G4 Cube upgrade, GPU + CPU tough

[vailance88]

hey, recently got the wonderful G4 cube for collection, thinking to get some upgrade especially the CPU and GPU. i know there is some website you could flash some PC cards, but getting a PC with AGP slots to flash isnt as easy right now.

If there any chance anyone letting go some of the upgrade parts or anyone still has some tools perhaps could assist on the flashing process. i could ebay some cards straight to you.

Thanks

 

[mode11]

The Radeon 7500 is a good all-round card. They're easily / cheaply available as a Mac version, are supported in both OS 9 and OS X, and support Quartz Extreme in the latter. They're also passively cooled, don't run too hot and have an ADC port for connecting to older Apple monitors.

The GeForce 3 is faster but virtually unobtainable, especially the Mac version. Most other cards are either too big to fit without moving the VRM (e.g. Radeon 9000, GF4 MX), too big / power hungry for the Cube itself (Radeon 9700/9800 Pro), or are incompatible with the Cube's AGP 2x slot (e.g. Radeon 9600). The GF2 MX is slower than the R7500 and runs much hotter.

The GeForce 6200 fits and is low power (though will still need a fan in a Cube). It also supports Core Image in Tiger / Leopard. This is about the only PC card worth flashing. Note that as it is a much later card, there are no OS 9 drivers. So in that OS, stuff like window scrolling is choppier, and there is no 3D acceleration for games. Basically, you can have OS 9 support or Core Image support, but not both (only the GF4 Ti does both IIRC, and there's no way that fits in a Cube!).

Personally, I found the 6200 wouldn't wake from sleep. It seemed to work for some others, though the issue was fairly widespread. This may not matter to you. The slightly older FX5200 series, however, worked fine for me in this regard. If going this route, get an FX5500 - the die-shrunk version that is available as a 256MB, 128-bit memory bus model. This is actually faster for gaming than the 6200, but as with all FX models, Core Image support is weak. In any case, it's unlikely you'd want to use such an old Mac for anything that's demanding of Core Image acceleration anyway.

As for CPU upgrades, these are scarce and expensive when they do come up. If buying from eBay, make sure you look internationally to maximise your chances, and be patient.

 

[vailance88]

just got one XFX PVT44AWANG 6200 256MB off ebay as we speak. now i just have to find a pc to flash the card. hopefully i have the chance to get one.

for CPU not sure the dual 1.8ghz will make the cube usable daily like light surfing, playing musics. etc. if able to get one im guessing will cost anywhere from 400-500usd pcs.

 

[mode11]

Literally any PC with an AGP slot would do the trick. If I remember correctly, you boot from USB stick or floppy to flash the card, so don't even need a hard drive / Windows installed.

Dual 1.8GHz would certainly be OK for browsing, but $4-500 is crazy. Bear in mind that PPC OS X hasn't been supported for a very long time, so browser standards support is ropey. With a little patience, you can still surf on G4s though - with Camino, I find even a 550MHz G4 is usable. Leopard WebKit is OK on faster G4s, though go easy on the tabs, and avoid internet banking!

Also, with no built-in h264 decoding ability (the 6200 may technically have it, but there's certainly no support in Leopard), all the video processing has to be done by the CPU. This means video stuff we normally take for granted, like HD YouTube, pushes these old machines to the limit.

Note too that you will need a CPU upgrade that is specifically designed for the Cube, or it won't fit / will draw too much power / have the wrong power supply connections.

 

[mzs.112000]

I think the GeForce 6800 series has video decoding in hardware, but I don't think OS X has the right drivers for the video decoding(Perian might be able to do hardware decoding though).

On a slightly related note, while searching for a way to get hardware accelerated H.264 decoding, I found this: https://www.ampltd.com/products/pc104-h264-h264ull-decoder/

That card, does not support OS X, and even if it did, it does not have a normal PCI slot, only a PC-104 bus(which AFAIK is electrically identical to PCI...). But nonetheless it is interesting.

 

[mode11]

Unfortunately, the 6800 series is way too big for the Cube anyway (and probably doesn't support AGP 2x either). Ditto the 6600 series.

Elgato made a USB stick that does h264 compression / decoding, but it's Intel-only (though is supported on Leopard).

