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Fastest NuBus Video Card for 68k Macs?
The VRAM card doesn't affect Logic Board video at all.
The X100 NuBus PowerMacs all shipped with two monitor outputs.
One was the logic board video, which uses main system RAM for it's VRAM, is very limited in resolutions, is slow, and slows down the whole system because of RAM access conflicts.
The other output was either the A/V card or the HPV card (what I called VRAM card earlier).
The A/V card provided some video in/out capability and was kind of sucky performance-wise. It shipped in the NuBus PowerMacs with the "AV" suffix.
The HPV card, which shipped in the non-AV PowerMacs was basically just a fast frame-buffer, but it sits on in the PDS slot of the Mac, and it's really, really fast.
The HPV card that shipped with the 8100, the Radius NuBus machines, and the Power Computing Power 80/100/120 machines, has 2 MB of VRAM soldered down and has sockets for another 2 MB of VRAM. 4 MB of VRAM will give you a pretty nice range of resolutions and color depth.
The HPV card in the 7100 and 6100 only had 1 MB of VRAM soldered down and was expandable to 2 MB. It's much less nice.
Of course, by this time, when you find a 6100/7100/8100 or clone, there's no telling which HPV card will be installed. The cards have had loads of time in which to move around.
Oh, one interesting bit about the Power Computing version of the HPV card. It was just like Apple's 2/4 MB version, expect it had connectors for both Macintosh and VGA style monitors. There was a little switch on the card for choosing the active connector. So, if you find an HPV card with two monitor connectors, it is one of the Power Computing cards. And no, you can't use both connectors at once.
Interesting, one of mine is empty and the other one has 4 256k VRAM SIMMs, limiting it to 16"@24bit and 16bit fot 19" & 21" resolutions.
Looks like I'll be looking for VRAM SIMMS!
Looks like I'll be looking for VRAM SIMMS!
8/24GC's supposedly had an an exclusive speed boost when used in the IIfx. If you can find and afford one you should go with that. I've been using a RasterOps 8/24 XLi and it's been a good fast performer for the IIfx under 7.1.
The Thunder IV's are horribly overhyped.
The Thunder IV's are horribly overhyped.
Maybe so, but 1600x1200@24bit has a quality all its own.
Looking thru my pile of Nubus I found two video cards. First one is a SuperMac Thunder II 1152 with GX DSP addon and the other is a Radius Precision Color 8-24X (256k 8-bit version since it has open VRAM slots). I can tell you the Radius card doesn't get along with A/UX when it was installed in my IIci.
Got the Spectrum 8/24 PDQ+ that was in my ci in the fx. It's at least as fast as the VampireVid on the ci's motherboard. When said card was in the ci, it was mind numbingly slow. Nothing's changed, except for the case, power supply, RAM, and motherboard between the two computers' configurations when I switched.
-J
-J