Flashing the Sapphire/Radeon 32mb DDR card -- information I've gathered so far.
Steve Hardy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: << Count me among the success stories. I have a 32 MB Sapphire 7000 running in my 7500. Much thanks to Will and John Albert. ... Next, we flashed the card with a ROM from John, something he did himself following instructions from the German forum for this card as it runs @ 166, not the speed of the faster 64 meg version. ... John, do you want to make your file available? Also, I'm not comfortable quoting a private message without permission. You certainly have mine if you just want to put your instructions to me up as well. They make it easier to understand how to select the right ROM file without having to change the names of the various ROM that are out there. >> Very interesting to hear that it worked, Steve! Considering I _still_ haven't gotten my hands on a PC to try the flashing myself. First, I want to thank WillS for the extent of his help since the PC/Radeon story broke. I certainly wouldn't have gotten this far if it wasn't for his guidance. I've been "laying back" since I got my Sapphire/Radeon 32mb card a few days ago, just trying to gather up as much information as I could. I knew I would have only limited "access" to a PC, so I figure I better get it right the first time! One of the problems since the PC-to-Mac story began is that there have been numerous "releases" of the flashing software. From a Mac-er's perspective, it's been hard to determine exactly _which_ files were needed, letalone what to _do_ with them once you had them. In some ways, I sense this resembles one of those "open source" type projects, where the finished product results from "group effort", with bits and pieces coming in from all over, often without coordination. Trying to sort out the pieces can at times be downright confusing. Early on, _two_ separate "flashings" were required to get the PC card working on the Mac. The "first flash" had to be done on the PC. Then, the card had to be installed into the Mac and a "second flash" performed. Only then would it become functional. However, someone was creative enough to use the "ROM extractor" on the PC side to extract a completed _Macintosh version_ of the ROM from an already-flashed card. I assume this card was first flashed on the PC, then on the Mac, and finally taken _back_ to the PC so that the updated ROM file could be extracted and saved to disk. Clever indeed! So, with the new "full Macintosh ROM file" is available, it's now possible to do the entire process in a "one shot flash" on the PC. All you have to do afterwards is take the card to the Mac, load the ATI driver software (control panel and various extensions), and [hopefully] it will be ready to use. The necessary components are: - The card itself - A PC that can be booted to MS-DOS (I'm unsure whether the flashing can be done within Windows) - The copy of the appropriate Mac ROM to be flashed, and some other files (listed below), that you can take to the PC. A 1.4mb DOS-formatted floppy should hold them. There have been so many "releases" of the required PC flashing files, my head is spinning along with my hard drive. "Mitch", the German guy who started it all, has been releasing stuff all over the place, but he doesn't "document" nor "package" his releases very well (I realize that he's German and English is his second language). I'm struggling to find what will become the "right combination" for a possible "Golden Master" disk compilation containing the files that can be used to flash the various cards out there, along with easily understandable instructions on how to get things working. Here are the basic DOS files that appear to be essential (I am still trying to figure out what each individual file _does_, so that this can be included as part of the documentation. If you can provide information I don't have, please jump in: - DOS4GW.EXE (265,396 bytes) - FLASHROM.EXE (145,802 bytes) - FLASHROM.ROM (11,363 bytes) NOTE: I have included the sizes of the above files because it seems to be the ONLY way to distinguish one file from another with more than one having the same name. You will also need the appropriate ROM file. Which ROM file you need to use depends on which card you have, because the different cards run at varying speeds. Running the card at the "correct" speed is important, because there are reports from those who have succesfully flashed the Sapphire/Radeon 32mb card that "video artifacts" can appear if the card is "clocked" too fast. In at least one case, someone first flashed his card using the 183mhz ROM, but after getting video artifacts, he RE-flashed it "down" to 166mhz (correct speed for that card) and the artifacts cleared up (as the card was no longer "overclocked"). Here are the speeds I believe the cards run at: - ATI/Radeon 32 and 64mb cards: 183mhz (it's possible the ATI/Radeon 32mb card runs only at 166mhz, not sure about that) - Sapphire 64mb card: 183mhz - Sapphire 32mb card: 166mhz ALL the "full Mac ROM" files (which are needed for the one-step flashing) appear to be 131,072 bytes in size. However, their content varies depending on which speed you want your card to run at. There are two "pieces" of hexadecimal code in the ROM that [apparently] specify the speed the card will run at: 02 CA D8 (183000 in decimal) If you have a 183mhz card, I believe you want to flash it with a file named M208FULL.ROM ...which contains this code. If you have a 166mhz card (as I do), you want to flash the card using a ROM file in which the two pieces of code have been changed to: 02 88 70 (166000 in decimal) What I did was to use something called "HexEdit" to find the two pieces of code and change them. The resulting file (with _only_ those two changes made) is the one I provided to Steve who then flashed his Sapphire 32mb card: M208166.ROM "Mitch" has also created one (which appears to be identical to the one I modified) and he calls his version: M208_166_166.ROM It should also be noted that the various "Sapphire/Radeon 32mb" cards out there, while having the same part number, may actually have _different_ speeds of RAM and also may have _different_ sizes of their programmable EPROMs. The "DDR RAM" speed can be determined by checking the 4 large RAM chips on the face of the card. On my card, the number on the chips ends in "-4", which I believe denotes 4ns RAM. Similarly, "-5" and "-6" would denote 5ns and 6ns. The lower number indicates faster RAM speed. The EPROM size must be determined by running the "identification" step after you boot up on the PC. When you type: FLASHROM -i you will see displayed various information about the card. The _last_ item is "romsize", and it will indicate either: 0x20000 - denotes 128k ROM or 0x10000 - denotes 64k ROM I'm reasoning that you can _only_ use the "full ROM" flasher if you have the 128k ROM on the card. That's it for now. I would like to eventually create "DOS disk images", with one disk image containing the proper files for the 183mhz card, and another for the 166mhz cards. Along with this is needed one or two _good_ sets of instructions. And also, a list of the best ATI extensions to use, with a description of what each one does (working on that here). Meanwhile, if you have the Sapphire/Radeon 32mb card and need the 166mhz ROM file (the one that worked for Steve), I can email that on request. - John -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
