GPUs that support accelleration in MacOS 8.6

[supernova777]

i have a mac radeon 9200 mac edition PCI in my B+W g3 450mhz right now (which is running os8.6)

it works geat... nice + fast.. but  i have had alot of issues getting the right version of the drivers + getting them installed properly on os8.6

right now my accell isnt working, and as far as i can remember atm, im not sure the 9200 will ever work properly in 8.6 - some say it was only everupdated to work with 9.22

thats why if theres a cut off point and the 9200 is after it.. then the 7000/7500 must be before it? its annoying - they documented it well but not well enough.. they made these

"one size fits all" driver packages when i wish they jsut made a seperate drive rinstaller for os8.6 and one for 9.22 

i just want my accelleration working properly if i have to use a rage128 or XlcaimVR 128 or use the stock RagePro128 to do so then i guess i have to live with that

or i could use a 9800 pro or 9200 and just "get used to it" re: the rollup effect when dragging windows........ those cards are pretty fast even without proper 2d accell + support

but if it glitches out when scrolling or draggin and uare doing alof then it can drive u nuts

 

[supernova777]

http://themacelite.wikidot.com/compatibility 
this chart is a great resource too..

GeForce 2/3/4 ⁵
Radeon 7000/7500 ⁵
Radeon 8500/9000 ⁵
Radeon 9200 ⁵

here are the ones with the "5" remarked are the ones with 2D accelleration + enhanced support for mac os 9. 

this chart is a great resource too.. this chart is a great resource too.. 
originally when imade this thread i was trying to get people to post about their 2d-accellerated card that they are using that they are happy with

regardless of PCI/AGP 

ATI Rage 128 Pro - August 1999

Geforce 256 - Oct 11 1999

Riva TNT2 M64 - Oct 1999

Geforce 2 - April 2000,

Radeon DDR 32mb/64mb - May 2000

Radeon SDR - July 2000

GeForce2 MX - September 7, 2000.

Geforce 3 - January 2001

Radeon 7500 - July 2001

Radeon 8500 - Oct 2001

Geforce 4 Ti - April 2002

Radeon 7000 mac edition april 2002

Radeon 9000 - Aug 2002

Radeon 9500 - Oct 2002

Radeon 9200 - April 2003
Radeon 9800 XT - Oct 2003

Geforce 6800 - April 2004
Radeon X800 XT - May 2004

i also read recently that the Geforce 6200 AGP is able to be flashed + work in a mac..

but of course it hink that would be the same type of performance as a radeon 9800 pro.. and also means that liek the 9800 pro there would be NO ACCELL!
 

trying to determin teh best performance + compatibility combo... if only there was a 32mb version of the Rage 128 Pro that came with the Sawtooth, its only 16MB of Video Ram. 
its a great card for a stock card! http://www.gpureview.com/rage-fury-pro-card-251.htmlthis is a pc card but the GPU is the same.. and it would run at 2x not 4x in sawtooth

the original Radeon card might be a great option for me aswell, i think it came in both PCI + AGP formats..  but isnt the radeon 7000 PCI is superior?

i just have to get down to the bottom of this 7000 screen-resize bootup buggyness

id very much like to establish which ones support accell in os8.6 and if anyone could share how to enable the access (specific driver versions, which extensions to enable/disable etc)

if it supports 8.6 it could be because the card was released when 8 was current os.. or because the manufacturer chose to provide ongoing support to those people who were not upgrading to os9.22
 

old or new, im just interested in hearing other "sucess stories" such as the one NJRoadFan shared with us about his Xclaim VR. (thank you NjRoadFan!)

 

[supernova777]

im trying to talk myself into flashing my 7500 AGP card.. i just yanked it out of a pentium IV ill most likely

end up replacin the 7500's absence in the p5 with the Radeon 64Mb 7000 PCI card that is not working out for me on mac.... after i flash it back to a PC rom because of its useless os8.6/9.22 boot up buggyness (which is present on both sawtooth + g3 B+W machines) - if anyone can share positive results of flashing a radeon 7500 AGP????? would give me a bit more confidence in the procedure

i know that of the 7000/7500/8500/9000/9200/9600/9800 i think the least mentioned is the 7500 

 

[supernova777]

https://happymacs.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/pimp-my-ride-adding-a-radeon-7000-mac-edition-video-card-to-a-power-macintosh-7300200/

just found this article on the radeon 7000 - notice hes got a green pcb card instead of the 64mb flashed pc version with the crap reduced rom that i have

cept this version is without the circular white ATI radeon graphics logo

 

[bunnspecial]

Do not use a GPU newer than a Radeon 9200(really 9000 if you are limiting to AGP cards, as the AFAIK the 9200 Mac edition was only available as a PCI card) or Geforce 4Ti in any version of the classic OS-the drivers do not exist for them. The experience is sure to be miserable.

