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The problem wasn't so much that 3rd party vendors would have to write new drivers for the mac - if it were just that we could use any old graphics card they manufactured with a mac - so long as drivers existed for it.

The problem came from the fact that PCs have been using the same BIOS system for a LONG time now, while Apple has stuck with OpenFirmware. Personally I think OpenFirmware is a better standard, BUT it also requires that a peripheral like a graphics card has to do a bunch of things differently to get the computer to recognize it. This means that graphics cards for the mac have also required custom FirmWare to talk with an OF system rather than the classic x86 BIOS. These mean different physical cards in some cases - or if the card has enough room for the mac-specific firmware, changing (flashing) the firmware on the card to replace the BIOS specific firmware.

These hardware / software differences have been the big factor in why there has been a smaller selection of graphics cards / more expensive models.

However - the new Intel macs supposedly aren't going to be using OpenFirmware anymore. They supposedly won't be using a classic x86 BIOS either - but a new standard that Intel will be pushing for everyone to use - Wintels and Mactels alike. If THAT catches on we should eventually be able to use the same physical graphic cards as all the other PC users, so longer as we get software drivers for them.

GRAH! stupid double post - if I try to delete or edit one of them they both get changed, sorry

Decide for yourself. Here are the links to ATI Radeon X1600 Series Graphics cards
http://www.ati.com/products/RadeonX1600/index.html
OR
http://www.ati.com/products/mobilityrad … index.html

I'm not sure what you mean by "Professional", however, these look truely powerful! 

smilr wrote:

OpenFirmware is a better standard, BUT it also requires that a peripheral like a graphics card has to do a bunch of things differently to get the computer to recognize it. This means that graphics cards for the mac have also required custom FirmWare to talk with an OF system rather than the classic x86 BIOS. These mean different physical cards in some cases - or if the card has enough room for the mac-specific firmware, changing (flashing) the firmware on the card to replace the BIOS specific firmware.

Well considering the 9800 Pro flashed so well, and it's only 64k difference in the rom (I'm actually on the 64 not 128 rom) you would think the jig is up for the GPU manufacturers...

Cza, before you start making a fool of yourself, do some research.
here is a typical review of your magic video chipset

Quote
"The bottom line is that we have the same opinion of this card as we did about the X1300 Pro. For what you pay, you simply don't get enough performance, and there's no room in the graphics business for "second place," let alone third or fourth. If you have $250 to spend on a graphics card, you'd be much better off with a GeForce 6800 GS or a Radeon X800 XL. The price of the X1600 XT would have to drop by at least $50 for it to be even worth considering, and probably should be discounted much more than that before we'd give it a thumbs-up."

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 … 683,00.asp

In OS X, a graphics card drives the interface through OpenGL. A good card really doesn't give you anything more than an average card, so long as both have enough memory (32MB is just okay, 64MB is more than enough) and vertex programmability (for the funky ripple effects).

3D games get massive benefit from a good card, and many 2D games use OpenGL to manage textures and sprites, simplifying development by handing off the rendering to the card.

Apps like Word, Photoshop and pretty much everything else gain no benefit from a good graphics card whatsoever. Until Core Image is used in apps, you can have the best graphics card in the world and see no benefit - it's all done on the CPU.

There are always moves afoot to leverage the power of the GPU, which is a significantly powerful processor in its own right, to do more general purpose things. Calculations can be done using the GPU's great level of parallelism (all those pixel and vertex programs run on individual, parallel units in the GPU) to get some serious work done. In fact, that's what Core Image is all about.

...

Apparently I felt the need to download a bunch of stuff from my brain to your pixels.

Last edited by Gary Patterson (2006-01-11 12:44 am)

The Cynic wrote:

What brought that on?

macnuke wrote:

for word processing, email and light web stuff, your 32 is probably all you need.
you "would" see a bit of "felt" speed increase on some web pages depending on what they were.
you definitely would see some speed increase with your photochopping.

I do believe that macnuke was referring to the overall UI speed/responsiveness.
—Then again, I could be wrong.

Also, thanks but no thanks for the long pseudo-rant about how little the GPU has to do with the speed of running applications.

Sorry Cynic. Next time I'll be sure to ask your permission before posting anything.

pcguy wrote:

Cza, before you start making a fool of yourself, do some research.
here is a typical review of your magic video chipset

Quote
"The bottom line is that we have the same opinion of this card as we did about the X1300 Pro. For what you pay, you simply don't get enough performance, and there's no room in the graphics business for "second place," let alone third or fourth. If you have $250 to spend on a graphics card, you'd be much better off with a GeForce 6800 GS or a Radeon X800 XL. The price of the X1600 XT would have to drop by at least $50 for it to be even worth considering, and probably should be discounted much more than that before we'd give it a thumbs-up."

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 … 683,00.asp

By him not doing research, isn't that the purpose of him asking?

