Hi

I've been told that flashing pc card to with mac flash might cause a problem of not working DVI output as pc cards has less flash memory. Is that true?

it really depends most on how far the card strays from the ATI reference design and which ROM revision you use. You could end up with no DVI output, VGA only on the DVI output, or everything working perfectly.

The Radeon 8500 64MB Retail is the closest to a sure thing. As long as you stay away from the 128MB version of the card you should be fine. The 64MB 8500LE and 8500 OEM cards with DVI sometimes have a bug where they think a DVI monitor is always connected but since you plan on using one anyway that wouldn't really be a problem.

The 9000 Pro, 9200, and 9250 should work as well but they require a little more effort and purchasing an identical card to the retail\reference board.

I've read about problems with reflashed gfxcards together with 3rd-party cpu cards, and as it seems I'm experiencing this probs, too. I'm using a reflashed Radeon 8500 on a Powermac G4 Gigabit (Powermac3,3), and with the default card (400Mhz G4 MPC7400 single-core) everything works fine. With a Sonnet Encore 1Ghz upgrade (1Ghz G4 MPC7455 single-core), OSX Tiger gets kind of unstable (mouse pointer is moving, but nothing is clickable, even the clock doesn't change its time). With the default gfxcard (ATI Rage 128 16MB VRAM) everything works fine, but a reflashed Geforce2 MX is even worse than the reflashed Radeon... This issue is part of a FAQ on Sonnet's website.

So i'd better look for dedicated mac radeon then..

@pampers:

I think it's the best you can do, occasionally there are good offers on ebay.

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yes if you are not using right ROM flash, no if you use the right ROM flash
For exemple here correctly flashed an ATI Radeon 9250, a 9200 and a 9800 XT (all Shapphire ATI Radeon cards), where DVI and VGA are full OK

All you need is here:
http://themacelite.wikidot.com

here about my first "flash" (9250 DVI/VGA)
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6893&forum=3#70868


[ Edited by Divinity on 2010/9/9 22:32 ]

I'd second Divinity's recommendation of Sapphire cards as a candidate for re-flasjhing. I have a Sapphire Radeon 9250 that works perfectly in my Powermac.

I've also heard of few problems with most 9700 and 9800 cards, but 9600 cards need to use the same memory as Apple 9600 (square not round chips).

Remember, most cards require more than just re-flashing. All AGP 8X cards require that you tape over or disable a couple of card edge pins. And the 9250 requires a surface mount resistor be moved.

All this can be intimidating work. I had no problem with my 9250, it took less than an hour. However, its easier to use an Apple card.

I found and installed a Mac version of the 64mb 8500, as it appears to be the fastest fully supported video card for MorphOS. I use it with a 20 inch widescreen LCD monitor with a resolution of 1680x1050, so hopefully 64mb will be sufficient for most things.

Dave is right about that. The 8500 is the fastest card currently supported (faster than the 9000-9250).
I downgraded from an 8500 to a 9250 to get the extra memory. I'm not sure how well a 128MB PC 8500 (when re-flashed) works under MorphOS.

BTW - The Apple 8500 I bought on Ebay was only $10. I haven't seen one that cheap recently (and mine eventually died). However, they're not expensive cards.

[ Edited by Jim on 2010/9/10 19:48 ]

Damn i was trying to get 9250 mac version with 128mb ram but auction finished at 86 pounds, way too much.

Im not sure if there is 8500 with 128mb ram, i haven't seen any yet. The one of the reason im switching over to powermac is 128mb vram i want to have. Oh well it looks that i will have a look into flashing cards a little bit more then.

I've seen 8500s with 128MB of video memory, but the Apple card is only 64MB (and the ROM images for re-flashing generally come from this card).

BTW - 96 pounds is way too high, you can still buy PC 9250s new for less than that. Just avoid the 256MB version. It's not that it won't work (my does), but OSX and MorphOS will only use the first 128MB.

[ Edited by Jim on 2010/9/10 21:18 ]

[ Edited by Jim on 2010/9/10 21:19 ]

> Im not sure if there is 8500 with 128mb ram

"Both video cards were first released in 64 MB DDR SDRAM configurations; the later 128 MB Radeon 8500 boards received a small performance boost resulting from a memory interleave mode."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R200#Implementations

That's a general statement of course, not a Mac specific one.

The 8500 128MB does not work correctly in OSX. It will identify the full 128MB. At first it may seem functional until you load something up that makes use of the extra RAM. The application will either crash/freeze or give a colorful distorted mess. The 128MB 8500/8500LE have a different board revision than the 64MB cards so I doubt any of them would work correctly.

