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2600xt?

davosian said:
Thanks for this quick answer. This means we can only profit from the updated graphics drivers under Bootcamp running Windows XP (or Vista?).
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Apple makes the drivers for the Mac platform. I imagine they get help from AMD/Nvidia. Since Apple has no incentive to support off the shelf cards, we only get drivers for cards they plan on (or currently) support.

The latest information I have seen says there is G92 and RV6x0 support in 10.5.2. Of course the only system that benefits from that is the Mac Pro, so we will see.
 
davosian said:
I have 2 related questions:

1. Is there a way to install the XT drivers on the OS X side (Leopard) to take advantage of the superior graphics power under OS X or do we depend on Apple to improve the Mac drivers?

2. Would you have any performance improvement when running XP in a virtual machine (VMWare) or do these solutions use their own graphics drivers?

Thanks for the insight,
D.
Click to expand...

Really, it's apple we rely on for drivers on the OSX side. They're often bundled as part of an update, so perhaps we'll have more speed after 10.5.2. ATI do release drivers on their own site now and then though, so it's worth keeping an eye on that. They have a mac osx section on the driver downloads bit.

If you run in vmware, it will use vmware's emulated video card for the majority of the time, so you'll see no difference. If you run certain games and apps though, it'll translate the 3d functions and pass them to osx which will pass them on to the 3d card, so better drivers would improve the performance a bit. Considering how much slower it is already compared to booting windows directly, I doubt it would make a huge difference.
 
psonice said:
Really, it's apple we rely on for drivers on the OSX side. They're often bundled as part of an update, so perhaps we'll have more speed after 10.5.2. ATI do release drivers on their own site now and then though, so it's worth keeping an eye on that. They have a mac osx section on the driver downloads bit.

If you run in vmware, it will use vmware's emulated video card for the majority of the time, so you'll see no difference. If you run certain games and apps though, it'll translate the 3d functions and pass them to osx which will pass them on to the 3d card, so better drivers would improve the performance a bit. Considering how much slower it is already compared to booting windows directly, I doubt it would make a huge difference.
Click to expand...

So I don't have to download the Drivers manually? Apple will take care of it and install it through software update?

EDIT: is this necessary?

and on this page, it doesnt show 10.5 on the list, and if i select 10.4, then radeon, the video card still isnt on the list, same as for the apple bootcamp choice. And if I download the drivers for mac, will it also install for windows? Or do I have to download both?
 
bluedoggiant said:
So I don't have to download the Drivers manually? Apple will take care of it and install it through software update?

EDIT: is this necessary?

and on this page, it doesnt show 10.5 on the list, and if i select 10.4, then radeon, the video card still isnt on the list, same as for the apple bootcamp choice. And if I download the drivers for mac, will it also install for windows? Or do I have to download both?
Click to expand...

The drivers on AMD's site are for the older Radeon cards. I think that was when Apple let the card makers create the drivers. But that time has long passed. Software Update will post updated drivers for Apple hardware.

What people don't understand about Windows GPU drivers is they come out as often as they do because fixes for applications are included in them. The drivers improve the way the features are accessed by applications. Apple must feel that those fixes are not needed on the Mac platform and don't bother including that kind of profile support. That is why games like Crysis (PC) can be faster on the same hardware between driver releases. But games like WoW (Mac) have to rely on the developer to release multithreaded OpenGL support for speed increases.
 
Hype is over

The whole thing that the imac has a 2600xt, but clocked down and 256mb is over

the imac has a 2600 pro, maybe in windows it says it has a 2600xt no matter what, anything mac, proves the opposite:

According to the Apple HardWare test thing:

CIMG0164.jpg


and google earth for mac:

Picture1-2.png


click to enlarge
 
The whole thing that the imac has a 2600xt, but clocked down and 256mb is over

the imac has a 2600 pro, maybe in windows it says it has a 2600xt no matter what, anything mac, proves the opposite:

According to the Apple HardWare test thing:
Click to expand...

According to the box it says Pro. According to the website it says Pro. So your hardware test proves nothing else.

And since when has Google Earth been the one to trust on these things? :D

Trudge through this topic and the links above.
 
AlexisV said:
According to the box it says Pro. According to the website it says Pro. So your hardware test proves nothing else.

And since when has Google Earth been the one to trust on these things? :D

Trudge through this topic and the links above.
Click to expand...

yea whats to say that googleearth just grabs the GPU info directly from the system info data file??
 
DoFoT9 said:
yea whats to say that googleearth just grabs the GPU info directly from the system info data file??
Click to expand...

ooh, I thought it actually checks itself.

AlexisV said:
According to the box it says Pro. According to the website it says Pro. So your hardware test proves nothing else.

And since when has Google Earth been the one to trust on these things? :D

Trudge through this topic and the links above.
Click to expand...

Try reading the thread...
 
bluedoggiant said:
Well, he said that it has a Pro, everyone else says it has a mobility 2600 xt, so, I don't think he's paying attention. You say thats its confirmed it has a 2600xt mobility.
Click to expand...

It is a 2600XT chip rebadged as a 2600PRO by Apple. Window's see's it as some 2600 model** but if you use special programs, which actually "look" directly at the card itself, it comes up as a 2600XT.

**If you modify the .inf file in the windows drivers you could make it show up as:

"BlueDogGiants Really cool Apple rebranded 2600PRO that was a 2600XT"

in device manager. If you really want to.
 
TBi said:
It is a 2600XT chip rebadged as a 2600PRO by Apple. Window's see's it as some 2600 model** but if you use special programs, which actually "look" directly at the card itself, it comes up as a 2600XT.

**If you modify the .inf file in the windows drivers you could make it show up as:

"BlueDogGiants Really cool Apple rebranded 2600PRO that was a 2600XT"

in device manager. If you really want to.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I needed that:eek:.
 
No. :p

Even my HD2600 XT in my Mac Pro shows up as a Pro with Google Earth. So it's not as if GE knows what it's talking about. ;)
 
I was once told that you couldnt compare Mac to PCs, on the specifications. That there would always be factors that would be different. I guess this was like talking about powerpc vs pc cpu's for example back in the day.

But im seriously scared about buying an Imac with a 2600.


for that much money... and for heavy photoshopping and video editeding, i think that the card should at least be as good as the one in MBP!

But I heard that someone said that 2600 is an MXM card! Any truth to that? does that mean that it can be updated eventually?


is there any other ways to enhance performance? would 8 GB ram be possible, or is 4 GB the maximum that you can use?
 
luffytubby said:
I was once told that you couldnt compare Mac to PCs, on the specifications. That there would always be factors that would be different. I guess this was like talking about powerpc vs pc cpu's for example back in the day.

But im seriously scared about buying an Imac with a 2600.


for that much money... and for heavy photoshopping and video editeding, i think that the card should at least be as good as the one in MBP!

But I heard that someone said that 2600 is an MXM card! Any truth to that? does that mean that it can be updated eventually?


is there any other ways to enhance performance? would 8 GB ram be possible, or is 4 GB the maximum that you can use?
Click to expand...

AFAIK the only upgradable things in an iMac are the RAM and Hard Disk.
 
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