Re: Flashing PCI video cards for G4's - tape pins?
On Jul 4, 10:32 pm, Kris Tilford ktilfo...@cox.net wrote: On Jul 4, 2009, at 5:48 PM, joplinfan wrote: I'm getting ready to flash a BFG / Geforce 6200 and a Radeon 9250... both standard PCI cards... to use in my MDD G4 1ghz towers. Been studying up on the process at The Mac Elite website where it mentions that AGP cards require tape to be placed over some of the pins due to Apple's non standard AGP configuration... but I can't find any info where this would be required for a PCI card. Anyone know? No taping required for any PCI cards, but PCI cards are really NOT the way to go. You want an AGP card in your MDD that supports both Quartz Extreme (QE) and Core Image (CI). No PCI cards support QE CI without using PCI Extreme 3.1 and a hacked ROM for CI support. The bandwidth of PCI is 1/2 AGP. This means any AGPx4 card will have 8x the available throughput of any PCI card. If you're using Tiger or Leopard, forget about the PCI cards and get a nice AGP card. You can flash PC AGP cards if you need cheap. It is possible to flash some PCI cards and have both Quartz Extreme Core Image. No need for PCI extreme or special hacks. I'm running a BW machine upgraded to G4 600 Mhz. It's got a flashed Nvidia 5500 PCI card. I'm running Tiger and the Mac OS sees it as a native Mac Graphic card with QE Core Image. The other nice thing is the BW has one high speed 2x PCI slot for graphics cards is equal to a 2X AGP slot I'm told. The Yikes G4 machine may also have this high speed PCI slot. This is a great solution for the BW possible the Yikes machines. Kris is right an AGP card is a better solution for any machine with an AGP slot. A number of PCI cards can be flashed and run fine with QE CI but are way slower then AGP cards in any machine except the two with fast PCI slots. I know the 6200 cards are being ran by many people as well and I seem to remember the 9250 work also. So if you already have the cards may as well give them a try. Chances are they will work fine just a bit slower then AGP. Depending on what you are using your machine for you maybe happy with them. Some PCI slots are designed slightly different so make sure the card you want to use will fit in the slot in your machine. As already mentioned no need to tape PCI cards. The first card I bought didn't fit the slot in my machine. I had thought that all PCI slots were standard but there are at least two types. The cards look the same but side by side you will see they have a slot/space between the pins on the card which is in a different place for different type slots. There is no marking or name difference for the different slots as far as I can tell. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, 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 g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Flashing PCI video cards for G4's - tape pins?
On Jul 5, 2009, at 2:10 AM, Will S wrote: It is possible to flash some PCI cards and have both Quartz Extreme Core Image. No need for PCI extreme or special hacks. I'm running a BW machine upgraded to G4 600 Mhz. It's got a flashed Nvidia 5500 PCI card. I'm running Tiger and the Mac OS sees it as a native Mac Graphic card with QE Core Image. I don't believe this is true. Quartz extreme is excluded on ALL PCI cards unless the system is patched, which is something you can do manually, or by using PCI Extreme. There may be some Mac ROMs for flashed PC cards that will enable Core Image without needing any other patching, but these ROMs are hacks and not anything normal. I've read that PCI cards which do support Core Image are so slow that it's basically useless as an effect, so the difference between a PCI card and an AGP card is night day. Get the AGP for certain and sell the PCI cards if you have them to buy the AGP. Also, I believe the nVidia FX5200/5500 is almost the ONLY PCI card to support Core Image? Perhaps there's one ATI card also? You can read a little more about the nVidia PCI cards here, but I don't think this is a realistic upgrade path if you have a 4x AGP slot available: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/Mac_PCI_FX5200/mac_PCI_FX5200.html The other nice thing is the BW has one high speed 2x PCI slot for graphics cards is equal to a 2X AGP slot I'm told. No, this is the equivalent of a 1x AGP slot. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, 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 g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Flashing PCI video cards for G4's - tape pins?
On 4/7/09 23:48, joplinfan kawni...@cableone.net wrote: Hi all, I'm getting ready to flash a BFG / Geforce 6200 and a Radeon 9250... both standard PCI cards... to use in my MDD G4 1ghz towers. Been studying up on the process at The Mac Elite website where it mentions that AGP cards require tape to be placed over some of the pins due to Apple's non standard AGP configuration... but I can't find any info where this would be required for a PCI card. Anyone know? Thanks, Steve No taping required but you've picked two problematical cards - the agp 6200 is well known for it's dislike of MDD towers - works ok for the rest of the mac line but not recommended for MDD - pci may be ok - it's a try it and see... http://themacelite.wikidot.com/compatibility There was no 9250 model for the mac so the 9200 rom has to be hacked with the 9250 DID and the flashed 9250 will show as a 9200. The vast majority of the 9200/9250 pc versions were 64 bit wide and the mac version was 128 bit. If your 9250 is 64 bit you will lose half the memory after the flash - so a 9250 128MB card becomes a 9200 64MB mac card and so on Pete --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, 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 g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Flashing PCI video cards for G4's - tape pins?
On Jul 4, 2009, at 5:48 PM, joplinfan wrote: I'm getting ready to flash a BFG / Geforce 6200 and a Radeon 9250... both standard PCI cards... to use in my MDD G4 1ghz towers. Been studying up on the process at The Mac Elite website where it mentions that AGP cards require tape to be placed over some of the pins due to Apple's non standard AGP configuration... but I can't find any info where this would be required for a PCI card. Anyone know? No taping required for any PCI cards, but PCI cards are really NOT the way to go. You want an AGP card in your MDD that supports both Quartz Extreme (QE) and Core Image (CI). No PCI cards support QE CI without using PCI Extreme 3.1 and a hacked ROM for CI support. The bandwidth of PCI is 1/2 AGP. This means any AGPx4 card will have 8x the available throughput of any PCI card. If you're using Tiger or Leopard, forget about the PCI cards and get a nice AGP card. You can flash PC AGP cards if you need cheap. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, 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 g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
