newer video cards on the way?

[lilbandit]

Can anyone tell me if newer ati/nvidia cards are on the way soon? I just got a copy of Aperture and while it runs fine it gets extremely bogged down once you apply more than 5/6 adjustments to an image. My 9600XT 128MB card is more than likely the problem as Aperture relies heavily on CoreImage. I was looking at an ATI X800 as a replacement. Can anyone more knowledgeable than I in these matters help me out?

[nixgeek]

If I'm not mistaken, I believe that the 9600XT supported CoreImage. I have that on my iMac G5 and from what I've seen it is supported by that video chipset. What Mac do you have and what are the specs?

[lilbandit]

The 9600XT is supported but performance slows to a crawl once you apply 5 or more adjustments to an image. For example, a crop, exposure adjustment, saturation, contrast levels,white balance and sharpen. These are some of the typical changes that I make to any raw file worth printing. Beachball spins and the whole application bogs down. I have a DP 2.0 Ghz G5 with 5GB ram. It's not a slow machine and blazes it's way through most other tasks. I was thinking about upgrading the video card anyway but didn't want to make the purchase if newer cards are due out in the next couple of months. Warning to anybody planning to purchase Aperture, it's a hardware swallowing beast!

[SuperTyphoon]

Is the 7800gtx out for macs yet? That is one killer card... i have used them and they are insanely fast for 3d games and apps.

[mdnky]

Supposedly a Mac variant of the x1800 model is in the works, but there is no telling when it'll arrive (it'll be a PCI-E only card though). There was also rumor (maybe more of a "wish") of a Mac x1300 or x1600 (they offer an x1600 on the PC side that's 8x AGP). I wouldn't hold my hopes too high on the later.

My take on it is you're probably not going to see anything else in an AGP card that will blow away the x800. PCI-E is another story altogether...so it depends on the version of G5 you have.

On thought though...how do you have the RAM on your machine setup (i.e. 4x1gb, 2x512mb — etc)? 5GB is an odd number that might be the cause of some issues.

[lilbandit]

The machine came with two 512 sticks and I added 4 1 gig sticks myself. It flies along and has never given any problems. I think that Aperture is happiest with >256mb of video card ram. Have to admit to being disappointed with Aperture's hardware requirements, a DP 2Ghz G5, 5 gigs of ram and a supported video card should allow the user to make necessary adjustments to an image without bogging down. I'll look into the x800 in the next couple of weeks and make my mind up then. Thanks for your replies.

[mdnky]

The machine came with two 512 sticks and I added 4 1 gig sticks myself. It flies along and has never given any problems.

It's a longshot, but something worth checking regardless. Try removing the two 512s and see if it makes a difference. You may never have used enough RAM up before to make it a noticeable issue.

My reasoning: I played with Aperture at the Cincy Apple Store on a few different machines (quad G5/30", 2.0 G5, and a 17" PB). The images being played with were RAWs (~7-8MB each, 8.2MP) from a Canon EOS 20d. The 17" PB was stock spec and handled multiple (5+ adjustments) without an issue. If a 1.67GHz G4 laptop with 512MB of RAM and a Mobility Radeon 9700 can run it well, then a DP 2.0GHz G5 with 4GB+ of RAM and a Radeon 9600 definitely should be able to.

[lilbandit]

Just gave your suggestion a try mdnky, no luck. I went through the adjustments. They are as follows 1) crop to 8x10, 2)Exposure, saturation, brightness,contrast and tint 3) levels 4) highlights/shadows 5) white balance 6) sharpening. I'm interested to hear the experiences of other users