Thread

Fastest NuBus Video Card for 68k Macs?

Fastest NuBus Video Card for 68k Macs? Hardware 36 posts Dec 1, 2007 — Nov 3, 2013

#1 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 - 06:34

Now that I've got a Wicked Fast IIfx, I'm curious - what is/are the fastest NuBus video cards for a 68k Mac? I did a little poking around on Google, but most of the info I saw seemed to relate much more to the early PPC machines...

Just wondering,

Huxley

#2 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 - 06:50

http://lowendmac.com/video/index.html

#3 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 - 07:34

A Thunder IV is always good for whipping the pants off of System 6 on IIfx.

#4 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 - 13:29

However, if you want to go the all-Apple route, the Apple 24*AC card was the best NuBus video card Apple made.

#5 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 - 14:26

The supermac Thunder II, Radius Thunder IV cards are decent. It all depends on what you are going to use the IIfx for. Video cards with DSPs onboard mostly just speed up photoshop, so if you are not a heavy photoshop user a cheap Thunder/24 would be great (and easy to find).

Some Rasterops cards were decent as well.

Apple 24*AC cards are a bit hard to find, and have limitations on what OS they work on.

#6 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 - 20:34

Video cards with DSPs onboard mostly just speed up photoshop

aren´t the DSPs also used for quickdraw on the Thunder IV?

#7 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 - 21:48

Not sure, since the base card should have quickdraw acceleration anyway I think. Also I don't think the DSPs can do photoshop and quickdraw at the same time (guess that does not matter since the App pretty much locks the system when you are doing DSP work).

I you look at the Thunder II Supermac line the differences between the 3 top models is DSP card addon , RAM onboard, and for the high end one a different monitor connector.

#8 Sun, 2 Dec 2007 - 02:57

Oooh! Use the Apple 8/24 GC, complete with "wicked fast" RISC chip that's faster than the CPU in the IIfx.

If you're whomping System 6 on a IIfx, you might as well go all the way and build the time-realistic top-end config. Whomp Whomp Whomp!

#9 Sun, 2 Dec 2007 - 05:42

Apple 8/24 GC

That is probably the only card Apple made that is worth getting. I hear it runs a bit hot.

#10 Sun, 2 Dec 2007 - 07:09

I've been trying to compile video card info on the wiki, but haven't gotten very far yet.

#11 Sun, 2 Dec 2007 - 08:55

Apple 8/24 GC, complete with "wicked fast" RISC chip

I think the "'wicked fast' RISC chip" those cards use is an AMD 29000 processor... I've got one or two, but one of them has one of those Sun monitor connectors, so I can't really use it.

#12 Sun, 2 Dec 2007 - 09:01

That is probably the only card Apple made that is worth getting. I hear it runs a bit hot.

And it's the card that everyone hated, because it had so many compatibility issues with newer system software releases. I love it because the architecture is so workstation-like: the card actually boots into it's own OS that receives QuickDraw calls from the Mac.

#13 Sat, 15 Dec 2007 - 06:09

Radius LeMansGT is also recommended.

#14 Sat, 15 Dec 2007 - 17:43

Radius LeMansGT is also recommended.

Isn't it faster in some ways than the Thunder-series cards?

#15 Sun, 16 Dec 2007 - 02:27

It is a performance equal to ThunderIV GX1600.

#16 Sun, 16 Dec 2007 - 03:45

Isn't that card the base for the GX1600? All they did was add on 4 DSPs.

#17 Sun, 16 Dec 2007 - 11:38

Isn't that card the base for the GX1600? All they did was add on 4 DSPs.

The GX1600 base is Thunder 24GT, it is different from LeMans GT.

#18 Mon, 17 Dec 2007 - 22:14

The Radius Thunder-IV drivers include a QuickDraw accelerator extension that speeds up Quickdraw noticeably. There is a hot-key you can hold down to turn it off and on again. I did it on a IIci with a 040/50 in and it made one HECK of a difference to the speed of screen redraws on the desktop. It made 7.x very usable at 1280x1024 [

] ]'>

In all my travels around NuBus video cards (I've got a few ya know [

] ]'&gt

I've found that a properly setup Thunder IV is hard to beat, especially for Photoshop work.

