Beige G3 A/V card under OS X?

[im_to_hyper]

Hey there!

Does anyone know if the A/V card from the beige G3 works under OS X? I just got another beige, somehow and the card was included.

It has OS 9, but under OS X will it work? What about with XPostFacto?

Two resources I have found say there are "drivers available" but has anyone actually gotten it to work?

 

[RacerX]

I got a G3 last November with the AV card in it, it didn't work for me under 10.2.8 or 10.3.9 (not surprising as Apple has stated that the card is not supported under Mac OS X).

I ended up pulling the card and selling it for $40 to a client with a G3 Desktop that was still running in Mac OS 9 (it works great with Premiere 5.1 and VideoShop 4.0).

Like the AV module in the 7500/8500/7600/8600, the AV card in the Beige G3 uses the onboard VRAM to help with capturing video... so having the max (6 MB) is very helpful.

I had two Beige G3 Mini Towers and ended up using the extra parts (like the AV card) to pay for the G4 upgrade card.

Video capture wasn't a high enough priority for me to try and track down any hacks to get the card working under Mac OS X. I do all my capturing via my SGI, which has been the way I've been doing it for years now.

 

[im_to_hyper]

Ah, I see.

It would be cool if there were some hacks, because video capture doesn't justify running OS 9, but it would be cool enough to find a hack to use it under X.

Anyone?

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Haven't seen any hacks to get CAPTURE working under OS X, but you can get video OUT working, it just takes some effort. (It requires setting up a VNC server on the computer, and turning it on with only a TV plugged in, then VNCing in and going to the 'Display' system preference to enable the display.) I haven't tried it personally (I do have a beige hooked up to a TV as its sole display, but it's running OS 9, and isn't on my network, so I can't easily VNC in to it,) but I've heard that's how you get it to work.

(Maybe this weekend I'll hook it up to the network and see if I can get it to work.)

 

[madmax_2069]

yea it suck's that apple didnt care enuff for the Beige G3 to add full support for any version of the personality card. you would figure out of comon since that a Beige G3 uses that card for audio "and for AIO's video" and a bit more for AIO's and apple should have had full support for it with the supported version of OS X for this machine. i just dont get apple

 

[dpaanlka]

yea it suck's that apple didnt care enuff for the Beige G3 to add full support for any version of the personality card. you would figure out of comon since that a Beige G3 uses that card for audio "and for AIO's video" and a bit more for AIO's and apple should have had full support for it with the supported version of OS X for this machine. i just dont get apple

By the time Mac OS X came out, FireWire had already become the standard for video capture.

 

[madmax_2069]

no matter if firewire capturing was there or not. the card should have been fully supported. only basic funtion's of the card work under OS X for a Beige G3 and im thinking that since its not fully supported it can lead up to problems on Beige G3's that use that card for video like the AIO does.

im thinking apple was a bit to lazy on getting OS X to fully support the Beige G3 on the supported version's of OS X and it show's. they just wanted YOU to buy a newer machine to run the newer OS X wich in tern makes them money. they dont care what you use even if you was one of those people that paid $3000 for the system or not when it was new. that is what makes me mad at apple. the Beige G3 is more than capable of running tiger i know cause ive had tiger running on my system but it dont play nice with my Pioneer DVR-110D so i use 10.2.8

 

[Anonymous Freak]

im thinking apple was a bit to lazy on getting OS X to fully support the Beige G3 on the supported version's of OS X and it show's.

Yes, indeed. Let's see, missing support for:
1. Floppy drive (The MkLinux hack barely works; and doesn't work at all in 10.2+)
2. No acceleration for original Rage II video, only added support for Rage Pro in 10.1.5.
3. No Video in or out (officially; it is POSSIBLE to get video out.)
4. DVD decoder card
5. Serial AppleTalk connections (although the serial ports do work fine as plain serial ports, this means no serial AppleTalk-based printers.)

Am I missing anything? (This doesn't count the flaky ATA support, and other 'supported but just barely' items.)

Yeah, they should have just made it officially unsupported like the original PowerBook G3. Let enterprising 'hackerish' people deal with it.

 

[madmax_2069]

Yes, indeed. Let's see, missing support for:
1. Floppy drive (The MkLinux hack barely works; and doesn't work at all in 10.2+)
2. No acceleration for original Rage II video, only added support for Rage Pro in 10.1.5.
3. No Video in or out (officially; it is POSSIBLE to get video out.)
4. DVD decoder card
5. Serial AppleTalk connections (although the serial ports do work fine as plain serial ports, this means no serial AppleTalk-based printers.)

