Reply 40 of 49, by xjas
- Rank
- l33t
Quick update on this, seeing as actual progress on the machine is stalled (more on that at the end!) The GF4 looks like it's gonna be pretty awesome.
Remember my old QuakeSpasm score of 4.4 FPS? Well, how does 177 FPS sound for an improvement?? Not making that up:
GLQuake runs too now, and yields similar results:
^^ I have no idea why I couldn't get this to work with the Rage card as it's listed as supported in the official requirements... maybe some incompatibility with Leopard. But it works fine on the GF4.
You knew this was coming - how 'bout some UT2004?
^^ Incidentally this screen lies... it shows up on my Macbook with Intel graphics and even the G5 which has a Radeon. Derp de derp. However,
...the game runs great. Here it is at maxed out detail ("HOLY SHIT!") at 800x600. I forgot to actually measure the framerate because I was too busy blasting bots, but it's fully playable & doesn't seem to slow down.
Wipeout 2097 also plays well, although there's some issue with the shadow there that I didn't see on my G5 (it's not supposed to be grey, obviously.) Still, a really nice port. I like this better than the PSX version due to the higher resolution.
Unfortunately, I am getting a stability issue with the GF4 that I haven't been able to solve yet. I've noticed on cold boots it doesn't always seem to pick up the second CPU (System Profiler reports it as single & the CPU monitor only shows one bar.) Usually a reboot or two will fix this; the second CPU will show up & everything will be fine.
With the GF4 installed, in single CPU "mode" it's totally stable and you can play UT2004 or surf the web or do whatever else you want. However when the second CPU is showing up, it consistently hard freezes after 5-20 mins of use. This never seems to happen with the Rage.
My gut feeling is that the power supply is going (probably caps!) or the VRM on the motherboard is going bad? It seems like it can't supply enough juice to power both CPUs and run the big fans & the thirsty GF4 at the same time. I'm just wild-ass guessing here, but there are definitely some caps on the mobo that are gonna need attention. I've already had a bad PSU kill a G5; fortunately this one is TONS easier to get out if I need to open it up.
There are also some dodgy GSC caps on the GF4 itself. Story of my life...
Annoyingly this isn't one of the models that can be easily swapped to any old ATX PSU, the conversion would be a little more invovled. Totally doable though, or I could always open up the original and check it for caps. I would like to know if that's actually the problem before I put a bunch of work into it though.
twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!