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kikkoman · Oct 10, 2003, 05:32 AM

I can't afford a new G5 for another year so I'm thinking of upgrading my blue G3. I thought maybe swaping out the stock 8 MB Rage 128 with a faster video card would be an inexpensive upgrade. I was thinking of snagging a Radeon 7000 off eBay. Is it possible to flash a PC version to work on a Mac? Does OS X have built in drivers to support the Radeon? I prefer not to rely on third party drivers. Any other cheap hardware upgrades? I don't want to spend a lot of money on this machine.

tooki · Oct 10, 2003, 07:37 AM

You have a 16MB Rage 128 -- they didn't make those with 8MB.

1. Yes, it's possible to flash a PC version, but it's not trivial, and due to ATI legal contacting us on this issue before, we can't allow anyone to post instructions on how to do it.

2. Yes, OS X has Radeon drivers included. But bear in mind that, essentially, all the OS X graphics card drivers are "third party". Apple didn't write those drivers, ATI and nVidia did (with Apple's help -- but they're the same basic drivers for the OEM and retail cards).

3. RAM. Hard drive. Buying used G4 off eBay.

The fact is, it may not be worth throwing hundreds of dollars of upgrades into it when you can buy a new machine for twice that (G4 towers are really cost-effective at the moment).

tooki

DrBoar · Oct 10, 2003, 09:06 AM

I agree with Tooki
OWC sell a 900 Mhz G3 upgrade for 250 dollars. This is a huge boost and I would not spend more money on the CPU

There are no good PCI game card for the mac the Radeon 7000 is lamer than the original Radeon so do not expect a huge boost in 3D and 2D will be the same ( the ATI 128 has very good 2D anyhow). Try how the computer feels with the new CPU before you decide to get the card as well.

The 6 GB HD is slow and small by modern standards so a new HD is not a bad thing.

With OS X RAM is good

I had X on a G3/350 and with 128 MB it was terrible, with 192 much better and 256-512 is even better.

I hope that you have replaced that horrible mouse puck with anice optical mouse from Logitec, Microsoft or other...

Chinasaur · Oct 10, 2003, 10:20 AM

I had a stock B&W 450 and did this -

� 1GB RAM - Value added
� Radeon 7000 - Meh :-|
� Powerlogix 800Mhz Zif upgrade - YES
� 40GB HD - YES
� OS X 10.2.8 - YES
� Quartz Extreme hack enabled - some value

Very usable/fast enough for work, surfing, DVD, etc. Will hold me until I get a dual G4 or G5. 3D gaming is horrendously slow.

kikkoman · Oct 10, 2003, 10:40 AM

I mostly do websurfing and iTunes, not really a gamer. I don't do anything really processor intensive. I thought the Radeon 7000 would be enough the get Quartz Extreme, which would make the user interface a bit more Snappier. I currently have 256 MB RAM and I don't I get a lot of paging. You think 512 MB will gain me anything? I replaced the stock drive with a 7200 RPM Maxtor drive a while back. The 900 MHz G3 upgrade looks appealing but I'm hesitant to spend that much on a machine I will be replacing in a year. I've preordered Panther and hoping it will extend the life a bit more.

Originally posted by DrBoar:
I agree with Tooki
OWC sell a 900 Mhz G3 upgrade for 250 dollars. This is a huge boost and I would not spend more money on the CPU

There are no good PCI game card for the mac the Radeon 7000 is lamer than the original Radeon so do not expect a huge boost in 3D and 2D will be the same ( the ATI 128 has very good 2D anyhow). Try how the computer feels with the new CPU before you decide to get the card as well.

The 6 GB HD is slow and small by modern standards so a new HD is not a bad thing.

With OS X RAM is good I had X on a G3/350 and with 128 MB it was terrible, with 192 much better and 256-512 is even better.

I hope that you have replaced that horrible mouse puck with anice optical mouse from Logitec, Microsoft or other...

Chinasaur · Oct 10, 2003, 10:46 AM

Without a CPU upgrade, the next best thing is RAM. I noticed a big jump from 256 to 512..noticed it from 512 to 768..less noticeable to 1GB..but yes..X wants RAM.

The QE hack was noticeable, but not as much as you might hope for. Certainly not Snappy� (now a Panther �)

Good idea on Panther...wait to see how much faster it is afterwards. If you are keeping that machine a year though, why torture yourself when it could be faster?

BurpetheadX · Oct 10, 2003, 06:06 PM

Those machines are actually extremely easy to overclock. You can overclock that 350 to 400 no problem, I've done so on many. No stability issues as well. Good for a temp. fix.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/yosemite/OC.html

Partisan01 · Oct 11, 2003, 12:56 AM

Originally posted by kikkoman:
I can't afford a new G5 for another year so I'm thinking of upgrading my blue G3. I thought maybe swaping out the stock 8 MB Rage 128 with a faster video card would be an inexpensive upgrade. I was thinking of snagging a Radeon 7000 off eBay. Is it possible to flash a PC version to work on a Mac? Does OS X have built in drivers to support the Radeon? I prefer not to rely on third party drivers. Any other cheap hardware upgrades? I don't want to spend a lot of money on this machine.

I am currently running a B&W with a flashed Raedon 7000. Works great, since I'll be edited for posting instructions do a google. It was VERY EASY, trivial unlike what the above poster said. The whole procedure took about 5 minutes. I would highly recommend, there's about a $100 price difference between the pc version and mac version. A hour or so of googling will turn up a rom and instructions, best of luck. Let us know what you decide.

Nate