x800 pc flashed to mac

[Ncc74656]

ive been digging and i think i may have what i need but wanted to check. im planning to buy a x800pro vivo on ebay and here is why. does this sound like it will work? anything i should know?

well ive done a couple days of research here. as i remembered it seems the pro vivo is the only version that does not have laser cut package disabling pipelines. now i have found a mac retail rom for a 109 board. if what ive found is correct the only difference between 102 and 109 revision numbers is WHO assembeled the board. having said that... it does not appear the mac x800 is a vivo card so i just need to hope nothing funky is changed.

it also seems that the only board one might be able to buy to turn into a mac card is either an XT or PRO as the XL uses different die size/pipelines/clocks and the SE has the same die but half the pipelines.

in theory i suppose someone could software disable the 4 pipelines in an XT firmware and maybe drop clocks a bit and make it work in a mac? im not sure, im more of a hardware guy. i can reball a gpu core on but as for hex editing the firmware... might take me a while.

so far ive only found one firmware file for the X800 as well. if anyone has a link to more than just the eliete mac that would be helpful. thanks.

 

[Byrd]

Hi mate,

See

Flashing a Radeon X800 Pro for a G4?

Hey all, Digging through a parts bin last night I came across a PC Radeon X800 Pro that I forgot I had. It's a good AGP card, and there were Radeon X800s shipped with Mac firmware (both in the G5 and as retail variants) - but these are the "XT" version, which, as far as I can tell, is the same...

68kmla.org

I wouldn’t get anything than the card that is referenced to be flashed over. The VIVO cards were usually hobbled in many ways as you’re suspecting. Maybe try looking out for a Radeon 9800Pro or XT card in reference design but these cards had terrible cooling and I’m yet to find a good one!

 

[Ncc74656]

Hi mate,

See

Flashing a Radeon X800 Pro for a G4?

Hey all, Digging through a parts bin last night I came across a PC Radeon X800 Pro that I forgot I had. It's a good AGP card, and there were Radeon X800s shipped with Mac firmware (both in the G5 and as retail variants) - but these are the "XT" version, which, as far as I can tell, is the same...

68kmla.org

I wouldn’t get anything than the card that is referenced to be flashed over. The VIVO cards were usually hobbled in many ways as you’re suspecting. Maybe try looking out for a Radeon 9800Pro or XT card in reference design but these cards had terrible cooling and I’m yet to find a good one!

well this is where it gets complicated. the mac card for the G5 is very different from the fire x3. the only mac cards i can find for sale back in 2005 were full XT's but with an AGP pro port. it seems the board design was near identical, just took more power from the AGP slot. this is 16 pipelines across the shaders and rops where as the fire xl had only 12, as well as lower clock speeds.

the mac card is listed as having teh same clocks as the pc xt did. so using the fire x3 seems a strange choice to me given the pipeline differences. now maybe the x3 (like hte vivo) did not use defective dies in its manufacturing. the XL, SE, GTO all did. as such they also had laser cut packages to kill those 4 pipelines. strangly the SE seems to have had half the pipelines but still the same clock speeds as the XT where as the rest both had 4 missing pipes AND slower clocks. as low as 250mhz less which is a 50% cut.

knowing that it makes sense to me that a pro vivo is the best chance of success with out custom rom building. given that the mac rom is going to try and use 16 pipes on what ever card its flashed to.

from what i have read the other hanging point is the firmware on the mac, only the latest version supports the cards as well as reported issues with the flashing software not properly writing to the bios on some of these cards. so its hard for me to know which cards were user error vs just incompatable when i search the web here.

i will be externally flashing a new rom and soldering that to the board so im not really looking for a cut down bios version either. i can find mention of various rom files for this card under mac but some links are dead, others were not links nad just listed names. as such i have only found 2 roms. one cut down and one retail from eliet mac.

i think i may try to find a pro vivo for 80 bucks or so and see where that takes me.

 

[Ncc74656]

update:
150mhz bus with dual 1.12Ghz G4 on SSD to IDE.

X800pro PC card that i got off ebay.

https://imgur.com/SKv0mEy

loaded in 10.5.12

https://imgur.com/Fj209Tf

in my searching i could not find good info on what would or would not work. i hunted for a VIVO edition (video in/video out) as i had one of these as a kid. ATI binned their GPU dies and on all their cards except the XTPE and Vivo - the dies were known defective or poor performing compared to the XTPE (top of the line). on the LE/pro/and XT non vivo; 90% of those cards had a small laser cut on the die itself, physically disabling 4 pipelines. in their testing im assuming they found some bad lines and this was their ewaste work around. the SE's did NOT have this done BUT their clock speeds were 50% of the XTPE so pipelines were good but the cards just could not hold voltage or clocks needed for top end models (or maybe they just needed to fill a void in teh market but i kind of doubt that given the price?)

i Physically removed the resistors on pins 3/11

https://imgur.com/e5dTFhr

https://imgur.com/BdG2S8p

I chose to grab a rom off http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2 for the X800 retail. Now its worth noting here that the PC version of the PRO is missing 4 pixel pipelines rops and shaders as well as slower clocks where as the mac edition has all 16 pipes enabled. i do not know what would happen if you flash the mac rom to a non vivo card that has the laser cut? errors id assume as its missing links on the die. the only difference from the X800XT and the X850 is the clock speeds.

