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most powerful video card on powermac g4 mdd
- Thread starter tony8
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99.9% of the time...yes
There was one better, faster card.
But you can count on your fingers how many of them made it to the US
The Gainward Bliss 7800GS is a TRUE 7800GT for AGP. With 20 pixel pipes instead of 16 on the 7800GS. Also has an additional Vertex shader IIRC.
Even has 2 DVI ports, one single link and one dual.
I am rather proud of both of them anyhow...I wrote the original Mac ROMs for both.
Chances of finding a one of the Gainward cards are nearly nil. Bruinmacs had one, but ti seems to be gone now. Was a rather outrageous $300 anyway.
Get a G70 based 7800GS for $80-100 and flash it yourself in a PC.
Retek (on EBay as well) has FireGl X3 256 cards. These flash into a PERFECT X800XT that works beautifully on a MDD. Has a single link and a Dual-link DVI port. Another moment I treasured...first time I fired one up on my Quicksilver 933 a few years back.
At the time, only G5s had X800s with DVI.
Retek gets $200 for the FireGl, but I think they are new. ROM and flasher available from Macelite.
There was one better, faster card.
But you can count on your fingers how many of them made it to the US
The Gainward Bliss 7800GS is a TRUE 7800GT for AGP. With 20 pixel pipes instead of 16 on the 7800GS. Also has an additional Vertex shader IIRC.
Even has 2 DVI ports, one single link and one dual.
I am rather proud of both of them anyhow...I wrote the original Mac ROMs for both.
Chances of finding a one of the Gainward cards are nearly nil. Bruinmacs had one, but ti seems to be gone now. Was a rather outrageous $300 anyway.
Get a G70 based 7800GS for $80-100 and flash it yourself in a PC.
Retek (on EBay as well) has FireGl X3 256 cards. These flash into a PERFECT X800XT that works beautifully on a MDD. Has a single link and a Dual-link DVI port. Another moment I treasured...first time I fired one up on my Quicksilver 933 a few years back.
At the time, only G5s had X800s with DVI.
Retek gets $200 for the FireGl, but I think they are new. ROM and flasher available from Macelite.
If you are in Europe it is easier to find one.
Here is card you want...note how at higher res it KILLS even the regular 7800GS from EVGA.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1028220/gainward-agp-wolf-sheep-clothing
The trick is finding a G70 based one. Gainward changed the name to "Bliss 7800GS +" with the "+" indicating the G71/7900 core. There were even later models with smaller cheaper fans, all with 7900 core. There is no way to flas the G71 core, at least we were never able to write a ROM for it.
Aquamac wrote about making this card work in Mac. He even took my original rom and improved it, I do believe. Sad thing is that OSX has a "glass ceiling" of 256 Megs for AGP cards. No matter what we did with this or 6200 ROM, we were never able to get past 256 Megs.
If you can get seller to take off fan, it is easy to tell G70 from G71, as G71 is a die shrink, it is physically much smaller and has "G71" or "7900" stamped on it, while the link I posted shows the G70 core.
Good luck.
Here is card you want...note how at higher res it KILLS even the regular 7800GS from EVGA.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1028220/gainward-agp-wolf-sheep-clothing
The trick is finding a G70 based one. Gainward changed the name to "Bliss 7800GS +" with the "+" indicating the G71/7900 core. There were even later models with smaller cheaper fans, all with 7900 core. There is no way to flas the G71 core, at least we were never able to write a ROM for it.
Aquamac wrote about making this card work in Mac. He even took my original rom and improved it, I do believe. Sad thing is that OSX has a "glass ceiling" of 256 Megs for AGP cards. No matter what we did with this or 6200 ROM, we were never able to get past 256 Megs.
If you can get seller to take off fan, it is easy to tell G70 from G71, as G71 is a die shrink, it is physically much smaller and has "G71" or "7900" stamped on it, while the link I posted shows the G70 core.
Good luck.
flashing ATi FireGL X3 for Powermac G5 (AGP)
Hi,
i tryed this for my Powermac G5 (June2004).. but it doesn't work. After flashing in a PC the screen keeps blank on my G5... The flashing process is quite strange... (see fotos).
The card is a brand new spare part.
Card:
Flashing:
ROM:
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/local--files/wikidownloads2/FireGL_X3_mac.rom.zip
ANY IDEAS? - The card is working fine again - as a pc card- (after fashing with saved rom)...
It seems to be the wrong BIOS?!
Thanks for help!
Hi,
i tryed this for my Powermac G5 (June2004).. but it doesn't work. After flashing in a PC the screen keeps blank on my G5... The flashing process is quite strange... (see fotos).
The card is a brand new spare part.
Card:
Flashing:
ROM:
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/local--files/wikidownloads2/FireGL_X3_mac.rom.zip
ANY IDEAS? - The card is working fine again - as a pc card- (after fashing with saved rom)...
It seems to be the wrong BIOS?!
Thanks for help!