Actually, although scrticly OT, the video on the 840av is blooming stonkingly quick too, so much so that despite the restricted resolutions (if you want to keep the video overlay working at 24-bit) it was preferable to the Thunder IV (hence why I dropped it in the IIci [

] ]'> )

#19 Mon, 17 Dec 2007 - 23:48

I have a few Thunder/24 in use, generally a nice card. Not sure if the Spectrum/24 is the same minus the GWORLD SIMM slots.

#20 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 - 00:04

Actually, although scrticly OT, the video on the 840av is blooming stonkingly quick too

I'd cry if an accelerated video chip that sits right next to the CPU bus wasn't stonkingly fast.

+1 it rocks.

#21 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 - 00:11

840AV video does rock, except for its low VRAM. Quadras in general should have had 4MB VRAM as an option and hardware that could keep the data flowing at those high refresh/video settings.

#22 Fri, 7 Sep 2012 - 17:49

This is a great thread for the Peripherals Forum and needs to be continued and expanded upon, IMHO. I'll be posting some links to the other VidCard threads that we have scattered about the barracks. Discussion about, and pics of, Cosmo's recently acquired Radius Le Mans GT has pushed me back into recurring VidCard OCD Mode once more.

Jeff, if you could get this ball rolling again I, and the rest of the gang, would greatly appreciate it! [

] ]'>

Meanwhile, any additional information about the LeMans GT or the Radius/SuperMac Thunder II series would also be much appreciated.

Practical experience of comrades with the NuBus VidCards introduced at the time of the Quadra to x100 PPC transition, especially Drivers and OS compatibilities, would be most enlightening. I've been trying to piece together available information from the Compatibility/Resolution Matrices compiled by gamba and the LowEndMac Video Card Articles. So far I've come up with a lot more questions than answers.

Areas to research for compilation of an updated/expanded VidCard Information Matrix:

1) A VidCard TimeLine overlay for a CPU Timeline (SCSI Card, Video Capture Card, Sound Card, etc. along with PDS Card overlays for same would really rock)

1) Refresh Rate availability at all resolutions of NuBus Video Cards would be most helpful, especially so for determining 60Hz LCD compatibility.

2) NuBus Block Transfer capability would be another important row to to populate, especially for Radius Rocket performance. Additional applications for NBBT?

From applefritter: nubus video compatible with G3 upgrades in...

From MacGurus: PDS Video Card Adapter

I'll add more as thoughts arise, suggestions more than welcome! :approve:

#23 Sun, 9 Sep 2012 - 22:25

In my list of coveted video cards are:

Villagetronic MacPicasso 340

Sonnet Crescendo Sonata Pro 24

SuperMac Thunder II GX 1600

Radius Thunder IV GX 1600

RasterOps Horizon 24

I believe the Sonnet card is just a rebadged Villagetronic.

#24 Sun, 9 Sep 2012 - 23:48

Yep, just read that somewhere in my searching today and someone mentioned it recently in another thread.

There was an interesting bit in the section of the Radius Q&A about the Apple Hardware Test always reporting VRAM as bad on any second source Video Card. It also suggested using a different testing utility than Apple's(?) for Video Performance, which is weighted toward functions other than those leading people to have payed more for a High End Video Card than they would have spent for the target Mac.

That's probably the same utility that shows MoBo Video performance besting those same High End Video Cards. MoBo Video never stretched resolutions for 24bit Color and MuscleCards aren't optimized for the tasks the standard utilities run at lower resolutions and lower color depths.

#25 Mon, 10 Sep 2012 - 15:42

For all its compatibility gaffes, though, the GC is still an awesome video card if you can run it. I hoard them for my '030 systems.

#26 Mon, 10 Sep 2012 - 18:43

I take it you're hoarding the Apple Display Card 8•24GC for you '030s? I'd like to get one and try it with an Apple Display Card 8•24 in my IIfx.

