Forums | MacLife

PowerMacMan · 2005-04-06 12:50 am

Well, looks like I went with the 'no fun' option.

A local Oklahoman purchased a Dual 1.8GHz G5 three weeks ago. His car borked and he needs cash. So, he put the G5 up for sale. The specs:

Dual 1.8GHz | 2GBs of Crucial DDR and 2x 128MB DDR original RAM | 80GB HD + added 300GB Maxtor | 8x Pioneer | Oh... and a retail box X800 XT Mac Edition 256MB. As well as AppleWorks 6.

He paid nearly $3,000 for it all and I snagged it for $2,300.

Ah... Mmm.

NightCougar_37 · 2005-04-06 12:57 am

Good thing it isnt one of those lemon Dual 1.8s. Unless he had bought a used model.

Oh well, maybe in time you could upgrade it.

PowerMacMan · 2005-04-06 1:33 am

It was built as BTO from Apple, so... yeah. New.

Pixel Shader · 2005-04-06 1:38 am

PowerMacMan wrote:
It was built as BTO from Apple, so... yeah. New.

Wow, an ATi X800 drool + G5 , you must be the luckiest mac user ever.

NightCougar_37 · 2005-04-06 1:43 am

Well there is one bright side. You can get yourself a new 512MB GPU when they come to Mac probably in the coming months/year.

Bat · 2005-04-12 3:38 am

Since I was posting and my mind was on it...

It's worth mentioning that coolers that are good for NV chips/cards are often mediocre for higher-end ATi chips, as those have for some time had a chip surface recessed below flush with the surrounding support square, whereas NV still uses a flush mount arrangement. This results in poor or no metal-to-metal contact, hence poor heat transfer, as thermal compound is good mainly for filling in the near-microscopic gaps in contacting surfaces, not bridging significant distances. This helps account for the decent showing of ATi's inexpensive stock aluminum coolers vs. certain aftermarket units. If you go aftermarket, be sure you get a cooler with a raised contact patch, dimensioned for ATi.

NightCougar_37 · 2005-05-01 5:05 pm

New quick update. Found out my Halo version was pretty outdated on the Cube. It was from September. Since i got my Cube in November I guess I hadn't noticed the new updates in december. So I got em installed and my FPS jumped up to 17 with all settings but lens flare and FSAA maxed. Real easy to see now how a 500Mhz Cube can beat a 1.42Ghz Mini lol . Maybe later i'll try to replicate the tests barefeats did and see how my 600 compares. Trouble is, before I couldnt really find where they listed the settings they have selected.

Mac_Addict58 · 2005-05-01 11:50 pm

Heh, Only thing that is keepig me from going for a mini is the crapy GFX card. My 12 inch 867 book allready has a lousy card (gf4mx) and all I care about is something to run games on, so I might go for a used powermac or a cube. If only the mini had a friggin AGP slot!!!!!

The G4 is a solid processor and with plenty of ram, a fast hard disk and a good chipset even slow G4'S can hold their own.

I will probabley get a new 15 inch powerbook and a g5 in about a year and a half or so, and that will be when the powerbook g5 is arround and the 970mp has worked its way into the powermac, I guess I have to start saving boat loads of cash, heh.

NightCougar_37 · 2005-05-02 12:21 am

Go for a 4x AGP tower, they got some nice upgrades for em.

Anyways I found some settings listed on one of Barefeats tests and tried to replicate them this afternoon in the 1024 & medium settings. Got between 20.23-21.49. Course this is with a R9000 and not a GF3 so, theres your big difference right there.

Bat · 2005-05-09 2:11 am

Could you list those settings? As a bit of a Halo specialiste, I might make a few recommendations.

NightCougar_37 · 2005-05-09 2:11 pm

Heres the test I did which seems to be the same one Barefeats used:

Average frame rate=21.49fps
Below 5fps= 6% (time) 0% (frames) (13.611s spent in 14 frames)
Below 10fps= 7% (time) 0% (frames)
Below 15fps= 26% (time) 12% (frames)
Below 20fps= 41% (time) 24% (frames)
Below 25fps= 71% (time) 55% (frames)
Below 30fps= 85% (time) 73% (frames)
Below 40fps= 95% (time) 88% (frames)
Below 50fps= 98% (time) 95% (frames)
Below 60fps= 99% (time) 96% (frames)
###Sound Options###
Hardware Acceleration= No
Sound Quality= Normal
Environmental Sound= No
Sound Variety= Medium
###Video Options###
Resolution= 1024 x 768
Refresh rate= 0 Hz
Framerate throttle= No Vsync
Specular= No
Shadows= No
Decals= No
Particles= Off
Texture Quality= Medium

Just putting everything on medium, 1024x768, and no FSAA.

Bat · 2005-05-10 12:34 am

*thud*

Geometry detail on High at least..?

Back later when I'm over my stroke. You do need a better videocard.

