Video Card help with a G3 Desktop.

C

camgangrel

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Hi I'm new at this Mac stuff I first started out on apples then the old mac then move over to the PC now after allmost 15 years I'm trying to come back.
What I would like to know is if I can take my Nvida PCI video card that I had on my PC and run it on my Mac it is a G3/266 it has a 512MB stuck and a 64MB stuck of RAM. I have all my PCI slots open. Now the is a Nvida Gforce 4 with I think 64MB of VRAM on the card. Now is there anyone out there been able to get this card to work? Oh I have OS X 10.2.8 / OS 9.2.2 both updated as far as my ROM on my Mac will let me. That is for some where other then here. I think anyway. Could someone help out by telling me if the linux drive will work because I use linux on my PC for about 7 years. So I know how to port stuff. I had Mac OS X 10.2.8 Ported and run on my old AMD 1.2Ghz PC. So I know how to take stuff form PowerPC Code and ported. Now I just need someone to help me out. By the way where on Mac is X11 and GC++ and GC?
 
I have a hard time believing that you ported Mac OS X 10.2.8 and ran it on a non-PPC processor-based machine.

No, the video card will not work in the Mac. Video cards have specific PC-only or Mac-only ROMS on them. While it's possible to "flash" the card with a Mac-specific ROM, the results are usually less than stellar. It's not the drivers holding it back, it's the ROM on the card itself.
 
IT really depends on the card. Even though both PCs and MAcs have PCI slots, not all the cards have the support hardwired in the firmware to support the Mac....something about "marketshare". :rolleyes:

Anyways, NVIDIA does support the Mac, but the video cards have to be able to "talk" to the Mac hardware, which is why the firmware requires coding for the Mac as well. Now it IS possible to "flash" the firmware to support the Mac, but it's not supported by most manufacturers of video cards and can render your card useless.

I have an old 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 PCI video card that is flashable. Apparently, 3dfx sold the Voodoo cards to both PC and MAc users, but they charged Mac users more for the same thing. What was interesting is that this was basically the same video card with the ability to support both platforms in the firmware. This caused people to buy the PC version which was cheaper and reflash it for the Mac.

I would recommend getting any of the more recent PCI video cards out there that support the Mac already instead of flashing the one you have. Be sure to check out Apple's website for supported hardware under Mac OS X.
 
Ok here is the thing I don't have alot of money to be outting in to the mac as of right now. I will in about 6 months I will be get a G5 System. But I need to find out how to do this flashing thing you guys are talking about. The only flashing I did on the PC was the BIOS chip.
So where do need to go and get this toy to do this because I have a PC still thats my friends That I can do it on.
As for the card I don't a rats butt about it. I will be getting a PCIx card for my new 64 bit AMD PC. So this card is just a play toy for me.
As for porting PowerPC Code I and about 25 other guys take a about 2 years to port OS X 10.0 then after that it was all down hill. Because the OS is at its core just BSD remade formated for the powerPC chips. So I just backed walked what I had of the lasted copy of BSD and openBSD and freeBSD and then look at the code for the Mac and saw that it is still base coded in BSD i.e. Unix. That is why you can use the Unix filesystem on a mac.
As for porting it all I need was some of my old army buds from S.F. computer ops. That lived and dies Mac. to help out on that part.
 
i have a beige G3 All-In-One 266mhz that i put a g3/400mhz chip from a Blue and White G3 in and also have a ati radeon 7000/32mb card in. I was able to use XPostFacto 3.1 to put X.3.9 onto it. it went on flawlessly, but it might be because i have the thirdparty card in it. BUT i am using the built in monitor and running dual monitors on that ati card for a total of three monitors. see "Bender" in my signature link for the details. I have also heard mixed results about the flashing of the cards, but have no first hand knowledge of it.
 
If you ported Mac OS X to run on a non-PPC chip, then show some screen shots. People have been trying to do this since OS X came out, and if you and some buds accomplished it, I think it would have gotten more press than it did. If it were possible to simply port OS X to a non-PPC chip, then why would companies spend money developing emulation software that runs Mac OS X on non-PPC chips at about 20% of the native speed?

If by "porting" OS X you mean got the underlying UNIX structure without the GUI running on a non-PPC chip, you wasted your time. Apple offers Darwin, which is OS X without the GUI, for free for PPC and non-PPC chips in a bootable ISO image.

Besides, how did you get the GUI of OS X? That's not open-source, and you surely don't have the source code for it.

You're making some pretty groundbreaking claims... I'd like to see some proof. Otherwise, it's just not believable.

At any rate, here's a site on flashing PC NVidia cards for use in a Mac, but they say the GeForce 4 doesn't work yet:
http://www.cybercoment.com/macgeforce.htm
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
At any rate, here's a site on flashing PC NVidia cards for use in a Mac, but they say the GeForce 4 doesn't work yet:
http://www.cybercoment.com/macgeforce.htm
Click to expand...

Well I'll be darned... :rolleyes:

I actually have a PCI card using the NVIDIA chipset. As for which brand it is, I am not totally sure...I believe it's a PNY brand. I had wanted to get this running on my StarMax for use under Linux and Mac OS 9.1. My only problem was getting it detected at all by anything, so this might just work.

Or I might end up with a weird looking paperweight. :confused: :rolleyes:
 
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