ATI Rage 128 GL PCI and Beige G3

[Kurasiu]

Anybody willing to help me out? Recently I managed to get a PCI ATI Rage 128 GL (Macintosh version, as the seller informed me), and decided to fit it into my Beige G3 (System 8.6). I've never before replaced a graphic card in my old Macs, and for the love of God, I just can't get this thing to work!

It does show in the System Profiler as a "display card", with the correct vendor ID, but other than that no info is available. The plugged in VGA monitor is also apparently not detected. I've tried using a variety of drivers from the ATI driver archive, but they either didn't make any difference, or couldn't be installed, as they returned a "no retail ATI hardware detected" error. Any idea what I'm making wrong?  

 

[Byrd]

It should just work out of the box; I suspect you have been sold a PC ATI Rage 128 which doesn't have the correct ROM to work on a Mac.  Any pics of the card?

 

[jessenator]

I have the same setup: rage128 GL and a beige G3.

I  think starting with either 8.6 or 9.0 the drivers came with the system install.

I'm with Byrd, the card may not be Mac specific like the seller said. Pics would help.

 

[Kurasiu]

Sure thing, thanks for the replies! Since I tried to take the best hi-res pictures with the equipment I have, here are the imgur links to the pics (2,5k x 1,5k res, so no direct post links).

https://i.imgur.com/qQCQtJl.jpg - front

https://i.imgur.com/eRZjuBt.jpg - back

Hmm, that's actually what I thought too... I contacted the seller regarding the possibility of him sending a Windows version of the card. Would re-flashing this ATI card work?

(I suppose any other PCI cards, or an overclocked (266 to 333) CPU shouldn't interfere with the display card, right?)

 

[Byrd]

That's definitely the Apple Rage 128 card ...

https://www.google.com/search?q=109-57400-00+mac&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHtqjVoInjAhUbEnIKHa5aC00Q_AUIEigD&biw=1613&bih=1434

Apart from the usual troubleshooting (try another PCI slot, remove all other PCI cards, do a CUDA and PRAM reset, it could be the ROM if not displaying any life at all.  You should be able to plug your VGA monitor into it from startup and it'll work.

The ROMs are here, you might need to use a PC or OS X equipped Mac to flash the ROM:

http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2

 

[Kurasiu]

Ugh, indeed, you were right, it was flashed with a Windows ROM... Immediately upon popping it up to my Windows 95 build it recognized the card.

Fortunately flashing did the trick, and the card works in my G3!

Now one last thing I'd like to ask about... What is the best set of extensions to use with this card? I used the OpenGL for Macintosh 1.1.2, and it seems to work fine, but maybe there's a better choice out there?