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GPUs that support accelleration in MacOS 8.6

supernova777

Well-known member
trag: no offence but i hope u are wrong! ;) the only way to know for sure is for me to get my hands on a *real* offical mac edition 7000 or 7500 card!!! 

 
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trag

Well-known member
I have a Proformance III in my S900 Frankenmac and I'm happy with it, but I don't know how it would compare to other cards. There's not much chance of you finding one in any case.

Much of the information you want has come and gone. The video card flashers/hackers developed much of this stuff but many of their forums are now gone (themacelite) or very hard to find (maddog). Even the compatibility database and many of the older articles at xlr8yourmac.com are gone or hard to access.

As to video benchmarking in Classic, i think MacBench 5.0 is probably a good choice.

 

trag

Well-known member
No offense taken, and wrong about which part? I can absolutely guarantee that those Sapphire cards had 128k chips as I ordered them from Digikey and soldered them myself. I also know that both methods I used loaded unmodified ATI code as I used files straight from ATI's website for both methods. I also definitely had problems with that one monitor, but the problems weren't entirely consistent which made it difficult to nail down.

 
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MagicBoy

Member
Supernova, I can't help but think you're judging the late 90s world of PowerMacs by 2017 hobbyist standards. Sites like this didn't exist, closest you would likely find be a usenet group. People were mainly using the machines in period to do real work, not as a hobbyistproject. My employers at the time were buying PowerMacs to produce Travel Brochures to be sent for printing. They didn't care about AGP support in OS 8 and flashing third party cards, as long as they could run Quark with their workflow. If they needed an upgraded ATI Card, they bought it from the Mac reseller and paid the support tax.

 

supernova777

Well-known member
trag: i just meant i hope u are wrong about the actual faultiness being on the part of ATI themselves.. and of it possibly being present in both the real mac cards + the flashed ones.. regardless of flashrom capacity or flashing 
i hope the real mac edition magically works and that the problem is just a result of reducing the rom

magic: i was around back then and working in web design + media industry so i remember what it was like!

agp support for os8.6 - maybe u are right and it probably really didnt even exist.. except for the rage 128 pro that came with the sawtooth

maybe it was only hacked into place for the specific os8.6 install for the sawtooth?

i actually started thinking about this after seeing a post made by a user named "MacOSPlus" on ThinkClassic.org

im trying to find the original thread and cant seem to find it ATM but heres another thread thats VERY interestijng INDEED!!!

https://www.thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?pid=13256#p13256

looks like he/she was able to put this radeon PCI card into a sawtooth's AGP slot via a riser/adapter and it WORKED!!

so PCI + AGP arent that drastically different? or the riser re-aranged pins to match?

i dont understand whats going on here but i plan on reading to find out:)

i just sent macos plus user a message maybe we can find out more 

 
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MagicBoy

Member
As Unknown-K mentioned earlier if you wanted a high res 2D card for classic Mac OS you went to a Mac specialist graphics board maker like Radius, IxMicro. I think the Matrox Millennium worked as well.

At the end of that era ATI Rage, 3Dfx and Riva TNTs etc were gaming cards, not general purpose GPUs as they have now evolved into. The Radeon and GeForce ranges with hardware T&L arrived in the OS 9 era by which time OS X was the future RealSoonNow. The ATI cards had reasonable 2D performance being based off the Mach 64 and always had half decent Mac support. 3Dfx and nVidia didn't really have much clue outside 3D environments as their background was in arcade machine and consoles. Anything Pre OS X won't use the clever bits of those cards to accelerate the GUI anyway. It's the era of BitBlt where fast VRAM and big RAMDACs were of benefit for drawing the GUI at high resolutions. OS X was way ahead of it's time when it started utilising an OpenGL capable graphics card to assist in rendering the GUI.

 
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supernova777

Well-known member
yea good call re: matrox millenium 

matrox-millennium-ii-for-mac-pci-video-card-mga-milmac8n-2.35.jpg


 

supernova777

Well-known member
I have a Proformance III in my S900 Frankenmac and I'm happy with it, but I don't know how it would compare to other cards. There's not much chance of you finding one in any case.

Much of the information you want has come and gone. The video card flashers/hackers developed much of this stuff but many of their forums are now gone (themacelite) or very hard to find (maddog). Even the compatibility database and many of the older articles at xlr8yourmac.com are gone or hard to access.

