Video Cards for OS X

Boy that opens a can of worms.

I hear that Radeon supports the most DirectX 8 commands, but what good does that do the OpenGL-ers?

-Rob
 
I've been lead to the belief that the GeForce 3 will recieve better support because Apple's relationship with Nvidia is much better than the present one with ATi.

If I were you, It would be all about the money. Get the cheap one.
 
I am a mac newbie, but have been using been a pc user for years. I am not sure what kind of driver support nvidia or ati cards get on the mac, but as for as the hardware, the geforce 3 is in a league by itself. There is nothing that comes anywhere close to the graphics horsepower the geforce 3 has. I have a geforce 2 in my powermac g4 and also in my dell p4. I have also had 3dfx cards and a number of ati cards for the pc. The Nvidia cards are far superior for 3d, and are very capable 2d cards. The geforce 2 in my powermac runs greats. I don't know what directx8 has to do with mac, but nvidia worked very closely with microsft on directx8, and the geforce 3 should be better supported. If price is not an issue, as far as hardware goes, the radeon doesn't compare to the geforce 3, it is not even in the same league.
 
Looking at your system specification, you don't have much choice between the two cards.

So far only ATI makes the Radeon in a PCI version.

The only vendor to make cards with a NVidia chipset for the Mac is Apple, and unfortunately Apple only makes an AGP version.

All G3 Macs, and a few early G4s must use a PCI video card (and a PCI card is the only way to add a second monitor to any currently shipping G4).

I've been looking at getting a PCI Radeon for my Beige G3, but I'll wait until Macworld in July to see if ATI will ship a card that also has video in.

- Steve

[Beige G3,400 MHz, 512 Mb Ram, 20+10Gig HD, Firewire/USB, 10/100 Ethernet]
 
Originally posted by SteveB
Looking at your system specification, you don't have much choice between the two cards.

So far only ATI makes the Radeon in a PCI version.

The only vendor to make cards with a NVidia chipset for the Mac is Apple, and unfortunately Apple only makes an AGP version.
Click to expand...

I'm planning on picking up a new system, so I need info on both cards, and so far no one seems to know much of anything about the GeForce 3. I'm a little disapointed in the Radeons 32 MB compared to the PC's 64, and no video in capability. That really doesn't matter though since I can use FireWire to bring video in for editing. I plan on purchasing a Samsung 170MD flat panel display, so I really have no need for a TV tuner or anything like that, the display has all that built in, as well as PIP/PID. I woud rather have it set up that way anyways, so I don't waste any graphic power on that stuff while working. If you havn't seen this display, it's pretty cool. http://www.thenerds.net/productpage.asp?c=54&pn=170MP&sd=&d=&m=SAMSUNG

I plan on picking up either a G4 733, or dual 533's with DVD RAM.
 
Check out tomshardware.com there was some very detailed info about the GeForce 3. IMO, there is no camparison, go with nvidia.

-jdog
 
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