Power Mac G4 Quicksilver PCI Graphics Card?

Hi. My brother recently purchased a nice Power Mac G4 Quicksilver. It has a 867Mhz processor, 512MB RAM, 60GB Hard Drive and is really perfect for the stuff he does. The trouble is this. The machine came bundled with a great 17" Apple Display that connects with an ADC cable. The machine can connect to it, because it has an ADC capable GeForce 2 MX AGP video card. Here's the deal. My brother is going to have to upgrade his video card soon, because the video card does not support many of the 3D effects that he uses for his indie 3D game work. I need a card that is compatible with OS9 and OSX. The card I thought would be perfect, is the ATI Radeon 9200. It's got all the features he needs, and isn't too modern to not support 3D acc in OS9. Problem is, the AGP slot is already taken up with the GeForce MX 2, and I can't replace it, because it's the only card I can find that has an ADC output. If I bought an ATI Radeon 9200 PCI card, and put it in the PMG4 with no monitor connected to it, would it improve the performance of the computer, and enable the shaders and pixel effects that it supports? Does it have to be connected to the monitor to be effective?

Thank you.

Power Mac G4 933 Mhz Quicksilver 2002, Mac OS X (10.4.10), 512MB RAM/60GB HD/128MB VRAM GeForceTi4600

Posted on Mar 28, 2008 3:00 PM

Reply
6 replies

Mar 28, 2008 3:18 PM in response to infestedsmith

Hi-

The 9200 won't do anything for the performance simply installed. Even with a monitor conected to it, the 9200 is not a performance card. Since it is PCI based, it does not benefit from the AGP slot multiplier. The 9200 will actually be a bit slower than the Geforce currently installed.
If he really wants to improve the graphics, get an ATI Radeo 9800 Pro Mac, and then connect the monitor with a DVI to ADC adapter.

Mar 28, 2008 3:47 PM in response to japamac

Hi! Pardon my butting in but I need to ask japamac a question. (I didn't know how to contact him otherwise) I have a guy who wants me to put a video card in his pc with pci slots to run a 32" lcd monitor. It's a tv/monitor type display and has a vga connector. All he wants to do is show a slide show of homes his is selling. Do you have a suggestion for a card? Thanks, Tom

Mar 29, 2008 1:04 AM in response to infestedsmith

" So what good ARE PCI video cards?"


At one time, PCI graphics cards were an upgrade from the (typically limited) onboard graphics chip. With the introduction of and subsequent enhancements to the AGP (1x, 2x, 4x, and finally 8x) bus, the use of a shared 33 MHz PCI bus for a graphics card was eliminated. Because the AGP bus provides a dramatic improvement in overall graphics performance, the use of a PCI graphics card is really done when no other options exist. For motherboards lacking an AGP or PCI-E slot, a PCI slot graphics card can be a cut above shared memory architecture that sets aside a designated amount of system memory for graphics support.

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Power Mac G4 Quicksilver PCI Graphics Card?

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