As to video benchmarking in Classic, i think MacBench 5.0 is probably a good choice.
yea the proformance card is one i was reading about but i havent seen one or had any real world experience with it.. but i did own a matrox Mystique back in the day in 1997 on my supermicro P6SBA board + pentium II 300mhz! i remember the reputation matrox had for 2d cards, im assuming that the proformance was such a type of card, offering 2d gains for working within a gui (MacOS/Windows). i was just hoping there was a repository or stash of all this related info that someone could point me in the direction of.. link me to.

wait - whats a S900 Frankenmac???????? link?

yep alot of this info is hard to find now, thats why im trying to post these topics to get at the info!

i think i remember an earlier version of macbench being easier to get up + running ? macbench 4.0 i think?

i just tried to boot up with a geforce 4mx AGP installed in a sawtooth.. in os8.6 regardless of "accelleration" it wouldnt let me change the resolution to anything else, only 640x480 i think... so it obviously did not have any proper support without a driver from nvidia.. is there an nvidia driver for os8.6 for ANY of the geforce 4 line?? not sure

 
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butterburger

Well-known member
PCI card into a sawtooth's AGP slot via a riser/adapter and it WORKED!!

so PCI + AGP arent that drastically different?
AGP is a superset of PCI. AGP consists of: a dedicated PCI bus, plus a very high throughput sideband "port" to system memory. An AGP card can share its PCI bus with other PCI devices such as TV tuner and IEEE 1394 controller (I think at least one model ATI All-in-Wonder had these). An AGP socket can be used as a conventional PCI host (unless system firmware interferes). Without driver acceleration, an AGP GPU is "just another PCI graphics controller". AGP GPU is fed instructions and data through its Accelerated Port, but it gets signalled/interrupted/notified "here comes a new load of instructions for you, open-up your mouth and get it" through PCI.

I posted my understanding. I think I am correct, though I am not at expect, do not believe me.

 

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
I posted my understanding. I think I am correct, though I am not at expect, do not believe me.
That's pretty much right. Those ATI cards that carried additional PCI peripherals onboard were sort of infamous for causing issues with certain PC chipsets (VIA boards in particular) because they incorporated a PCI-PCI bridge chip on them to create additional virtual "slots" that freaked out said defective motherboards because they didn't expect the full PCI functionality to be used in the AGP slot and cut some corners. But, generally, the theory is indeed sound.

 

supernova777

Well-known member
isnt therea nyone else around here that has a radeon 7000/7500 green pcb original mac edition card? who can either confirm or deny that supports accell in 9.2 or 8.6?

 

bunnspecial

Well-known member
Yes, it supports accel in 9.2. AFAIK, all non-CI AGP GPUs do, although you may have to add extensions with certain cards.

I honestly don't have the time or inclination right now to install 8.6 on a Sawtooth and test, but given that the PCI 7000 was supported back in 7.6 I think it's probably a reasonable assumption.

 

trag

Well-known member
Oh. I had lost track of the original question. The 7000 has drivers for OS9. You can kind of hack them into working in 8.6. The card will work in 7.6, but I'm not sure about the drivers. Hmmm, these memories are probably regarding 3d acceleration, though. When I'm at the correct computer I'll post some notes I wrote back around 2003.

 

NJRoadfan

Well-known member
I run an ATI XClaimVR 128 in my beige G3. Its basically a PCI Mac version of the ATI All-in-Wonder 128. Uses ATI driver extensions for both QuickDraw and QuickDraw 3D acceleration. It might even support OpenGL, never tried it.

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
As a side-thought: Is there a reason you're looking to do this with 8.6 specifically? On any Power Macintosh, you should easily be able to get enough resources to run a cleaned up Mac OS 9.x system. If that provides you better compatibility with GPUs that are easier to find, then why not do that?

If the Rage128 series cards do what you want in 8.6 specifically, if you have a reason to run it, then why not just use those cards? Especially if you're not gaming and you don't specifically need DVI out, etc.

Even with Quickdraw acceleration in Apple-bundled/supplied cards, windowing on Classic Mac OS was never that great. It was always my experience on my iMac G3 (Rev A) that it worked but that it was slow. 9 on my blue-and-white G3 may have been better by way of the Rage128, but Mac OS X was a huge step up in that aspect, even unaccelerated or not-very-well-accelerated.

 

supernova777

Well-known member
Yes, it supports accel in 9.2. AFAIK, all non-CI AGP GPUs do, although you may have to add extensions with certain cards.

