Upgrade Video Cards for Mac Pro 1.1

When I start Photoshop I get this error message:
3D features and some filters (Flame/Tree/Picture Frame) require a minimum of 512MB of vRAM. Photoshop has detected less than that on your system.

I do a fair amount of 3d work with Strata 3D. Has anyone upgraded their video cards so 3D will function in Photoshop? If so what were your results, recommendations?

jacunivac said:

3D features and some filters (Flame/Tree/Picture Frame) require a minimum of 512MB of vRAM. Photoshop has detected less than that on your system.

Click to expand...

What video card is in your Mac Pro 1,1 at the moment? I'm guessing a GT-7300 (256meg VRAM).

- Nick

Yes. I have a Mac Pro 2006 1.1 which I upgraded to 2.1 not that it made any difference. I have two of those cards and one is bad. I'd like to use three monitors.

Well the three monitors opens a whole new ball game. If you are tring to run three on the obsolete 7300 it will probably have them fail.

Suggest looking at an ATI Radeon 5770/5870. Suggest not buying a flashed PC card, but a genuine Mac Pro version. With many of the flashed cards you do not get the loading details on boot.

I was going to suggest the same thing as Harry. The Radeon 5770 or the 5870 (which is 2x the performance of the 5770).

You could run 1 or 2 monitors from your one good 7300…and the 3rd monitor from the 5770/5870. Or vice-versa. They have 1gig of VRAM.

Expect to pay about $250 for the genuine Mac 5770 (maybe less on eBay).

- Nick