The mac edition card has slower clocks than the PC version. the mac version is also an AGP pro that will not work in a G4 QS so its a non starter anyway.

I removed the factory rom chip as a safe backup as well as dumped it to the PC.

https://imgur.com/ud6gqNi

https://imgur.com/yLER2V7

the factory ROM chip on this asus card was 512kb which is more than enough for factory roms, so im not sure why there is so much talk on reduced roms for the later cards. a 7000 i get but ive never seen a card in the X and newer generation with such a small rom chip.

either way i loaded a 1mb rom from digikey (i keep a sleeve on hand) after flashing it via usb. total time is less than 3 minutes to flash/solder/up and running. i much prefer the rom swap and external flash os oppsoed to using a PC or dos or what ever flashing program.

first booted into OS9.2.2, obviously no drivers.
graphics mix is 962% faster with 9200DVI drivers

https://imgur.com/sDHK1Tx

here is the card in cinebench 10.5.12
C4D:134
SW:413
HW:1015

https://imgur.com/CBxIqz2

I intend to overclock this card to XTPE and then to X850XTPE clock speeds as i test the limits here. i will also try this in 10.4.9 and i need to look into driver dates/versions.

https://imgur.com/2nFYC2W

 

[herd]

Thank you for sharing your project. You were lucky to find one of those cards that will work in a Quicksilver; many will not. Cooling will be important if you plan to overclock it. High temperatures will kill these cards. There were some good aftermarket coolers, and custom cooling setups can also work well. I have been adapting the coolers from the next generation of ATI cards.

The reason for reduced ROMs is to try and fit the data onto the smaller EEPROM that most PC cards have. Typically, this series of ATI cards sold for PC have 64kB EEPROMs, and the mac ROMs were copied from cards with 128kB chips.

 

[Ncc74656]

Thank you for sharing your project. You were lucky to find one of those cards that will work in a Quicksilver; many will not. Cooling will be important if you plan to overclock it. High temperatures will kill these cards. There were some good aftermarket coolers, and custom cooling setups can also work well. I have been adapting the coolers from the next generation of ATI cards.

The reason for reduced ROMs is to try and fit the data onto the smaller EEPROM that most PC cards have. Typically, this series of ATI cards sold for PC have 64kB EEPROMs, and the mac ROMs were copied from cards with 128kB chips.

i would suspect any 109 card with all its pipelines working would work. i think people must run into issues with those 4 pipelines... back when i was a kid i got a X800 vivo that i flashed to an X850xtpe when i really had no idea what i was doing. so i had some working knowledge from back in 2005. i kinda want to find a second X800 LE or such to just test with but i dont want to spend more than 20 or 30 bucks for one to play with :/

 

[herd]

I have several cards that work great in a MDD, but do not work in the DA or Quicksilver. Two cards can look identical, but one will work and one won't. I have not seen an explanation, so it comes down to luck of the draw I guess.

 

[Ncc74656]

I don't know if it's related but I have had issues running 3.3 volt cards in my Quicksilver, 1.5 volt however seems to work well.

 

[Ncc74656]

i just found something else. the VGA port does not load as primary in the OS. so you get a blank desktop on startup. teh DVI with VGA adapter will bring you to desktop (how i was running it) however - the DVI digital does not work. wont pickup on any of my screens so i need to figure out wth is going on with that.

 

[dust bunny]

I think I remember correctly, that some X800pro cards were upgradeable to have the full 16 pipelines enabled, instead of 12. There is a fairly reliable tell tale, I can't be 100% sure I'm remembering correctly, but I think the tell tale was the yellow port on the end of the card.
Can anyone confirm/deny?
Can anyone remember how to do it (I think it was done with pencil lead).

 

[Ncc74656]

I think I remember correctly, that some X800pro cards were upgradeable to have the full 16 pipelines enabled, instead of 12. There is a fairly reliable tell tale, I can't be 100% sure I'm remembering correctly, but I think the tell tale was the yellow port on the end of the card.
Can anyone confirm/deny?
Can anyone remember how to do it (I think it was done with pencil lead).

yes you are correct. i did this when i was a kid back in the day with my X800 VIVO edition. thats the edition that had the yellow port. stands for video in/video out. the chips in this board were software disabled - same die as hte X850XTPE. this is the card i used in my G4 and it runs doom at 50fps 1280x1024

 

[Renegade]

Some X800 GTO cards and the X800 GTO² variant were unlockable to X850 XT.
See: https://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/127