Leopard PowerBook G4 400 mhz ATI Rage 128 Hack

Question

Level 2

461 points

Leopard PowerBook G4 400 mhz ATI Rage 128 Hack

I successfully installed Leopard on a PowerBook G4 400 mhz machine via Firewire Disk Mode. Of course there are no video drivers for the ATI Rage 128 graphics card used in the PowerBook G4. I tried using an ATIRage128 kext file from Jaguar (10.2) and installing it in the /System/Library/Extensions folder in Leopard under root by dragging it over top the extensions folder, but an error came up saying it was improperly installed. I did refresh the kext file via root and restarted the computer, but the same error message came up saying the kext file cannot be used as it was improperly installed.

Anybody want to try and take a crack at this? It would really help put some juice back in these older G4 PowerBooks, because there is no video card support to speak of Leopard. With some video support, it will be just fine, because the G4 chip rocks in Leopard. Right now videos are completely choppy.

Message was edited by: Ryan Vetter1

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Oct 31, 2007 12:52 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Dec 15, 2007 11:27 PM in response to Ryan Vetter1

Hey Ryan,

I have the same PowerBook (with 512 MB RAM), and I'd love to find out about this as well. If you ever figure out how to get the video drivers working, any chance you could post about it here?

Also, how is Leopard working overall compared to Tiger?

Thanks!
Rich

Reply

Answer 2

PBookie

Level 2

216 points

Dec 16, 2007 8:43 PM in response to Ryan Vetter1

Hello Ryan,

After reading your post, I posted a question on the Pismo G3 forum about whether anyone had tried to install Leopard on a Pismo with a G4 upgraded processor.
The Pismo has the same video card as the 400 Titanium.

I received a response form JPL that might interest you:
*************************************************************
I looked at the version number of the ATIRage128.kext from 10.2.8 and it is version 1.2.26; the same kext is version 1.4.4 (created 3/26/05) in my 10.4.11. I don't know if a newer version may be compatible but it might be worth a try.

jpl
Posts: 3,302
Registered: Jul 27, 2000
*************************************************************
I hope this might help you! PB

Reply

Answer 3

PBookie

Level 2

216 points

Dec 22, 2007 11:01 AM in response to Ryan Vetter1

Hello again Ryan,
I don't know if you have been monitoring the G3 PowerBook forum lately, but Texas Mac Man posted a response that I think will answer your/our questions about the results of installing Leopard on slower macs.

http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/unsupported.html

There are several good suggestions about the hows and results of doing this installation. I hope this helps you.
PB

Reply