Also, there are very few cards beyond those above that will even work in the Sawtooth even in OS X. Offhand, you are limited to the Mac edition Radeon 9700(rare card) and flashed versions of the Radeon 9800, Geforce FX5200 and Geforce 6200.

I would second Cory's question as to whether or not OS 8.6 is absolutely essential. I've found in many cases that even when a manufacturer specified a maximum OS version, the software still works perfectly in 9.2.2. In my "day job" one of my many little side projects/on call things is maintaining the G4 that operates a "home-built" Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometer. The software and some hardware date back to the 68K/NuBus era, although it was upgraded to use a PCI interface card from National Instruments(I have Q700 with the Nubus card around somewhere also). The manufacturer of the spectrometer specifies a maximum of OS 9.0.4 but about two years ago when the "owner" wanted to upgrade computers I set it up on 9.2.2 without even knowing this. It's chugging right along, although a failed power near a grant deadline means that we're now running a Quicksilver with a 466mhz processor card out of a Digital Audio(we have found a clock speed limit for the hardware to interface correctly).

In addition, I bought a couple of computers from a local graphic design agency a while back. One of them was a Yikes! G4 running OS X Panther. It had Illustrator 5.5 installed on it-this is a 68K native program, and it works fine using the 68K emulator in 9.2.2 in classic mode from 10.3.9.

I have another specialized spectral data processing program that specifies running on "A Mac II for the best performance" although it will run on a 512Ke(tested and confirmed). I generally run it on my beige G3(G4 upgraded) minitower, but have run it on a Quad running Tiger.

My point in all this rambling is that I don't know that I've run across a program that maxed out at one specific release of the classic OS. By the time OS 9 came along, it honestly was a pretty bloated OS since very little had been deprecated over the years.

Also, to bring this full circle to video cards-I'm not sure if I'm reading you correctly but you seem to be suggesting that you'd like to run two monitors from a Rage 128. This is not possible. Dual ports on this card just mean that it can drive either a DVI or VGA monitor, but not both. As OS 9 compatible AGP cards go, you need a 2MX Twin View, 4MX(which really is an updated 2MX, not a proper 4 series GPU), 4Ti, Radeon 8500, or Radeon 9000. You can also hack the ROM from a 2MX Twin-View onto a regular 2MX, but the limited amount of VRAM on the standard card(32mb, vs 64mb on the Twin-View) makes this not such a great idea.

 

[supernova777]

its not essential but its desired for me, os9 broke compatibility moreso then any other mac os version before it i think

sidestepping the whole "is it essential" well no, nothing except breathing, eating, drinking is truly essential in this life; heh;

i think the real point u mean to raise when whoever mentioned that os8.6 is "structurally identical" ie: very close to os9 in alot of ways.. this is laso tru.

and MOST programs that work in os8.6 will work fine..

but there are SOME software, specifically those that have HARDWARE counterparts.. where the design wasnt that futureproof

and complete compatibility was lost... for some programs os9 introduced some buggyness,

thats going to end up being commonplace when u are running software that was designed before the os version was even released.... 

ie: running win98 apps on XP..

or running osx Tiger apps on Snow leopard...

sometimes u get lucky and it works just the same as it would on its original intended platform

but alot of the times.. it doesnt end up that way.. subtle differences add up to sum the total into being buggy + incompatible

for me, os8.6 is not a platform to take me into the future

but a perch from which to look into the past.. because its compatible with

mac software going back to the 80s.. ! its like a sweet spot between the distant past + the recent past

where i can run rare programs from 1991 and have them actually work properly

 

[bunnspecial]

What specific programs are you running and what specific incompatibilities are you having?

