Hi all,

I have been looking into adding some new features into my graphics engine - but I think I am going to be limited by the fact that my machine is an old G4 PowerMac with a Radeon 9000 graphics card.

E.g. I want to implement shadow mapping, but according to Arekkusu's glinfo page I can't use the ARB_shadow or ARB_depth_texture extensions.

I also note that I don't have ARB_fragment_program, which puts a stop to any serious attempt a GLSL wizardry.

So do you agree I am completely stuck, or are there other ways to do shadow mapping that my hardware would support?

If I do decide to upgrade the graphics card, what card would you recommend, and what do I need to check to see if it's going to be compatible with my PowerMac? Where is a good place to see what would be the expected cost of a given card?

Cheers

- Iain

You should buy a new computer. Any Intel machine will let you do more.

Potential interim solutions: use the software renderer, buy a second-hand Radeon 9600 ("Mac & PC Edition") or 9800 Pro ("Mac Edition"). http://ati.amd.com/products/mac.html

It is technically possible to implement shadow mapping using only the texture matrix and texcombine

But a newer GPU will let you use many more features.

I have an opportunity to get a geforce 6200 from a friend for £20 - I think from what I've read that it's a fair bit better than the Radeon 9000, but I see it's not listed on the glinfo page - why?

Are there any issues around putting it in a PowerMac G4 (which has AGP slots) that I should be aware of? Are there PC-only or Mac-only editions of the card? And any idea where I might get a driver from (or is it included in Leopard?).

Cheers

- Iain

It's not listed, because Apple never shipped that card.
That means Apple never tested that card, and there's no guarantee that the ROM works on a Mac. Or that the Mac driver works with that specific GPU.