NightCougar_37 · 2005-05-10 1:24 am

Nah, thats with full medium like what Barefeats did for their testing. That was to show it's weakness against the GF3 which tests higher. When I play I run everything on high except lens flare or FSAA (found i don't need it with higher rez). Usually this is what I get:

Total Time=258.38s
Average frame rate=18.19fps
Below 5fps= 5% (time) 0% (frames) (14.710s spent in 17 frames)
Below 10fps= 7% (time) 1% (frames)
Below 15fps= 35% (time) 20% (frames)
Below 20fps= 62% (time) 46% (frames)
Below 25fps= 84% (time) 72% (frames)
Below 30fps= 94% (time) 88% (frames)
Below 40fps= 98% (time) 95% (frames)
Below 50fps= 99% (time) 97% (frames)
Below 60fps= 99% (time) 97% (frames)
###Sound Options###
Hardware Acceleration= No
Sound Quality= Normal
Environmental Sound= No
Sound Variety= Medium
###Video Options###
Resolution= 1024 x 768
Refresh rate= 0 Hz
Framerate throttle= No Vsync
Specular= No
Shadows= No
Decals= Yes
Particles= Off
Texture Quality= High

Bit higher than my Beige which only gets about 15fps with same settings.

Bat · 2005-05-10 3:06 pm

Lens Flare is practically Halo's visual sig. Since December it's hardware-accelerated too, so no big hit.

1024x768 is what I ran on my 9800 Pro. It's awfully demanding on lesser chips. Pixel + vertex shaders at least?

What's the monitor again?

Bat · 2005-05-10 3:44 pm

I've only gotten a few 16*12s up at the clan server, but take a look at one or three of these to see what Halo should look like. These are from early on:

Inbound.rar

Too Fast.rar

Lens Flare of Doom.rar

NightCougar_37 · 2005-05-10 4:26 pm

Yeah I got Halo on my PC which I ran with full detailing so I know what it should look like . I just don't use the PC much for things other than Recon modding, playing KOTOR2, and playing older PC games which I always wanted to play but couldnt.

My Macs all have just DX8 chipsets so no Pixel shader stuff. R9000 & R9200s. Monitor on my Cube is an original Apple 15nch Studio LCD. Once my cc's billing clears soon i'm gonna try to get me a R9700 to flash to Mac. Would just buy a preflashed but with Hpence's selling for over $200 i'm like, no way! big_smile Heck the last one he had sold for $575. Totally insane to me.

I'm actually wanting to buy 2 9700s. One for the cube and one for the PC to replace my FX5600.

Bat · 2005-05-11 1:22 am

NightCougar_37 wrote:
Yeah I got Halo on my PC which I ran with full detailing so I know what it should look like .

At 1600x1200? Those linked shots are, and they're Targas.

My Macs all have just DX8 chipsets so no Pixel shader stuff. R9000 & R9200s.

The NV2A chip in Xbox is DX8.0-compliant. Sufficient for Shaders 1.1, as are those ATi chips. Mainly a speed difference.

Original Halo is actually purtier in spots than HaloPC, presumably the result of writing to only one videochip, not supporting a range as in HPC and Halo Mac. IMO the opposite is true of a few other effects that use PS2.0 and floating-point color accuracy... that plus extreme res can be otherworldly. Apple recently informed us indirectly that even the latest Mac Halo patch only uses the equiv of PS1.4.*

I'm actually wanting to buy 2 9700s. One for the cube and one for the PC to replace my FX5600.

With 128M 9800 Pros down to ~$130, might as well get one of those for PC.

*Testing conducted by Apple in April 2005 using preproduction dual 2.7GHz Power Mac G5 units and preproduction video cards. Halo was tested using the Time Demo benchmark with advanced pixel shaders (1.4).

http://www.apple.com/powermac/graphics.html

NightCougar_37 · 2005-05-11 1:40 am

Nah not in 1600, i'll check em out when i get a chance.

Yeah but then if I flashed the first 9700 wrong i'd have another to try wink big_smile

NightCougar_37 · 2005-09-28 2:29 pm

Well, time for a long overdue update. After frying the 9000 I tried a R9700 flash. Actually had a working card but OSX would only boot in safe mode. Then it suddenly stopped working so I flashed it back. Working fine now in the PC with the exception of the occasional graphic anomaly from time to time shrug . So for months i've been stuck on the Rage 128 watching for 9000s and GF3s. With the back to school rush prices were going insane, then ATI drops the 2x AGP boards and suddenly everyone with a 2x slot goes loco. I've seen 64MB 9000s sell for $150 and 128MB versions sell for $255 (I am not joking on that, saw it just a couple weeks ago).

So plenty of time to read up on some things. Then I find out the GF3 in Halo supports both Pixel and Vertex shaders instead of only vertex which is sweet!. Knowing its a rare card I keep my eyes peeled for one. Almost win one a few times then when all hope is lost, I got a budget winfall which gave me the chance to get a lot of projects finished. So while I wait for Mac GPU prices to drop and the insane ppl to go away, I get my PC more completed (details are in the Windows forum). That went well and after a month or so the 9000s finally go back down to sane prices but the GF3s are still impossible to get for under $230 (which is normal). So seeing I can get a R9000 64MB for less than $55 I figure, might as well get one then at least have quartz back for awhile while I wait for a GF3 or by now a, flashed FX5200. So yesterday I won a R9000 for $51 and today what do I see on ebay but a GF3 OEM ADC model pulled from a 733 tower for only...get this...$75 eek eek eek

Yes, I just bought it tongue . Crap now i'm gonna have 2 boards when I only needed the 1 eek . Couldn't have afforded it without the lil boost I had recently but still, just extra boards to take up space. Urge to get that seller account on ebay...RISING!!!

