NuBus Video Cards

Radius PrecisionColor Pro 24XK

The Radius PrecisionColor Pro 24XK card is a 7" NuBus card compatible with 680x0- and PowerPC-based Macs running up to Mac OS 9.1. We also have a field report of it working well in a 7100 with a Sonnet G3 accelerator and Mac OS 9.0.4. It is also compatible with NewerTech G3 upgrades. We also have a report that none of the RadiusWare 3.3 software works in an 8100 with Mac OS 8.6 or 9.0.4, making it impossible to change resolution. It may be compatible with higher versions of the Mac OS but no information for Mac OS 9.2 or later is available at this time.

Hands On: Chris Lawson

First off, this card is incompatible with QuickColor 3.3, the latest version. The version of QuickColor that ships with RocketWare 1.5, QuickColor 2.5, works just fine. The card seems pretty fast, probably about on par with the SuperMac Thunder/24s that I've tested recently. Again, the test platform is a IIcx running System 7.1.0, benchmarked with Speedometer 4.02.

Hands On: Cory Tobin

I've been fiddling with the various drivers I've found on the Net trying to get this particular NuBus vid card accelerated. Article on LEM said v2.5 of QuickColor would work, for some reason it wasn't for me (I've removed my Rocket in the meantime). I tried the next version up, 2.6.1 and it's seeing the card and supposedly accelerating it. I haven't done a Speedometer run to check it, but the next move is to see which version of QuickColor plays nice with both my 24Xk and my Rocket 25.

computer            1-bit  4-bit  8-bit 16-bit
IIcx, "Toby"        0.252   n/a   0.248   n/a 
IIcx, 24XK, off     0.295  0.274  0.257  0.229
IIcx, 24XK, on      0.292  0.308  0.345  0.412
IIcx, 8•24 GC, on  0.421   n/a  0.422   n/a


The "Toby" card is Apple's unaccelerated Macintosh II Video Card. The 24XK was tested with
acceleration off and on. Performance improved with acceleration
enabled at all settings except for 1-bit; 2-bit video is not
supported at all. It is 12% faster at 4-bit, 34% faster at 8-bit,
and 80% faster at 16-bit. Even unaccelerated performance beats out
Apple's "Toby" card.


The Apple 8•24GC is shown
for comparison. It outperforms the 24XK at both tested
settings.


This card is a pedestrian with acceleration off, but if you use
it for a while without acceleration and then turn acceleration on,
it feels like an ATI Rage 128. Best part about this card? It's made
by Radius and it's fast, so it works great with a Rocket.


Details


The card provides standard QuickDraw acceleration. The Radius
PrecisionColor Pro 24XK supports the following resolutions in
24-bit color:


    

  • 512 x 384
    • 

  • 640 x 480
    • 

  • 832 x 624
    • 

  • 1024 x 768
    • 

  • 1152 x 870
    • 



Software


    

  • Links to Radius and SuperMac software on Gamba's
site.
    • 

  • QuickColor 3.3 (part of RadiusWare 3.3) works fine under any
Mac OS up to and including Mac OS 9.1.
    • 

  • Dynamic Desktop crashes the Mac OS at startup when installed on
Mac OS 8.6 or higher. SwitchRes (shareware) works to change
resolutions instead.
    • 

  • Installing QuickColor 3.3 only and leaving the rest of
the RadiusWare SW out works just fine. Any other bits of RadiusWare
will crash the OS on boot.
    • 



Other Resources