Am I missing anything? (This doesn't count the flaky ATA support, and other 'supported but just barely' items.)

Yeah, they should have just made it officially unsupported like the original PowerBook G3. Let enterprising 'hackerish' people deal with it.

and in the AIO's case

1. there is a built in mic that hooks up to the personality card that dont work in OS X

2. the 2 front headphone jacks on the front have sound but dont turn off the main speakers in OS X, the one in the back works normaly. whoch are connected to the personality card

3. the volume buttons on the front dont work in OS X. also hooked to the personality card

4. the light on the front which is in with the volume button wich hooks into the personality card comes on but dont flash when its in sleep mode

all of these hook to the ide looking AIO connector on the card. and that ide looking connector also handles some of the video signal's for the internal monitor. There is also a black connector with wings on it that suply's the RGB signal to the monitor. So in tern the AIO is hurt more with apple not wanting to fully support any version of the personality card in any version of the supported OS X versions.

my beige G3 AIO has the rage pro GPU chipset which means its a rev 2 mobo and it has a rev 2 rom

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Haven't seen any hacks to get CAPTURE working under OS X, but you can get video OUT working, it just takes some effort. (It requires setting up a VNC server on the computer, and turning it on with only a TV plugged in, then VNCing in and going to the 'Display' system preference to enable the display.) I haven't tried it personally (I do have a beige hooked up to a TV as its sole display, but it's running OS 9, and isn't on my network, so I can't easily VNC in to it,) but I've heard that's how you get it to work.

(Maybe this weekend I'll hook it up to the network and see if I can get it to work.)

heh. If "this weekend" meant "a year and four months from now", then I guess I was right. I finally got around to testing it.

So, yeah, you have to install a VNC server that automatically loads (I used osxvnc,) then turn the computer on with ONLY a TV attached, nothing on the internal video. (This also does *NOT* work if you even have a PCI video card in the system.)

You then have to wait for it to boot (with nothing on the TV, of course.) Then VNC in, go to System Prefs, Displays, and pick one of the resolutions that has "(NTSC)" or "(PAL)" on the end. (Mine is ONLY showing NTSC resolutions, I'm not sure if that's because I had NTSC picked in OS 9 or what.)

In my case, I also had to un-check "Show modes recommended by display", because I'm running 10.1.5 on this machine.

Now I can take it off the network, put it back on the TV in the living room (I'm actually testing it on the RCA input jack of an old Blue & White Apple Studio Dislpay, while VNCing in from a Blue & White G3 plugged into the VGA port of the display!) Of course, I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with it in the living room, either. My wife doesn't use it for guitar lessons any more, and without network access, it can't be a TV internet machine (the Wii does that, anyway.)

Maybe I won't bother putting it back in the living room, after all.

 

[madmax_2069]

i know that the sound out using the RCA out work in tiger ( i use my AIO as a jukebox ) and is hooked to my house stereo. i also found out that is that when i connected a external Mic in the back that the internal Mic starts to work ( and boy does it ever pick up the internal case noise) when i use skype people said it sounded like a plane taking off lol.

but so far that is all that i have found out that works in OS X. i wish there was some way to get it to work in OS X, so i wont have to keep booting into OS 9.2.2 to use the ability. i use my AIO as a TV ( with DVR cable box, XBOX, and other systems) and a jukebox hooked to my house stereo.

 

[im_to_hyper]

Wow, that was a revival of an old thread! I remember my old AIO... too bad all I ended up doing was selling it after awhile. It was in my room as a novelty item for awhile, but I don't remember doing much with it.

The whole VNC thing totally got me lost: good luck with your endeavors! I was thinking of using an older Mac in the living room to record shows... but does anyone know of a good HDTV tuner (most likely would have to be USB/FireWire) to use with Macs? Working with a G3 would be a plus!

 

[LimeiBook86]

Haven't seen any hacks to get CAPTURE working under OS X, but you can get video OUT working, it just takes some effort.

I still have my G3 Minitower with the same video card. I found a good trick online for video out though. Try, Command - Option - T - V, at startup, It forces the computer to send it's video through the AV ports. It worked for me though Mac OS 9. Although I can't promise it'll work in OS X.

I used to love that machine. I have the AV card, Apple PC Compatibility card, FireWire card, and a USB card. Too bad I hardly use the poor thing anymore.