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Voodoo 5500 doesn’t like ADC Cinema Display

macuserman

Well-known member
Alright so I have a B&W G3 I wanted to put a Mac Edition 5500 card into instead of my Radeon 9200. I’m currently using the 9200 with an ADC to DVI adapter without issues on the 9200 I tried my 5500 and I just get 3 flashes on the power button over and over. I thought maybe it was a resolution issue with my big HD display so I switched to my smaller 15” display and it still doesn’t like it. The 5500 worked fine on my 7600 driving an old dell monitor I have. Any ideas what the issue is?
 

macuserman

Well-known member
Just to be clear the flashes are on the ADC displays power button not the Mac’s. It chimes and boots fine etc.
DBD94841-0D73-4293-8225-9FD03D954EDB.jpeg89C625D6-D2A6-45E0-9413-65CD1608CBDE.jpegD201F826-A2A0-4C8B-9EDD-FADAF842188B.jpeg
And yes I had the power plugged into the 5500 just not in this picture.
 

beachycove

Well-known member
I will be watching this with interest. It's never occurred to me that with a 5500 in my Quicksilver (OS9), I could run two ADC displays, but I could! Although it is largely in storage presently after a cross-country move (and not coming out for another year or so), I have all the gear necessary.

What I can tell you, however, is that my 5500 could not successfully drive a 23" or 20" Cinema Display (Aluminum), either. It has been a while, but I do recall that the screen lit up, but would not play nice with the card. The VGA port, at least, works fine with a CRT, so one assumes that the card is not fried. I only have Apple-branded displays to try it with.

It reminds me of trying to get a Nubus card to drive a new monitor -- until the proper resolution is recognized, no workie. But timings aren't a factor in digital video, are they?
 

macuserman

Well-known member
@beachycove With an ADC to DVI adapter and a 9200 card you definitely could drive two ADC displays in your quicksilver. I have one of the 23” HD displays and a bottom end 15” display. So I guess the low and top end for that style of display. I don’t really love the 23” display on there I mostly use this machine for classic stuff that I end up running at a lower res anyways or it ends up being super tiny just in the middle of my huge display. So I’m open to changing displays but then I’m still stuck with the problem of finding a display that looks good with this setup and somewhat period correct. Ugh. The Radeon drives it perfectly, but I’d love to play with my 5500 or even my proformace3 card which only has vga in this machine. If I could find one of the blueberry lcd vga monitors that would probably be perfect but doubt I’ll find one anytime soon. In the meantime though I’d love to know if there is a way to use my 5500 with the ADC display since it does have dvi on it.
 

Byrd

Well-known member
I recently had a Voodoo 5 5500 Mac edition in my hands (now returned to a friend), and battled with DVI output on the most generic displays - and actually thought the card was dying using just DVI output, with numerous glitches on screen. Overall VGA output was also sub standard, but let's face it the card was never designed for ultra crisp 2D output, just games.

Considering the card has an early implementation of DVI - and 3DFX didn't include it in PC models, only Mac - you'd have to consider there will be some compatibility issues with using the card off more exotic displays and adapters. I reckon you'll struggle with an ADC display. Did 3DFX ever release a later BIOS for the Mac Edition 5500 - I'm betting not, they hardly touched the drivers then went belly up.
 

macuserman

Well-known member
I recently had a Voodoo 5 5500 Mac edition in my hands (now returned to a friend), and battled with DVI output on the most generic displays - and actually thought the card was dying using just DVI output, with numerous glitches on screen. Overall VGA output was also sub standard, but let's face it the card was never designed for ultra crisp 2D output, just games.

Considering the card has an early implementation of DVI - and 3DFX didn't include it in PC models, only Mac - you'd have to consider there will be some compatibility issues with using the card off more exotic displays and adapters. I reckon you'll struggle with an ADC display. Did 3DFX ever release a later BIOS for the Mac Edition 5500 - I'm betting not, they hardly touched the drivers then went belly up.
Hmmm that's good to know, like I was saying I can use it fine with my old dell display I just haven't lugged those two the dell and my G3 to the same place to see if that works they are in seperate parts of the house. And even if that did work I'd rather not have to put the dell on display with the G3 where it is currently. Guess I need to figure out another solution though because the ADC doesn't seem to want to work out. Anyone want to trade me a Blue G3 LCD for a 23" HD ADC display in the box? lol Ugh yeah right ok well I'll have to see what other ideas I can come up with.
 
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