Bat · 2005-09-29 4:44 am

NightCougar_37 wrote:
So plenty of time to read up on some things. Then I find out the GF3 in Halo supports both Pixel and Vertex shaders instead of only vertex which is sweet!.

I already told you that in post #139. hmm

Anyway, Mac Halo graphics are a bit different. Apple's OpenGL was and is still behind D3D, altho it's certainly nearly on par or beyond where D3D was overall when Xbox Halo was written. Still, certain things like shader animations perhaps, are or were until recently missing, and it's hard to tell exactly where the last gaps are at the high end. 'Advanced pixel shaders (1.4)' probably means the equivalent of the PC's PS1.4 rendering path, but might possibly mean OGL v1.4.

Different... at the bottom, in fixed-function mode, Westlake still managed to keep the vertex shaders employed, IIRC with geometry acceleration, so that's some work off the CPU in a fancier way than on PC, tho short of vertex lighting, what I believe the Vertex setting means (working from memories of a Fall '03 IMG thread, now deleted, where Westlake's coders were posting on and off). Pixel + Vertex shaders adds some benefit from (yeah) the pixel shaders; Advanced Shaders, supported only on Radeon 9600s and up (& more recently the GF 6800s) bring it closer to HaloPC standard. Mac Halo still seems to be missing some effects, tho subtle; OTOH being programmed from the outset without certain FX did confer the benefit of being able to use FSAA (full-scene anti-aliasing, to minimize 'the jaggies' and smooth out texturing somewhat. HaloPC was only about the second major shipping game to use DX9-level, Pixel Shader 2.0-level effects to take Halo's graphics up a notch in places- more complex pixel shaders, per-pixel fogging, floating-point-accurate internal color. It does lose to the original here and there, partly, I think, to meet deadline and partly to satisfy certain parties (NV and ATi not only helped, but actually wrote some of the shaders, and each has certain developers in their camps, 'the way it's meant to be played' and 'get in the game.' NV's hardware of that generation did not, as ATi's did, support certain features like centroid sampling, so with MRTs used (Multiple Render Targets, OpenGL's render-to-texture; still MIA from Apple OGL), that precluded any form of FSAA. Certain effects were sacrificed or are inferior supporting multiple chipsets under a new API... at least power and efficiency are on tap to make that less needful; my year-old X800XT PE can run 1600x1200 w/8X AF and still pull Timedemo somewhere in the 50s- very smooth and gorgeous. Certain scenes played at night on a good display with headphones and EAX sound are almost a religious experience.

Too bad you don't have the budget, NC; I could about see letting that go to upgrade (or maybe 'sidegrade') to an NV 7800... SM3.0 is nice, but for an FSAA freak like me, NV's new T-FSAA in Supersampling mode is the first mode on a videocard in years be able to antialias textures. We wants it, we wants it. Give it to me, My Preciousss! twisted

NightCougar_37 · 2005-09-29 2:37 pm

Well I did have the budget but I've spent part of it on upgrades. Didn't want to blow all my $$$ in one place. Have gotten a lot for it so far: XP-M 2400+ CPU, Cavalier 1 case, Cold Fear, BG&E, Rambo First Blood Ultimate Edition big_smile , new iPod battery from OWC on clearance, R9000, GF3. Probably let it sit for a bit now and earn up more to get a Cube upgrade and finally finish this, or maybe put it towards something else sneaky .

I know you posted in here about the GF3, remembered that after I posted. This hadn't been read since May or so, and thusly I had forgotten overtime with various things happening.

Forums | MacLife

#126 2005-04-06 12:50 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#127 2005-04-06 12:57 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#128 2005-04-06 1:33 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#129 2005-04-06 1:38 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

PowerMacMan wrote:

#130 2005-04-06 1:43 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#131 2005-04-12 3:38 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#132 2005-05-01 5:05 pm

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#133 2005-05-01 11:50 pm

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#134 2005-05-02 12:21 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#135 2005-05-09 2:11 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#136 2005-05-09 2:11 pm

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#137 2005-05-10 12:34 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#138 2005-05-10 1:24 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#139 2005-05-10 3:06 pm

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#140 2005-05-10 3:44 pm

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#141 2005-05-10 4:26 pm

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#142 2005-05-11 1:22 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

NightCougar_37 wrote:

#143 2005-05-11 1:40 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#144 2005-09-28 2:29 pm

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

#145 2005-09-29 4:44 am

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

NightCougar_37 wrote:

#146 2005-09-29 2:37 pm

Re: Say Cube is beautiful!

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