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Mac OS 9 and Dual-Link DVI Resolutions.

DearthnVader

DearthnVader

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Dec 17, 2015
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Red Springs, NC
I just want to break this thread out of some of the graphics card threads to make people aware that you can run Dual-Link DVI monitors at full resolution under Mac OS 9 with the right driver and graphics card at the full monitor refresh rate.

Tested by me: FireGL X3 ( Samsung VRAM ) flashed with modified and reduced X800 ROM and ATI ROMXtender.

Seems to work without flaws with an Apple 30" display in a few Quicksilver G4's( 733Mhz/800Mhz/867Mhz Education Model without the L3 Cache from the factory )

**All these models report as KeyLargo V3 and UniNorth 1.5 v1

MDD Dual G4 867Mhz 1MB L3 Cache, seem to work without flaw.

Radeon 9600 Mac/PC Edition Retail:

Seem to have the Grey Screen Issue( If the change the resolution or bit depth under Mac OS 9 you will be treated with a grey screen and a mouse pointer, restarting the Mac fixes the issue with the screen resolution now set to whatever you set it to or the bit depth ). I ran into something similar with the Radeon 9200 that cam in the Mac Mini G4 when I made the OS 9 driver for that, using an older 'NDRV' mostly fixed the issue, so I need to test different 'NDRV's for the RV351 to see if I can resolve this issue.

Also Debian 10 and Mac OS 9 are awesome 2560x1600@60Hz and so is Open Firmware ( the line ending seem to extend to the full 2560 pixels ).

**Some DA's and QS G4's have issues with these cards ( R9600/FireGL X3 ) ever before you flash the FCode ROM, it's some sort of bug with the AGP implementation and maybe how some, but maybe not all of these cards are built. Tho we can't seem to pin that down at this point, it's just luck of the draw if your card will work at all in a given G4 4x AGP QS or DA....**More testing needed.

***MDD's of any model do not seem to be effected by this AGP bug.

The PowerMac G5 AGP systems that shipped with the Dual DVI Radeon 9600 XT and Radeon 9650 should have cards compatible with some DA's/QS's and MDD with the taping or disabling of pins 3 and 11 on the cards AGP connector. However, I think only the R9650 can drive Dual-Link DVI and it also has 256MB VRAM vs. 128MB on the 9600XT. Also these cards may have variations that have one DVI and one AGP port, so make sure you find one with Dual-DVI if you can. This may only apply to the R9600 XT, I think, but I'm not sure, that all the R9650 were Dual DVI that shipped with the G5's and a quick compare of the low res images I could find for this cards look identical tp the Retail Mac / PC Edition I have, it would just have a smaller EEPOM without the PC Bios.

Last, the Retail Mac / PC Edition R9600 does not seem to have a ROM based 'NDRV' at all....
 
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os9wquxga-jpg.849150


This is via single-link DVI — so am I disqualified? :D
 
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The Huawei MateView is bigger, higher-res and easier to get hold of. 3840×2560@30Hz requires 311.5 MHz pixel clock using CVT-RB timings, i.e. is within dual-link DVI specs, so you just need a dual-link DVI to DisplayPort adapter capable of handling that — and SwitchRes, since the MateView doesn’t offer this timing OOTB.
 
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DearthnVader said:
This may only apply to the R9600 XT, I think, but I'm not sure, that all the R9650 were Dual DVI that shipped with the G5's and a quick compare of the low res images I could find for this cards look identical tp the Retail Mac / PC Edition I have, it would just have a smaller EEPOM without the PC Bios.
Click to expand...

to add to this/clarify/correct a couple points :)

only the ATI Radeon 9650 OEM Apple card from the Early 05 G5, and the Retail PC Mac Edition ATI Radeon 9600 have a dual link DVI port, all other ATI Radeon 9600's (the Pro, The XT and 9600 no suffix, from the 2003 2004, 2005 G5's respectively) have single link ports only sadly

all ATI Radeon 9600/9650 cards have 128K EEPROM with built in ROM based NDRV, this ROM NDRV gives you full monitor support in even unsupported Mac OS Versions like 10.1.5 or Mac OS 9.2.2

except for the ATI Radeon 9600 PC Mac edition, where ATI themselves removed the ROM NDRV to make room for the PC BIOS, but it still has a 128K EEPROM, as the space is needed to cram both the FCode ROM and BIOS ROM onto the card, all Mac OS X versions need the ATI Xtender for this card to work properly even 10.5.8, as Apple never included an NDRV for it on disk (although apple curiously included a disk based NDRV for the Retail Radeon 9800 Pro, go figure...)

in theory you could flash a 9600 PC Mac Edition to an ATI Radeon 9650 if you needed a built in ROM NDRV and did not mind giving up PC Compatibility, something I might actually try myself at some point (although I do when it comes to flashing the card back to stock, when Graphiccelerator asks "install PC or Mac ROM into ATIFlasher, I wonder which option your supposed to select LOL since the ROM is both rolled into one image!)

