I am more than pleased with the card. It shows in Apple System Profiler as a 64 MB Geforce2 MX as if it were an Apple OEM card. No artifacts. The display is accelerated according to Quartz Extreme Check. Quake 3 and RTCW are awesome at High Quality on my G4/400! I am way happy.
I will explain how to do the flash without the hassle I went through to figure it out.
Many Geforce2 cards can be made to work on a Mac with varying levels of difficulty depending on which one you choose.
The reason I chose the Asus V7100 was because
this site said that the 32MB and 64MB Pure models work with the Mac out of the box (indicated by the * next to card name on the site).
It was also discovered at some point that one of the firmware updates for the PowerMac and the Cube included a ROM for the Geforce2 MX that temporarily "replaces" the ROM on the card if it's newer, thus allowing video out of the box on the PC cards that are based on the NVIDIA reference design.
So, step-by-step (Read everything before attempting and do at your own risk):
1. Update your Mac's firmware to the latest version.
2. Download
the flasher from the site I mentioned earlier. There are 2 in this file. You are interested in AENV MacFlash [1045-MRS] only. Copy it to a folder accessible to you when you boot Mac OS 9.
3. Open AppleScript Editor (in Mac OS X or 9):
A) Paste in this text:
tell application "AENV MacFlash [1045-MRS]"
CompareROMVersion
if (CompareROMVersion) = true then
FlashROM
end if
quit
end tell
B) Click Check Syntax, and if it asks you where AENV MacFlash [1045-MRS] is, point it to that OS 9 accesible copy we talked about.
C) Save the script in that OS 9 accesible folder. It can be Run-Only or just a Compiled Script, either will work fine.
4) Download the
nVIDIA 2.1.1 Extensions from the same site. Someone was nice enough to extract these from Apple's Tome. Extract the file and put ONLY the "NVIDIA Driver" extension into your Mac OS 9 Extensions folder.
5) Set your startup disk to Mac OS 9 and shut down your Mac.
6) Open your Mac, remove your old AGP card, and insert your reference design (see my first post for link to $39 card that works great) nVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400 in it's place. Connect your monitor to the new card and turn the power on.
7) You should get video, but it may have funky vertical lines, and be shifted a bit. Along my journey I found that sometimes I was able to make the computer sleep once booted into Mac OS 9 and it would be fixed when it woke up. Note that this is not a problem we must deal with, it is gone after flashing. If you don't have video, scroll down some and there will be something about that.
8) Another thing to mention is that originally I tried installing all of the nVIDIA extensions, but it froze during boot. With none of the extensions installed, the Flasher would not flash the card. OK, so you're booted into Mac OS 9 with funky video. Go to that accessible folder.
9) If you look at Apple System Profiler, it should show the cards ROM version as 1028F, but so long as it's less than 1045, everything's a go.
10) Open the script we created in Step 3, and click Run. The screen should go blank for a little bit...don't touch...then it will come back on.
11) Reboot and install the rest of the nVIDIA extensions if you would like accelerated video in Mac OS 9. Apple System Profiler should now show ROM version 1045.
12) Change your Startup Disk to Mac OS X and enjoy Quartz Extreme!
IF YOU DIDN"T GET VIDEO:
Before shutting down your Mac in Step 5, place an alias to your AppleScript in the Mac OS 9 Startup Items. When turning your Mac back on to boot into Mac OS 9, make sure it's had long enough to boot (since you can't see), then press Enter to tell the AppleScript to run. Wait a couple minutes (to be sure) while your card is flashed, then press the power button, then Enter to shut down. Turn your machine back on and hold down shift so you don't run your AppleScript again at startup. You should have video now. If not, did you remember to install only the nVIDIA Driver extension before attempting to flash?
Let me know on AIM or iChat how things went for you. My screen name is NathanRX7. Good luck!
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