G3 Pci Video Upgrade

[GeoMoon5]

Is it common for the A/V personality card to not work when a PCI video card is installed? I have a G3 Rev.1 mobo, upgraded Rev. C ROM, 640MB RAM, 266MHz G3 processor, running OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.3.9 via xpostfacto. The video card I upgraded to is a Radeon 7000, 64MB edition. According to responses on the forum, no Mac edition version of the 64MB edition of the Radeon 7000 was ever released. The forums then said that the card I have, therefore, must be a PC version of the 64MB edition of the Radeon 7000 that has been flashed, most likely with the ROM programing for a 32MB edition Radeon 7000. I don't know yet if I should presue the seller and try to get a refund, or if it doesn't matter and my A/V personality card wouldn't work with a PCI video card upgrade anyway. In either case, I have no idea how many of the features the video card offers I'm actually benefiting from as, at best, the ROM flash is done using a similar card that doesn't even have the same memory specs. I just feel lost and lacking enough critical raw data to decide either way concerning pursuing the seller. My primary goal in making my G3 OS X worthy was to be able to run QuickTime 7. Now, when I got to the step of upgrading the video card, I lost a valuable function in OS 9.2.2, that being my video capture abilities. I want to run QuickTime 7, but not destroy other things in the process. Is my A/V personality card not working in OS 9.2.2 because it just doesn't like PCI video cards, or is it the ROM flash? NOTE: the A/V card works fine with the on board Rage II video. Please help if you can and thank you so very much for volunteering your valuable time to help other Mac users.

Geoffrey Moon geoffmoon@surewest.net

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

It's very likely that the source of your A/V personality card problems stems not from the video card, but the implementation of XPostFacto. It's a known bug:

http://bugzilla.opendarwin.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1914

I would assume that the PCI card is probably compounding the incompatibility (between OS X on an unsupported machine and the A/V card), making it even more incompatible.

Besides, upgrading the video card is not going to markedly improve the performance of QuickTime 7 because the new codecs introduced in QuickTime 7 (mpeg4 improvements, h.264) are more reliant on your processor than your video card. You may see some improvement with certain codecs, but for the most part, h.264 video is just out of reach for you on that machine -- hell, it barely plays on my G4 system.

I would still suggest trading in that flashed card for a true Macintosh video card -- if you can get your hands on a true Macintosh Radeon PCI card, I would recommend that (they are no longer sold, so 2nd hand is your only choice)... barring that, you basically have one option:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI Technologies/100436011/

 

[GeoMoon5]

If I switch to my onboard video, with xpostfacto installed, the A/V card works fine. I have QT7 working now because I upgraded to a G4 550MHz. My A/V card still does not work with the flashed PCI video card though. Sound out works, nothing else. What's the point of sending back the new video card and instead getting a Mac edition video card with smaller memory if the A/V card still won't work because of PCI video issues? Do you think the A/V card is looking for some "mac identification chip" on the non-Mac-edition video card and can't find one and so doesn't work? If I could just get some sort of reference to someone using a PCI video card in their G3 and the A/V card still working, I think I would finally be able to figure out what to do about this Radeon 7000 64MB video card...

 

[mdnky]

Not sure about the AV card an XPostFacto (I'm happy running 10.1.5 and 10.2.8 on my beige G3s), but if you paid anywhere near the $125 range for that card I'd suggest returning it and going after the one ElDiablo linked to at OWC. The 9200 is a much better choice than the older 7000 series.

 

[GeoMoon5]

I only paied $50.00 for the card. ($58.00 with shipping). The 9200 may be better, but will the fact that it's a PCI video card make the A/V card not work?