Better video-card.

hi,
I have a Geforce FX 5200 video-card now ,which is too slow.
Can anyone tell me what card to buy ,not too expensive ,ATI Radeon or Geforce?
Thx. Ron.

From my experience, only a flashed Radeon 9600 XT would be noticeably faster than a Geforce 5200 Ultra and even then not a startling difference. ATI's 9600 Mac/PC is not really an XT as it has slow memory, so at over $200, you'd really be wasting your money IMO unless you're looking to run a 30" Apple display and even then I shake my head because there are still better options.
Much better advice would the Radeon 9800 Pro or SE Mac Edition (if you can find them) or flashed 9700 or 9800 cards.
Obviously, the absolute best mainstream AGP card for a G5 would be a flashed Geforce 7800 GS or some variation of those cards as they are wicked fast and will run a 30", but they are still very pricey.

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Whats a better video card?

Hey, me and my buddy are comparing my MacBook to his iBook G4 14' 1.42 GHZ.
Which has a better video card? The GMA 950 or the Radeon 9550?

Here is some ''scientific'' discussion about it...
Originally Posted by mduell
I don't really see that as evidence.... could easily be limited by GPU performance or VRAM bandwidth rather than VRAM quantity.
I agree, but I will note that I got the same results with my 64 MB Radeon 9000 (dedicated memory) and my 64 MB GMA 950 machine (shared memory).
Also, Exposé on an iBook with Radeon 9550 32 MB slows down much quicker. A Radeon 9550 is much faster than both the Radeon 9000 and GMA 950.
Originally Posted by kmkkid
I don't think this can be the measure of anything. My iMac 20"CD 128mb had over 40 open and there was no sign of slowdown or jitter.
For the purposes of the test, I stuck with Safari windows, open to the same web page. If I used smaller windows from other apps I could open more of them before the slowdown.
Anyways, I'm not saying my test is incredibly scientific. I'm just saying that there is absolutely no evidence out there that suggests there is any truth to the speculation that video RAM usage scales in OS X with amount of system RAM present. Apple system profiler says it's 64 MB regardless of the amount of RAM present, and I believe it.

Better video cards for the new 8-core Mac Pro...?

I don't know a ton about video cards. I did some research and the internet says that the Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 video card is the best card out right now. Will it work in the 8-core macpro? If not, or if it's not the best, what is the best video card that will work in the 8-core macpro?
P.S.
Does anyone know how to tell exactly whether a video card is better from another? I mean I can guess a video card at 1792MB is going to be better then one at 512MB, but I've also heard that, for example, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB is better then the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB, and apple charges more for it so it probably is better, but all that tells me is the name of the cards, and that they are both at 512MB, so from that without any other information I would assume they're exactly the same just made by different companies, but there must be some other details that would explain why it's better right? Thanks in advance

Well I found out the Quadro FX 4800 works on it, that looks pretty good.
It's a good card, but it has a different application focus.
What applications do you use?
Answering that helps determine what the best card is.
The 5800 is better though, will it work?
Better, how?
The spec's read better?
How about real world performance?
Benchmarks?
They are very similar in shape and such.
Shape has little to do with anything.
The ROM is the key.
If the card is not produced as "OS X compatible", it does not have Mac ROM and cannot be used.
If there is a Mac edition that is similar (same GPU series, similar architecture) the ROM may be flashed to Mac ROM.
Especially in Geforce cards, the ability to edit ROMs and even write portions of the ROM is necessary to be able to flash a card.
Even then, no guarantees.
Often a port on a flashed card won't work after flashing.
Seems the 5800 has a 10 bit display port, so if the card were flashable, the display port wouldn't work.
The ROM chip size of a card is also of concern.
Many cards require either a new, larger ROM chip to accept the Mac ROM (soldering), or, require a hacked, "reduced" ROM to be written to allow flash.
Invariably, there will be some feature loss with a reduced ROM, but a good hacker usually gets rid of superfluous stuff.
Cards with more VRAM than the Mac counterpart will often times lose the extra VRAM- it won't be read by OS X.
Then there is the EFI question, which often creates a final stumbling block for converting a card.
There are many pioneers who flash cards.
If a card is flashable, it has already been done.
The Quadro 4500, 4800, and 5600 have all been worked out.
As of yet, the 5800 hasn't been sussed out for flash (as far as I can find).
Flashing the card is easy.
Finding a physically compatible card and a compatible ROM are the hard parts.
The two best retail cards for the Mac Pro are the Geforce GTX 285 and the Radeon HD 4870.

