Well Mass Effect 2, I believe, effectively killed my video card. I’m not entirely sure if it was Mass Effect 2 or if this was a long time coming after Dragon Age, but the game just froze in this one room on the Normandy. After attempting to reboot and relaunch the game, the screen goes wonky, green artifacts and all kinds of shit start popping up and then the video just dies. Attempting to reboot into Mac OS yields a kernel panic. Even after I shut down the computer overnight and restart the following day has the video freeze then die after less than 5 minutes. The card isn’t even remotely hot. Pulled each RAM and did some tests, so memory is still good. I’ve been through this situation before though… I know it’s the video card.

To make certain, I dug out my other piece of shit, the ATI X1900 XT which also failed in about the same amount of time after I bought the Mac Pro. Popped it in, and everything is OK. Granted I know the X1900 always worked fine until it really started to warm up and then artifacts start showing up. Attempting to run any game that pushes it harder instantly killed the video. But at least it works for simple tasks, whereas reinserting the 8800 GT even when cool, locks up the machine with flashes and flickers on the login screen.

The 8800 GT’s been a great card though, ran cooler, quieter and faster than the X1900. I can’t say I’ve had any trouble whatsoever running any game for Mac or Windows on the highest settings, save for Crysis: Warhead. Besides WoW last year, Age of Empires 3, and most recently Dragon Age, it’s shown great performance. Unfortunately Apple no longer sells them, so I acquired another from an online reseller. I wish I knew what killed it though. I can’t say for sure if Mass Effect 2 made its fan spin faster more than Dragon Age did. Perhaps dust and static? Anyways, this will probably be the last hoorah for the Mac Pro. It’s going on 4 years, been a great machine except the two video card failures. Hoping at least the replacement card when it arrives will last (praying) another 2 years as I do use the Mac Pro for more than just games. By then I may be ready buy a new machine.

Anyways, for the time being I’ll just install Mass Effect 2 on my laptop and copy the save over. Who knows, maybe Mass Effect 2 will take out my laptop. It’s covered by Apple’s extended warranty for the rest of this year. Go-go 8600M GT chipset debacle. If the video fails on it, they’ll have to replace the logic board for free.

:(

I haven’t had any hardware failures in a while… makes me worried…. unless you count my old Nikon D70 that’s been slowly decaying the past years. My MBP isn’t covered by AppleCare… mostly because work paid for it… so if it breaks, work will pay for repairs as well :D

So what’s the plan for replacement card for the MacPro? A Radeon 4870? Bankruptcy?

I had considered the Radeon 4870. The 4870 is not intended for use in 2006/2007 Mac Pros, but it does still work. The nice thing about ATI cards is that they just work regardless of firmware, whereas an nVidia card needs to be compatible with 32-bit EFI for use in a 1st gen Mac Pro. /sigh The bane of being a Mac user is the lack of video card options for a tower machine. I had also considered buying a cheap video card for only gaming in Windows and then swap that card in when I want to play something on Steam or other PC games.

Unfortunately the Radeon 4870 is just too expensive. I really liked my 8800 GT and it worked great in both OSes. As I said there hasn’t been a game yet that it hasn’t been able to play on the best settings, save for Crysis. PC games these days are usually being designed to work as console versions too, so not having the best hardware hasn’t been a problem. Even a 3+ year old system has been perfectly capable. I simply acquired another 8800 GT for 2006/2007 Mac Pro for $150, less than 1/2 price of a 4870. I’m just hoping it will last me another 2 years perhaps.

I really don’t anticipate doing much gaming after Mass Effect 2. Just not enough hours in the day, so I expect that to last me awhile. Starcraft 2 perhaps if they ever release the damn thing. Maybe return to WoW for a bit or play through some of the Dragon Age DLC. For the moment I’m pretty satisfied playing the games I already own with friends and all of those work well on my laptop even.

So as the story goes (and this was close to a month ago), I got my nVidia Geforce 8800 GT. Installed it, booted fine, did some work in OS X for awhile, then restarted into Windows 7 to play some Mass Effect 2. I played for a solid 2 hours or so with no issues before I shut down the computer and went to bed. The next morning I started the Mac and BOOM! kernel panic. I tried to reboot again. This time it got to the OS X login screen, then froze. Several attempts, same problem. Reinserted the ATI X1900 XT and… no issues; everything’s fine again. I was pissed. The nVidia hadn’t even been in the machine for a full 24 hours and it’s screwed up. Bad luck? Bad drivers? Overheat? Firmware? I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.

I contacted the seller and explained what happened. They had a 30-day guarantee so I repackaged the card and sent it back for a full refund. Really didn’t touch the computer for a week after that except for emails and iPhone sync. Eventually I remembered the Radeon 4870. Apple’s version is way too overpriced for 512MB and I don’t really care for the mini DisplayPort. I searched around on eBay and found a flashed 1GB version. I gave in figuring what the hell more could it hurt? After all, I used a flashed GeForce 4 in the old G4 and it still works flawlessly. The Radeon came 3 days later and works beautifully. It’s been about a week and a half now, still running fine. Mass Effect 2 and everything else is even better looking than before.

Yesterday I happened to notice this article in my news feeds. Curiosity got the best of me, so after a little browsing around on message boards I was turning up threads from persons having similar problems with the previous January driver package as well. I, too, happened to be running that release on my Windows 7 install back then. I have to think it’s more than coincidence. Mass Effect 2 is pretty beefy for graphics. I can’t be 100% certain, but it’s just a hunch.

Needless to say: Fuck you nVidia. That is all.