmar depending on what I'm doing. I've also got FontExplorer X, Daylite, iTunes, Mail and Adobe Illustrator running in the background so that might not be entirely accurate, but it seems about right. Like I said, I don't raid so I'm probably not pushing it as hard as most of you guys. And frankly, anything over about 20 FPS seems just groovy to me. -
I'm getting 30 inside the AH right now. But man, I really should be working...
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Apple seriously needs to give you guys some gaming love. Windows frame rates are much higher on comparable hardware. Then again MAC OS is optimized more for business and media type applications is it not?<img src=
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Posted By: emoryGeren, you better not be using GLFaster with that kind of FPS. You should be seeing 120 fps+
Posted By: gerenI have Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro with the ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB and my frame rate averages around 40-50 FPS with all the goodies turned on. Never seen it drop below 25Fps.
emory is devnull@eitrigg/WeKnowhomepage|weblog|flickr
I have no idea if I'm using GL Faster or not...how can I check to see if its enabled ?. I do run in on a 23" display at max resolution (1900x1200) in windowed mode so might have some effect on the frame rates. -
Posted By: geren
Posted By: emoryGeren, you better not be using GLFaster with that kind of FPS. You should be seeing 120 fps+
Posted By: gerenI have Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro with the ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB and my frame rate averages around 40-50 FPS with all the goodies turned on. Never seen it drop below 25Fps.
emory is devnull@eitrigg/WeKnowhomepage|weblog|flickr
I have no idea if I'm using GL Faster or not...how can I check to see if its enabled ?. I do run in on a 23" display at max resolution (1900x1200) in windowed mode so might have some effect on the frame rates.
OMG you are going to want to have like 10,000 of my babies.
When the game is up type:
"/console glfaster 0" = Disabled
"/console glfaster 1" = Enabled, stable version.
"/console glfaster 2" = Enabled, likely better performance, but may crash periodically.
Brace yourself. Make sure you have Vertical Sync turned off.
You can see in Console.app if it activates it or not.
This is currently only available for intel Macs -- PPC Multi-Threaded GL should be coming in 10.5.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
Nerdy question... can you tweak the process switching and memory management in the OSX kernel the way you can for other Unix systems? We used to tweak the heck out of the big SGI boxes depending on whether they were doing real-time simulations or big calculations.
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Sure, though honestly OS X does a fine job as-is. You can of course renice/reschedule processes however, though I wouldn't really recommend it. On most systems WoW is GPU-bound. 'Random plays on a dual G4 and I may play around with that a bit but the system bus on that machine isn't fast enough to take full advantage of a nicer GPU so I think the real bottleneck on her machine is hardware, not OS/scheduler.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous
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Okay it will be here on Friday, which means Friday Night I'll be using it. :Dintolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous
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- CommentAuthorpadresenior
- CommentTimeJan 11th 2007
sadly my power mac G5 does not have a PCI-express slot and I cannot use this card (or so "they" tell me). I am thinking of going with the ATI 9800 Pro for G5-only. anyone love/hate it? also, how do you see the fps you are getting?? -
No, dude, the 7800 I'm using is being flashed by a firmware hacker to make it work in my AGP and PCI-X Mac. I also don't have a PCI-Express Mac so I have to use hacked cards to keep up with everyone else :P
I have a 9800 Pro Special Mac Edition (that's a mouthful) 256MB AGP card that I got cheap and works very well. With average settings in the middle and a couple of things turned up I get around 30 FPS in the wild.
I like more than that. Much more.
You can use Control-R in-game to see your FPS. I also use a FuBar plugin that shows me those stats in the fubar so I don't have a hovering FPS in my face.
But anyway, if you're going to drop some coin, get the ATI X850 instead from MacSales.com or Small Dog. It is a much better card than the 9800, though if you find a 256MB Mac 9800 for under $140, get it without hesitation. You cannot beat that card in that price range.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
- CommentAuthorpadresenior
- CommentTimeJan 11th 2007
things are more complicated in canada. the choice is to overpay ($340) for the 9800 and still wait because it is special order EVERYWHERE or order it from the US, pay more in shipping and risk the hassle of them holding it at the border.
what is with these cards not being available anywhere? -
padre, do you have a "birthday" coming up?
someone could buy you a "present" and ship it up there marked clearly "HAPPY BIRFDAY LOL"
OWC has them at a very nice price (in USD).intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
OMG you are going to want to have like 10,000 of my babies.
When the game is up type:
"/console glfaster 0" = Disabled
"/console glfaster 1" = Enabled, stable version.
"/console glfaster 2" = Enabled, likely better performance, but may crash periodically.
Brace yourself. Make sure you have Vertical Sync turned off.
You can see in Console.app if it activates it or not.
This is currently only available for intel Macs -- PPC Multi-Threaded GL should be coming in 10.5.emory is devnull@eitrigg/WeKnowhomepage|weblog|flickr
From the looks of things I was using GL Faster (it seemed to be enabling itself automatically according to the console), but I had Vertical Sync turned on which seemed to slow things down to by around 25%. Turning it off my frame-rates around now around 60-80 FPS at 1900x1200 windowed with everything turned on. -
Ah, they may have default-on'ed it in the last patch!