I had the same question.  I find it a very valid question to ask.  If that makes me a fool, so be it.  Your comment makes you a dick.

We don't all follow graphics cards and other chipsets.

Last edited by MacBoy4139 (2006-01-11 7:39 am)

MacBoy4139 wrote:

I had the same question.  I find it a very valid question to ask.  If that makes me a fool, so be it.  Your comment makes you a dick.

We don't all follow graphics cards and other chipsets.

1. In Mac world, we always think in term of pro and consumer which is really a bad way to think of thing, youu should think of it as a high performance or low tech/low performance item for a given price.

2. Is perfectly fine and ok to ask question, but when one ask about subject they are not educated about, one should not make question with statement such as

a. or is the usual "low end" consumer card that so many trolls troll about.
b. Maybe someone else who speaks the techie-spec language here who has seen what I am talking about with the various trolls, Windows apologists or self-proclaimed "pros" who march into here and complain to no end that Mac's don't offer a "decent" "pro" graphics card.

MacBoy, if he was as you suggest that "don't fellow graphics cards and other chipset", how could he make statement like a and b when he wouldn't know if  his so call "trolls" troll was a  very valid point in the first place or not?

The truth as far as I can tell is Mr. Cza was unhappy about a lot of people(troll) bashing about Nvidia 5200 in a 2k machine from Apple, now he notice a new video chipset in the new Mac with big model number x1600, so he decide to get even in a question form, I could be wrong about his intention, but the truth will be inside his heart and he know his intention.

Cza, if I am wrong about your intention, I apoloize.  if that is in fact your true motive, then my early statemnt stand and so be it.

Last edited by pcguy (2006-01-11 9:26 am)

pcguy wrote:

MacBoy4139 wrote:

I had the same question.  I find it a very valid question to ask.  If that makes me a fool, so be it.  Your comment makes you a dick.

We don't all follow graphics cards and other chipsets.

1. In Mac world, we always think in term of pro and consumer which is really a bad way to think of thing, youu should think of it as a high performance or low tech/low performance item for a given price.

I definitely agree with the above.

pcguy wrote:

2. Is perfectly fine and ok to ask question, but when one ask about subject they are not educated about, one should not make question with statement such as

a. or is the usual "low end" consumer card that so many trolls troll about.
b. Maybe someone else who speaks the techie-spec language here who has seen what I am talking about with the various trolls, Windows apologists or self-proclaimed "pros" who march into here and complain to no end that Mac's don't offer a "decent" "pro" graphics card.

MacBoy, if he was as you suggest that "don't fellow graphics cards and other chipset", how could he make statement like a and b when he wouldn't know if  his so call "trolls" troll was a  very valid point in the first place or not?

The truth as far as I can tell is Mr. Cza was unhappy about a lot of people(troll) bashing about Nvidia 5200 in a 2k machine from Apple, now he notice a new video chipset in the new Mac with big model number x1600, so he decide to get even in a question form, I could be wrong about his intention, but the truth will be inside his heart and he know his intention.

Cza, if I am wrong about your intention, I apoloize.  if that is in fact your true motive, then my early statemnt stand and so be it.

People always comment about crappy graphics on Macs.  I've heard the term "that is so sad" so many times from people.  Then there's the constant complaint about gaming performance on Macs.

I guess the way I interpreted the question was "is the newest graphics on the MacBook Pro & iMac good?"

Perhaps I'm wrong.  I guess I don't read into people's questions that much.

Czachorski wrote:

pcguy wrote:

The truth as far as I can tell is Mr. Cza was unhappy about a lot of people(troll) bashing about Nvidia 5200 in a 2k machine from Apple, now he notice a new video chipset in the new Mac with big model number x1600, so he decide to get even in a question form

Acutally, the number I noticed was 256, not x1600, but same difference anyway - you mostly nailed it, except for the get even part.  It was actually out of interest, not "revenge".

Based on all the repeated trolling around here these past 3 years about the lack of a good graphics card in a Mac, I had come to the conclusion that Apple was typically offering a little less than state-of-the-art in their graphics cards.  I am interested to know if that practice has continued now with the Intel Macs.  I am not the techie who follows the details of these things, and several here do - so I thought I would inquire, while doing a little Troll bashing as a little bonus.  Will you ever forgive me?

The Cynic wrote:

Before starting such a painfully uninformed thread, It'd be kinda nice if you did some sort of research beforehand just to get an idea of what you're talking about.

The other day, a good friend called me up, and he asked me what I thought about whether he should buy a MacMini now, or if there were any good offerings coming up in the future from Apple.  Do you know what I told him??  I said, "Before asking a smurfing stupid question, why don't you get off your ass and do some smurfing research on the internet and see what Apple computer has going on and get some idea of what you are talking about before you make a god damn fool of yourself".  And then I promptly hung up on him.

Good friend you are

Remember that time when I linked Czac to this site?