Powermac G5 With 9800 Pro

[simplymuzik3]

I have a powermac g5 with the stock 64mb nvidia video card. I was looking at the mac elite website for cards that will let me do dual (without ADC adapters). I was looking at the first one on this page (ATI 9800 pro):
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/9800-working
On the page it says that all the outputs work(VGA, DVI, S-video). The problem I am having is the "full ROM" and "reduced ROM" because I dont know what they are. How do I use them? Which one do I download? Will the card even work with my powermac g5 (dual 1.8 june 2004)? Can someone please tell me which file to download, and what to do with the file.

Thanks so much!

 

[macz1]

The sort of ROM to flash depends on the size of the ROM chip present on your card. Most of the PC cards have a 64K chip while the full mac ROM is larger than that. The reduced rom is a mac rom modified to fit on a 64K chip. While there should not be any notable disadvantages using the reduced one, it's preferable to flash the entire mac ROM if the chip of your card allows it.

In the macelite forum you should find the instructions how to find out the size of the rom chip...

 

[simplymuzik3]

Thanks for the help! To flash I would just put the card inside a windows machine and follow the instructions? Also, will this work for sure on my mac?(2x, 4x, 8x agp cards?) I think the 9800 pro is a 8x card, so would it work?

 

[macz1]

Most 9800 are AGP 2x/4x/8x while the rest is 4x/8x. Therefore every 9800 should work in your G5.
The best thing is to flash it in DOS, but there is also a possibility to flash it using a mac (I flashed a 9800 in a G4 sawtooth and it's still going strong) and control it remotely using VNC and a second computer. Do some research in the forum and you will find all the information you need. Not much time ago there was a thread discussing the procedure. It was also a radeon 9800.

Good Luck!

Work carefully and you will certainly be successful. The radeon 9800 is perhaps the easiest card to flash and it's fully and perfectly recognized by OS X afterwards. (based on the experience I did with my still working sawtooth)

(Sigh! I wish the radeon 4870 would behave as well as this card does...)

 

[simplymuzik3]

@maczi1

Thanks for your very helpful post! I will probably be buying the card within the next few days. The page also says that you have to disable 2 of the pins(forgot which ones), but I wanted to know if it will be safe to use tape and cover them(macelite recommends this and has a guide for doing it). But I don't want to damage my g5, so I would like to know if it will be safe to follow the tape procedure. And suggestions about the "tape" are welcome! Thanks for all the help so far!

 

[Dave H]

@maczi1

I will probably be buying the card within the next few days. The page also says that you have to disable 2 of the pins(forgot which ones), but I wanted to know if it will be safe to use tape and cover them(macelite recommends this and has a guide for doing it). But I don't want to damage my g5, so I would like to know if it will be safe to follow the tape procedure. And suggestions about the "tape" are welcome! Thanks for all the help so far!

Taping the pins is not necessary with G5s.
It is only needed in G4s with ADC monitor support (Gigabit and later). These models used the (then available) 3 and 11 pins for ADC connections. These same pins were later used in 8X AGP.