> the PowerMac usually comes with the video card. But perhaps there's some with its
> video card missing, because it was a rare item, sold separately.

Much more numerous than supported PowerMacs G4 without video card will be supported PowerMacs G4 with unsupported video card (nVidia).

Quote:

I guess some people just think of your "hurdles" as a challenge. I've always enjoyed working on my own hardware. In fact, I've never owned a pre-assembled computer. Currently, my Powermac has a flashed Sapphire Radeon 9250 with 256MB of memory. It took less than an hour to convert it and it has four times the memory of the Apple Radeon 9000Pro it replaced (which was failing at the time).

However, that's not really the point. Apple ready Radeon 9800Pro cards already exist. There's no modification necessary. Now if you consider swapping out video cards a "hurdle" you might want to re-read Andreas' post. Most later Powermacs came with Nvidia video cards and Apple Radeon 9000 pros are getting harder to find, the prices they're commanding is too high, and they only have 64MB of memory. If you have to (or want to) swap out your Powermac video card, a Radeon 9800 Pro is often no more expensive to obtain than a 9000Pro.

You keep coming up with objections, but I fail understand the reasons for your negativity. As a plug in upgrade, the Radeon 9800Pro is ideal. And if a few of you (who enjoy hacking) want to modify PC video cards how is that a hurdle? It's our choice and we're already doing it with currently supported cards.

> Most later Powermacs came with Nvidia video cards

I don't know about the sales shares between the different models of the corresponding PowerMac G4 generations, but I can say that two of the three FW800 variants as well as two of the three MDD variants came with Radeon cards. In my answer to jcmarcos I just said that it's much more probable to spot a supported PowerMac G4 with an nVidia card than a supported PowerMac G4 with no video card at all. But spotting a supported PowerMac G4 with a Radeon card is still the most probable of the three possibilities I guess.

at the moment I have ready for PowerMac G4 and MorphOS 2.6 two cards:
- ATI Radeon 9000 pro (64Mb vram) original for Apple Mac
- ATI Radeon 9250 (256Mb vram) flashed

It's more powerful the ATI Radeon 9000 pro, but less memory ... I think I'll use the ATI 9250 in MorphOS, I prefear to have 128Mb vram in MorphOS... but a day I'd like to use an ATI 9800 pro 256Mb or ATI 9800 XT 256Mb

> Most later Powermacs came with Nvidia video cards

Sorry, I can't support that statement, its just based on my perception of the units currently available on the market.
One problem with Powermacs is that the users really don't appear to know or to care whether they have an Nvidia or ATI video card. While some older Powermacs came with ATI Rage128 based video cards, later Powermacs usually have either an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro or an Nvidia Geforce 2 MX200 based video card. To a MacOS user these cards offer about the same features and performance.
Of course, for a MorphOS user the Nvidia cards are useless (no available drivers). So when buying a used Powermac we have to check the listing and if the video card isn't listed contact the seller.

I bought my Powermac w/o a video card, memory, or hard drive. I bought a unit that was untested (I already had a motherboard). When I got the unit, I found that the CPU card wasn't properly seated. After correcting that, the unit worked perfectly.
I sort of lucked out buying an Apple Radeon 9000 Pro as well. I got it for under $20 (with shipping). I'd be hard pressed to find another at that price (and the one I bought failed after about one month).

While I understand that many MorphOS users don't want to assemble or modify their hardware, there are quite a few of us that get a kick out of it. Since the late 80's I've assembled all my own PCs and while Apple's aren't typical hacker oriented machines, I've found them very easy to work on. The Powermac's single latch to open the case and its well laid out design makes servicing it easier than most PCs.

I apologize for the length of this post and for my focus on my own opinions and desires rather than facts. But, frankly, I don't see supporting more powerful video cards or the interests of hardware hackers as a negatives. One thing that might put me off continued support of MorphOS is a lack of upgrade ability. Already AROS and AmigaOS4 support higher end video cards than we have and soon AmigaOS may be running on more powerful hardware.

While I'd prefer to continue to use MorphOS (as it is clearly superior to those other OS'), I don't see the point in choosing a hobbyist OS that the developers think should be marketed only toward people that want out of the box functionality. That market is already served by the Mac Mini, how about the rest of us that like to customize our computers?

> later Powermacs usually have either an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro or an
> Nvidia Geforce 2 MX200 based video card.

