On 09 Aug 2006, at 5:45 AM, Tyler Turner wrote:
http://www.karpfenteich.net/colorful/bitblt.html
Yay, benchmarks! Now we're talking. These are all old cards, but at least they give us some basis for comparison.
Now, notice how little difference there is between the Mobility Radeon 9600, the Club 3D Radeon 9200SE, and the Mobility Radeon 9700? These cards all give *extremely* different results in 3D performance -- the 9200 (which is what I have in Mac mini) is far, far slower than the 9700, which at the time was a hardcore gaming card. If it were possible to upgrade the video card in my mini, the 9700 would be a very, very significant upgrade in terms of 3D performance. But it barely gets you any additional 2D performance at all!
You will notice that many video card reviews on the net focus exclusively on 3D features and don't mention 2D at all. Why do you think that is?
It's because 2D performance is flat when comparing modern video cards. The only significant differences between models are in 3D performance. The GeForce 7300 GT is not a hardcore 3D gaming card, but its 2D performance is just as good as video cards costing many times as much.
Now, obviously, if you have a very old video card, or integrated graphics, and you swap it out for a brand-new video card, you will naturally see an increase in 2D performance as well as 3D performance. I've never disputed that. All I've been saying, though, this entire thread, is that if you *only* care about 2D performance, than upgrading the Mac Pro beyond the stock GeForce 7300 GT is a complete waste of money.
Cheers, - Darcy ----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://secretsociety.typepad.com Brooklyn, NY _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
