[roders]

I’ve found one of these cards for sale privately in England (still boxed) for a groovy price so I've got a couple a questions I need answering (please forgive my ignorance) before I splash the cash, this is fairly urgent as I know other people that might be interested in this card & I'm sure it'll go quick at the price it's being sold at.
1;
What's the situation with drivers, I know the gamewizard comes with them in the box, but I'm thinking more of future compatability, will they/need to/ be upgraded in the future? + the drivers for 3DFX + OpenGL on these cards seem to only be Beta's is this a big prob?
2;
What functionality does my original Rage Pro have when the gamewizard has been installed?
Does it just provide 2D only (I've read that depending on which extensions you have active, specifically the gamewizard drivers & it's associated graphics driver extensions that the card can effectively be turned on or off, which in turn gives you only 2D from the built in Rage Pro (Gamewizard active) or full 2D & 3D capabilities to the Rage Pro (gamewizard inactive, associated drivers/extensions switched off).
3;
I own a copy of VPC3, will the gamewizard allow me to run 3D accelerated games on VPC3 ?
4;
Right my final question (I can almost hear the sighs of relief !) and definitely the most important, I own a Rev C iMac WITH a mezzanine hatch (below the USB & Ethernet ports) I believe there is also a Mezzanine connector on the motherboard (The original graphics chip fried so I had it replaced & was told it was there when the machine was fixed) but I do not think it is "active" so I need to know if there's any possibility of getting the gamewizzard to work with my iMac.
Personally I would prefer to get someone else to fit it for me so does anyone know of a dealer in the UK who might be able to do this?
Any help would be really appreciated!

[roders]

Right, I've just done the research on this I sould of done in the first place and found out-
A;
The little opening plate under the USB ports & ethernet port is not actualy needed to install a gamewizard (yeah?)
B,
That I will need the actually mezzanine connector to attach the gamewizard (although the basic functionality of th gamewizard on the motherboard shoud be there.
C,
A place to get this connector (hopefully)
Now I would REALLY like to know if anyne has done something similar to this, & if so, how they did it.
U can contact me on roders@lineone.net
Thanx (in hopefull advance)

[blizzard]

Get in touch with Ca$h68 (wanker_@hotmail.com, I believe). I'm sure he'd be happy to help you, and if anyone'll know it, it'll be him.

Yeah. I shouldnt be posting, but heck I wanna help anyway.

A. The ones it comes with are ok... they work well for Glide based games like UT and Deus Ex. If you go to www.3dfx.com, just download voodoo2 drivers, and that will allow you to play Quake 3 and stuff. I'm not sure exactly which extensions to use, I just fiddled around iwth it and it works fine, so if you have problems email me.

B. The Gamewizard is a 3dfx voodoo, and it uses GLIDE rendering, and also OpenGl. For games requiring RAVE rendering, it will use the ATI graphics card. THe voodoo2 is only called into use when its needed, so the iMac performs like you dont even have it when not doing 3d games.... so yeah, as long as you have the right extensions on, the Rage Pro (or II) will perform just like it did. Its a win-win situation.

C. No. I tried this, and it doesnt. Forget why, but you'll never be able to....

D. HRm. If it is a REAL rev C, it needs to have a mezzanine card soldered onto the board. This can be done at any GOOD computer store, and should cost under 100 bucks. There is a spot for it, and you'd have to order a mezzanine connector from www.digikey.com

IT WILL WORK THOUGH. We've talked a lot about this in the past, and just search the forums for that subject. Also, the slot on the side has nothing to do with the gamewizard card...

Any more ?s? Ask me, I'll try to help.

Later

Ca$h

[roders]

Thanx for the Info ca$h I really appreciate it, I was actualy about to ask for your help myself (I was going to post a "WANTED" Ca$h reward for Ca$h topic) luckily someone else did it for me.
As far as the Gamewizzard goes I found an Apple dealer (official service provider) that specialises in mac modifications, fairly close to where I live, BUT & this is a big but, whether I spell it in capitals or not, they said although they know how to & could do this work (Soldier mezzanine onto logic board & install gamewizard) Apple has BANNED them from making modifications to iMac motherboards!
I could'nt believe it so if I want the work done I'll have to go to a non Apple approved service centre.
I can' quite believe Apple would go to such lengths to prevent peolpe from upgrading there machines, but I've got the cash saved for a G4 tower (poss Cube if they stick a Radion in it) as the gamewizard was just a stopgap as I'm really getting into online gaming & just wanted to splash some of the cash I'd saved (it was buring a serious hole in my pocket, & warming up my underpants quite nicely) I might even be inline for a brand new FREE iMac from my Uni (although it will probably be a 350, if it is I'll just sell it & get a DVSE, & buy a car with my saved cash!)
Anyway I must admit I thought I would be playing with fire asking you but you've come through & that's what counts, I spouse it must be interesting being a figure of such notiriety, I spouse your the guy everyone luv's to hate, I can't imagine why personaly?
P.S I know you really shoudn't of helped me & so I am extremly greatfull to you for confirming what I all ready knew, thanx.

