User profile for user: Martin Fuhrer
Martin Fuhrer Author
User level: Level 1
55 points

Radeon 7000 with a 22" Widescreen LCD Display?

My Dad's 17" CRT monitor on his B&W G3 tower gave up its life, and I'm looking to replace it with a widescreen 22" LCD display (1680*1050 native resolution). The tower's stock ATI Rage 128 (16MB) card is most likely not able to handle this resolution (in addition, it lacks a DVI port, providing only analog output which I find looks rather crummy on an LCD display), so I'd also like to upgrade to a Radeon 7000 with a DVI port. There are a number of these cards floating around on eBay in 32MB and 64MB varieties. I also spotted the Radeon 9200 (PCI variety), which is more costly and probably beyond the needs of my Dad's web-browsing, mail, and iPhoto needs.

Has anyone successfully run a 22" widescreen display at native resolution via a DVI port, using a Radeon 7000? If so, does the 32MB variety suffice, or would I have to look at a 64MB variety? The Radeon 7000 specs page <http://ati.amd.com/products/radeon7000/radeon7000me/specs.html> does not list 1680*1050 resolution (nor any widescreen resolution for that matter), but neither does the specs page for the much more modern Radeon 9200 <http://ati.amd.com/products/radeon9200/radeon9200me/specs.html>, so I figure that the specs pages don't tell the whole story. Thanks for any insights!

PowerMac G3 B&W 350 MHz, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Aug 18, 2007 10:32 AM

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14 replies
User profile for user: Jeff
Jeff
User level: Level 6
12,328 points

Aug 18, 2007 3:21 PM in response to Martin Fuhrer

The 2001-2002 vintage Radeon 7000 cards predate the widescreen displays that are so common today, with their 16:9 aspect ratio. It's likely that a card that old only supports a 4:3 aspect ratio via the DVI port - which ATI's web site specs seem to confirm. ATI's Radeon 7000 Mac Edition PCI card only shipped in a 32 MB DDR version. ATI's retail Radeon 7000 "PC" PCI cards were available in either a 32 MB or 64 MB version, but only have a VGA port. A Radeon 7000 32 MB "Mac" card having VGA and DVI ports could be an authentic ATI product or a flashed version of a PC card. The color of the PCB or heat sink style often differentiates a third-party card from an ATI product. A Radeon 7000 64 MB "Mac" PCI card with VGA and DVI ports is a flashed PC card, that's "powered by ATI" technology - but not built by ATI. This means that you need to check the card manufacturer's (not ATI) web site for supported resolutions, and hope that what's listed for the card in its factory-programmed "PC" state still applies, after having its EEPROM flashed (by an eBay seller) with the Mac ROM. The Mac ROM that's used for flashing "PC" cards was extracted from the original ATI Radeon (or Radeon 7000) Mac Edition. Since that ROM doesn't support the 16:9 aspect ratio in the original Radeon retail product, it's unlikely that third-party Radeon cards programmed with it will do so. You really need a more recent graphics card, for support of widescreen displays.
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User profile for user: Martin Fuhrer
Martin Fuhrer Author
User level: Level 1
55 points

Aug 20, 2007 6:53 PM in response to Martin Fuhrer

I appreciate the feedback! So far the only definite mention I came across of a Radeon 7000 powering a widescreen display is here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3672965&#3672965

Still, this is at a lower resolution (1440*900) than what I'm looking for (1680*1050), so to be on the safe side, I will spend some extra for the more recent Radeon 9200. I'll post my experiences once the new card and display arrive.
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User profile for user: Martin Fuhrer
Martin Fuhrer Author
User level: Level 1
55 points

Aug 28, 2007 8:05 PM in response to Monsieur Cheezy BonBon

Cheezy,

I don't think the posted resolutions are written in stone; I'm fairly sure other resolutions are supported as well. The Mac mini, for example, had a Radeon 9200 32MB, and according to this post, could run a 20" widescreen at 1680x1050 resolution (at least most of the time; any problems that arose were likely due to the skimpy VRAM):
<http://www.macmod.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,222/topic,2809.msg18447>

I ended up ordering a Radeon 9200 from eBay, and cheaped out with a 64MB card (PC flashed) rather than a genuine Mac 128MB card. I asked the seller to set up this card to drive a 22" widescreen (he said a Radeon 7000 64 MB would do the trick as well, but a 9200 will give slightly better performance), so I'm crossing my fingers and waiting for the card to arrive...

