I was looking at Nvidia's Nvidia Geforce 6600 Graphics Upgrade Kit .
http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-13234-1120-x-x-x

Anyone know anything about these things in the sub-300 quid range?

There is no possible way to upgrade a Mac graphics.

Really depends on what mac you have. If you have any Powermac it is possible but anything else cannot be upgraded Graphics wise.

Hehehehehehhehehehehe

I think that macs can be upgraded as long as you have an open PCI, AGP, or PCI Express 16 slot I think. Anyway the 6600GT is a great card and it runs TT incredebly fast.

Pete, it wont fit in my ibook?
I jest. I know. Let's discuss the cards.
Racer, have you seen it work?

There is NO possible way to upgrade a iBook video card. But if you have a G5 power mac it has three pci express slots for upgrades, I think that you can upgrade it, but you will need a special mac edition card.

It's listed as
Nvidia Geforce 6600 Graphics Upgrade Kit
on apple's website.
I just don't know what the info means (I have a dual g5).

My friend has the 6800 GT on his PC and it runs all the top PC games like HL2, DOOM3, Quake4 and F.E.A.R on Max Everything

The 6600 should do exactly the same. Its definatly worth it and should install on your Dual G5. You might want to email Apple though.

Apple says it will work. For 180, it sounds like a deal, no?

It's a good midlevel card Tally. What kind of a boost are you looking for?

ATI Radeon 9600 Pro is what I have now. Its slow and crappy with tt. Glitches, slow fps when the action gets hot.
is it worth the upgrade from this to that for 200? I am leaning towards yes.

Definatly Yes.

@Flea: Its still a top of the range card. Not midlevel

Radeon 9600 Pro with 256 mb has been running great for me nearly a year. :) Until two weeks(soon) ago something blew up in my computer. First I thought it were the graphic card, but now I think it's the motherboard. Let's see if I get the computer running before '06... Haha.

Here is a guiding list of graphic cards by their speed . (Scroll middle of the page to get rid of nonsense.)

@Tally
My seat of the pants experience tells me that your rig should be capable enough for TT. Do you get sub-par performance when you are in a quickplay melee? Is it always sub-par on online servers or just sometimes? I think when you have other players in the melee who do have inadequate hardware and/or high ping the server tries to adapt for them at the expense of others.

Look in system profile to see if core image is supported. Your 9600 should be core image capable, so I question whether you would notice any benefit from the upgrade in question. On the other hand if you are doing enough graphics related things that use on-the-fly effects and/or have long render times, you would benefit.

I think you can get $50 for your used 9600 on eBay. When you handle the card keep your computer plugged in (grounded) and keep a pinky finger on the metal frame while you remove the card and put it in the anti-stat bag.

Last edited: Saturday, November 26, 2005 at 5:24:38 PM

BC where do I find in my system profile if 'core image is supported'? Looked into Apple System Profiler and can't find it under 'Devices and Volumes'. :o

Look in the Hardware category for Graphics/Displays. That's for Tiger, I don't know if other versions of OS X report whether the video is core image capable.

[EDIT] Tiger is the only version of OS X that actually uses core image.

Last edited: Saturday, November 26, 2005 at 5:26:46 PM

The 9600 does support core image, but I think I see it grinding often, like when using éxpose and dashboard.

Have you updated the drivers lately?

I dunno.

Short answer to your initial question is you will not see much improvement from the card you have. Go at least to a 9800 Pro Mac SE, +/~$300.00.

Actually it is a significant step up. What kind and brand of monitor are you using Tally?

@Tally,
It is a exceptional card. I have it in my Linux Server. Using glxgears as a sample benchmark. I get 1260 fps on my Mvidia GeForce4 MX on my Imac. WIth the Nvidia 6600 GT AGP I get 7540 fps with the same benchmark on linux. If you can find a driver for the MAC for this card, It should blow all ATI's supported cards by MAC's away. The ATI 9800's are about 4 times slower than a 6600 GT PCI.

I don't ever play the game on my 3.2 Ghz Linux server. If I did, I think it would be an unfair advantage. I'll stick with my 800 Mhz Imac till the OSX on Intel comes out next year. Then I'll upgrade.

Last I read the 6800 was the best Nvida card out. The world record holder on FPS for GL based 3d video, ala Doom3 benchmark. The 6600 GT AGP was about $100 compared to the 3 to 4 times as much 6800 about 6 mo ago. The difference in speed for GL didn't overwelm in difference between the two Nvidia cards. I went with the cheaper card.

Last edited: Sunday, November 27, 2005 at 7:10:38 AM

Not anymore, GeForce have released the 7600 GT

But the 6800 Is a BRILLIANT card. My friend ran a check on the winblowze website and his graphics card is in the top 5% of all the graphic cards winblowze have tested. Its a brilliant card.

Yep, the 6800 is a great performing card, but tons of people are having problems with them. Don't go for a "plain vanilla" card, instead, go for the GT.

I'm will be reeeeeeally stretched to spend over 250, so the 'top o the line' goodness isn't really going to work for me.
I got the 23" apple flat cinema.
Cheers for all the comments so far.

I have been a happy owner of the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro card. This was about $350 a few years ago, but maybe you can get a used one for much cheaper now? I have been using this with my 23" flatscreen with absolutely no problem at all. Works fantastic for TT.

Wow no wonder you outplay me X I'm only on a 15" screen... Dang wheres my XMas gift list again! :)