Core Player was always the standard for high performance h264 software decoding on PPC. Not sure if anything better has come along since.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Unfortunately, the 6800 series is way too big for the Cube anyway (and probably doesn't support AGP 2x anyway). Ditto the 6600 series.

Elgato made a USB stick that does h264 compression / decoding, but it's Intel-only (though is supported on Leopard).

Core Player was always the standard for high performance h264 software decoding on PPC. Not sure if anything better has come along since.

there are actually some GeForce 6600/GTs that do support 2X AGP and even at least 1 model which was 2X AGP and had a DL-DVI output on it there was also 1 GeForce 6800 that did 2X AGP http://themacelite.wikidot.com/galaxy-6800-hk. I highly recommend anyone looking for PowerPC GPU flashing info that they have a read of the strange dog forums http://strangedogs.proboards.com/

its where a lot of this stuff went down back in the day.

 

[mode11]

If you’re talking about cards that fit in G4 towers, then there’s clearly more options. I’m that case, the Radeon 9800 Pro is worth considering too - it’s cheap, widely available, fast and easy to flash the PC version.

Finding something worthwhile that fits in a Cube without major modification comes down to a very short list.

 

[weckart]

Elgato made a USB stick that does h264 compression / decoding, but it's Intel-only (though is supported on Leopard).

Not quite. Elgato made 2 hardware compression dongles for H264; the first one was PPC/Intel (turbo.264), the later one was Intel only (turbo.264HD). I bought both but ignored a warning from the guy who sold me the HD version as to its usefulness.

Frankly, the HD version was a bust. It provided little advantage over software solutions such as Handbrake in terms of speed and also created bloated files that had quality issues. The PPC version was great. It came into its own crunching down videos to put onto your iPod if you had a puny set up, such as the Mac Mini G4. It also avoided your processor cooking itself into an early grave as video compression was pretty heavy on the CPU.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/pc-accessory-reviews/elgato-turbo-264-review/

 

[mode11]

Cool. I thought there might have been something like this (it was a long time ago). Might be useful to the OP - does it work for watching videos? Is it USB 2 only?

 

[LightBulbFun]

If you’re talking about cards that fit in G4 towers, then there’s clearly more options. I’m that case, the Radeon 9800 Pro is worth considering too - it’s cheap, widely available, fast and easy to flash the PC version.

Finding something worthwhile that fits in a Cube without major modification comes down to a very short list.

no im only talking about cards which fit/can be made to fit the G4 cube in my post there.

with some finagling there is a very Rare Radeon 9800 Pro that you can flash and stick into a G4 cube with a VRM move, the Radeon 9700 Pro "Mac Edition" MDD card can also be shoved into a cube with the correct knowhow its AFAIK the fastest card you can shove into a cube and still retain native ADC.

the GeForce 6200 is just the tip of the ice burg for G4 cube GPU Upgrades

 

[weckart]

Cool. I thought there might have been something like this (it was a long time ago). Might be useful to the OP - does it work for watching videos? Is it USB 2 only?

If you use it with USB 1.1, then it might slow down proceedings depending upon the task at hand. I wouldn't want to to crunch a full length film over anything slower than USB 2.0. Realistically, that only affects G3 iBooks. Anything else can be upgraded to USB 2.0.

It has been years since I found a need to use it so I can't remember if you can decompress to view on the fly. The supplied software was really for conversion rather than viewing, although there was a viewing window to watch the conversion in real time.

As for graphic cards for the Cube, did this image come up in a recent discussion?

 

[mode11]

The Cube is also USB 1.1, and can’t be upgraded to USB 2 (as far as I’m aware!). So external h264 video decoders would be affected by that.

I have previously seen that chart. Once you crunch through it, there aren’t too many practical options. Any 6800 is way too power intensive / big to be in the running. I presume the 6600 is too? There may be one very rare 9700 or 9800 that physically fits, but the VRM would likely catch fire!

 

[bunnspecial]

There are upgraded VRMs available now, and it's common to move them closer to the "core" for better cooling.

The 9700 is tough to find, but it's out there. @LightBulbFun has mine now, attempting to fix it.