Martin
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User profile for user: Martin Fuhrer
Martin Fuhrer Author
User level: Level 1
55 points

Sep 1, 2007 1:09 PM in response to Martin Fuhrer

Yesterday I picked up a Samsung 216BW 21.6" display with 1680*1050 resolution. Although I'm still awaiting arrival of the Radeon 9200 (64MB) card, I thought I'd try to hook up the monitor to the stock Rage 128 (16MB) card to see what happens. I powered up the B&W G3, and was pleasantly surprised to see the Apple logo appear followed by the startup screen. I logged into my account, and found that the Rage 128 was actually displaying in widescreen mode, albeit at some non-native resolution. Naturally, the next step was to pull down the displays menu and check the other resolution options. The menu read as follows:

SyncMaster
1280 x 1024, 60 Hz, Millions
1680 x 1050, 60 Hz, Millions
1680 x 1050, 60 Hz, Millions

I chose the last item (can't say why this item was listed twice), held my breath, and an instant later was blown away to find the old Rage driving the display at native resolution with a very decent looking image (even though this is over the analogue RGB cable). So I can confirm that the Rage 128 does support a 21.6" widescreen display at native resolution (and I would presume the same applies for 20" and 22" widescreen displays, since they all share the same resolution). I'll also mention that the B&W G3 tower is running Mac OS X 10.4.9.

In any case, I still don't regret having ordered the Radeon, as the Rage 128 does not properly support fullscreen slideshow mode and transitions in iPhoto 5, and my Dad spends a lot of his time dabbling with iPhoto slideshows.
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User profile for user: Monsieur Cheezy BonBon
Monsieur Cheezy BonBon
User level: Level 1
0 points

Sep 4, 2007 6:13 AM in response to Martin Fuhrer

Wow, that is certainly amazing - shows how convoluted and little understood the whole video card spec world is... As for me I've decided that I'm waiting for the 32" LCD TV's to drop in price a bit more (now $799 on tigerdirect.ca for example) since my main purpose for my B&W is DVD watching. Even those are 1380x760 its the size that counts...

Anyways thanks Martin for updating us and look forward to your comments on the new video card when it arrives.
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User profile for user: Rob Gendreau
Rob Gendreau
User level: Level 2
166 points

Oct 31, 2007 3:05 PM in response to Monsieur Cheezy BonBon

I’ve been struggling with similar issues with a PowerMac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors, which had a Geforce card. It ran the Samsung widescreen 22” you referred too with the included DVI-VGA adapter (even though, as I recall, it was not supposed to work properly with some displays). Looked great. I tried using it with an Olevia 32” widescreen HDTV via VGA, and get crap. Poor resolution and it stretches the display. My MacBook drives that Olevia well, but it’s a no go for the HDTV. So I’m wondering if the Radeon 9200 would work.
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User profile for user: Jeff
Jeff
User level: Level 6
12,328 points

Oct 31, 2007 9:14 PM in response to Rob Gendreau

It's generally better to start a new topic, than bury your new subject at the bottom of an older one, so that it will attract more responses. You'll find the Radeon 9200 on ATI's list of Mac products. The supported resolutions and aspect ratios for each external port are listed separately. The VGA and DVI ports don't always support the same settings. It's possible that the Olevia HDTV's optimal resolution isn't supported by the GeForce card, when adapted from the DVI port to a VGA connection.

I'd recommend that you post future questions about your G4 MDD in the G4 Expansion Forum (for hardware issues and/or upgrades) or G4 Usage Forum (general issues). You'll find a lot of experienced G4 users there, who can provide informative responses to any questions that you might have.
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User profile for user: Andreas Kromke
Andreas Kromke
User level: Level 3
755 points

Nov 22, 2007 8:30 AM in response to Martin Fuhrer

According to the compatibility list from EIZO at http://www.eizo.com/support/compatibility/common/27.asp, the hardware itself should be perfectly compatible with both analogue and digital.

However, EIZO did the test - of course - with Windows and not MacOS, so the 7000ME could be incompatible due to some limitations of the open firmware on the card.

Addition: See http://www.eizo.com/support/compatibility/lcd/39.asp for a compatibility list of the Macintosh. Unfortunately the lines (see G3 b/w) for Radeon 7000 and Rage 128 seem to be mixed up, because - as far as I remember - the Rage does NOT have DVI, while the Radeon has. Maybe somebody should ask Eizo if there is a typo in their list.

Message was edited by: Andreas Kromke
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Radeon 7000 with a 22" Widescreen LCD Display?

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