it won't.
The ultra mode starting point is RadeonHD 4850 / Geforce 9800 GTX.
And yes. That also applies to Apple / Linux running under Cider / Cedega.
Quote:
Thank you for the info. That forces me to consider the 27 inch (which I was already considering anyway). If that's the starting point, however, I'm curious -- does that mean it's such a bare minimum that it is playable but not necessarily enjoyable?|
Originally Posted by je_saist
it won't.
The ultra mode starting point is RadeonHD 4850 / Geforce 9800 GTX. And yes. That also applies to Apple / Linux running under Cider / Cedega. |
Please pardon the noobishness of my questions.
Proud member of Paragon City Search and Rescue: www.pcsar.net
Quote:
I'm going to define... playable... as 10 frames per second to 15 frames per second. |
Originally Posted by Alchemedic
Thank you for the info. That forces me to consider the 27 inch (which I was already considering anyway). If that's the starting point, however, I'm curious -- does that mean it's such a bare minimum that it is playable but not necessarily enjoyable?
|
I'mg going to define... enjoyable... as 25fps to 30fps.
Here's the spec page for the current Imacs: http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html
The 21 inch has a resolution of 1920 x 1200
The 27 inch has a resolution of 2560 x 1440
***
Coupled with a Phenom 9600 a RadeonHD 4850 at 1920x1200 under the Cedega Testing Engines could drive most of the City of Heroes content in 25~30 frames per second with:
- Low Shadows
- Low Enviromental Reflections
- Ultra Quality Water
- Balanced Ambient Occlusion
- 200% Character / World Detail
A Phenom II 965 coupled with a RadeonHD 5770 at 1920x1200 can drive most of the City of Heroes content in 25~30 frames per second with:
- High Shadows
- Ultra Quality Reflections
- Ultra Quality Water
- Balanced Ambient Occlusion
- 200% Character / World Detail
***
Now, looking at the list of Graphics Processors available for the Imac right now, you probably are not going to be able to run Ultra Mode in the native resolution for the 27 inch.
If you aren not looking to run the game at Native LCD resolution, the RadeonHD 4850 coupled with either of the Core 2 Duo's or the Quad-Core I7 should be able to drive Medium levels in 1680*1050.
Avoid the quad-I5. It's a bit of... correction IS... a dog on performance.
***
Now, I've got 4650 in hand. It tends to spend most of it's time coupled to an older Single Cored system. I pulled it out and coupled it with the I7 I have on hand (it's the 2.66ghz version), so a bit below the I7 you would get in the Imac.
Shadow Maps are pretty much outside of the GPU's range at... well... any resolution.
In a resolution of 1280*1024 The 4650 seems to be able to handle:
- low to medium reflections depending on zone
- Ultra Quality Water
- fast occlusion
- 200% Character / World Detail
An Imac probably isn't going to be far off that. Yes, the 4670 has a higher clockrate, but the Imac only couples it with 256mb of video memory... and Ultra Mode features chew through video memory like candy.
**
So, to try and directly answer your question:
At native resolutions the Imac with a 4850 is going to suffer on Ultra Mode settings, but rock non Ultra Mode settings.
If you scale the resolution of the game down, a 4850 should be able to give you an enjoyable experience with some Ultra Mode features enabled.
Thank you both for the very detailed answer and the summary which helps me understand it. This should help guide my decision making.
Proud member of Paragon City Search and Rescue: www.pcsar.net
I believe Ultra Mode is available on nearly all Mac models that are supported by the Mac client (with the exception of the Intel integrated graphics, which doesn't have hardware support for some of the features). But like anything, just because you can doesn't mean you should - the average middle-level iMac does best with some of the settings reduced.
I'm using the following settings on my Macbook Pro:
FSAA: Off (uses a lot of CPU for the effect)
Shadow Mode: Shadow Maps/High
Environmental Reflections: Low (I don't see an extraordinary difference)
Water Effects: High (not Ultra - one tick below)
Ambient Occlusion: Off (personal choice)
Usually I get around 20-25 fps on the Macbook Pro at 1440x900. But I get only 30 on my desktop PC, which has identical settings except FSAA is set to 4x. Both have world/character detail set to 100%.
So don't feel bad if you can't crank all the settings as high as they can go. Ultra Mode was built with the future in mind, so there are very few PC's or Macs with the power to run all the effects at once.
In short, I think either iMac will do fine, the bigger one is just more powerful, so it won't become obsolete as quickly.
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I am pulling almost 60FPS in ultamode with my i7. The game runs super great!
Hello all!
I'm thinking of jumping over to Mac for CoX. I do everything else on the Mac anyway so it wouldn't be a drastic life change but I need to make the right technological purchase.
Do you have any idea how well CoX will perform in Ultra Mode on the 21.5 inch iMac using the ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 memory? I've seen good reports about the 27 inch with that processor but not anything about ultra mode.
So any experience or advice with the 21 inch iMac and/or the 4670 with Ultra Mode would be appreciated
Proud member of Paragon City Search and Rescue: www.pcsar.net