ROM is OK. Try to use other (lower i think) atiflash version. Notice "New Device ID" on fourth pic. It says "0" - it should be like old one, 4A4D (DID in ROM you linked is right, I've check).
You can also try to flash with Graphicaccelerator on Mac, using PCI card or VNC.
You can also try to flash with Graphicaccelerator on Mac, using PCI card or VNC.
I tryed Graphicaccelerator, and it worked partly! The Card is now shown in the system profiler as RV420 / X800XT....
but...
there is a new problem... the screen is corrupted even on VNC!
to use the flasher i had to install a fresh Leo, because my every day OS did not fire up in safe mode... after checking the disks there is a restart... and the safe mode is gone... forceing Safe Boot will produce a "booting"- loop
- maybe safe mode is not fully compatible with my software raid....
should I try another rom?
what is about the rom extender / ATi Displays. - I installed both... problem?
it would be nice if I can get rid of ATi Displays but there is no uninstaller...
but...
there is a new problem... the screen is corrupted even on VNC!
to use the flasher i had to install a fresh Leo, because my every day OS did not fire up in safe mode... after checking the disks there is a restart... and the safe mode is gone... forceing Safe Boot will produce a "booting"- loop
- maybe safe mode is not fully compatible with my software raid....should I try another rom?
what is about the rom extender / ATi Displays. - I installed both... problem?
it would be nice if I can get rid of ATi Displays but there is no uninstaller...
ROM extender and ATI Display drivers 4.5.7 are not necessary, especially when you are running Leo. It could be source of your problem - I'd recommend another clean install or try to find files needed to remove manually. If it won't help, try to lower clocks in ROM and reflash the card.
lowering the memory clock did it for me! GPU is no problem up to 500 MHz, but if I set the memory clock above 275 (!) MHz artifacts will appear.
With these setting the card is not much faster than my old X1600XT :/
I think the frequency is not the problem... it looks more like a timing problem. On the PCB there are Infinion chips, instead of Samsung (X850XT MAC ED.) - does this matter?
With these setting the card is not much faster than my old X1600XT :/
I think the frequency is not the problem... it looks more like a timing problem. On the PCB there are Infinion chips, instead of Samsung (X850XT MAC ED.) - does this matter?
Resurrecting an old thread...
Sasch,
I hate to beat a dead horse, but can you give me some information as to how you got this working? I used the exact card you have pictured, with the same FireGL ROM from The Mac Elite's WIKI and got the exact same output after the flash that you've got in your pictures.
When I install the card in my Powermac G5 I get a chime but no video (on either port). When I install the card in my PC to try and flash it back to the PC, I have no video either (apparently the presence of the card in the AGP slot overrides the motherboards built in video even if I have a monitor hooked up to the built in VGA port and there is no BIOS command to override this).
So I'm a bit stuck. Since you sound like you got yours working, I hate to give up on this as an irrecoverable brick.
Any thoughts?
Sasch,
I hate to beat a dead horse, but can you give me some information as to how you got this working? I used the exact card you have pictured, with the same FireGL ROM from The Mac Elite's WIKI and got the exact same output after the flash that you've got in your pictures.
When I install the card in my Powermac G5 I get a chime but no video (on either port). When I install the card in my PC to try and flash it back to the PC, I have no video either (apparently the presence of the card in the AGP slot overrides the motherboards built in video even if I have a monitor hooked up to the built in VGA port and there is no BIOS command to override this).
So I'm a bit stuck. Since you sound like you got yours working, I hate to give up on this as an irrecoverable brick.
Any thoughts?
Hi,
I have exactly the same problem. When I flashed on a PC, the new parameters were also black and it didn't worked on the Mac. I also managed to flash it right on the Mac using graphiccelerator but I had to change the ID on lines 3 and 8 of the FireGl rom that you also used. The next problem was the artifacts. I only managed to get it working if I set the memory frequency to 280MHz. I also have the Infineon chips and after looking at the datasheet I found that it can work between 250-500MHz and have a WR latency of 2.0ns. I think that the memories on the X800 XT Mac edition have memories of 1.6ns. Did you managed to get a Rom with the right timings?
Thank you, Jose
I've spoken to my mate who builds circuits boards.
It was the blind leading the blind a bit. He's not that familiar with the Nvidia chips, and I didn't know how they were attached to the board.
After a bit of scouring the net, we figured out that - while possibly not impossible, it would very probably be an absolute pig, and take ages. He'd have to do it at work, meaning it would have to be fitted in around real (paying) work too, but maybe.
He'd need a lot more info to be 100% sure if it is possible, but he has enough info to know that he's 100% not tempted.
It was the blind leading the blind a bit. He's not that familiar with the Nvidia chips, and I didn't know how they were attached to the board.
After a bit of scouring the net, we figured out that - while possibly not impossible, it would very probably be an absolute pig, and take ages. He'd have to do it at work, meaning it would have to be fitted in around real (paying) work too, but maybe.
He'd need a lot more info to be 100% sure if it is possible, but he has enough info to know that he's 100% not tempted.
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