[colonelchi]

The fan on my factory installed graphics card on my G4 tower is starting to catch, so I am in the market for a new, reasonably priced card. I was looking around and I found the eVGA 256-P2-N443-LX GeForce 7300GT 256MB and the eVGA 256-P2-N445-LX GeForce 7300GT 256MB, however I could not confirm that these will work on my computer. Will they? If not, is there a better option for me that will work?

[fleaplus]

That 7300GT would probably not work. If it did work, it would require a mac version of a 7300GT bios to be compatible and available, a 128k bios chip (most PC cards have 64k chips, so this requires soldering a 128k chip in its place if you wish to make it compatible), and then taping or cutting of a couple of pins to re-enable the power switch so the system will be able to turn on.

There are a few other options you have. You could purchase a G5 Radeon 9600 that has been pre-modded to work in a G4. These cards support CoreImage and are pretty much the best you can get without going the bios flashing/modding route entailed above. You could try and find a replacement heatsink/fan assembly for your current graphics card. Or you could try to find a Radeon 9800 Mac Edition (the 128mb version that was specifically compatible with the G4)

Either way, good luck! If you do decide to go the modding way, it can be quite rewarding. I am using a Radeon X800XT which I soldered a 128k bios chip onto, and have a card which is the second fastest card available for PowerPC mac's (the 7800GT PCIe being the fastest) for only $100.

[bowwowman]

your options are set by which G4 tower you have, and their corresponding AGP slot speed. Some were 2x (Sawtooth-GE), later ones went to 4x........

Almost any of the mac cards from the Radeon and/or GF2/3/4 series will work in most G4's. You just have to look around on ebay to find the one you want.

But off-the-shelf pc cards will NOT work unless they can be flashed with a mac bios.

You can get flashed cards for alot less $$ than mac versions, but that can be a hit or miss proposition and YMMV, especially if you put them into a production/money-making-business machine........

Right now I am running a flashed peecee Radeon 9800/128mb card in my QS, and it screams

[BigBadBiologist]

Originally Posted by bowwowman 

Right now I am running a flashed peecee Radeon 9800/128mb card in my QS, and it screams

Good to see you're liking it.

The flashec 9800 pros are really the way to go. For ~$75 there's no card close to that price/performance ratio for older AGP Macs.

[bowwowman]

Yep, it was ok in my old Sawtooth, but the faster mobo/AGP in my QS really allowed it to show it's true power, with full CI & QE support, everything is silky smooth now

[joe]

Originally Posted by fleaplus 

If you do decide to go the modding way, it can be quite rewarding. I am using a Radeon X800XT which I soldered a 128k bios chip onto, and have a card which is the second fastest card available for PowerPC mac's (the 7800GT PCIe being the fastest) for only $100.

Is your X800XT in a G4 Tower? Where did you buy this for $100?

[fleaplus]

Originally Posted by joe 

Is your X800XT in a G4 Tower? Where did you buy this for $100?

It is running in a G4 "Digital Audio" tower. I taped off the pins to turn it into a 4x AGP card.

I bought the card locally from a craigslist post. I guess it did technically cost $10 in fuel to drive to pick it up, and then $6 to purchase and ship the 128k bios chip from Mouser so it would work with the mac bios rom.

I did the mod mostly for the "fun" factor involved with the soldering, but if I end up buying a Dual G4 processor upgrade then I might be able to get some solid numbers on just how much of a performance leap the X800 XT is from the 9600 or 9800 Pro.

[Dzokayi]

Flashed 9800 for ~ $75? Where could one find such a beast? I've been (temporarily) downgraded to a MDD 1GHz single processor with the stock GeForce 4MX 64MB. WoW performance could use a boost.

I also have a PC Radeon 8500 128MB that's not being used. Any Macnner willing to do the flash on it for some $$ or parts?

[fleaplus]

If I recall correctly only the 64mb radeon 8500 was flashable. Is the memory on that card in an L shape around the GPU core? The 9800's are usually available used locally through something like craigslist, or ebay or PC enthusiast forums too. The 9800 is easy to flash, because you can use the compressed rom without losing NDRV.

[Dzokayi]

I'll have to pull the 8500 this evening to look at the RAM configuration. I just checked ebay and saw tons of 9800 256MB cards for around $80. I'm guessing these will work as well as the 128MB version?

I've never flashed a video card, but have flashed a few crippled Apple superdrives to unlock their potential. Hmmm... this is very interesting stuff. I may have to give it a try. Is the modding forum here a good place to get a walkthrough, files, etc?

[fleaplus]

Flashing a video card is a very experimental process. Expect it to take more time than you allot. Check the strangedogs forums for instructions for the 9800 cards. You will have to register to get access to their forums but it is worth it because they have the ROM files and flashing utilities available. You will want to get the reference design built by ati (BBA) 9800 Pro 128MB to make the flash go smoothly. Do a google image search for "9800 pro part 2" and the first result is a good picture of what it will look like. Those cards are made by ATI and ATI only, it shouldn't have any offbrand labels like sapphire, powercolor, etc..

[joe]

Originally Posted by fleaplus 

It is running in a G4 "Digital Audio" tower. I taped off the pins to turn it into a 4x AGP card.

I bought the card locally from a craigslist post. I guess it did technically cost $10 in fuel to drive to pick it up, and then $6 to purchase and ship the 128k bios chip from Mouser so it would work with the mac bios rom.

I did the mod mostly for the "fun" factor involved with the soldering, but if I end up buying a Dual G4 processor upgrade then I might be able to get some solid numbers on just how much of a performance leap the X800 XT is from the 9600 or 9800 Pro.

No need, I agree about the fun factor I use to do overclocking and cooling mods years ago and it was a blast. I'd been to the StrangeDog forums before too - back then you could surf without having to register.

But iirc, one of the biggest problems they had with flashed cards was that very few supported the DVI port. So those of us with Apple Displays (mine is the 23" Al model) didn't have many options. Have they gotten around that problem yet?

[Dzokayi]

fleaplus - the memory is not in an L configuration around the GPU. I'm thinking I'd rather not experiment with the flashing (this time) - but I sure might keep my eyes open for a good deal on the right type of card - anyone willing to do it for me for some $ or a bit of gear exchange?

[JaxBnimbel]

Originally Posted by fleaplus 

Flashing a video card is a very experimental process. Expect it to take more time than you allot. Check the strangedogs forums for instructions for the 9800 cards. You will have to register to get access to their forums but it is worth it because they have the ROM files and flashing utilities available. You will want to get the reference design built by ati (BBA) 9800 Pro 128MB to make the flash go smoothly. Do a google image search for "9800 pro part 2" and the first result is a good picture of what it will look like. Those cards are made by ATI and ATI only, it shouldn't have any offbrand labels like sapphire, powercolor, etc..

The reason you have to register is because they keep having to ban people who got ripped off by one of their own moderators. Check it out at MacLife and at Arstechnica . Every time someone complains about it, they get banned so either they are protecting this person or they are profiting from the thousands of dollars of fraud. You are probably far better off going to the Strangedogs WIKI . It's devoid of all of the fraud and controversy of the SD website. Just a fair warning.

[wubrew]

Thank you JaxB.