B&W G3 + Radeon 7000 + Mac OS 8.6 = no dice?

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B&W G3 + Radeon 7000 + Mac OS 8.6 = no dice?

Greetings. I recently acquired a "new to me" B&W G3 (rev 2 motherboard). It came equipped with a Radeon 7000 and Mac OS X. I have since acquired a Rage 128, a new hard drive, and installed Mac OS 8.6 on it. I now have a Radeon 7000 lying around and would like to use it to set up an extra monitor.

I have tried plugging it into the next available PCI slot and hooking up my 1680x1050 resolution LCD monitor. No dice.

My theory is that this set up should work if I had the correct drivers for the card (and the card supports that resolution). Unfortunately, a search for "Radeon 7000" and "Mac OS 8" doesn't yield the desired results.

There are drivers for OS 9 and I even saw a site that had drivers for System 7.6(!). There are so many drivers my mind has been boggled. Not only that, ATI dumps between 7-10 extensions in my System Folder depending on the installer so finding the correct combination of ATI drivers (and versions) is an exercise in madness.

Does anybody know which ATI drivers (and version numbers) will work with this (or a similar) set up?

I'd prefer not to upgrade to Mac OS 9 if at all possible (my apps work just great in 8...plus, I don't have that disk anyway!)

Thanks!
Jason

B&W G3 Rev2, Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier, Rev 2, ATI Rage 128, 640MB RAM, DVD Burner

Posted on Jun 12, 2008 4:58 PM

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Answer 1

Jeff

Level 6

12,058 points

Jun 12, 2008 8:27 PM in response to Emehr

As you can see from ATI's Radeon 7000 Mac Edition Spec page, the Radeon driver requires Mac OS 9.0 or later, with OpenGL 1.2.2 (part of OS 9.2.1) required for 3D graphics. I have a dual boot (OS 9.2.2 and 8.6) beige G3, but when booted from the OS 8.6 partition with the older (pre-Radeon) ATI drivers, the unsupported Radeon card has no 2-D acceleration. As you're probably aware, this causes glitchy scrolling. Because of this, the 8.6 partition became used less frequently. The ATI Rage 128-based cards function fine with the newer ATI drivers that support the Radeon series, but you need to be running OS 9.x. Unfortunately, I think you'll have to upgrade to 9.2.2, if you want to use the Radeon card for a second display.

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Answer 2

Emehr Author

Level 1

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Jun 13, 2008 7:26 AM in response to Jeff

Thanks for the reply! The glimmer of hope was this user testimony for a later card (the 9200) and Mac OS 8.6...

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI%20Technologies/100436014OB/

I won't hold my breath getting this to work with my system but if anybody has had any luck in the past I'm all ears! Aside from that, anybody want to buy a Radeon 7000? j/k 🙂

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Answer 3

Jun 16, 2008 8:40 AM in response to Emehr

Try the drivers for osx 10.2 they are in .hqx format and i think are the same as the 9.2 drivers. I think that you should be able to install them in 8.6. There will probably be a popup saying that they are not for you system but you should be able to install them anyway. I have a 7000 on a B&W in 8.6 and the drivers installed fine, the displays panel works and i can turn on and off graphic acceleration.

The retail update here:

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/mac/macosx10-2x-radeon.html

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Answer 4

Emehr Author

Level 1

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Jun 16, 2008 2:18 PM in response to funkymonkeypie

Excellent! Thanks, funkymonkeypie! After installing the drivers then the card the initial startup froze after showing the desktop but before it was populated with icons. I remember reading somewhere about having the card in a different PCI slot besides the one designed for the graphics card so I tried that and everything worked fine! I was hoping the Radeon 7000 would support 1680x1050 resolution but no such luck. But the drivers worked and that's what matters. Thanks again!

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Answer 5

Jun 16, 2008 3:15 PM in response to Emehr

Glad to help, try this is well:

In extensions manager, turn off "ATI graphics accelerator" that was the olde driver, from before you put in the 2002 update, don't need that.

Put the card back in the fast slot, it works fine there but press the CUDA button on the motherboard (while it is off) and reset the PRAM

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86760

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

You might have to boot a couple of times after doing this for it to work properly. But the 7000 will work fine in the correct slot. Its the ideal card for a B&W as it is the fastest card that has acceleration from OS 8.6 to 10.4.11

Once you reset the PRAM and CUDA it will work fine, give it another shot.

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