New monitor ZR2440w do I need a better video card ATI HD3450

I just purchased a new HP ZR 2440W monitor and wondering if I need a newer video card? I have noticed that the display when switching between open windows it takes awhile for the clicked on window to fully apear. Some of the window now going to the rear is being displayed in the clicked on window. I'm runing a Dell 530 Studio with a Quad 8200 cpu. If so I'm open for suggestions what works best without being a power hungry card. I do no gaming, but do some home video editing.
regards

Hi,
The ASUS has DDR5 memory and from what I have read it has almost twice the memory bandwidth compared to the other cards that I had listed for you.
HP DV9700, t9300, Nvidia 8600, 4GB, Crucial C300 128GB SSD
HP Photosmart Premium C309G, HP Photosmart 6520
HP Touchpad, HP Chromebook 11
Custom i7-4770k,Z-87, 8GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650,GTX 760
Custom i7-4790k,Z-97, 16GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Plextor M.2 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650, GTX 660TI
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Speeding up Rendering in LR3: Faster Processor or Better Video Card?

I'm currently running a MacPro with 2 Dual-Core Xeons at 2.66 GHz and 7 GB of RAM. I upgraded a while ago to an ATI Radeon HD 3870 video card.
I'm a professional photographer who is wondering what would give me the best LR3 rendering speed bump for my buck. Should I...
1. Add more RAM?
2. Upgrade my Video Card? (If so, which one?)
3. Start from scratch with a faster Mac?
4. All of the above?
I'm looking for any information that would show me real world measurements using LR3. I'm NOT looking for philosophical discussions or speculation. Has anyone seen a test that I could read, or information source that compares different systems rendering identical content in LR3? Concrete help (rather than speculation) would be appreciated.
Thanks!

ambienttroutmask wrote:
Good hard fast hard drives can also help, cheap and can carry on to any new machine, so always worth sticking one in. The Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1TB is an absolute bargain and for real world speed only SD is faster and then only if the OS is on the SD. I got one recently for video editing and stuck my LR catalog on it, a definite noticeable speed increase over other hard drives of a similar spec (although I have heard nasty stuff about them failing early...so back up obviously. I also have a big fast video card for video editing, that sits there doing absolutely nothing when using LR...so unless you edit video or like playing games, don't bother. I prefer my old machines ancient Matrox card for stability and 2 D rendering, but it won't do video sadly!
Processor comparisons here. With your set up you are going to have to invest in a top of the range MAC with an i 7 to benefit anything significant. More RAM won't hurt but may not get used by LR. More RAM and a i7 processor will ensure the RAM actually gets used.
Pete,
Just curious. Have you done any measurements on the Samsung? Say with SpeedTools for the Mac? I'm just wondering what the read/write speeds are across eSATA connection vs. any of the others.. I know a lot can vary from one machine to another, but I was just asking on your machine how it compared with a measured result to another brand. Like you say, the specs are very similar to other drives.
Thanks.
Jay S.

Flash interface redraw issues, do i need a better video card?

So this is a 2 part question.
Just got a brand new computer built for Flash work and
noticed that im having interface display refresh issues in Flash
CS3. This particularly will happen when i slide the timeline back
and forth a number of times. Anyone run into this?
The second part of this question is since its a new PC I can
swap the video card. Currently i run a Nvidia Quadro FX 1700 with
512MB, however im thinking that maybe that card is not the best for
Flash since its more of a 3d card.
Anyone have any experience with this?
Thanks :)

So more than a month has passed and no has answered this
question, I know CS3 on Vista isn't technically supported by Adobe
but surely someone has run into this issue?

