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NightCougar_37 wrote:

New post today over at XLR8. Since its one that does affect folks who stop by HH here, i'm gonna pull a Bat and bring it on over.

At least you're stealing from the best. Good practice.

...Heck the entire flasher community has pretty much become mainstream now thanks to ATI's lack of commitment. Just a shame ATI's answers were so pointless. Course I didn't think ATI would seriously reply on the flashing and risk admitting anything.

As mentioned, tho, it's still really a cottage industry, and affects AMD's business not a whit. I don't see NV doing much better.

Is funny to me that ATI thinks it did good by dumping a small amount of overpriced old 9800s and X800s on us recently. Wonder how much arm twisting that took to make happen.

They and NV don't do things because they wuv you or think your market is kewl, they do things to make money- just like Apple. Biz logic is often unkind; sometimes you're lucky that it isn't gratuitously cruel.. and sometimes, you're not lucky.

But ATI currently makes a PC Radeon® X1650 Pro 512MB AGP ($199) - is there a reason that model could not be offered in a Mac (rom) version? (awaiting an answer)

They won't talk about upcoming product, as Apple needs to finalize their next-gen and then reveal it (MWSF). And at this point it would make little sense to offer a product 2 generations behind, when the PC will get an AGP card or two from the 3k series early next year.

Although there was a recent (short lived) production run of AGP Mac Edition cards (the X800 and 9800 Pro) - they were pulled from ATI's online store again. Are they gone for good?

The ATI Radeon™ 9800 PRO Special Edition 256MB (8Mx32 memory) has reached its end of life. In order to fulfill the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro demand, we replaced this SKU with a 128MB version in August/September, 2007. Unfortunately, we have recently depleted our inventory of the ATI Radeon 9800 and X800 GPUs, so these products are now EOL. In addition, the ATI Radeon™ X1900 for G5 memory is also going through an EOL, which will impact the overall availability of the product.

Good Lord... my PC X800 XT PE arrived 8/7/04. My 9800 Pro 256MB was a year older yet. They're ancient. Let Apple announce new products and let ATi at least look at releasing an AGP part for Mac; NV won't even do that on the PC.

Well I need to get to the post office and pick up my 7800 for my G5.  AMD/ATI can suck my left nut.

-mark

Gratz. I'm sure you will enjoy it more. G70s were nice boards. Only other thing better that is retail is the X1900XT which ATI isn't making anymore . Course that was a stripped down 256MB version too so you'd be limited a lil anyways.

Read about them a lot first before buying. I found out the hard way on my X1900XT that it needed not only good cooling for the GPU and VRAM but also the voltage regulators. In the end i'm just running this with a blower aimed at the regulators to keep them cool.

G70s tho, shouldn't have the same problem. I just run with stock cooling on my 7800GS in my Quicksilver. Temps get up to about 150F or so but it doesn't over heat. I forget who used to make silent coolers for the G70s but they did work well. In your case it would work even better with all the fans those G5s had. Plenty of airflow.

Last edited by NightCougar_37 (2008-01-05 3:42 pm)

ATI clearly wants nothing to do with Mac aftermarket GPUs, and it really doesn't make any sense whatsoever.  I get the whole lack of a market thing.  I'd say that maybe 5% of installed Macs (all Macs; pro, laptop, whatever) are even upgrade-capable, given the trend in Apple hardware over the past several years.  But that doesn't matter because ATI already did all of the work!  They wrote the ROMs; they wrote the drivers.  All they need to do is flash the card and slap a "Made for Mac" sticker on the box, yet they refuse.  They even refuse to support user-end flashing.  Why?  They went this route once with the 9600 (I think).  Was that product really such a disaster?  Did PC users refuse to buy that card because it also works on a Mac?  Or is this AMD's way of telling Apple, "If you don't care, we don't care"??  I have no idea..  But it would be nice if they just answered even one question straight.