[blizzard]

Ca$h, you are quite knowledgeable with iMacs and games. It is my understanding that any disputes that have appeared before have been resolved now; in this forum, anyway, you are more than welcome to post as long as you can keep the questionable content out. But then, that's what I'm here for...
...besides, like the fact that you SHOULDN'T would stop you anyway =)

Keep postin'!
Blizzard

[roders]

I think I owe you a bit of an apology ca$h, I took the first line of what you posted the wrong way, my aplogies & thanx for being willing to help.

No biggie. A certain moderator doesnt like me, so he kept posting crap about me, and anytime I stuck up for myself he deleted it... so... right now a lot of people dont like me... not because Im a bad person, but because they've been brainwashed with repetition. Anyway, I HIGHLY suggest you get a gamewizard... and the mezzanine? Hrm. Im sure if you handed htem the cash under the counter they could do it for ya. Trust me, its AWESOME! It makes your iMac WORTh having.... and I probably could have bought a G4 by now, but I like my iMac better. More portable, I can have fun with it wherever I go.

Later

Ca$h

[lc5]

Actually, the Gamewizard comes with RAVE drivers, and it´s a really big difference in picture quality and fps on the Voodoo2 vs. the original Rage Pro card.

Um... no. You're wrong.

It comes with GLIDE drivers.... its a 3dfx card. The only cards that use RAVE are ATI cards..

Ca$h

[keyser_soze]

Sorry ca$h but he's right. Maybe you got yours right when it came out, but mine came bundled with Game Wizard MacGlide and Game Wizard RAVE extensions. Go through your extensions control panel and scroll down to the G section.

[Cipher13]

I don't have personal experience with this, but what the hell.
I'd have to agree with Ca$h... It makes no sense to bundle RAVE drivers with a GameWizard. They would be of no use whatsoever.

Cipher13

I'll lay down the definitive answer: the card does indeed come bundled with RAVE drivers. For those of you who think that only ATI cards have RAVE, take a quick look at the specs of the Voodoo5 5500 PCI or Voodoo4 4500 PCI cards for the Mac from 3dfx. 3D API's supported include Glide, OpenGL and RAVE. RAVE drivers are also included with their generic reference drivers for the Voodoo2 and Voodoo3.

In addition, the ProFormance 3 from Formac comes bundled with RAVE drivers as do some older cards.

WOAH! Well dont i feel dumb! That is WEEEEIIIIRRRRDDDD!!!!!

Ok, then riddle me this >

How come I cant play UT with RAVE rendering, and i have to use 3dfx?

Ca$h

I'm assuming you want me to skip the argument about why you'd prefer RAVE over Glide in UT as the game definitely performs better in Glide mode. :-)

3dfx's RAVE drivers are really under-developed at this point. The drivers they released with their V2 and V3 reference drivers are only intended to work with Bugdom and Nanosaur, but I've heard from 3dfx engineers about supporting a wider range of RAVE games. From what I've heard from a few people, the RAVE driver shipping with the Voodoo5 is not much better in this regard than the V2/V3 RAVE driver.

However, how much does RAVE matter anymore? Is it in 3dfx's best interest to have their engineers spend time on optimizing the RAVE drivers when they could be squeezing more performance out of the OpenGL drivers? Better performance or not, Apple has made it clear that RAVE is dead and OpenGL will be the 3D API of choice for the future. Developers will move increasingly towards it, and it's in the hardware manufacturer's best interest to follow that same trend.

[Cipher13]

Hey, cool
Thats definately one upshot of the Voodoo... I still think I'll go the Radeon though...

Cipher13

[OsakaBill]

Just to be clear on this:

The GameWizzard card will only be called upon when an application (such as a game) needs to perform 3D rendering. At all other times, the iMac will be using the OEM ATI card to draw screen images.

Exactly. It kicks in for UT, Q3 etc., but it allows the Rage chip to work with Bugdom, Flying Circus and the like.