Finding a better graphics card for a G5?!

[bitley]

My old G5 mac has a GeForce FX5200 graphics card. Painfully slow 3D graphics. We love the old games in it though… or we would, if they'd look better and smoother & wouldn't lag so much. There are newer computers in the home but the G5 is nice as it is… hence my question. As I understand PC graphic cards doesn't work straight away as there's some patching needed. Hilfe!

[Exowildebeest]

Doing some research on Wikipedia, finding this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Graphics_Port

Which is probably what you're dealing with, the key sentence being "By mid-2008, PCIe cards dominated the market and only a few AGP models were available."

I'm afraid you'll have a hard time finding a compatible graphics card that's a substantial improvement over the old one :frown:

[QVprod]

This^ AGP graphics cards (from what I've read) don't go beyond 256mb vram, so you can't get anything better than what you already have on the G5. Only Mac Pros 1,1 (2006) or better are still upgradable for graphics.

[bitley]

Oh that was sad. I think that current card has 64 Mb of VRAM so 256 would probably mean a better card anyway. The G5 is too nice to throw out.

[QVprod]

Oh, maybe I misread the specs for your card. I looked again and it said it supports up to 256, so If yours is 64mb then maybe there are different versions of it? Then again 256mb VRAM on my 2010 macbook pro worked pretty well for some games so maybe that'll make a difference. Fastest card options are listed in this thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3529394

[CharlyCharlzz]

you can always go with it at the apple store to piss them off ,
 
a friend did bring to them his old MacBook 15 inch that was maybe 7 or 8 years old and the guys sayed they cold not do anything for him ,
he bring his stuff to some mysterious foreigners Genius shop (the real ones) from God knows where and don't speak french but fix and repair anything electronic in there shop and they just turned the mac ON an changed the mouss setting tha had been changed for some mysterious reason .
 
I would bring it to this type of shop and have a great GPU from back then placed in for 100 bucks
 
I could have sâve my super laptop Pentium 4 Toshiba that still worked better then any I-pad but there is a time for everything .

[reason2dance]

This one might be an improvement:

http://lowendmac.com/video/agp/radeon-9800.html

[bitley]

wow, many thanks for the kind and helpful responses! I'd love getting that radeon card but it seems like a mystery getting everything right, wouldn't want to ruin this old monster mac. I'll try advertising for a Radeon 9800 pro agp mac edition specificly. Might take a while to track one down… But our dear old Sims would be happy!