also worth mentioning since the 9600 PC Mac Edition and 9650 share the same Device ID as the orignial ATI Radeon 9600 Pro used in the 2003 G5' these cards also work in 10.2.8 with full graphics acceleration :) (the PC Mac edition card needing its external NDRV as usual)

2560x1440-jag-png.935393



I have often wondered if you could reverse engineer the 9600 PC Mac edition, and splice other Mac and PC BIOS ROM's together on a 128K EEPROM card

ie make an FireGL X3 PC/Mac Edition, or ATI Radeon 9800 Pro PC/Mac edition if that makes sense :)
 
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LightBulbFun said:
I have often wondered if you could reverse engineer the 9600 PC Mac edition, and splice other Mac and PC BIOS ROM's together on a 128K EEPROM card

ie make an FireGL X3 PC/Mac Edition, or ATI Radeon 9800 Pro PC/Mac edition if that makes sense
Click to expand...
Yes it can be done, I think the PCI Header has a switch that tells how many ROM images are contained in the ROM/BIOS and what architecture each one is and the offset to each.
 
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DearthnVader Thanks for sharing​

I'm running GeForce 7800GS in DL-DVI mode under OS9. You can claim it's working, however it doesn't have the acceleration.
For my workflow I can't live without it (Pro Tools lags on the screen updates).
Have you tested which of those models run with vendor drivers and the full acceleration?
 
k-Tracker said:

DearthnVader Thanks for sharing​

I'm running GeForce 7800GS in DL-DVI mode under OS9. You can claim it's working, however it doesn't have the acceleration.
For my workflow I can't live without it (Pro Tools lags on the screen updates).
Have you tested which of those models run with vendor drivers and the full acceleration?
Click to expand...
Any ATI card with Dual-Link DVI is just going to run with an 'NDRV'( Native Device Driver ) that allows for changing of screen resolution and color bit depth and system sleep, but sadly no 2D/3D graphic acceleration.
 
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DearthnVader said:
Any ATI card with Dual-Link DVI is just going to run with an 'NDRV'( Native Device Driver ) that allows for changing of screen resolution and color bit depth and system sleep, but sadly no 2D/3D graphic acceleration.
Click to expand...
Sorry for clarification, are you saying there is no solution for DL-DVI with 2D acceleration at all?
 
DearthnVader said:
Seem to have the Grey Screen Issue( If the change the resolution or bit depth under Mac OS 9 you will be treated with a grey screen and a mouse pointer, restarting the Mac fixes the issue with the screen resolution now set to whatever you set it to or the bit depth ). I ran into something similar with the Radeon 9200 that cam in the Mac Mini G4 when I made the OS 9 driver for that, using an older 'NDRV' mostly fixed the issue, so I need to test different 'NDRV's for the RV351 to see if I can resolve this issue.
Click to expand...
Did you manage to resolve this?

I run a 9650 under OS9 in my MDD G4 FW800, with the July rev. Radeon drivers (AtiRadeonMacOs9Jul2005.sit). Works nicely (no 3D acceleration of course), but whenever I switch resolutions or colour bit depth, the grey screen issue occurs, necessitating a hard reboot.

Given several older games need the screen set to 256 colours, I suspect this is not good for the power supply!

Am awaiting on an 8500 to arrive by post tho :)
 
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I know that feeling!

...and speak of the 8500, would you believe it arrived today! Out of the box from the DVI port, it gives me 1920x1080 @ 60Hz in OS9 and OSX. I'll give it a go with the Atlona DP400 a little later today, to see if I can get 1440p @ 60Hz out of it.

And for the first time in OS9, the little AMD monitor extension doesn't have a red cross through it at boot up, so it's OS9 accelerated :)

And there is no grey screen resolution/colour depth bug (which the 9650 had) either.
 
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sos_nz said:
I know that feeling!

...and speak of the 8500, would you believe it arrived today! Out of the box from the DVI port, it gives me 1920x1080 @ 60Hz in OS9 and OSX. I'll give it a go with the Atlona DP400 a little later today, to see if I can get 1440p @ 60Hz out of it.

And for the first time in OS9, the little AMD monitor extension doesn't have a red cross through it at boot up, so it's OS9 accelerated :)

And there is no grey screen resolution/colour depth bug either.
Click to expand...
The 8500 is a good card, mind the fan tho, let us know how the Atlona DP400 goes.
 
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DearthnVader said:
The 8500 is a good card, mind the fan tho, let us know how the Atlona DP400 goes.
Click to expand...
It doesn’t have dual-link DVI so 2560×1440 at 60 Hz won’t work. But fiddling with SwitchRes2/SwitchResX to get 2560×1440 at 41 Hz (using CVT-RB timings) via single-link DVI may be worth trying.
 
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