If you want 128MB you SHOULD get the same card Jim purchased. You may get only 64MB if you get a 128MB card. Most of the 9250's floating around have only a 64-bit memory interface (many are not even labelled as such) so you will probably get only half of the labelled RAM accessible. Some cards with 128MB and a 128-bit memory interface will only work in OSX with 64MB. If you see only half the RAM locations populated (4 modules instead of 8) you can be pretty sure you'll end up with half of the RAM accessible regardless of the memory interface.

In the end stick with the 64MB 8500 if you want to be sure what you are getting will work.

> The 8500 128MB does not work correctly in OSX.

As I wrote, it was a general statement as a response to what seemed like a general statement, not a Mac specific one.

> If you want 128MB you SHOULD get the same card Jim purchased.

I run a Mac Mini so I wouldn't know where to plug *any* card ;-)

> Most of the 9250's floating around have only a 64-bit memory interface
> (many are not even labelled as such) so you will probably get only half
> of the labelled RAM accessible.

I don't think there's a releation between the number of memory signal lines and the amount of accessible memory.

It's not so important an 8500 vs 9000 vs 9200 vs 9250, there are not important differences ... I have also a 8500 and 9000 (64Mb vram) ; for exemple I prefer to use the 9200 or 9250 with 128mb (or 256 when It' ll be possibile to address).

My idea is It's more important to find/buy at the moment an ATI Radeon 9800 XT/Pro, 9700, 9600, waiting for the full 2D support and 3D driver.



[ Edited by Divinity on 2010/9/11 13:51 ]

Quote:

There is no point to find or buy those (9800/9700/9600) cards ...
A 3D driver for those cards is nowhere near, at least not likely for the forthcoming release(s) ....
If you are aware of our past release cycles, you should know what that means.



[ Editiert durch pega-1 an 2010/9/11 15:09 ]

> As I wrote, it was a general statement as a response to what seemed like a general statement, not a Mac specific one.
> I run a Mac Mini so I wouldn't know where to plug *any* card

I was addressing the thread as a whole not you specifically. Now gimmie your mac mini.

>I don't think there's a releation between the number of memory signal lines and the amount of accessible memory.

Much of the time if you flash a card with a 64-bit memory interface with a bios from a card with a 128-bit memory interface you will end up with half of the labelled memory. This holds true with all Nvidia 5200/5500 cards and Radeon 9200/9250 cards I've tried.

> I was addressing the thread as a whole not you specifically.

Threaded view mode presents your posting as a response to mine.

> Much of the time if you flash a card with a 64-bit memory interface with a bios from a
> card with a 128-bit memory interface you will end up with half of the labelled memory.

Okay, with that additional bit of info ("with a bios from a card with a 128-bit memory interface") it's probably making sense ;-)

> Threaded view mode presents your posting as a response to mine.

I just clicked the "Reply" button on the very bottom of the page, who knows what kind of magic went on. This time I was sure to click the option in your message though. Wacky times.

@thread:

All of the Radeon R200 based cards for the Mac (8500, 9200, etc.) had a 128-bit memory interface. Sadly, no hacks of these bios exist to get the most out of the 64-bit memory interface cards. There are bios hacks for other 64-bit cards but they aren't morphos supported cards to begin with.

Damn I'm just bidding 64bit radenon 9250 with 128mb ram. What that means for me then?

> I just clicked the "Reply" button on the very bottom of the page, who
> knows what kind of magic went on.

That may be a bug in the forum software. Normally one would expect to reply to the thread opening message when clicking on "Post Reply" at the bottom, not to the thread's most recent message (which is really just a random message in the context of a thread). As long as this potential bug exists it's probably best to avoid the "Post Reply" function and use the messages's own "Reply" function instead like you just did.

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I'd expect to only get 64MB out of it once it is flashed to Mac.

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Check out the benchmarks again if you don't think there is a difference in performance between the 8500, 9000, 9200, & 9250 Radeon's. There seems to be a big difference to me.

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Bollocks :/

@pega-1
sure, but It's not useful to became "mad" to find an old 8500 or 9000 to flash in Mac ... It's better to find a 9200, 9250 with 128-256Mb and use it flashed for Mac... and find/buy a 9800/9700/9600 for your future support 2D and 3D in MorphOS.

@amigadave
no, There is NO important differences between 8500, 9000, 9200 and 9250, while there is BIG difference with newer 9600, 9700, 9800
All my tests are here
http://amiga.ikirsector.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=13185
http://amiga.ikirsector.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=14377


[ Edited by Divinity on 2010/9/12 12:02 ]