Can i change out my intel 4 chip set for a better video card on my HP G71 448cl laptop

I want to play a new video game and this card wont support it. What are my options.

Hi,
Sorry to say but as your Intel Graphics Chip is integrated into the Motherboard it is not an upgradeable component.
Regards,
DP-K
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Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience

Need better video card driver for Satellite A100

Hi,
I got an old Toshiba Satellite A100... and I installed omega ATI drivers for better performance but its not working out, games crash due to overheating I believe...
I am wondering if there are any other drivers from other Toshiba Satellite series that would work on the A100 and they would be better.
ATI and Toshiba made drivers.

ok i installed ati drivers from toshiba website...
omega ati is not in add/remove programs anymore nor do i go to it when i open screen properties...
it looks like its gona... altho i might be mistaken...
2 questions...
1.i got cpuid hardware monitor...what is in acceptable temperature for processor for A100 series?
2. is there another way to find out if omega is gone? ccleaner did not detect it ... or it was allready gone.

24" iMac--latest models. Which video card option to choose?

I am going to buy a new iMac 24" with 4 GB RAM. There is a $300 difference between two of the models, based mainly, so far as I can tell, on a processor speed difference of 2.6 to 2.9 Ghz, but mainly on the video card.
The lower priced iMac has a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory
The higher priced iMac has NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
I use my current iMac (mid-2007 version, 4 GB, Radeon 2600 HD with 256 MB VRAM) for all the usual things like email, word processing and web surfing, but also for watching movies, high def streamed TV, including sports events. I do not do video editing nor do I play games on the computer. I am using approx 1 GB of RAM all the time for Fusion to run Windows, since I have a couple of programs that have no Mac equivalent.
Am I losing 256 MB of system RAM with the GeForce 9400M since it doesn't have its own memory like the Radeon 2600 HD, and will I miss the memory? Is the GeForce still a better video card than the Radeon, even with the shared memory?
The only real question is, should I spend the extra $300 to get the video card with its own memory, assuming I don't need the faster processor speed?

_+The only real question is, should I spend the extra $300 to get the video card with its own memory, assuming I don't need the faster processor speed?+_
I see from your new thread today that you have not yet made this purchase.
To get the upgraded hardware you really want, and for only $50 (not $300) above the cost you're willing to pay for the new 2.66, you can buy the refurbished 2.93 current 4GB RAM model direct from Apple, and it will have exact same warranty (and be treated by Apple) as a new one.
While it is not in today's list of refurbs at the online Store, it was there Monday - simply call now and they will put you on the waiting list for a refurbed MB419LL/A @ $1,549 w/ free shipping, and you will have it in a week or two. Just a few days extra wait for the model of your dreams, and yes it will come with Snow Leopard:D

Upgrading a 2007 Mac Pro Video Card

So Steve Jobs said that the mac pros would offer greater expansion when they were reased a couple years back.
Its been 3 months since the Geforce 8800 GT has been 'available' on the 2008 mac pro and 3 months since it hasnt been available for the mac pros which jobs referred to as 'expandable.' I'm in need of a new monitor, and will be needing a better video card, I have a 2 x geforce 7300 overclocked setup for gaming in windows. This experience will be painful once I step up to 1920x1200 resolution some time SOON.
So I have a few questions:
1) How does the ATI 2600 XT perform compared to my setup? Is a single 2600 XT going to outperform my SLI setup?
2) Would a Crossfire 2600 XT outperform it?
3) Is the 3870x2 compatible with my computer? Can I at least boot into windows with it, but boot into OS X with my 7300 without physically removing the video card from the PCIe slot? I suppose a KVM switch would be needed unless I bought a dual input monitor?
4) Are there any video cards made for PC that will work in windows on my mac BUT still allowing me to boot into OS X without me having to remove the card out of the PCIe slot?
Thanks for all your responses in advance!
ps. funny how steve jobs got deals with EA to produce games for the mac os platform while doing nothing about offering a required component to play games at decent settings and framerates. this is going to be a failure guaranteed if apple doesnt do anything (or, at least acquire PROPER ported games)

You can find benchmarks for the ATI 2600GT at Bare Feats.
You cannot use a third-party card to boot OS X, but you can use any compatible video card for Windows as long as you install the Windows drivers. A third-party video card simply won't boot OS X because it does not have an EFI compatible ROM. It will, however, work fine for booting Windows.
ps. funny how steve jobs got deals with EA to produce games for the mac os platform while doing nothing about offering a required component to play games at decent settings and framerates. this is going to be a failure guaranteed if apple doesnt do anything (or, at least acquire PROPER ported games)
As the Discussions are not intended for complaints, you can omit comments like these in the future.

