Thanks, Andreas! Very informative. Scott Birdwell DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies [email protected] www.defalcos.com
On Jan 21, 2013, at 6:24 AM, [email protected] wrote: > I know you’ve already gotten your answer, but this seems noteably to me: > > Intel Mac graphics cards have an EFI based firmware on them, so they are > compatible with the EFI based Intel macs. Otherwise the graphics card is > identical to a Power Mac or PC version. > > Power Mac graphics cards have an Open Firmware based firmware on them. > > And PC graphics cards have BIOS based firmware on them, or newer cards maybe > also have an EFI-aware firmware as well. But it’s propably different from the > one used in Intel Macs. > > > IF you can find an Open Firmware based firmware for that specific card, you > can try to flash it. If none is available there is now way. And flashing is > not so very trivial either. > > > One thing is interesting though: I’ve once used a PC version of a graphics > card in a Power Mac computer. Due to the BIOS based firmware, the computers’ > Open Firmware was unable to initialize it and the screen stayed dark. I > booted > into Linux (because that is what I used back then) and the Linux kernel > detected this PCIe graphics card and loaded the appropriate driver and with > it > the card was initialized. So, once the operating system took over, it all > worked even though it was the wrong firmware on the graphics card. > > On Mac OS X the graphics driver will not work though, because it has built-in > logic to check for certain Open Firmware variables (or EFI variables, if > you’re on Intel). In other words, it relies on Open Firmware (or EFI on > Intel) > to initialize the card and takes over from there. Mac OS X will therefor > never > work with an identical graphics card that has the wrong firmware on it. > > > Just to make things more complicated, I guess… > > Cheers, > Andreas aka Mac User #330250 -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
