2k/QHD Vidcard for QS/MDD AGP? 2560×1440 or bust!

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I was tooling around Small Dog for old times sake and ran across an inexpensive 2K LCD. Now to find a video card that's capable of that resolution that will run in the QS or MDD/OS9 edition's AGP slots? Suggestions would be appreciated if there are any up to the task. My guess is that it would have to be a relatively recent card, backwards compatible with OS9 era AGP?

 

[nglevin]

I think a Radeon 8500 should do it. The PC AGP version is both easy to find and can be flashed for the Mac (EDIT: NOPE).

Radeon 9800 is also possible but there's a 9800 XT version flooding eBay that probably came pulled from a G5, that one doesn't have OS 9 drivers. The XT ones are easy to spot with the blue boards.

EDIT: I'm wrong, most sources like on the MorphOS forums say that it's not possible because the Mac ROM is twice as big, just one Ars Technica forum user who said that it might be possible and didn't follow up.   The Radeon 9200 might be a different story but I'd have to be sure to say so.

However, there are some people on Mac OS 9 Lives who claim that it can be done. If you can find a deal on one and don't mind it being a dud, it might still be worth trying.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Sweet! I'll start looking for a deal on one. No rush, can't afford the display yet if I stick to the toy budget. 1920x1200 will do for now. Didn't get that one all that long ago and my Win10 Notebook doesn't appear capable of drive even that.

I've never flashed anything. :/

 

[nglevin]

I double checked with sources so I'd be careful about my initial optimism (see edits prior). I remember Radeons were fairly easy to flash, and that there was a MacRumors (banned?) user who used to resell flashed cards for a living on the eBays.

Which ones are safe to flash is not at all clear to me.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Checked eBay and the prices on the PC version seem reasonable. Doing research on the card's resolutions when I get a chance before even looking at the flash aspects.

 

[Franklinstein]

Flashing video cards is often a craps shoot and/or a total pain. If you're going to go through the effort I'd suggest nVidia; I haven't had much luck with ATI parts, at least in terms of flashing on the PC side (their flashing program sucks). nVidia cards topped out at the 7800GS or Quadro FX 4500 for PPC support. You can get AGP versions of the 7800 but I'm pretty sure the Quadro was PCIe only.

As usual, the ROM files Apple needed were huge compared to the PC equivalent, and no manufacturer is going to put a part on their board that's more than the minimum, so the Flash chips on these cards are often undersized relative to an Apple ROM. The same problem exists when flashing any other PCI card, whether it's video, SCSI (or other interface), or... something else that needs a full boot-time presence. Sometimes it's easy to replace the flash part if you can find a higher capacity chip. Otherwise, reduced ROMs are sometimes an option.

This is a pretty good resource.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'll probably just play the waiting game and try to source a Mac card to push 2k pixels. It's not like I'm starved for screen real estate at 1920x1200. Couldn't deal with 1080p, hate it other than on the EconoBook where it's a dream.

 

[Franklinstein]

Sadly a G5-original card won't work in a G4, partly because of the stupid ADC pins, but also because the G5 cards are usually AGP Pro with the very long connector.

ATI made a retail Mac version of the 9800 that would work in either the G4 or G5 with no mods (no ADC, AGP 4x max). If you wanted a no-fuss drop-in card, I'd recommend looking for one of those.

 

[Unknown_K]

The shitty G5 9600 cards work in G4's (ADC won't work because the tab is in a different spot). You do have to tape or cut a pin to make the hardwired AGP 8x cards work in an AGP 4x slot and no OS 9 support.

 

[Gorgonops]

I assume OS9 compatibility is make-or-break here? Googling suggests there are no OS 9 compatible video cards that support dual-link DVI, which you need to drive a monitor of that resolution. (The best resolution single link can do is 1920x1200 unless the monitor can run at a frame rate lower than 60hz, which is rare.)

Some OS 9 video cards can do 2048x1536 on the vga DAC, but that's still a lower clock than 2560x1440. Theoretically maybe some video card exists that has enough headroom in the DAC to be programmed to push it, but I don't think those monitors accept full resolution on their analog ports.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yep, OS9 would be the breaking point at this time.

I remember you saying that 1920x1200 was the limit for DVI. Didn't notice any mention of dual-link DVI in the ad. But there was an accessory link to a High Speed HDMI cable from Star Tech. CDW also sells that cable with no mention of two being required for even 4k. My bad, I conflated the two in my excitement at seeing 2k in an inexpensive display.

OMG! What a delicious situation now that you got me thinking about it. The only way to fill that panel with pixels from the classic Mac may be through a VGA adapter on the seminal SuperMac Spectrum/24 NuBus card from 1989 at 8-bit. I wonder if the grandsire's drivers will even work up to the limit of the Spectrum/24 III at 8.1 or on PPC at all?

2k at 8-bit(?) from a 68K Mac! :lol: Time to reopen that thread, gotta get it running for the 30th anniversary of the release of my IIcx. Actually, the Control Panel/Driver setup is Version 2.7 from 1990, so the March 19, 2020 30th birthday of my wicked fast 40MHz IIfx runniing under System 6.0.5 gives me some breathing room and a great excuse to look for a used 2k display for that date. The card is designed to support stupid high virtual desktop resolutions, hopefully its RAMDAC will push them out into the real world.

Time to ask for some help again in translating VESA timings to the Spectrum/24 control panel variables in that thread. []

edit: so long as the card/drivers might be 7.5.1 compatible, the ancient Spectrum/24 might work in the Radius 81/110/G3.

 

[Gorgonops]

Before you get too excited I would read the monitor's manual. According to it the maximum display resolution it accepts on the analog D-SUB connector is 1920x1200@60hz. So, no, even if you find an analog video card that'll push the pixels this monitor won't accept them.
 