I want to upgrade my p6240d hp pavillion video card.

I want to upgrade my p6240d hp pavillion video card but i don't know what is compatible for my computer. Somebody help me. Because my video card is too low
I don't know if this one " Sapphire ATI Radeon HD5670 1GB GDDR5/128bit Dual-Link DVI/HDMI/Display Port Direct X 11 "
or this one " Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6570 2GB DDR3/128bit DVI-I/D-Sub/HDMI DirectX 11 / PCI-Express [With Low Profile Bracket] " or this one " Inno3D GT430 2gb ddr3 128b hdmi " or this one " PC HD5570 1gb ddr3 128bit hdmi " or this one " Power...

Hi,
Do you have a purpose in wanting a better video card? gaming? What applications require a bigger video card?
The p6240d only has a 250 watt power supply so a better video card will require a power supply upgrade.
HP DV9700, t9300, Nvidia 8600, 4GB, Crucial C300 128GB SSD
HP Photosmart Premium C309G, HP Photosmart 6520
HP Touchpad, HP Chromebook 11
Custom i7-4770k,Z-87, 8GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650,GTX 760
Custom i7-4790k,Z-97, 16GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Plextor M.2 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650, GTX 660TI
Windows 7/8 UEFI/Legacy mode, MBR/GPT

Video card cannot handle 3 monitors

Hello, I have been trying to set up 2 external monitors on either side of my mac. I have all of the equipment for all 3 displays (The 2 external monitors are both 24'' widescreen monitors) but I believe that it's my video card that is causing a very low frame rate on the monitor to my left. That or the fact that it is connected using a usb-dvi,dvi-vga adapter. The monitor to my right was connected with a mini dvi to vga adapter and works beautifully but the program that I use three monitors with gets a low frame rate all together whenever I spread it to all three. I am also not sure if I can get either another or a better video card installed and if that would help. Any ideas?

Hi, which exact iMac is it?
Not likely you can get a better Video card though.
So we know more about it...
At the Apple Icon at top left>About this Mac, then click on More Info, then click on Hardware> and report this upto but not including the Serial#...
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac7,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 6 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: IM71.007A.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.21f4

Video Card Enough?

I'm looking at purchasing the 24" iMac. However, I'm wondering if I will need the higher end graphics card. I don't intend to do any gaming on the system, but will definitely use Aperture, iMovie and more than likely Final Cut Express for home movies. Will the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO w/256MB card suffice or should I go for the updgrade? Thanks...

Aperture and iMovie, YES - The "low-end" choice is certainly good enough. Final Cut Express - It will not limit the software's capabilities in any way, but I'm sure Final Cut, whether Express or Pro, will benefit from having a better video card. Whether it makes a difference to you depends on what features you use and what you ask the software to do.
Upgrade the RAM to the maximum. That will have more impact than the video card. You can do it after market to save some money.

Upgrade Video Card MDD DP 1.25

I have the stock video card (64 mb Radeon 9000 Pro) on this machine along wiht 1.5 gb RAM. I have the original 22" Cinema Display. To use X-Plane, Call of Duty, Motion, etc., I'd like a better video card. I was also thinking about adding one or two monitors to my current setup. The Radeon 256 mb 9600 and 9800 cards seem like good upgrades. Anyone have any experience with a similar setup? Any recommendations? Thanks, all.

