Video Card for an old mac

Optikal said:

I need to get a new video card for an old Beige G3 mac. Well, the problem is, that I don't know anything about the macs, like what video card will suit, where to shop for etc. Could you guys please give me some tips?
TIA

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Here is the best card tht the Beige G3 can support, i think, at least this is the one i have. You want this: ATI Radeon 7000 Mac Edition PCI card. I bought mine off of eBay for around $100, but i'm sure if you look around you could find one cheaper somewhere else. Here is some info i found for you:

http://www.macaddict.com/issues/0308/rev.radeon7k.html

Optikal said:

I need to get a new video card for an old Beige G3 mac. Well, the problem is, that I don't know anything about the macs, like what video card will suit, where to shop for etc. Could you guys please give me some tips?
TIA

Click to expand...

wait a month or so. ati is bringing out a radeon 9200 128mb pci card soon. it will smoke the current radeon 7000 and cost the same.

Optikal said:

As for the other video cards (eg. other models of Radeon), how do I know if they are compatible with my G3 or not? Is it that any mac graphics card, that supports PCI, should work, or is there something more to it?

I can wait a month if the new card is worth the wait. Where can I find more info on it?

Thanks

oh, and BTW, I am running OS 9, if that matters...

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the pci radeons for mac will work in any mac with pci. period.

the 7000 is os9 compatible so I can't see what the 9200 wouldn't be. the pci video card market for macs is geared first at older macs and second at the current users of new towers that need a second video card.

the 7000 is the second most popular purchased upgrade for power mac G3 owners. beige and blue.

Optikal said:

Thanks a lot for the info guys... you were really helpful.

One more question. I don't and won't be playing any games on that G3. Although I still do some graphics stuff on the computer, its not framerate based. Is it still worth waiting for the 9200? And is there and official date of release for it?


and just curious, which is the most popular one?

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for 2D the 9200 won't be that much faster and i'm not sure exactly when it will be out. ati was showing off a 9200 128mb pci at the last mac world earlier this year so i'm sure it won't be much longer.

even if you're not going to game with it its worth the wait. why buy a 32mb card when a few weeks down the road you can get a 128mb card for the same price?

From ATI's Website


RADEON™ 7000 MAC EDITION

Specifications

System Requirements
PCI (66MHz or 33MHz) - capable Macintosh
Mac® OS 9,2.1 or Mac® OS X* 10.1
QuickTime™ 5.0
OpenGL® 1.2.2 (required for 3D graphics)
*Blue & White G3 or later required for Mac® OS X support
Graphics Controllers
RADEON™ 7000 MAC EDITION graphics engine


Memory Configurations

32MB Double Data Rate (DDR)
Operating Systems Support
Mac® OS 9.0* or later
Mac® OS X 10.1 or later
*Apple OpenGL® 1.2.2 (part of OS 9.2.1) is required for 3D graphics