Radeon 9200 PCI question

[Spiff]

I'm looking to play around with my B&W G3. The only upgrade for video that I can find is the ATI 9200 PCI card for the Mac. I've heard that some windows cards can be flashed to work with the Mac? True? Can a Radeon 9200 PCI card from a windows machine be "flashed" to work on a Mac?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ATi-Radeon-9200-PCI-...dZViewItem

Thanks!

[Buzz]

if you're going to "play around", maybe look for an old Rage 128/Pro vintage 16MB card, or an original Radeon or 7000 PCI card that doesn't need to be "flashed" in order to work; unless you absolutely need two monitors off of that one slot...

[Spiff]

Good idea. However, my mac already has one of those...

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/po...50_bl.html

Looking for a PCI upgrade video card to help handle OSX a bit better. I'll look into the 7000.

[viaripatti]

ATI actually made a PCI 9200 that was Mac. They did NOT make a Mac AGP slotted 9200 those are ALL flashed PC cards. I've got one of those happily running in My G4 DA; but you need to buy the ones with FULL Rom soldered on so that they can accept full firmware upgrades and support all of the deep sleep issues etc. They cost more on eBay than the ones with hacked partial ROM firmware.

[ka jowct]

I don't think you will get a significant performance boost by getting a 9200. Have you maxed out the RAM? What processor is in there? If you aren't at a GB of RAM or haven't upgraded the processor, do either of those before spending money on a PCI graphics card.

I have an original Radeon for Mac in one Smurf. Not sure performance is any better than it is in the machine with the stock 16MB card. You have to do some fiddling to make a PCI card work wirth Quartz Extreme, which I have not done.

[Spiff]

I'm at 1gb of memory (max). Have the original processor in the machine. 350mhz. Looking into a Sonnet Encore zif upgrade.

[Racer X]

I have a B&W G4/550 with a gig of RAM and one of the SIIG ATA controllers and an ATI Nexus 32 meg video card (between the Rage Pro 128 that came in the B&Ws, and the Radeon 7000)

Runs 10.3.9 just fine. Video performance is reasonable for a machine that is 8 years old. Some of the screen savers are sluggish for some reason, but who cares.

I built this machine as a back-up to my MDD duallie, so I had a reason to put a little money into it almost 4 years ago.

If you have the parts, or someone gives them to you, great. But I wouldn't spend much on it at this point.

[jdc]

again, before dropping one thin dime into that machine, consider a G4 mini -- even if it is "just to play around"

it will blow the doors off of that G3 no matter how much you spend on video or an upgrade card...

[deckeda]

Seriously. An ATI 9200 PCI is half the price of a G4 mini. minis are cute as a button as well.

[ka jowct]

I'm at 1gb of memory (max). Have the original processor in the machine. 350mhz. Looking into a Sonnet Encore zif upgrade.

Consider getting a ZIF upgrade from Daystar. Their G4 ZIFs won't throttle bus speed down to 66MHz; the Sonnets will.



Daystar sells on eBay in addition to selling through their online store. Usually the processors are listed at a fixed price, but occasionally they do some auctions that start low.