Yeah but the ATI drivers are buggy as I have witnessed in Leopard.  Either that or Apple has something buggy; but that is doubtful since now everything works with my nVidia card that isn't even suppose to be in the Mac in the first place.

-mark

Yes!  Also if they let AMD/NVIDIA handle OGL (like they do in Windows).

Thought we just talked in Games where Brad Oliver went to work for Apple. Thats one big plus but if anyone listens to him is another story.

Been awhile since I looked this way.

I've isolated your posts, Mr. T, to address everything from one source, not to bash.

Mr. T wrote:

Ahhh... I can see it now.  DX for Mac, vendor-supplied OGL, and PCIe slots for everyone...

(that's me dreaming)

That's dreaming, all right. DX is so Win-specific it'd be a ton of effort to get a version working for any other OS-  and with Apple a potential rival, why should they?

Mr. T wrote:

ATI clearly wants nothing to do with Mac aftermarket GPUs, and it really doesn't make any sense whatsoever.  I get the ...

Now, Steve would be REALLY if either vendor revealed a Mac board that wasn't yet in an announced Mac, wouldn't he? So with MWSF coming right up... it's not bashing time, right now.

Last Spring/Summer there was a 2900XT Mac leaked, but it seems they elected to not use it, and I haven't seen that ginormous cooler anywhere else.

Why?  They went this route once with the 9600 (I think).  Was that product really such a disaster?  Did PC users refuse to buy that card because it also works on a Mac?

I suspect that board was basically proof-of-concept, and PC users refused to buy it because by that time, $200 for a 9600 was a terrible value on that side. Recently discussed in [s]Games[/s] Gaming (#s 32-34).

Or is this AMD's way of telling Apple, "If you don't care, we don't care"??  I have no idea..  But it would be nice if they just answered even one question straight.

Like the straight answers from that open-book company, Apple?

Bigger picture, several former ATi execs left this last year. It was a dark day when Hector Ruiz took over from Jerry Sanders and AMD started to make bad decisions that left them open to a reinvigorated Intel. With luck that's starting to turn, but it's still in doubt on the CPU/platform side. ATi is very much AMD now; even their old HQ is, I think, growing weeds. But their GPUs are better again. R700 should at least match G100; meanwhile, Mark, we might try a few benchies, your G5/7800 vs. my homebrew/3870 (a midrange card). Include games and HD video, and image quality (FSAA, AF) therein.

Mr. T wrote:

Yes!  Also if they let AMD/NVIDIA handle OGL (like they do in Windows).

Can't work that way. OGL is great on Winders because the system basically uses it for nothing intrinsically. OSX uses it for everything, so they're very careful when altering it... the iTunes visualizer is vital, games are an afterthought- as Tuncer said, 1-2 people at Apple on Games. Pitiful, considering it's the #3 computer activity after surfing & shopping (if those are separate).

Ah well.

Bat wrote:

That's dreaming, all right. DX is so Win-specific it'd be a ton of effort to get a version working for any other OS-  and with Apple a potential rival, why should they?

It would be a huge blow to OpenGL, would it not?  I think MS cares more about killing OpenGL right now than they do about killing Apple, though it's pretty close at this point.  Of course, I did say that I was dreaming, but there's at least some motivation, if not much hope.

I suspect that board was basically proof-of-concept, and PC users refused to buy it because by that time, $200 for a 9600 was a terrible value on that side. Recently discussed in [s]Games[/s] Gaming (#s 32-34).

Ouch -  Yeah, that'll do it...

Bigger picture, several former ATi execs left this last year. It was a dark day when Hector Ruiz took over from Jerry Sanders and AMD started to make bad decisions that left them open to a reinvigorated Intel. With luck that's starting to turn, but it's still in doubt on the CPU/platform side. ATi is very much AMD now; even their old HQ is, I think, growing weeds. But their GPUs are better again. R700 should at least match G100

Great: now they need to start caring about the Mac again.  Fix the Leopard drivers, and release some cards! (I'll wait for MW, but I don't expect much on the aftermarket front).  I really just don't think they care anymore.

