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GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB for PowerMac G5

Shadow9x99

Shadow9x99

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 23, 2018
18
18
Brockville, OH
So, last night I picked up a mint 2.3GHz DC PMG5 on Craigslist for $20 (came with a 20" Cinema Display :) It's my first PowerMac and I'm looking into getting a better GPU. From all the research I've done it seems that there's more than 1 variant of the Quadro FX 4500 Mac edition, one for the EFI Macs and one for the Openfirmware PPC Macs. There's no shortage of the EFI variant on eBay but the PPC versions seem to be few and far between and rather expensive.
The 256MB variant of the 7800 GTX for PC's are readily available for a song but I can't find any info about flashing it, all I've seen is people flashing the 512mb version. So, does anyone know if the 256MB PC Geforce 7800 GTX can be flashed for a PMG5? I read somewhere that the 7800 GTX openfirmware BIOS is a modded version of the official PPC Quadro FX 4500 bios. Is the reason the 512MB 7800 GTX works with the FX 4500 rom partially because they both use 512MB of ram?
I also saw a post about the flashed 512mb 7800 GTX (on the TenFourFox blog maybe?) having some artifacting when playing older games. Has anyone else experienced this?

Any advice/experience/info would be greatly appreciated :)
 
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Hi Shadow,

I'm on the same boat as you.
I've found one from DELL with the right mem. but I'm
still unsure if the 512MB Mac ROM will work.
I already posted before about this but didn't find the answers clear enough to commit.

Best regards,
voidRunner
 
Don't get too hung up on the Quadro. Someone I know states that the Radeon X1900 XT is a better card than the Quadro.

I have the Quadro in my 2.3DC and the X1900 XT in my 2.5 Quad.

Further, the Quadro will take up two PCIe slots while the X1900 will only occupy one.

Just throwing that out there.
 
I don't really care if I get THE most powerful card ever made, I just want something that'll run most later games like halo decently at 1080p. The 6600 in it now scores less in Openmark than the overclocked 9600 in my eMac :(
 
Shadow9x99 said:
I don't really care if I get THE most powerful card ever made, I just want something that'll run most later games like halo decently at 1080p. The 6600 in it now scores less in Openmark than the overclocked 9600 in my eMac :(
Click to expand...
I have a 7800 GT (no X). It does alright in x-plane 9. Only problem is when you wake the g5 from sleep the fan on the card goes full blast and it is super loud. Reboot fixes it. It was priced at $80 on eBay and I offered $30 and they accepted.
 
Hi bjar,

Did you flash it with the 512mb ROM?

Best regards,
voidRunner
 
Hi bjar,

I thought you had bought a PC version and had flashed it with a Mac firmware.
As Shadow mentioned in his post he was looking at buying a PC version which can
be found more easily and then flash it with the QUADRO firmware.
Maybe we can get you ROM instead ;-)

@Anyone
Could we use this ROM?

Best regards,
voidRunner
 
vddrnnr said:
Hi bjar,

I thought you had bought a PC version and had flashed it with a Mac firmware.
As Shadow mentioned in his post he was looking at buying a PC version which can
be found more easily and then flash it with the QUADRO firmware.
Maybe we can get you ROM instead ;-)

@Anyone
Could we use this ROM?

Best regards,
voidRunner
Click to expand...
It is a 256mb card. And from what I understand you guys are looking for a GTX right? Mine is a GT. I only responded with what I have because he said he doesn’t need the fastest card. I assume it would play Halo pretty well, I will try it tonight. If you want the rom for experimenting I’d be happy to share. You will need to explain to me how to extract it.

Edit just realized he is actually looking for the 256, not the 512. Might be best to find out the differences between the the GT and GTX before flashing it with my rom.
 
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bjar said:
It is a 256mb card. And from what I understand you guys are looking for a GTX right? Mine is a GT. I only responded with what I have because he said he doesn’t need the fastest card. I assume it would play Halo pretty well, I will try it tonight. If you want the rom for experimenting I’d be happy to share. You will need to explain to me how to extract it.

Edit just realized he is actually looking for the 256, not the 512. Might be best to find out the differences between the the GT and GTX before flashing it with my rom.
Click to expand...


I think the only difference between the 7800 GT and the 7800 GTX is that some pipelines have been disabled and the clock speeds are reduced.
I'm more or less looking to know whether anyone's flashed a 256mb GTX or if it's even possible, how well it worked for them if they did it, and maybe a rom. Again, Ive seen a bunch of people doing it to the 512mb GTX's but I can't find anything about the 256's. I know nothing about editing ROMs (I have flashed several GPUs before though).
 
Shadow9x99 said:
I think the only difference between the 7800 GT and the 7800 GTX is that some pipelines have been disabled and the clock speeds are reduced.
I'm more or less looking to know whether anyone's flashed a 256mb GTX or if it's even possible, how well it worked for them if they did it, and maybe a rom. Again, Ive seen a bunch of people doing it to the 512mb GTX's but I can't find anything about the 256's. I know nothing about editing ROMs (I have flashed several GPUs before though).
Click to expand...
Yeah sorry I was confused at first. Haven’t had enough sleep. My first post was just to let you know that it is possible to get a 7800 GT for cheap. If you guys think my rom may work with your GTX then I can provide it. Looks like the GTX is about $20 on eBay so maybe you won’t mind if you brick it for science. Just let me know.
 