It's interesting that LEM tested these cards under 7.5.5, when 7.5.1 is spec'd by the Radius Q&A as the last NuBus OS unpolluted by PCI support, making it the best OS for running NuBus Cards in your '030 toys, Quadras or the x100 series. That's what I'm running on my IIfx. I wonder how much that tweak would have affected NuBus VidCard performance in their reviews?

I'll be downgrading the 7.5.5 install on my Radius 81/110 to 7.5.1 at the highest, depending on the high end limit of VideoVision Studio's requirements.

#27 Tue, 11 Sep 2012 - 06:32

Pictures of the memory modules as requested;

http://68kmla.org/forums/download/file.php?id=2072&mode=view

I need more time to test it on System 7 machines.

Anyone have the RadiusWare driver-software for System 7 ??

#28 Tue, 11 Sep 2012 - 15:20

Those are interesting IC packages, I haven't found a single one of my PCI VidCards yet that uses them and none of my NuBus Cards have them on board. I know I've seen them before, maybe as RAM packaging instead of VRAM. I'll keep looking . . . and start searching when I get a chance.

I've finally gotten a 17GB U160 up as and formatted as a second or third HDD on the 81/110's internal SCSI bus. If I can find the bloody media that came with my full 7.5 package I'll be set for benchmarking some Card/OS combinations on the Radius and the IIfx. I'll use the same HDDs as the boot drive for both.

Maybe I should I repartition the U160 for installing both operating systems for the benchmarking? [}

] ]'>

#29 Tue, 11 Sep 2012 - 20:37

Jeff, if you could get this ball rolling again I, and the rest of the gang, would greatly appreciate it! [] ]'>

I really don't have much to add other than:

Radius didn't buy E-Machines as stated at the bottom of the article. I can't believe that I wrote that paragraph, as I've always known better. Oh well, I've had brain farts on more obvious stuff too.

SuperMac bought E-Machines. Then, a year or so later, Radius bought SuperMac.

The statements about the Radius Thunder IV GX and Villagetronic 340 come from extensive testing that Kaye Yum and I did back in the mid - late 90s. However, I don't think that either one of us had a Radius LeMans GT to try. That card does look an awful like it has the same components as a Thunder 24/GT.

Kaye and I also found that the PDS video (VRAM card, not AV card) on the x100 series NuBus Power Macs is faster than those two NuBus cards for functions that require high frame rates.

So, the NuBus cards were faster for many business-like operations where QuickDraw acceleration could be a benefit, with the Radius winning some operations, and the Villagetronic winning others. But the X100 VRAM card beats everything in Marathon frame rates.

I think we did most of our testing with MacBench 4 or 5. It has a really huge suite of graphics tests.

In my list of coveted video cards are:
Villagetronic MacPicasso 340

Sonnet Crescendo Sonata Pro 24

SuperMac Thunder II GX 1600

Radius Thunder IV GX 1600

RasterOps Horizon 24

I believe the Sonnet card is just a rebadged Villagetronic.

Yep, what you said. The first two are the same card, I think. Unless the Sonnet card was the 320 instead of the 340, but it was definitely a Villagetronic card under Sonnet's name.

#30 Tue, 11 Sep 2012 - 21:07

Framerates, schramerates! [}

] ]'> I'm in the habit of employing NuBus VidCards for the highest 16 and 24bit resolutions I can get when I'm using Illustrator as a CAD package for the CAM part of my vinyl graphics cutting setup.

When you say "VRAM Card," are you saying the PDS Card disables/enhances MoBo Video? :?:

edit: WHEW!!!!! :beige: Got home for lunch and tested this, I've got extended desktop, the MoBo's putting out 16" @ 8bit and I haven't tried anything but my universal adapter cable on the PDS card yet, so that's stuck at 640x480x24bit for the nonce. Maybe I can get higher capacity VRAM cards for the MoBo Video? Dunno, but MacPortrait 16"@8bit will be fine for the Menu Bar and palettes on the upended ViewSonic G810 on the right side when I'm running a 1600x1200x24bit workspace on the Front-n-Centered PrecisionView 2150. [

] ]'>

Ya just gotta love the Radius 81/110's DA-19 Video Out Connector.