 

[mode11]

Fair enough. The only upgraded VRM I’ve heard of is that sporadically-manufactured Japanese one that costs over £100. The 97/9800 will still run hot in a Cube chassis, and it’s unclear if it needs an external PSU. A step too far, for me at least.

 

[mode11]

there are actually some GeForce 6600/GTs that do support 2X AGP and even at least 1 model which was 2X AGP and had a DL-DVI output on it there was also 1 GeForce 6800 that did 2X AGP http://themacelite.wikidot.com/galaxy-6800-hk. I highly recommend anyone looking for PowerPC GPU flashing info that they have a read of the strange dog forums http://strangedogs.proboards.com/

its where a lot of this stuff went down back in the day.

You have to read the small print here. 6600's that support AGP 2x may have existed, but all the ROMs on Strangedogs are "AGP 4x/8x" (see the table in their download section). On the Galaxy 6800 page you linked to, it even says "Cubes are limited by the 2x AGP slot and PSU power so this is as far as we have been able to go. (The 6600 series did not work)".

That Galaxy 6800 is also the exception that proves the rule. It is a cut-down, oddball model that was only available in Hong Kong, back in 2010 when they were flashing these cards. God knows where you would find one now. Even then, the custom Mac firmware they wrote only got as far as a beta, and contained bugs ("There are still some odd issues in certain computer setup's with [this] video card/ROM, so be warned").

Realistically, the best GPU upgrades for Cubes are the R7500, the R9000 (if you're prepared to relocate the VRM) and the 6200. And great though the 6200 is, it has wake-from-sleep issues, and no OS 9 or ADC support (a flashed PC 5200 / 5500 is similar and does wake from sleep, however). The GeForce 3 is also an option of course, though Mac ones are very rare / expensive (and noisy, apparently). Could flash a PC one, though most don't fit the Cube and they can't reuse the Cube's Rage128 faceplate.

 

[DearthnVader]

There is a way to flash PC VBios nVidia cards in a Mac, however it requires a FCode script to set up some properties in Open Firmware that the OS X nVidia drivers use for the ioiterator.

I'm looking to see if anyone still has the old Fcode script. It should support any PPC Mac compatible nVidia card, so long as the EEPROM ID is supported in NVUserFlashX V04.44 that you can get with:

http://thomas.perrier.name/graphiccelerator.html

 

[bunnspecial]

FWIW, I don't find the Geforce 3 to be offensively noisy. I'd say my hard drive is louder on the one Cube where I have one installed.

Also, I prefer the Geforce 2MX to the 7500. The performance is about equal, but it can use the stock faceplate.

 

[mode11]

From benchmarks the 7500 seems a fair bit faster, and it also runs cooler. The 2MX either needs to be the OEM Cube card (with a big heatsink), or needs a small fan. The stock passive heatsink on the Apple 7500 seems OK in a Cube, though it does run a little hot.

The 2MX's faceplate compatibility is handy. As I mentioned in another thread though, someone has made a great STL file for a R7500 Cube faceplate: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1665153. I got it printed in silver PLA using 3D Hub for under £4 delivered, and it fitted perfectly.

 

[bunnspecial]

I run a base fan and for a while was carefully monitoring my 2MX temperatures. I watched them with a thermocouple run down through the top grate over the video card cage, and wedged it under the edge of the heatsink.

While I did see temperatures higher than a Rage 128, I never saw anything high enough to concern me-the one I monitored stayed well under 80ºC with the base fan in place.

 

[LightBulbFun]

You have to read the small print here. 6600's that support AGP 2x may have existed, but all the ROMs on Strangedogs are "AGP 4x/8x" (see the table in their download section). On the Galaxy 6800 page you linked to, it even says "Cubes are limited by the 2x AGP slot and PSU power so this is as far as we have been able to go. (The 6600 series did not work)".

That Galaxy 6800 is also the exception that proves the rule. It is a cut-down, oddball model that was only available in Hong Kong, back in 2010 when they were flashing these cards. God knows where you would find one now. Even then, the custom Mac firmware they wrote only got as far as a beta, and contained bugs ("There are still some odd issues in certain computer setup's with [this] video card/ROM, so be warned").

