Graphics card issues with PowerMac G4 AGP

[orangejedi]

okay... i'm new at this so i'm probably doing something wrong , but anyway, i just got an old PowerMac G4 (AGP Graphics) for free! I have already installed a newer, 80GB hard drive i had and installed extra RAM. I also bought an ATI RAGE 128 graphics card with 32mb VRam. I am aware that the computer's standard card is a RAGE 128 with 16mb of vram, so i figured the new one should work. However, since there's only one AGP slot on the powermac, i had to remove the original, and i cannot get any display output from the new card. The computer is running OS 10.3.8 Panther, and i was led to believe that this would include drivers for cards from 1998-99-ish, the time period in which this card says it is from. is there something i'm doing wrong? or is the card just not compatible? here's the detail on the mac:

PowerMac G4 (AGP Graphics)
450MHz (single core)
512Mb RAM
80Gb HDD
DVD-ROM

If anyone could help fix the issue or point me in the direction of a good card it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[yellow]

At the Risk of exposing my ignorance of whether the Rage 128 was Mac only to begin with..

Is it a Mac version of the card?

Or just a Rage 128 you picked up was was likely in a PC?

 

[orangejedi]

I thought of that, but i'm not really sure.
I don't know much about mac cards vs pc cards, but appearently there's a difference...
That's probably the problem, though. thanks.
Do you have any suggestions as to what to buy next time?

 

[yellow]

Do a little google searching, you might be able to flash that card to have it work in a Mac, assuming it was a PC card.

Otherwise..

Check out OWC (http://www.macsales.com).
Great site, and should be easy to find which card will work for that Mac.

 

[Firefly2002]

They never made a 32MB ATI Rage 128 for the Mac, unless you mean a Nexus, which is a Rage 128-based card; what you have might be an AIW card (hopefully not, since they weren't made for Mac)... or probably just some other PC card which isn't for the Mac. Not a problem, though, you can always just flash it to work on the Mac, assuming you've got a PC from which to do so.

 

[orangejedi]

wait a minute...
flash-what?
yes i do have a pc...
please tell me how to do this!!!

 

[Dave H]

Here's ATI's part number lookup page.
http://apps.ati.com/102lookup/
I hope this helps.

 

[chakosticks]

My G4/500 came with the ATI Rage 128, I upgraded to the original ATI Radeon 32MB when a guy threw one in for free with a display, and now I'm using an ATI 9200 AGP that is a flashed PC card because I needed dual display support (ATI only made a PCI 9200 for Mac). I bought the 9200 flashed so I don't know how to do it but it's been 99% trouble free, so if you can flash that 32MB card of yours you should be in good shape.