But there was an accessory link to a High Speed HDMI cable from Star Tech. CDW also sells that cable with no mention of two being required for even 4k...

HDMI 2.0 can do 4k with one link, as can Displayport 1.3. Either of those can do over twice the dot clock of DVI on a single link. (Also, remember, when you say "Dual-link DVI" that doesn't mean two DVI cables; Dual-link DVI ports have two sets of digital feeds on the same connector. There *are*, or at least were, ultra-high resolution monitors that use multiple DVI cables, if you google/search eBay hard enough you might find one. (they were usually sold for medical imaging; I remember years ago seeing a monitor with a 4096x3072-ish resolution that used something ridiculous like four DVI cables, ran at like 20hz, and needed a *very* specific set of video cards to drive it.) But that was never anything consumer grade.

Looking at the manual my old dell U3011 (2560x1600) won't take higher than a weird 2048x1280 resolution on its VGA input either. I'm not going to flatly say that an LCD that can do its full widescreen resolution via VGA *doesn't* exist, but I do think you'll be looking a while to find it.

 

[Gorgonops]

they were usually sold for medical imaging

... Just as an aside, googling for what they're selling today it sure looks like normal UHD/4K TV resolutions have mostly displaced the weird, exotic 4:3 panels they had a decade ago.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Before you get too excited I would read the monitor's manual. According to it the maximum display resolution it accepts on the analog D-SUB connector is 1920x1200@60hz. So, no, even if you find an analog video card that'll push the pixels this monitor won't accept them.

HRMMM, interesting. I wonder what the resolution input limits would be for the VGA->HDMI converter I'm using now might be? I'm all but certain it's limited to 60Hz, but there may be something out there at the high end for something like medical imaging that can handle a variable dot clock?

For the Spectrum/24 project, the 2k question is likely moot due to RAMDAC limitations as you mentioned. The frame buffer was set up for whatever crazy virtual desktop resolution/bit depth possible in 3MB. The only hope would be that the RAMDAC is set up to handle those resolutions at whatever refresh rate necessary as derived from the crystal installed. The crystal necessary to achieve any given resolution as defined in the timings control panel is the variable specified.

The card's designed for the ultimate in flexibility, could a general purpose RAMDAC from the dawn of high resolutions be capable of such craziness?

I wonder if HDMI driven display timings require front and back porch nonsense required for CRT displays. I'd guess not. I wonder if the Spectrum/24 Control Panel spreadsheet can handle flat panel timing inputs if so? Tech development is a crazy, whacky world, one never knows where things might lead.

 

[Gorgonops]

I seriously, seriously doubt any NuBus card is capable of more than 2048-pixel wide video modes. (I'll allow that maybe some *can* do that, because the highest-end of the huge 21" CRT monitors that people used to run back then could take that.) I guess Sony had a 24" monitor, the Sony GDM-FW900, that could go up to 2,304x1440, and there are references to running even higher resolutions on 2000-era cards (some of which had RAMDACs that supported dot clocks up to 400mhz), so if you can find a CRT monitor capable of sinking those sorts of resolutions, hey, maybe you can drive that with an OS 9 compatible card like a Radeon 8500 or 9200. (You'll probably need to use a hack to access custom video modes, though.) But I don't see any VGA-HDMI converters that support higher than 1920x1200. (They seem to all be limited to the older, "same resolution limits as single-link DVI" revisions of HDMI.) And again, I don't see *any* panel monitors that claim to directly accept higher-than-2048 pixel analog input. Maybe they're out there, but... ?

If you really, really, really want an unbelievably huge array of pixels in OS 9 there are 4K monitors that include multiple digital inputs and can display multiple inputs at once in a split-screen configuration. All you'll need to do is get two OS 9 compatible dual-head video cards, connect them with apropos DVI->HDMI/Displayport adapters, and set up your multi-monitors in a grid. You'll be good to go with an effective 3840x2160 display for any program that's willing to play along.

 

[Gorgonops]

The frame buffer was set up for whatever crazy virtual desktop resolution/bit depth possible in 3MB.

... BTW, the most you could get out of 3MB @24bit would be about 1152x870. At 8 bit it'd be 2048x1536, exactly.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yep, that's why I said 2k at 8-bit a couple of posts back.

Ok, so for 2048x1536 we're talking >31 million pixels at 8-bit in 3MB which fills 2k's <26 million pixels with room to spare. ISTR computing the card would do 4k pixels in Black and White.

Haven't got the manual handy to check the maximum virtual desktop resolutions. But the Spectrum/24 board is in hand and has three ASICs feeding three BT453KPJ66 RAMDACs "designed specifically for high resolution color graphics." The  applications list includes CAE/CAD/CAM, Image Processing and Instrumentation with Desktop Publishing coming in dead last.

Haven't found a spec yet on how many pixels that RAMDAC can push out the connector yet, but I figure three of them operating in unison can do stuff later mainstream versions of the card made specifically for DTP on the Mac probably couldn't.

Or not. ;-/

 

[Unknown_K]

The best resolution you are going to get out of a Nubus card would be with the Radius Thunder IV GX 1600 and that is 1600x1200 @24 bit (or the earlier Supermac version called the Thunder II GX) because they have 6MB of video RAM.

 

[Unknown_K]

I just looked and the RAMDAC used on the Supermac Thunder II GX are Bt467 which are 220mhz.

For a quick estimation on the pixel clock for a given output, you can do: horizontal pixels x vertical lines x 1.4 (for blankings) x refresh rate

So 1600x1200x1.4 x76 =204,288,000 or 204Mhz (assuming 76hz refresh).