It would be VERY unusual for hardware that works in 8.6 to not run in 9.x .

It comes across to me that you want to use 8.6 for philosophical/emotional reasons and not out of true need. If that's the case, you are going to have to accept that most of your GPU options are going to be pretty crummy.

Move up to 9.x and you open the door to great GPUs like the Radeon 8500, Radeon 9000, and Geforce 4Ti.

Your choice on which is more important.

 

[Gorgonops]

It would be VERY unusual for hardware that works in 8.6 to not run in 9.x .

Architecturally there is *very* little difference between 8.6 and 9.0; 8.6 was released only five months prior to 9.0 and arguably is actually a bigger change from 8.5.1 than 9.0 is from it because 8.6 made a major change to the nanokernel to improve multiprocessing support. Bluntly speaking either 8.6 *is* 9.0, just lacking some of the accessories and UI enhancements, or 9.0 is really "8.7" and 9.1 should be called "9.0.".

(9.1 was the first version of the Classic OS that attempted to use MMU to trap invalid memory accesses at an application level. The implementation is almost useless in terms of fixing the fundamental weaknesses of the classic OS when it comes to process protection, but it is a kernel change at least on par with 8.6's multiprocessing enhancements.)

Likewise I'm curious what specific piece of software you have that works on 8.6 and not 9. Here's an article that talks about a few things that tripped up on one specific change that was made between 8.6 and 9.0. TL;DR, it has nothing to do with "hardware support", it's a list of bad-behaving applications that directly tracked the FCB, which Apple had been telling developers not to do since 1986. (It's a crying shame Apple shot the old TIL database in the head and it doesn't seem to be adequately mirrored.)

 

[supernova777]

just to state a few points simply;

>>> i do believe that the radeon 7000 flashed PC /w 64MB reduced rom will work fine;

as long as you use the DVI port + with DVI monitor, or use the DVI port /w VGA adapter

i think the buggyness only happens if u try to use the VGA port as your main display

and i believe that is a result of the rom file being shrunk down to fit the pre-existing 64kb

rom in the sapphire pc version radeon 7000 card 

>>> i suspect the original mac edition 7000 card will work 100% fine on both ports; or as it was brought up by someone in this thread; it may just be that that ATI's 7000 is a bit wonky with resizing desktop + resolution on boot in classic mac os (be it 8.6 or 9.22 or even below 8.6 in beige pci powermacs running system 7)

>>> I had made this thread asking for confirmation of whther or not the original green pcb radeon 7000mac edition had these issues; but it seems noone who owns a radeon 7000 pci has found the thread yet

>>> i think the radeon 8500 has os8.6 compatible drivers and i read an article that claimed that this fact was even stated proudly in the documentaton/box/manual; furthermore i think the radeon 7500s compatibility would be an exact match of that stated by the 8500 given that they were produced so closely together and they are so closely visual similar; case in point heres an article discussing both of them together : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,6999,00.asp

 

[supernova777]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/811

heres another article where the 8500 was again, lumped in + grouped with the 7500. 

because theres a connection in the type of GPU chip that these cards use. the flagship product R100 gpu in the 8500, and the light "V"ersion or "V"ariant the RV100, in the 7500. it was basically a budget version of the 8500 with similiar support/software/features and lower level of support. this article out when the cards were brand new  in summer 2001

"Introducing, Radeon 7500 + 8500"

 http://www.anandtech.com/show/811/3

Introducing the Radeon 8500 & 7500

The Radeon 8500 is ATI's first card based on the R200. 

The Radeon 7500's feature set is identical to that of the original Radeon; for more information on it check out that review.

and another article, which mentions the 8500 + cant help but also discuss the 7500.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/237-ati-radeon-7500/

thers many more, just makin a point i guess, in how similar the original radeon 7200 vs 7500 vs 8500 are to each other!