I honestly don't have the time or inclination right now to install 8.6 on a Sawtooth and test, but given that the PCI 7000 was supported back in 7.6 I think it's probably a reasonable assumption.
well thats just it Bunn; most people dont have time to test alot of things; which is why im making a thread asking for those special people that happen to be in the right place at the right time who feel like sharing info for the benefit of all - i would gladly test if i had one - i'll have to acquire one ani also wanted to know if my hunch was correct before i go and buy something that i otherwise would have no valuable use for but i think i shared a bunch of valuable info here to make up for my shameless personal motives. haha

 
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supernova777

Well-known member
Oh. I had lost track of the original question. The 7000 has drivers for OS9. You can kind of hack them into working in 8.6. The card will work in 7.6, but I'm not sure about the drivers. Hmmm, these memories are probably regarding 3d acceleration, though. When I'm at the correct computer I'll post some notes I wrote back around 2003.
another reason i made this thread; because ive had to go thru that process of "hacking them into working in 8.6" myelf a few times and id really love to get a document outlining the process together rather then finding myself blundering thru it 10 more times in the dark.

 

supernova777

Well-known member
As a side-thought: Is there a reason you're looking to do this with 8.6 specifically? On any Power Macintosh, you should easily be able to get enough resources to run a cleaned up Mac OS 9.x system. If that provides you better compatibility with GPUs that are easier to find, then why not do that?

If the Rage128 series cards do what you want in 8.6 specifically, if you have a reason to run it, then why not just use those cards? Especially if you're not gaming and you don't specifically need DVI out, etc.

Even with Quickdraw acceleration in Apple-bundled/supplied cards, windowing on Classic Mac OS was never that great. It was always my experience on my iMac G3 (Rev A) that it worked but that it was slow. 9 on my blue-and-white G3 may have been better by way of the Rage128, but Mac OS X was a huge step up in that aspect, even unaccelerated or not-very-well-accelerated.
cory: my personal interest is for ensured compatibility with software that has not been updated since the days of 8.6 being the current choice of os. software that was made by a company that was out of business before mac os 9 ever hit the shelves.

i could absolutely just use the Rage128 cards, and who knows i may just wind up doing just that, but there are a few real benefits. one is dual monitors on both ports ie: using both VGA + DVI to have a dual screen working environment so i can use another monitor jsut for on screen pallettes/editors/vsts for whatever creative software im using at the time... another benefit is the refresh speed when dragging windows and cutting + pasting between applications... im really only interested in once + for all finally determining which is the best graphics performance i can achieve with this old machine that makes it the most usable. i had already invested in a radeon 7000 + kinda given up on it because of the pain in the ass of figuring out the driver installation (too many different versions of the drivers / undocumented instlal process etc etc) and i kept having this boot up screen-resize issue that was mentioned before in the thread breifly.. where sometimes i boot up and the screen is blank grey and doesnt show any windows or anything.. like i said. i believe its a fault incomplete hacked rom to blame for this... another user said that its possible the radeon 7000 series is possibly just buggy.. im ordering a green pcb card and ill try to get answers myself eventually if noone else manages to by chance read this thread who has experience with this issue in the meantime between now + me getting a card shipped to me.

 
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supernova777

Well-known member
I run an ATI XClaimVR 128 in my beige G3. Its basically a PCI Mac version of the ATI All-in-Wonder 128. Uses ATI driver extensions for both QuickDraw and QuickDraw 3D acceleration. It might even support OpenGL, never tried it.
thanks for sharing - thats realy cool i vaguely remember those days 1997 etc i had a performa 6400 back then i was kind of clueless then and probably didnt even understand that i could upgrade the video or add a sound card.

i was only into doing web design animation at the time learning macromedia flash! awesome time for webdesign it was from 1997-1999 really interesting and lots going on thanks to macromedia too bad things never were the same after they got bought 

anyway; im faily certain i did have a ati all in wonder on my pentium II-300Mhz PC!!! didnt those cards have a tv tuner awell? i think i had my cable tv plugged into it and could watch tv on the screen inside the GUI

heres the original announcement of the product in december 1998! 

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ati-announces-the-xclaim-vr-128tm-the-no-compromise-multifunctional-128-bit-accelerator-for-the-mac-os-77842627.html

ATI announces the Xclaim VR 128, the no-compromise, multifunctional 128-bit accelerator for the Mac OS

``ATI's Xclaim VR 128 turns any Mac into a multimedia powerhouse,'' saidMichael Litt, Mac product manager, ATI Technologies Inc. ``By adding the

Xclaim VR 128, Mac users now have the ability to capture and edit video tapes,

play the latest video games, use interactive TV and full-screen Quicktime

video, or output a presentation or video game to a large screen television.''