Really, with your setup, you really only have one option, the OEM 9700 Pro.
Big bonus is it had ADC connector, only G4 card with Core Image and ADC.
A 9800 is at most 5-10% faster, even with 256 Megs of VRAM.
If you decide to accept the need to buy a DVI to ADC adapter ($90 or so) than your options increase, but so does the price.
Some official Apple centers have them, but still at their retail price of $400+
Better to look on Ebay where a few have sold for less than $200. But it MUST be the REAL< OEM Mac 9700, not a flashed one. Most OEM Mac boards are green, whereas PC ones are Red.
The flashed PC ones have DVI & VGA, a far inferior version to the MDD OEM 9700 with ADC & DVI.

Best Video Card for non 3d/compositing work in Premiere CS4?

Hi all, I'm looking to optimize my system where I can to speed up the editing process. I edit 1080p footage from the Canon 5D MKII (h.264 MOV files)using half-res h.264 proxies, but CS4 seems to hang a lot in the timeline view and clips just disappear and instead show green. I'm switching to half-res MPEG-2 (.m2v) proxies now and so far that problem seems to have gone away (still testing), but when timeline display quality is at "High Quality" (vs. automatic) there's still some chop during slow pans (not seen with "Automatic" or "Draft Quality").
Anyway, I'm looking for the weakest point in my system and suspect the video card. My system is an 2.66 i7 processor, 6GB 1333 ram, 1x160GB sata II HD (OS/Apps), 3x1TB SATA II RAID 0 (paging file, data), and an $80 ATI 4650 512 MB video card running Vista 64.
So all that said, what's the best general graphics card for editing HD video in Premiere CS4? I don't care about 3d or compositing at this stage, just basic editing of unrendered (timeline playback) HD video, maybe sometimes 1-3 HD layers, some basic color correction effects (b+w, contrast, etc), dissolves, text overlay, some clip speed manipulation.
Many seem to recommend the Nvidia quadro cards, but I haven't found any information to suggest they help with anything other than 3D/compositing, which I don't need (and therefore don't need to pay the premium).
There's also the Nvidia CX card, but it's main feature is touted as encoding h.264, whereas I could care less about that and ideally need decoding of h.264 in the timeline to be better. I haven't seen any great reviews on this card of heard of average user testimonials, probably because it's $2k and it mainly marketed as "zoom more fluidly in photoshop, export h.264 4x faster", which seem like minor issues vs. "better realtime playback of HD video".
I sort of rambled, but if any informed CS4 users can help answer the question regarding the best video card for general CS4 editing use (not 3d/compositing stuff) I'd love to get more insight.

So in Media Encoder CS4, I tried encoding one of the clips that plays back the least smooth in the Premiere timeline (a slow pan across intricate patterns on a sand dune in death valley) to the following:
Format: P2 Movie, Preset: DVCPRO HD 720P 30
(this was the only format in media encoder that mentions DVCPRO HD)
I noticed when trying to customize the setting, that there is no 30 fps option, just 23.976, 29.97, and 59.94. I just went with 29.97 as that was the closest to the 30 fps of the source MK II footage. The width and height were also unajustable at 960x720 for the DVCPRO HD format.
Playing the output in the timeline view of Premiere was comparable in smoothness to the m2v file. I looked at my resource monitor during playback looking for bottlenecks, and the CPU does seem to spike at 100% initially when playing this clip back. I reverted to the m2v version and also saw the same CPU spike. I also reverted back to the down-res'd mp4 version, same spike. Moving display quality down to draft does allow for smooth playback here.
So I guess there's something about this clip that is CPU intensive to play back in the timeline in any of these formats. The original 1080p version plays back perfectly in both quicktime and VLC player.
Anyway, for now I think I'm content with using the m2v proxies as a big chunk of the clips are fairly smooth, and using a reduced quality display mode for clips that don't play as smoothly is accpeptable for now. At least so far I'm not seeing the hanging/video not displaying (and instead showing a green screen) that I was with the mp4 proxies.
If anyone has any other suggestions as to how to get smoother timeline playback for these proxies (or the original h.264 .MOV files), however, whether it be a hardware upgrade (e.g. better video card) or a different proxy codec, I'd love to hear them and give it a shot.

Better video-card.

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