 

[supernova777]

so.. Interesting! that this article linked in the text i quoted confirms that the 7500 was basically a new version of the original Radeon 

so much so that they direct you to read the review of the original radeon to get more familiar
http://www.anandtech.com/show/585dated July 17th, 2000

 

[Gorgonops]

The 7500 and 8500 get confused because their R-codes are so similar, IE, "R200" for the 8500 verses "RV200" for the 7500. They *are* different products and not directly driver compatible. The 7500 is *basically* an die-shrink of the original "no model number" Radeon, but note that it also is not *completely* compatible with it as it includes the "Hydravision" feature originally rolled out on the RV100 core, IE, The Radeon "VE" or Radeon 7000. If you have a Radeon driver that predates the replacement of the original Radeon SDR/DDR there is a very good chance it'll barf on the 7500 and the ROMs for the two types are certainly not compatible.

As to the VE/7000, also be clear that this is a essentially a completely different chipset from the original Radeon, in that it has a *lot* of the 3D acceleration hardware dumbed-down or omitted entirely. (It has half the pixel pipelines, no T&L, no Hyper-Z, etc.) It was positioned as a budget/slash/business-oriented solution and 3D performance-wise it's barely better than RAGE 128 cards. (IE, it's not much of an upgrade to replace the stock RAGE 128 in a B&W with a 7000.) The only good things about it were:

A: It eliminated the severe texture-size limitations of the RAGE 128 and many other cards of that generation, which is why it's the dumbest GPU that supports Quartz Extreme, and

B: "Hydravision" support, which allowed two DACs (or a DAC and a digital output) to share a single virtual framebuffer, which was in some ways more efficient than having to render two "separate" screens for dual-heading.

So, in short, *Chronologically* Radeon cards go like this:

Radeon DDR/SDR/LE -> Radeon VE/7000 -> Radeon 7500 -> Radeon 8500 (different family)

Performance-wise they go like this:

Radeon VE/7000 -> Radeon SDR/LE -> Radeon DDR -> Radeon 7500 -> Radeon 8500

And, again, be clear, the 7500 is *not* exactly the same as the old Radeon, both are better than the 7000, and while later versions of the "Radeon" extensions for Mac OS support all of them (I believe, anyway) the ones contemporaneous with a given generation of cards will almost certainly not like a newer one.

 

[supernova777]

thanks Gorgonops for that awesome breakdown!

 

[trag]

I don't think the Mac Edition R7000 is green. I think it's red. I could be wrong. I have one around here somewhere... its in box 59, but I can't find box 59. Apparently I didn't put it back in it's proper segment of the attic... Sigh.

 

[Unknown_K]

My Radeons are in the garage stuffed into 7500 machines, might take a look tomorrow.

 

[supernova777]

http://www.insidemacgames.com/previews/view.php?ID=35&Page=7

this is the article here that clams the radeon 8500 has driver compatibility with os8.6

Driver Support
Always a touchy issue, we were reassured that this card will ship with both Mac OS 8.6/9 and OS X support out of the box, and ATI will continue to support and enhance the drivers for both operating systems. They even plan to include RAVE support, and of course OpenGL support will be the core of the 8500’s performance on our platform. ATI has well over five years of experience developing and testing Mac OS drivers, and we don’t expect that to be discarded when the 8500 arrives.

 

[MagicBoy]

I don't think the Mac Edition R7000 is green. I think it's red. I could be wrong. I have one around here somewhere... its in box 59, but I can't find box 59. Apparently I didn't put it back in it's proper segment of the attic... Sigh.

The retail boxed version I had was red.

 

[Unknown_K]

Well found a pair of the PCI Radeon Mac editions I have (both were in B&W G3 machines.

1st one is P/N 109-85500-01 Radeon 7000 mac32m  green board (has VGA, DVI and S-Video out, just a heatsink for cooling) 2002 ATI

2nd one is P/N 109-77700-00 R6 SG32M green board ( has VGA, DVI, S-Video out and heatsink + fan for cooling) 2000 ATI

Bummer is the one B&W G3 with my RTMAC card had a red maxell battery explosion. The board looks fine (other then  the battery holder falling off) and it leaked into the case (hinge area, cleaned up as best as I could). First time for me to have this problem, the machine was stored inside.

 

[supernova777]

wow i guess i better go swap out all my batteries.. was yours a SAFT 3.6 or 3.4 volt? or whatever?

 

[Unknown_K]

The red ones that seem to be the ones always leaking. Never seen one in a G3 PPC leak before (and to be honest I tend to remove them when I store units).  Anyway outside of the mess the machine still works 100%.