I can confirm that a 256MB 7800 GT ROM works - I have done this for my Quad G5.

The card I have looks identical to the FX4500 I have in another of my G5s, but failed to boot with many different 7800, GT, GTX and FX4500 ROMs (512MB). Ultimately I tried the 256MB 7800 GT ROM and the Mac passed its POST.

The card might have 512MB onboard, but in the end I could only get it to work with the 256MB ROM. It’s only a small sacrifice for a cheap, working high(er) performance PowerPC GPU.
 
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Shadow9x99 said:
I don't really care if I get THE most powerful card ever made, I just want something that'll run most later games like halo decently at 1080p. The 6600 in it now scores less in Openmark than the overclocked 9600 in my eMac :(
Click to expand...

Halo will literally run on anything. Thats a bad example. There aren't really any PPC games that will even take advantage of a 7800. I have a Geforce 6200 in a G4 that handles everything I've thrown at it. And a G5 with a Radeon 9800 Pro that's a way better card and I can't tell the difference. UT 2004 and like a couple others are the most graphically intense and UT 04 even works on Radeon 7000. Halo would probably work on a Geforce 2mx fairly well lol.

I see little reason to replace the 6600. Anything faster than that is like having a Corvette and only driving the speedlimit.
 
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Project Alice said:
Halo will literally run on anything. Thats a bad example. There aren't really any PPC games that will even take advantage of a 7800. I have a Geforce 6200 in a G4 that handles everything I've thrown at it. And a G5 with a Radeon 9800 Pro that's a way better card and I can't tell the difference. UT 2004 and like a couple others are the most graphically intense and UT 04 even works on Radeon 7000. Halo would probably work on a Geforce 2mx fairly well lol.

I see little reason to replace the 6600. Anything faster than that is like having a Corvette and only driving the speedlimit.
Click to expand...

Hi Project,

I don't know if this is true for everything especially if you think of running with
linux PPC where more recent stuff is available.
And if you're talking high rez then it will make a difference.

Regarding the SO itself ( OSX or Linux ) anything available at that time
is more than enough.

Best regards,
voidRunner
 
vddrnnr said:
Hi Project,

I don't know if this is true for everything especially if you think of running with
linux PPC where more recent stuff is available.
And if you're talking high rez then it will make a difference.

Regarding the SO itself ( OSX or Linux ) anything available at that time
is more than enough.

Best regards,
voidRunner
Click to expand...

With linux there probably are more options (or just different ones?) I don't know of many popular games that work on linux even today, and certainly not PPC linux. Steam is the main reason why there is any game support at all for linux today. I was assuming the OP was using Mac OS X. A 6600 is more than capable of driving 1080P. My 6200 does that all the time (As does the Radeon 7500 in my Cube).
Now if he's doing other things that are GPU oriented, especially with linux then I would agree with you. But since OP is talking about games, specifically Halo which the only PPC version I'm aware of is Combat Evolved which was released in 2001 and will not even tax a geforce 4mx; I'm gonna say the 6600 is more than enough for this particular use.

I'm not saying the OP shouldn't broaden GPU horizons, but rather to save him money from an upgrade that isn't going to be beneficial for his specific uses.
 
Project Alice said:
Halo will literally run on anything. Thats a bad example. There aren't really any PPC games that will even take advantage of a 7800. I have a Geforce 6200 in a G4 that handles everything I've thrown at it. And a G5 with a Radeon 9800 Pro that's a way better card and I can't tell the difference. UT 2004 and like a couple others are the most graphically intense and UT 04 even works on Radeon 7000. Halo would probably work on a Geforce 2mx fairly well lol.

I see little reason to replace the 6600. Anything faster than that is like having a Corvette and only driving the speedlimit.
Click to expand...

There may be none that will Max out a 7800, but a few of them (UT 04, Halo CE, Cube 2 Sauerbraten, Doom 3, etc.) can't maintain playable framerates with high settings at 1080p on the 6600 (at least not for me).

A PC 7800 GTX 256mb is only ~$25 on ebay so I figured if I could flash it for the PowerMac, even if it was overkill, it'd be worth it since it's so cheap.

I was just hoping someone here had done it or heard of it being done and could share some insight about it.
 
Last edited:
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Shadow9x99 said:
There may be none that will Max out a 7800, but a few of them (UT 04, Halo CE, Cube 2 Sauerbraten, Doom 3, etc.) can't maintain playable framerates with high settings at 1080p on the 6600 (at least not for me).

A PC 7800 GTX 256mb is only ~$25 on ebay so I figured if I could flash it for the PowerMac, even if it was overkill, it'd be worth it since it's so cheap.

I was just hoping someone here had done it or heard of it being done and could share some insight about it.
Click to expand...

I play UT04 on high on a 450mhz sawtooth G4 with a 256mb Geforce 6200, at 1080 and its always been playable. Theres been a couple times where frames will drop, but its still playable for me when it happens. On my G5, with the 9800 Pro there are no drops at all at that resolution and its completely smooth.
 
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