Within the FW800 and MDD generations the models with nVidia card usually have GeForce4 MX, some have GeForce4 Ti. Btw, FW800 was even available with Radeon 9700 Pro optionally.

> AmigaOS4 support higher end video cards than we have

Really? 2D and 3D?

> I don't see the point in choosing a hobbyist OS that the developers think should
> be marketed only toward people that want out of the box functionality.

Then you can stay with MorphOS I think ;-)

> That market is already served by the Mac Mini, how about the rest of us that
> like to customize our computers?

You can buy Pegasos or soon use PowerMac G4 with MorphOS :-)

Thanks Andreas, I know they'll get around to the more hackable Powermac eventually. I think I've seen one of the Ti cards you mentioned (Ti4600 maybe?) and the Radeon 9700 and 9800 were offered as options or upgrades. I wasn't aware of thes Geforce4 MX cards.

Over the years I've bought several Nvidia cards, but I keep coming back to ATI. I've got a 7600GT sitting around I was thinking of using for AROS, but my Windows computers have 3000 and 4000 series ATI cards.
On a straight dollar vs performance basis ATI been really performing well these last several years and they help keep Nvidia's prices down.

I promised I wouldn't make requests again, but I'd love a MorphOS driver for the 3850 or 4650. I have a 3850 PCIe card in one machine and even though its three generations old it still kicks ass. When the first DX11 benchmark came out I was surprised to find that an unused feature (hardware tessellation) was enabled under DX11 (not bad for a DX10.1 card that was two generations away from DX11 support).

[ Edited by Jim on 2010/7/23 21:58 ]

[ Edited by Jim on 2010/7/23 22:31 ]

> Ti4600 maybe?

I don't know which specific GeForce4 Ti model(s) it were. Maybe it were different ones for FW800, MDD and Quicksilver 2002 generations.

> the Radeon 9700 and 9800 were offered as options or upgrades.

Only 9700, as I wrote.

> I wasn't aware of thes Geforce4 MX cards.

Besides FW800 and MDD, GeForce4 MX was used in Quicksilver 2002 generation, while GeForce2 MX was used in Quicksilver 2001 and Digital Audio generations.

While not offered as an option the first 9800 based video cards offered by Apple (which were introduced early in the G5's production) were compatible with both the G4 and the G5 Powermac.
Here a webpage mentioning them:

http://lowendmac.com/video/agp/radeon-9800.html

And here is one listed on Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120597742494&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Personally, I think if we do see 9800 support, I'd follow Divinity's lead and use a re-flashed Radeon 9800XT (for about a 10% speed gain).


[ Edited by Jim on 2010/7/24 1:06 ]

Interesting results from the show at Essen. The Radeon 9600 (mentioned running in the Powermac MDD) is a slower card than the 9700/9800 (faster clocks, fewer pipelines, 128bit memory bus), but they also mention Powerbook support with Radeon 9700 drivers.
Mac 9600 are quite expensive on the used market and I have owned a PC 9600 since my All-In-Wonder 9600XT failed. Still, PC 9600s are cheap and should be re-flashable.
Anyone care to offer an opinion as to whether or not the 9700 driver for the Powerbook would work in a Powermac with a 9700 AGP Video card?

> Anyone care to offer an opinion as to whether or not the 9700 driver for
> the Powerbook would work in a Powermac with a 9700 AGP Video card?

My uneducated guess (again): It should work the same.

OK, trolling for another opinion:
Which sounds better a Radeon 9700 with only 128MB of memory and a 325Mhz GPU clock (but with a 256bit memory bus and 8 pipelines) or a Radeon 9600 with up to 256MB of memory and a 350-500Mhz GPU clock (but only a 128bit memory bus and four pipelines)?
I'm still thinking the 9700 would be more powerful, but I would like the extra memory (even if there's only a 128MB window to it).

