05-Jan-1990 1559) (01/06/90)
Hi, I have been told for months now that the built in video in a Mac IIci is a dog and should not be used. Besides taking alot of user memory, it takes alot of cycles from the processor to do the display... Yesterday, MacWorld arrived. In it, there were benchmarks showing using internal video connector and external video (with a video card in the Nubus slot). The contend the INTERBNAL is better as you do not have to deal with the Nubus bottleneck...Their benchmarks seem to prove that true. What does anyone else think? Should I use an external card or use the built-in video? Inquiring minds need to know!! Phil Hunt
folta@tove.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) (01/06/90)
>What does anyone else think? Should I use an external card or use the built-in
I say internal... If you have at least 4Mb RAM. It is also more and more
preferrable if you have 8Mb RAM or use less than 8-bit color. As the
MacWorld shows, at 1-bit, the internal *flies*. They didn't cover the
add-more-memory-to-Bank-B-to-avoid-memory-contention-so-you-get-a-speedup-
without-a-cache-card trick. And it does seem somewhat redundant to have
an 8-bit color system sitting unused and taking up an extra slot :-). After
all, you paid for that internal color...
--
Wayne Folta (folta@cs.umd.edu 128.8.128.8)halam@umnd-cpe-cola.d.umn.edu (hasseen alam) (01/07/90)
In article <9001052201.AA09564@decwrl.dec.com> phil@vaxphw.dec.com (At MAC'simum efficiency! 05-Jan-1990 1559) writes: >Hi, > >I have been told for months now that the built in video in a Mac IIci is a dog >and should not be used. Besides taking alot of user memory, it takes alot of >cycles from the processor to do the display... > >Yesterday, MacWorld arrived. In it, there were benchmarks showing using >internal video connector and external video (with a video card in the Nubus >slot). The contend the INTERBNAL is better as you do not have to deal with the >Nubus bottleneck...Their benchmarks seem to prove that true. > >What does anyone else think? Should I use an external card or use the built-in >video? > >Inquiring minds need to know!! > >Phil Hunt Well Phil, I just got mys IIci, and NEC MacSync monitor, and I also read the MacWorld article about the video cards. I work on a Mac graphics Lab with 16 IIcx's. Only one of them has a RasterOps 264 card in it. All the others have just the standard Apple 8-bit card. I would recommend you to wait a few more months (2 to 3 unless you are in any big rush) before purchasing any 3rd party cards. I would only purchase a 24 bit card if I ever do. I will wait because the 3rd party market is warming up and they are probably going to bring the prices down a bit due to the compition. Also the RO card has some problems, it is not truely compatible with all the graphic programs we have. I think it is a good time to buy RAM, since the price came down a lot in the last couple of months. Once Apple introduces the 7.0 a lot of people will have to get more RAM. There will be a big demand. Well here is the summary.... Wait and gather more info. There might be cards out soon to take advantage of the ci's new built in 32 bit QD. Haseen.
news@calgary.UUCP (Network News Manager) (01/08/90)
is faster only if you are in black and white mode. 4 bit planes starts pushing it, and forget 8 bit planes. In fact, a normal color display and 8 bit planes using internal, takes significantly longer to update than an Apple 2 page using 4 bit planes driven from a card. From: sharp@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Maurice Sharp) Path: cpsc!sharp As to memory, if you are using the internal you better have at least 2 meg, I have 5 and am only tripped up using Smalltalk. In fact, I am getting 4 more megs. My full page takes about 64K per bit plane. The other display I use is a full page, it is also very fast in black and white. Anything else starts to dog down the machine. Maurice Maurice Sharp MSc. Student University of Calgary Computer Science Department 2500 University Drive N.W. sharp@ksi.cpsc.UCalgary.CA Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 ...!alberta!calgary!sharp
tecot@Apple.COM (Ed Tecot) (01/12/90)
In article <9001052201.AA09564@decwrl.dec.com> phil@vaxphw.dec.com (At MAC'simum efficiency! 05-Jan-1990 1559) writes: >What does anyone else think? Should I use an external card or use the built-in >video? Use the built-in video. Use the extra cash to upgrade to 5 megabytes. Put the 1 meg SIMMs in bank A. This configuration is faster than nuBus unless your monitor is in 8-bit mode, at which point it is about the same. _emt