Can't work that way. OGL is great on Winders because the system basically uses it for nothing intrinsically. OSX uses it for everything, so they're very careful when altering it... the iTunes visualizer is vital, games are an afterthought- as Tuncer said, 1-2 people at Apple on Games. Pitiful, considering it's the #3 computer activity after surfing & shopping (if those are separate).

The number one computer activity is definitely pr0n. But, iTunes works fine in Windows; just sayin..
As long as Apple didn't implement the spec incorrectly, I don't think it'll be a problem letting the vendors do the work.  I know Apple doesn't care about games, but Apple's reluctance might also be related to their insistence on implementing the Java VM themselves; whatever that may be..

Last time I ran iTunes visualizer in Windows I actually got terrible frames when I tried to do other stuff. Would go from smooth to choppy instantly where on my Quicksilver it remains smooth.

Probably missing some patch update. I don't get any of the million windows ones unless its something major. WGA is a pain on some of them.

Bat wrote:

Mr. T wrote:

Bat wrote:

That's dreaming, all right. DX is so Win-specific it'd be a ton of effort to get a version working for any other OS- and with Apple a potential rival, why should they?

It would be a huge blow to OpenGL, would it not?  I think MS cares more about killing OpenGL right now than they do about killing Apple, though it's pretty close at this point.  Of course, I did say that I was dreaming, but there's at least some motivation, if not much hope...

Oh, Lord... MS needs Apple if only to avoid a real antitrust lawsuit. They don't want it all, only most of it. 90% is enough. And there are still major workstation Win OGL apps that won't go D3D anytime soon.

I haven't really time, but you're equating DX with Direct3D. D3D is only one of a substantial number of APIs that make up the multimedia DX suite- video, sound/music, input, networking...

Even in 3D, how much of the prerelease "Vista won't support OpenGL" FUD turned out true?

So... do you want the XP/up to DX9 driver model, or the Vista DX9L/DX10 driver model? They're different, you know- e.g. more of the latter is in user, not kernel space; but Vista drivers have proven difficult to write well so far.

Mac gaming doesn't need D3D, but a more game-friendly OpenGL from Apple. Porting libraries are otherwise adequate. (Other OS aspects could use better support from Apple, too, according to Glenda Adams a couple of years ago. She should know. Possibly things are better now). A "Mac DX" would not make Mac gaming the land of milk and honey. There are far bigger issues like marketshare.

So... you want to take a *nix-based OS and graft on the... Windows Registry or equivalent, somehow? Like I said, DX has a lot of Win-specific hooks. How 'bout a thousand .dlls?

Thought that would do it.

I think you're the fifth person to remind me that D3D isn't DX.  Of course they're not the same but EVERYONE else uses them interchangeably, so why can't I?  Even you've used phrases like "DX10 graphics cards."  What does a graphics card have to do with a game controller?

Secondly, I think you're reading waaaayy too much into what I wrote.  I'm admitting it's a challenging task and that I'm dreaming.  Let me make it clear now that I KNOW that it'll never happen.  I also agree that they don't want ALL of the market share.  I was really responding to your point, "with Apple a potential rival, why would they?"  In my guesstimate, OGL is probably 30% vs D3D (he he) in terms of market share (not just games).  Maybe that's a bad guess, but it's at least considerably higher than Apple's market share.  They could still take more and avoid antitrust.   So that's just me answering your question.  It doesn't mean they should actually do it!!

To the market share point, the Mac has seen record market shares, yet even despite this and the intel switch, Mac game development is still in a funk, save for UT3 and a few Cider auto-ports.  I think the main reason for this is Apple's lack of focus on gaming, in software and especially in hardware (Apple's hardware isn't exactly gamer-friendly).