Getting this PB180 going, and one of the
ingredients is a circa 1996 OEM ATi XCLAIM
GA video card for a second monitor.
It's no better than on-board video (but does
have optional RAM attached). Both are based
on ATi's Mach 64 chipset, about the only
difference I can see is the on board is maybe
early 3D (according to ASP).
Anyway. I had started with a fresh 8.1 a few
days ago and later moved to 8.5.1 and 8.6
when I found my CD.
Tonight I was poking around and noticed
despite Easy Installs along the way, the
Extensions Folder was devoid of any ATi
drivers. I had ATi drivers before when 8.1 was
on there, and I still have essentially 2 ATi video
cards, so what gives?
I might never have noticed but for the monitor
hooked to the PCI slotted card appearing to
have lost it's 2D QuickDraw acceleration.
I had already been to ATi's site to learn about
the card (standard in a 9500/120 perhaps?),
and found software for the retail version only of
the card. Great. Everything I need came with
the MacOS, like you'd expect of OEM stuff.
But my 8.5.1 and 8.6 installs seemingly
"forgot" to install any ATi extensions
whatsoever, so I did a Custom Install just for
the ATi software. When I restarted the card
was dead black.
Subsequent restarts, PRAM resets, reseats,
moving to differrent PCI slots etc. yielded no
picture, just gibberish on the screen. Wow.
Can't use those extensions? OK, I removed
them. Still dead. Cooked. The on board video
is still fine.
The only thing I can gather is that 8.1 needs
ATi extensions for all ATi products, but the ATi
extensions that come with 8.5.1 and later are
only for later cards or later on board chipsets,
not early ATi on board video, and lethal to
older cards. Huh? Or, it could all be a
coincidence.
Next up to bat is a slightly older Thunder 30/
1152. Have RaduisWare, will travel. It works
fine, but the monitor I hooked up to it is an
Apple 12". Idiot: The card does a minumum of
640X480, the monitor only does 512X384.
Reboot with the 12" hooked to the on board
video, the other hooked to the Thunder card.
The Thunder'd monitor still looks great, the
little monitor, having just taken a beating,
looks pale and a bit out of focus.
No tweaking will bring it back to former glory. It
now looks it's best with Contrast all the way up
and Brightness all the way down, when
previously those controls left in the middle
yielded one of the finest, sharpest pictures I've
seen. Now, on the edges of the screen it looks
like it's being overdriven.
Leaving to go lick my wounds before I blow the
whole mess up.
-David
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