With use of the Xclaim VR 128, it is no longer necessary to add a

dedicated video compression board, which can cost upwards of $700, to obtain

high-quality video capture. The ability to perform real-time video capture up

to a resolution of 640x480, at 60 fields per second or 30 fps on an Apple G3,

makes the Xclaim VR 128 ideal for high-quality home video editing, as well as

adding video material to presentations or web page designs.

The Xclaim VR 128, and state-of-the-art video

The Xclaim VR 128 uses ATI's RAGE Theater video decode/encode chip,

to provide high quality video-in and TV-out display. The RAGE Theater video

decoder produces crystal clear computer digital video images from analog

sources, such as cameras, VCRs and tuners, while the video encoder delivers

the highest quality flicker-free images to the TV, raising analog television

to near-digital quality.

The Xclaim VR 128 is ideal for the education market because it delivers

crisp and flicker-free computer images on TV screens, including text display,

and empowers users to display multimedia presentations on large-dimension TVs,

or classroom projection screens.

The TV-out quality of the Xclaim VR 128 is also enhanced by use of the

RAGE Theater's exclusive signal noise reduction circuitry, which results in

significantly less high frequency vertical and horizontal noise. The Xclaim VR

128 also accepts S-Video and Composite inputs, in NTSC, PAL and SECAM formats,

and for TV-out flexibility supports Composite, S-Video and SCART-RGB (for the

European market), NTSC and PAL standards.

The Xclaim VR 128 accelerates QuickTime playback capability, which

optimizes full-screen, full-motion viewing of QuickTime and MPEG movies. With

QuickTime 3.0, and new features such as a 4 tap filter, even reduced format

movies retrieved from the Internet can be scaled to full screen size with no

compromise of the original frame rate. With the Xclaim VR 128, QuickTime

movies and presentations can also be output to video tape or the latest

QuickDraw 3D game played on any TV screen.

The no-compromise 2D and 3D performance of the Xclaim VR 128

Based on ATI's next-generation accelerator chip, the RAGE 128 GL, the

Xclaim VR 128 features advanced 128-bit 3D architecture and 16MB of graphics

memory. The extensive feature set and raw performance of the Xclaim VR 128

takes real-world 2D and 3D business graphics, gaming and design applications

on the Mac to a new level of interactivity and quality.

The Xclaim VR 128's innovative architectural features results in stunning

visual effects such as alpha blending, fog, video textures, texture lighting,

reflections, shadows, LOD biasing and texture morphing.

Pricing and Availability

Xclaim VR 128 will be available in the first quarter of 1999 and is

priced at $229 SRP. Education pricing is available through distributors for

institutional and bookstore orders.
 
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Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Have you ever tested that software on 9? Structurally, 8.6 and 9.0 are nearly identical. I've used loads of old system 7 era software on 9 systems with no trouble, so it wouldn't at all surprise me if your 8.6 software works just fine on 9.0, 9.1, 9.2.2, whichever you prefer.

I ask both because for your interests in newer graphics cards (which may or may not even help much, based on how Mac OS 9's windowing system works) 9.2.2 is going to be the best release. It's going to support the most cards out of the box, and more cards' drivers will work with it than with 8.6.

The other reason I personally trend more toward either going down to 8.1 or 7.6.1 or going up to 9.1 or 9.2.2 is because there's virtually no performance and compatibility differences between them, especially if you're in the habit of stripping unneeded components out of the system.

Another idea for dual displays though, if you end up sticking with the Rage128, is to get a PCI Rage128 and install that, if you have an available slot.

I don't know if any testing was done between the Blue-And-White, Sawtooth, and Yikes Power Macintoshes when they were new, but I'm guessing that with the Rage128, most tasks (especially in OS 9) are about the same on AGP and PCI. You'd really start to notice a difference if you look at cards that are a few generations newer, like if a PCI Radeon 9600 or so exists. (I believe a PCI Radeon 9200 exists, but I don't know off hand if a Mac PCI Radeon 9200 exists.)

But for generic desktop operations in Mac OS 7/8/9 one GPU that was slightly more beefy than the next wasn't really getting you a whole lot, if both were "good enough" and were QuickDraw accelerated. In my perhaps limited (iMac/233, G3@450, Pismo@500, TiBook@1000) experience It seems like Rage128 is about that point, the main benefit of other cards being dual output or digital output.

 
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