Hi,

I recently got hold of a Powermac G5 equipped with an FX5200 ultra. I would very much like to triple-boot it (MacOS, MorphOS, Linux).
The problem I am facing is that MacOS- and MorphOS-compatible cards are quite rare and flashing them a bit risky - I already bricked two of them.
So I started thinking : why not have a Radeon PCI card with PC bios AND the AGP GeForce side-by-side?
Would MorphOS successfully boot on the Radeon?
TIA

Sergio

AFAIK there is no PCI card with AtomBIOS which is required for MorphOS on non Mac card in Macs.

Most of them are PCIe and some AGP.

For an AGP G5 it is best to look for a genuine Mac 96x0.

> AFAIK there is no PCI card with AtomBIOS

What kind of ROM is on the PCI versions of HD4350 or HD5450?

I don't know what AtomBIOS is.
I've seen some secondhand PCI Radeon 9200 available. Would they work?

No, a PCI 9200 will not work.

> I don't know what AtomBIOS is.

There's a dedicated thread here on MorphZone.

> I've seen some secondhand PCI Radeon 9200 available. Would they work?

No. Radeon 9200 is R2xx GPU generation. While AtomBIOS started with R4xx GPU generation, the AtomBIOS version required for MorphOS is to be found on Radeon cards with (at least) R5xx GPU generation (Radeon X1300 and above).

OK, so if I get it right a PCI mac-flashed 9200 and AGP X1950Pro combo would serve MacOS and MorphOS?

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I can tell you that the X1950 Pro AGP will work fine with MorphOS.

One graphic cardRadeon HD 4650 Shapphire PCIe, MorphOS uses the 1 GB from its RAM? and it works fine?
Thank you for the answers.

I think MorphOS support max 256Mb of graphic memory.

If HD 4650 Shapphire PCIe is supported, it's only 2D not 3D.

> Radeon HD 4650 Shapphire PCIe [...] works fine?

First of all it's strange to ask about a PCIe graphics card in a thread about AGP-based PowerMac G5. I take it you're asking about using this card in a PCIe-based PowerMac G5 (as opposed to X5000 or Sam460). If so, then this might interest you:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=53&topic_id=12785&start=7
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=12716&start=171

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Thank you for your kind answer.

Quote:
So difficult for you is write a single answer, I ask using the Graphic card text, and the links to other thread aren't very clean giving a explain, also in the Power Mac G5 specificiations from Apple:
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP96?locale=en_US
You can find about the Three open full-length PCI-X slots, and I ask this question to know if I shall get a good performance using a highter GPU and 1GB of Ram, before to play changing the graphics cards, because these computer are old and like the old people with love and care to avoid its dead.

Hint:

PCIX is something completely different then PCIe....

>>> Radeon HD 4650 Shapphire PCIe [...] works fine?

>> I take it you're asking about using this card in a PCIe-based
>> PowerMac G5 […]. If so, then this might interest you:
>> https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=53&topic_id=12785&start=7
>> https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=12716&start=171

> So difficult for you is write a single answer

I have neither a PCIe-based PowerMac G5 nor a Radeon HD4650, so best I can do is refer you to statements of users who have both, tested it and reported the outcome. If you don't like this way of helping you, you're free to ignore my attempts.

> the links to other thread aren't very clean giving a explain

If you follow the links, the relevant comment should be the topmost one. In both cases, the result of trying a HD4650 in a PCIe-based PowerMac G5 is reported, either by the tester himself or by me mentioning the report.

> in the Power Mac G5 specificiations from Apple […] You can find about
> the Three open full-length PCI-X slots, and I ask this question to know
> if I shall get a good performance using a highter GPU and 1GB of Ram

You won't be able to fit a PCIe card into a PCI-X slot (see also Kronos' reply).

@Sergio

Your only hope of multi-booting on an AGP PowerMac is to obtain an Apple-Firmware Radeon AGP card. Please don't go and buy cards that will not work. Even if you somehow managed to obtain a PCI card that would work on MorphOS (Voodoo? :) the performance would be many times worse than that of the AGP card.

It would have been a different discussion if you had a PCI Express G5.

A card you need isn't super hard to find on ebay, https://www.ebay.ca/itm/234789401059 for example.

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Thank you this was my mistake to think that both ports was the same, and it is that 6-7 years the Wintel world changed from PCI to AGP to PCI-e, and I have graphic cards stopped with these three connections.

I'll throw in my 2 cents. Maybe it will be helpful for someone. I have Morphos, Leopard and Debian 11 triple booted in my G4. In the agp slot I installed Radeon HD 3450 for Debian (full 2d and 3d) and MorphOS (only 2d, waiting for new drivers ;) and in the pci slot GeForce2mx400 with dual bios pc/mac(!) (of course for OSX, works on Debian too, but without 3d).

@eastone: Ah, that is a very interesting combination - thanks for sharing! Wouldn't have thought that you can do such a 2-card combination on a G4 too...

How did you got hold of that GeForce 2 MX400? Getting a PC one cheaply and flashing this Dual-BIOS yourself?

This way you could get an AGP HD 4xxx or HD 5xxx in a G4 (as long as it does not need an additional power connector I suppose).

> AGP HD 4xxx or HD 5xxx

AGP Radeons only went up to HD4xxx series, so that's the maximum you can get there (unlike PCI, which went one generation further).

@ernsteiswuerfel

FYI I went with a X1950Pro for my AGP 2.7. It is the fastest total solution that you can currently run MorphOS on. Full 3d support and smoking fast...

I have a spare old Apple AMD AGP card (9600) I keep off to the side. If I need to boot into the boot menus, I put it in the box. Since I only do that when I update MorphOS, it isn't used much. For me MorphOS is just so good these days, I use it to run a business on and as my daily driver. I use the PC less these days...

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Geforce is some noname card I bought many years ago. I flashed this bios:
gf2mx400rom
I did not mention some limitations of such a solution. The geforce2 card does not have a dvi connector :( but maybe you can use a geforce 5200/5500 or 6200 pci. I think they should work (dvi-i) in such configuration. Perhaps I will flash the 6200 pci and let you know if it actually works. Radeon needs additional power and pins 3 and 11 must be taped.

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But has broken mesa in Debian :(

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The GF not having DVI would be ok for me. But if you should flash a GF6200 and this works too it would be also an interesting option.

But why do you need to tape pins 3 and 11? So you can't just take a PC Radeon off the shelf and try it? Is this a 'feature' of the G4 AGP slot?

Also I don't understand why I would need additional power when there is no external power connector on the card. E.g. the AGP Radeon HD4670 (klick) does not have one. It got only half the memory bandwidth of the X1950 but is 2 (AMD)generations newer with OpenGL 3.3 vs OpenGL 2.1. I doubt it would be much slower on MorphOS and it certainly will be faster in Linux. With OpenGL 3.3 you actually get a decent accelerated Linux desktop, also much less (Big Endian) rendering bugs with the mesa r600 driver compared to the X1950 using mesa r300 driver.

@Andreas_Wolf: Thanks for the clarification! I even remember now I was irritated at that time having a PC and could get a more modern GPU for its' PCI-slot as for its' AGP slot...

@matt3: The X1950Pro sure is a nice card performance wise. I even had a flashed one which worked fine in my old G5 7,3. But it was waaay to loud for my taste. Also swapping cards only for OpenFirmware acces would drive me mad in short time - I am sure of that. But if this solution works for you it's just fine.