What is the most lucrative graphics card upgrade for a Power Mac G4?

I have a later Power Mac G4 MDD with its original 64MB ATi Radeon 9000 Pro.

I want to upgrade the graphics card in it to something more powerful. What is the fastest video card with the most video memory I can install? I found from somewhere that this Mac is only capable of seeing and using 256MB of video memory, but I can't confirm it anymore.

Does anyone have any tips as to what brands and models I should be looking for?

gavinstubbs09 said:

Have any experience with flashing PC cards for macs? There was one occasion that when my G5 was delivered the card was toast, so I found a FX5200 and made that work till my 9600 showed up.

I believe if you didn't want to go fancy with a Radeon 9800 there's some trick you can do with taping 2 pins. I don't know if you could go buy a G5 radeon (such as the 9600) and tape the pins. Never tried it, but I will when I eventually have a G4 quicksilver or MDD

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I'm quite unfamiliar with flashing PC cards, and to be honest, I'm not sure what it is, what it does, why it is done and how to do it.

Besides, I'd have to go out and buy one, unfortunately. The only worthwhile graphics cards I have are both PCIe x16 cards, one with 1GB of video memory and the other with 1.5GB of video memory. Either way the cards won't work.

I wouldn't try a graphics card out of a G5, as I'm not willing to take my chances with buying the card/machine and then having it not work. Besides, if I bought the machine, I would try to make it work if it didn't, and if it did, I would stop using the G4.

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ifrit05 said:

256MB is all that PPC based Macs ever used/supported.

For a MDD, a flashed nVidia GeForce 7800GS will be the fastest AGP card (after you tape a couple of pins off), although it wont run at fullspeed like in a G5. The MDD's only have a 4x AGP bus.

EDIT: I believe you only need to tape pins if it's a flashed card, if it's an OEM/Mac Edition you don't need to. Don't quote me on that though.

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Specifically, which pins would require taping?

I found several graphics cards of the model that you suggested, but they are all $100+, which I do not have and probably will not have for a while. So, this is a good suggestion, but I'll have to hold it off for a while.

ifrit05 said:

Pins #3 and #11.

Check this side out for more info.

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Thanks. The site will be good for reference. Now that I've read it, I must have a 7800 GS; it's the most powerful, and it supports Core Image, which I found is good for having a quick, fluid interface.