[GuineaMcPig]

Hello everyone-

I just got WoW a few days ago after getting hooked on my brother's account over thanksgiving break. I'm playing it on a dual 2.7 Powermac G5 with 4 gigs of RAM and a nice cinema display. Can't remember the model of my current video card but I know it's stock (GeForce 6800?)

I cranked up all the video options just to see what it would look like, and, no surprise, it's gorgeous. The only problem is that doing so brings the framerate down to about 10 frames per second, which of course is unacceptable.

I've been enjoying the game so much lately that I wouldn't mind putting some money into a top-of-the-line video card if it means more detail and better framerates. It's a shame to have to set all these parameters low when you see what the game looks like with them much higher.

So I guess my questions are: is it even possible with my system to run the game at full capacity and get a decent framerate (30 fps would be nice

)? And, if it is possible, what video card would you recommend?

Thanks!

~Jordan

 

[Stephonovich]

Stock for the Powermac is a 256MB 6600. Real shame, too. Dual 2.7 and 4GB RAM? Yeesh... seriously bottlenecked by that card. If you want to stick with nVidia, I believe the 6800 and 7800 both come in Mac editions. 7800 GTX is their current top dog, methinks. As for ATI, I know the X800 has a Mac edition. Not sure about the newer X1x00 series, though. X800 is nothing to sneeze at, anyway.

Be warned these puppies will set you back a good $400-$600. Top of the line doesn't come cheap; and in a month, it's outdated.

 

[ricardo diaz]

PS. Give me your Mac.

 

[GuineaMcPig]

Thanks for the suggestions, Stephonovich. This is exactly what I wanted to hear...I was afraid that it might have been a CPU issue somehow but it's good to hear that the graphics card isn't up to snuff with the rest of the machine.

So I guess the question is, which card between those that you suggested will get me the best performance? Is there any way to tell beforehand or is it pretty much a crapshoot?

 

[psychogentoo]

I'm currently using a ATi 9800 pro with the dual 1.8 G5. The frame rates are okay....at lower resolutions. Its not playable at 1920x1200 especially with FSAA and details cranked. On my PC, I have the 6800GT and everything cranked up to max at 1920x1200 and it plays fine. You will notice the frame rates drop down to 20s and some times below that when you goto Ironforge though.

 

[GuineaMcPig]

Quote:

Originally Posted by psychogentoo I'm currently using a ATi 9800 pro with the dual 1.8 G5. The frame rates are okay....at lower resolutions. Its not playable at 1920x1200 especially with FSAA and details cranked. On my PC, I have the 6800GT and everything cranked up to max at 1920x1200 and it plays fine. You will notice the frame rates drop down to 20s and some times below that when you goto Ironforge though.

That's totally bizarre...I was in Ironforge today for the first time and was getting some of the smoothest framerates I've had yet. I don't get it.

 

[roastpuff]

7800GTX is the way to go, if you don't mind spending the $$$. Haven't heard anything about the X1_00 series cards either...

Either that, or a Quadro, but that's more workstation-oriented.

 

[GuineaMcPig]

Unfortunately, I just realized after a little research that I won't be able to use any of the newer GeForce offerings. My G5 does not have the PCI-E motherboard, which means I'm limited strictly to AGP graphics cards. Bummer.

That has pretty much narrowed my search to the ATi Radeon X800 XT and X850 XT (which apparently are the same card with the latter being overclocked), and the Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra.

A couple other things...I've been reading a lot of graphics card shootouts where each card runs a graphics intensive application (mostly first person shooters like Doom 3, Halo, and Unreal Tournament) and measures the achieveable frame rate. I'm concerned because WoW seems to me to have a lot more detail than those games, in terms of landscapes where each tree is individually rendered, etc. Do I have any reason not to suspect that these test results on first-person shooters will not apply to a game like WoW?

I have found out that my current graphics card is an ATi Radeon 9650...any wisdom on how well this card performs against the competition? My fear is that I'll plunk down the cash on the best graphics card I can afford, only to find out that its performance in WoW isn't significantly different.

Thanks for all the help...I'd post this in a Mac forum but there seem to be so few Mac gamers that I don't know how much attention it would get.

~Jordan

 

[Stephonovich]

The 850 is just higher clocked. Get the 800 and OC it yourself; you should be able to get it past X850PE speeds, actually.

 

[Stephonovich]

The 850 is just higher clocked. Get the 800 and OC it yourself; you should be able to get it past X850PE speeds, actually.

 

[GuineaMcPig]

One last thing to note...does the graphics card have to have an ADC output in order to connect to a 30" cinema display (as with the Radeon 9650 and X800 XT)?

EDIT: http://www.barefeats.com/rad9650.html has been my main source of information so far.