Realistically, the best GPU upgrades for Cubes are the R7500, the R9000 (if you're prepared to relocate the VRM) and the 6200. And great though the 6200 is, it has wake-from-sleep issues, and no OS 9 or ADC support (a flashed PC 5200 / 5500 is similar and does wake from sleep, however). The GeForce 3 is also an option of course, though Mac ones are very rare / expensive (and noisy, apparently). Could potentially flash a PC one, though part of the Mac GF3's appeal is being able to reuse the Cube R128's fence.

Like I said if you read the strange dogs forum posts you will get a lot of info on cube upgrades

the GeForce 6600/GT in G4 cubes (and Sawtooths(Sawteeth?) ) was very finicky but there where models/setups that worked, much like how the FireGL X3 plays out when stuck in a DA/QS or a 6800 GT when stuck into a MDD, most of the time it does not work but sometimes it does

also even if we ignore the NVIDIA cards you still have a whole host of high end ATI Cards that can be retrofitted into G4 cubes basically anything based off the Radeon 9500/9700 reference PCB can be made to work in a G4 cube. and the ATI cards in Cubes almost always work without much issue software wise, hell the Radeon 9800 Pro works in a cube but wont fit in a stock "outer box"

and this aint even getting into G4 Cube CPU upgrades *cough* Dual 2Ghz 7448 CPUs *cough*

 

[mode11]

I run a base fan and for a while was carefully monitoring my 2MX temperatures. I watched them with a thermocouple run down through the top grate over the video card cage, and wedged it under the edge of the heatsink.

While I did see temperatures higher than a Rage 128, I never saw anything high enough to concern me-the one I monitored stayed well under 80ºC with the base fan in place.

Were you using an OEM Cube 2MX, or a different model? I've got a fan in mine as well, but it unfortunately it doesn't send any appreciable air through the GPU compartment. Shame there's no space for a 120mm fan at the bottom...

 

[bunnspecial]

No, I've never owned a Cube specific 2MX-I've always used the more common one that shipped in G4 towers.

An 80mm base fan DOES make a difference both in airflow through the GPU compartment and in GPU temperatures...

 

[mode11]

the GeForce 6600/GT in G4 cubes (and Sawtooths(Sawteeth?) ) was very finicky but there where models/setups that worked, much like how the FireGL X3 plays out when stuck in a DA/QS or a 6800 GT when stuck into a MDD, most of the time it does not work but sometimes it does

also even if we ignore the NVIDIA cards you still have a whole host of high end ATI Cards that can be retrofitted into G4 cubes basically anything based off the Radeon 9500/9700 reference PCB can be made to work in a G4 cube. and the ATI cards in Cubes almost always work without much issue software wise, hell the Radeon 9800 Pro works in a cube but wont fit in a stock "outer box"

I do have an account on Strangedogs, but haven't searched the forums exhaustively. Just out of interest, do you know of any 6600 model + ROM that is confirmed to work in a Cube? Would the ROM be the same regardless of whether the card is AGP 2x/4x/8x?

When you say reference 9500/9700 cards can be made to work, do you mean if the chassis is hacked? And / or are using a Powerlogix enclosure? As far as I'm aware, none will fit otherwise (other than the non-ref Sapphire black-PCB model), especially as they have a molex power socket at one end. Also, can 9500/9700 cards run off internal power? Presumably, you'd want an uprated VRM to even attempt this.
[doublepost=1533750819][/doublepost]

No, I've never owned a Cube specific 2MX-I've always used the more common one that shipped in G4 towers.

An 80mm base fan DOES make a difference both in airflow through the GPU compartment and in GPU temperatures...

OK, good to know. The fan will lower temperatures generally in the core, so will reduce heat soak from the CPU etc. I'm looking at the Cube core right now, though, and the motherboard completely blocks off the airflow from the fan, from edge to edge in the chassis, and top to bottom. The fan basically blows up the rear of the motherboard. The GPU compartment is essentially separate from the rest of the Cube.

 

[pc297]

or are incompatible with the Cube's AGP 2x slot (e.g. Radeon 9600). The GF2 MX is slower than the R7500 and runs much hotter.

Would the 9600 work with a tape mod (pins 3 and 11)? Does it fit?