crossett@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Patricia A. Crossett) (10/23/90)
Can anyone recommend a 24 bit color card for use in the Mac IIsi? Is it practical to use 24 bit color with the IIsi? What happens to performance? Is 5 Mb of RAM sufficient? What 24 bit color cards combine good price and performance? Is Apple's 8.24 Display Card reasonable to consider?
lemke@radius.com (Steve Lemke) (10/24/90)
crossett@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Patricia A. Crossett) writes: >Can anyone recommend a 24 bit color card for use in the Mac IIsi? Is it >practical to use 24 bit color with the IIsi? What happens to performance? >Is 5 Mb of RAM sufficient? What 24 bit color cards combine good price and >performance? Is Apple's 8.24 Display Card reasonable to consider? I (and Radius) would NOT recommend using a DirectColor 24 in a Mac IIsi, or (for that matter) any other company's 24-bit two-page color board. Every one that I know of draws over 2 amps (10 watts) of power (as is pretty much necessary, due to the 3mb of video RAM, the RAMDAC chips, and the other logic on the board). In fact, Apple themselves have indicated that you should _NOT_ use an 8.24 GC in a IIsi because of the amount of power it requires. I'm not sure off-hand how much power the Radius DirectColor/GX board draws, but I think it will be ok in the IIsi. Please note the difference in these two boards - the DirectColor is for the 19" (two page) display, but the DC/GX is for the Apple 13" display (and contains on-board acceleration). As a passing comment, I will say that I have tried the DirectColor in a IIsi, and it did work, but we do NOT recommend this setup. For one thing, it was a pretty minimally loaded IIsi (2mb, no external drives - hard or floppy, and no display connected to the built-in video). In addition, it was run with the top off for better ventilation. So, while it worked for us, we will not be recommending that people use this board in this Mac. You, of course, are free to what you wish, but you have been warned (by Apple, too!)... --Steve -- ----- Steve Lemke, Engineering Quality Assurance, Radius Inc., San Jose ----- ----- Reply to: lemke@radius.com (Note: NEW domain-style address!!) -----