I haven't checked on my MB yet.
Verticle sync just tries to keep your framerates in line with a multiplayer of your refresh. But yeah, that is some hot performance you're seeing.
So, I guess you're not going to want to have like 10,000 of my babies since you were already using it. Heh.
FedEx dropped my new card at the office today. I'm still at home but will be in shortly. Very exciting day. I'll post some figures when I can.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
- CommentAuthorpadresenior
- CommentTimeJan 12th 2007
I can get a BFG GeForce 7800 GS OC 256MB GDDR3 for $271 locally and it is IN STOCK! does this mean I will have to send it to these strangedogs.com folks to flash it? seems like a lot of overhead.'
btw, my vp of product development was responsible for driver development at ATI just before leaving to come here so I am getting a real education through this process. the one thing of value that I will share is the x800 may not be worth the difference from a 9800 for an AGP machine. -
If you get that card locally, Padre, you need to make CERTAIN it is the 5.70 BIOS and NOT the 5.71 BIOS.
Then you can send it to NVFlash, who is a guy in South Carolina, US. He did mine, turned it around in a few days. He's awesome. I even paid him some extra for being awesome enough to give me a crash-course in Mac firmware and video card options for Digital Audio and G5 workstations.
In everyday use the 9800 and X800 aren't that different in the 256MB flavors.
The X800 probably does a wee bit better in large resolution gaming as I think it supports more OpenGL goodies and does have a faster core clock speed and memory bus. Once you leave 1280x1024 you will start to see a difference with those two, from what I understand.
You can overclock ATI cards in your Mac using ATIcellerator which I've gotten great results with.
The 7800 is on my desk here and I'll be installing it in T-MINUS-FIFTEEN-MINUTES if I hurry :)
I will be jacking up all my video settings to max and visiting the SW Auction House. If I break 30 fps there, this is a good sign.
My primary display where WoW runs is an Apple Cinema Display at 1680x1050, so we'll see what happens.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
Also apparently you can strip the multi-threaded GL stuff from the intel 10.4.8 updates and use them on ppc machines. Some people have had a great deal of success with this and seen fantastic frame/graphic improvements but I haven't looked into it enough to see if its worth the attempt -- if you mess it up it can be a disaster, and since my G5 is also the household fileserver, I'm loathe to monkey with kernel extensions.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous
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Here's a question. As I mentioned, I get 20-25 fps outside the bank in Orgrimmar and up to 30 in other parts of the city where it's not so crowded. However, I also get 30 out in the middle of nowhere with nobody around. Shouldn't I be getting a lot higher framerates out in the open? Is it because I have Vertical Sync enabled?
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You'll steadier FPS when you have vertical sync enabled because it syncs against the refresh rate of your display.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous
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Okay so the verdict so far.
This card lets me play with everything dialed out except terrain distance all the way and average 30-40fps. I think I'm now CPU-bound until multi-threaded GL comes to ppc. There is a way to use those libraries on ppc Mac OS X today but I'm not going to do it mainly because it is not without its bugs at the moment.
So I'll probably wait for 10.5. WoW looks a lot nicer now than it did before, for sure. I think in really highly populated areas I'll dial things down a bit, I'll dip into the 20s in Stormwind and IF. All told I'm very happy with this card. It doesn't allow me to go full bore but this computer is what, 3 years old?intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
Here's another weird one for you emory. Why do I get 60fps in Stormwind, but am almost always around 30 when I'm on my horde main? I've got to look at my addons. I think something's eating my peformance.
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Very interesting, Lurzmog. Lately Stormwind has been pretty light at various times of day but I would certainly look at your add-ons.
I used to use a Discord-based UI and it was pretty bad on my performance, but when I moved to MogUI and ace2-based Addons things got real fast, right away.
If you're fscking with your video settings a lot, whack your WDB folder so that it will rebuild your textures. Sometimes it gets confused about what it should be showing and will slow things down.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
Well well well.
My 7800 appears to have some problems. My computer will stammer LI-KE-TH-----IS and then freeze when I'm really using the card.
I'm not sure what the problem is. I'm talking to the guy that flashed it. It is flaking out. I'm either going to get a 6800 DDL or an iMac :Pintolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
I'm sending back the card to the dude that flashed it.
In the meantime I ordered an ATI X800 for 400 bux and it will be here soon. Guh.
I was *this close* to just buying a damned iMac.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous -
An X800 for $400? I bought an X800GTO about half a year ago for about $180, and the main reason I picked that card back then is because my aging box doesn't have PCIE (AGP FTL), which severely limits my options.
Doesn't the Mac Pro come with an X1900? - they go for less than $400 these days... or do you need a special "apple certified" card that apple forces you to pay double for or something?Defrag@TheArmory -
Cute.
Okay so here's the deal. ATI charges stupid money for Mac versions of their cards. The last nVidia card they made for AGP Macs was the 6800 DDL.
Mac Pro has PCI-Express. I have a dual G5 with AGP and PCI-X.
I didn't buy the card from Apple. I bought from a reseller.
The upside is that this one has an ADC port so I can do ADC and DVI for my 20" panel and my 17" panel. yeehaw. I was using a big crazy ADC to DVI box on the 7800.intolerant, arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous
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