Seems a little foolish to be making the majority of the posts on a thread I started, but one other thing occurred to me. What would be the highest performing video card we could put in a Powermac?
Well if we discount Nvidia cards then we can't consider the 7800Gs or 7900GS. The highest performing ATI video cards Powermac g4 users have modified to work with their machines is the X800XT (although X850XTs might also be possible). The X800 series starts with the R420 GPU (which is an offshoot of the R300 series - the basis for our eventually to be supported 9700) and includes the R430 and R480. With 12 to 16 pipelines (50% to 100% more than the R300) and clock speeds from 400Mhz (about the same as a 9800XT) to 540Mhz (almost twice tat of a 9500Pro).
Unlike the 9700 and 9800 these cards are not available stock with G4 capability. G5 X800 series cards will not run in G4s and PC cards need to be flashed with Apple BIOS' and taped to run in a G4 Powermac's 4x AGP slot.
Still, the future looks bright. Hopefully, we'll soon have Powermac support and Radeon 9700 support (which would also give us Radeon 9500 support). Radeon 9800 support would require very little tweaking of the 9700 drivers. X800 drivers would require no more development than is required to go from 9200 to 9700.
So, if we're lucky, we get support for video cards with a higher clock speed and twice the pipeline (the R300 and R360) than we currently have and, if the developers are inclined, we could again double the number of pipelines and increase our GPU clock speeds further (with the R420-480).
After that (as if that wasn't enough) someone would have to figure out how to write Apple compatible BIOS' for higher level cards, find an OS work around that didn't require BIOS changes, or we move to PCIe (G5's anyone?).

[ Edited by Jim on 2010/7/25 6:23 ]

Hey Jim,

Like writing to yourself?

Seriously, if I knew more about video cards, I would be happy to jump in with my opinions, but I don't. It would be great if there were some sharp developer out there that would volunteer to concentrate on writing many different video card drivers for MorphOS and relieve that responsibility from falling on the MorphOS Dev. Team so they could concentrate on other aspects of MorphOS. Even if they wanted to charge a small amount for their drivers, I think many future MorphOS on PowerMac users would agree to pay a small premium to have a higher spec video card that the MorphOS Dev. Team had not yet been able to support.

See the Essen thread regarding the possibility of MorphOS on a G5 PowerMac some time in the future. Very exciting possibility that I had not expected to see any info (or screen shots of) about any time in the near future.

Yeah I guess I deserved that, Dave (after all, I did point out that I was doing most of the posting).

Actually the developer turned down my offer (actually it was more of a suggestion to open development of the video drivers).
Maybe, if the community was allowed, we could help with this. But I can understand their hesitation to allow more people access to their intellectual property. They've put a lot of work into this.
These guys are turning out some great stuff, but there's just to much we'd all like to have.
Think about the hundreds of developers working on major OS projects, and the handful working on MorphOS.
I just frustrated because they're introducing support for cards I've already discarded several years ago. Even the X800's I've mentioned in the last post are dated (I sold my last one to a Canadian on Ebay about a year ago).

The G5 port is going to require some real work as the processor have an endian difference with G4s (its not just the 64bit issue - G5s will run 32bit code).

Take care and feel free to poke fun at my rambling, poorly spell checked posts. Some of the Germans think they're hilarious (even when its not my intent).

> The G5 port is going to require some real work as the processor
> have an endian difference with G4s

G5 lacks the pseudo little endian mode of the G3/G4. I doubt that MorphOS makes any use of that on G3/G4.

All meant in good fun only Jim, at least from me anyway.

I wish the MorphOS Team would find a way to accept help on drivers from others that are capable & willing, but not on the Team. Either that, or I wish they would accept more good coders into the MorphOS Team to help with the workload. You are right, they do great work with the time available and limited number of people they have working on MorphOS. I wonder what it takes to be accepted as a new member of the Dev. Team? Not for me, but for qualified programmers.

I mean it's not like any of the Team members are getting a regular paycheck from working on MorphOS and some of the Team members don't even accept any money taken in from the licensing fees, like Piru. So if there were other people, like maybe you Jim, that are qualified to work on more video drivers that want to do it in their spare time for little or no compensation, I don't see why the Team would not accept them and write a very punitive NDA to make sure any new members did not abuse their access to any part of the MorphOS source code they might see while working on such drivers.

[ Edited by amigadave on 2010/7/26 4:45 ]

[ Edited by amigadave on 2010/7/26 4:46 ]

Andreas, I still don't know enough about PPCs to even address that, but you're probably right. Enhancing MorphOS to run on a G5 may be no more difficult than adding thr code to ensure that its running in 32bit mode. I shouldn't make speculative statements.

