Best Quicksilver Graphics Card?

[volvo242gt]

Yeah, it's nice not to have what looks like a large snow white spider behind the monitor...

It should work pretty well. My MDD G4 came with one. Decent card. If I hadn't had the 9700 handy, I probably would've used it instead.

 

[LaPorta]

Hoping the 9000 will play nice with Open GL 1.4.7 on OS X 10.4.11. The GeForce 2 MX right now seems to spaz out with F/A-18 OIF; frame rate is incredibly horrible (unplayable) even at low resolutions.

 

[CircuitBored]

The GeForce 2 MX right now seems to spaz out

That's just the 2 MX doing its thing. The GeForce 3 Ti and the Radeon 9000 are pretty much the low end of actually good GPUs for Macs of this era.

 

[alectrona2988]

the radeon 9000 pro is in my opinion the most practical GPU for OS 9. the GF4Ti 4600s are very hard to come by and are prone to failures. i had one die on me and i was unable to bring it back to life. usually it's the fan that goes out when you least expect it. doesn't help that the heatsink is tiny and will NOT passively cool that card. i think you can even get the 9200 or 9250, but the 9000 is very common. they're very reliable cards, i have one in my QS and it works perfectly. now if you were to run X only, i'd probably go for at least a radeon 9600 on a G4. the 9000 will run with X very well, but if you want core image support, then go for the 9600. unfortunately the 9600 does not support OS 9, so that's not a viable option for classic mac os

 

[LaPorta]

That was very helpful, thank you. The 9600 would be great, but it sounds like you are saying by "doesn't support 9," you mean 9 won't even run on it. I'm not sure if I would do that. In reality, I just need this thing to run F/A-18 OIF decently...everything else seems to run great as-is. In speaking with Trey Smith, the GraphSim guy. He said that there is the possibility that the card in there is only emulating Open GL support, which would slow everything down. I would hope that the 9000 will correct whatever issue there is with this.

 

[Unknown_K]

Modified 9600's are good if you just plan on running OSX. I generally use 9000's because they work in OSX and OS 9 without issues and I don't game anyway. I tend to have dual HDs in QS one with OS 9.2.2 and one with OSX 10.4.

 

[LaPorta]

That's kind of my setup, except 1 HD that is just partitioned

 

[LaPorta]

So, I got my Radeon 9000....and it solved the issue I was having with game! Works smoothly now.

...unfortunately, I have a new issue now. It appears that I am getting no USB connectivity through the ADC connection. The ports on my Cinema Display worked fine until I swapped the card. Now I don't see any USB ports other than the internals in the System Profiler, and the ports on the monitor don't seem to work at all. Card hardware error, or something else?

 

[LaPorta]

Ok, did a little more investigating. Seems like some sort of gremlin more than anything.

So, with the Keyboard and mouse attached directly to the G4 (Apple Pro Keyboard and Mouse, OEM for this machine), I start up, and the ports are unusable on the display. None show up in the System Profiler except the built-in ports. Then, if I disconnect the display from the card, and reconnect it, suddenly the ports on the display are active, show up in the System Profiler, and work with the keyboard/mouse. However, if I then restart the Mac, the ports are inactive yet again. Unlpugging and replugging the monitor with the keyboard still plugged into the monitor does NOT reactivate the ports. Only if the keyboard is not plugged in when unplugging/replugging the monitor do the ports come alive again. Strange, hmm? I don't. know how to explain it.

 

[CircuitBored]

I start up, and the ports are unusable on the display. None show up in the System Profiler except the built-in ports. Then, if I disconnect the display from the card, and reconnect it, suddenly the ports on the display are active, show up in the System Profiler, and work with the keyboard/mouse. However, if I then restart the Mac, the ports are inactive yet again. Unlpugging and replugging the monitor with the keyboard still plugged into the monitor does NOT reactivate the ports.

I've had this exact issue before! Which firmware revision is your Quicksilver running? ISTR that I fixed my issues by updating the firmware to version 2.4.8. Failing that, it's probably the power supply. QS have stupidly weak power supplies and often one of the first things to fail is the 28V rail for ADC. This has happened to me twice. I've read a fair amount of anecdotal evidence to suggest that using an ADC monitor significantly shortens the lifespan of the PSU, especially if you use sleep mode.

If you're using an ADC to DVI adapter then you may be running down the clock on that too. They're not known for being highly reliable.

 

[LaPorta]

The Quicksilver firmware? How do I ascertain that?

 

[LaPorta]

More testing: it appears to work fine no matter what under 9.2.2. Under 10.4 is where the issue lies. It must be some weird software quirk either with the Mac or the Card.

 

[CircuitBored]

The Quicksilver firmware? How do I ascertain that?

You can check the firmware version in System Profiler > Hardware. I actually typo'd my original comment. The updated firmware version is 4.2.8, not 2.4.8. You can get the update files from the popular repository sites.

 

[LaPorta]

Let me check it this afternoon and I'll get back to you.

 

[LaPorta]

Is it the boot rom version?

 

[Byte Knight]

I recently picked up a Mac ATI Radeon 9250 PCI card (from a pawn store of all places) for $30. Works great in my QS with OS 9.2.2 and OS X 10.4!