And Dave, again, I've got a good sense of humor. Poke fun at anything you want. Kronos does, and there are times when I get a big chuckle out of it myself.
Also, you're right, at 111 Euros (selling as few copies as they have) these guys aren't quitting their day jobs any time soon. Other concerns they may have about allowing in additional developers may be founded in coordination, quality control, and the time needed to review others work.

> Enhancing MorphOS to run on a G5 may be no more difficult than adding
> thr code to ensure that its running in 32bit mode.

I guess there is (or was) some more to be done in supervisor mode. But nothing regarding endianness.

Can someone who has already been able to upgrade to MorphOS2.5 tell me which video cards are supported now in MorphOS2.5? My CD/DVD drive in my MacMini is not working correctly so I haven't been able to upgrade yet, and I am waiting for a 1gb RAM module to arrive before I open up my Mini to replace the RAM and the CD/DVD drive all at once, then I will be able to upgrade to v2.5 myself and check which cards are supported as someone else suggested to me instead of answering my question earlier.(I ask this not for my Mini, but for my G4 PowerMac that will be supported in the future)

Is this: http://www.dealtime.com/xPF-ATI-ALL-IN-WONDER-RADEON-8500 video card supported, and if yes, are all the features of that card working within MorphOS2.x? Can we watch TV with such a card while running MorphOS2.5? Do the video capture functions work on such a card? Is there any supported card that also supports watching TV, and/or capturing video while running MorphOS2.5? I know I have read in the past that some Pegasos users have used cards that allowed them to watch TV on their computers.

Also, why is an older Radeon 8500 card faster than the 9000Pro, or a brand new Radeon 9250 card? Is it the bandwidth, pipelines, or just that the MorphOS2.x video driver for the 8500 is better than the driver for the 9000Pro or 9250? I am sure that a 64mb 9000Pro will be sufficient for most things done using MorphOS2.x, but there may be times when 128mb of VRAM will be needed, or more desirable than 64mb VRAM. Most 8500 cards for Macs only have 64mb VRAM like the 9000Pro, so it would seem that at least for browsing the Web the 9250 w/128mb VRAM might be better if the pages being visited have lots of images to cache.

A little clarification about the pros and cons of all MorphOS2.5 supported graphics/video cards might be useful to us users that are not up to speed on such information.

[ Edited by amigadave on 2010/8/21 14:41 ]

@amigadave
you can update Morphos at 2.5 without cdrom, using only .ISO image.

About graphic card, I have at the moment ATI Radeon 9000pro (64Mb), Radeon 9200 (128Mb), Radeon 9250 (256Mb), Radeon 9800 XT/Pro (256Mb) ... I think I'll use (when relased MorphOS 2.6) the Radeon 9250 or 9200 becouse at 1920x1080 I prefear to have 128Mb vram ...while in the future the Radeon 9800 XT/Pro when supported in 3D.

[ Edited by Divinity on 2010/8/21 22:55 ]

For video cards supported see http://www.morphos-team.net/hardware.html

For ATI Radeon comparison see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ATI_graphics_processing_units

...and iirc there is/where some thread(s) on gfx cards and their pros/cons so search :)

Edit: and search for tv support as well, can't remember Or join #morpos @ freenode.net and ask the ppl that actually know

[ Edited by Stevo on 2010/8/21 23:54 ]

@Stevo,

Thanks for the links, the comparisons were interesting reading. The list of supported video cards seems to need updating, or some of the video cards that work, are not officially supported yet.

I'll do some searching regarding the TV card support and see what I can find.

Edit: @magnetic, I did not find any forum threads discussing TV support for the Radeon All-in-Wonder cards, but did find an old advertisement of yours where you were selling a couple of TV cards for MorphOS use. Do you have any info you could share regarding the use of the Radeon 8500 All-in-Wonder card's TV functions?

[ Edited by amigadave on 2010/8/21 19:11 ]

Quote:

Definitely an interesting idea. I've got Radeon 7500 AIWs sitting around, and I've owned 9000 and 9600 variants. If TV tuner functions could be used (on a card that uses a supported chipset) I'd be interested in hearing about it.

> why is an older Radeon 8500 card faster than the 9000Pro, or a brand new
> Radeon 9250 card? Is it the bandwidth, pipelines, or just that the MorphOS2.x
> video driver for the 8500 is better than the driver for the 9000Pro or 9250?

It's due to the card/GPU itself, not due to the driver.