[Souljah]

Damn ...couldn't resist...had to order myself one from Newegg.I flashed it at 275/275 in the startup items folder.Took no more than 5 mins.Although i've noticed a distortion or screen artifact in the left most part of the monitor.It looks like transparent lines which run all the way from top to bottom just before the apple but only in 1152 x 870 on a Samsung 750s.I 'm wondering if anyone else has noticed anything remotely similar...maybe it 's relative to running the card at 275/275 or maybe the comp needs a p-ram reset.The card has a 275/275 label on it but as others have mentioned,the Mac rom is supposedly bigger...any feedback appreciated.
Thanks guys

[Eriamjh]

Welp, the house is sold, I have some cash, so I've decided to take the plunge and join the rest of you Mac pioneers! The newegg card is ordered, all the files have been downloaded and I am ready to rock as soon as it comes in.

Jaguar is also on order along with 240GB of hard drives! My DP800 should be flying high after this! Now I just have to order Castle Wolfenstein or Max payne to test them out! I'll post my results back here.

Viva la resistance!

[plbogart]

Thanks to this thread, others at xlr8yourmac.com and guys like Dogcow, Peter Gunn, Tony Wong and the rest, I went ahead and bought an ATI-built OEM 8500LE card from ENPC (http://www.enpc.com/cgi-bin/enpc/100-529.html) for $89 a week ago and - after running the 230/230 flasher from OS 9 - have had a bargain of an upgrade running like a champ (G4/400 Gigabit w/512MB) both under OS 9 and 10.1.5. Wolfenstein plays wonderfully as well as Red Faction yet, CPU-bound games such as 4x4 Evo2 show very little improvement except at high res where the card works it's best. I later dropped the 250/250 flasher in and see a few white pixels in Wolfenstein, none in the OS and actually a bunch at disk select (boot while holding Option key).

Thanks a bunch everyone.

[reader50]

Success.

Hardware:
Newegg card - G4 350 Sawtooth (AGP) - 384 MB RAM
Radeon 7000 PCI card, to see what was happening.

Firmware:
ATi firmware update 7.4.2
adjustments made with the R8500FlashEditor 1.0

Tests (OS 10.0.4)
Display is not recognized by the higher-level APIs, system hangs on bootup. You get the happy Mac, and a verbose launch will work, but will show the windowmanager and Login cycling, trying to find "display 0".

To be fair, ATi specifies 10.1 or higher for the drivers (I never bothered to upgrade), and the same thing happens when I try the full retail Radeon 7000 under 10.0.4. I expect the Newegg card would work fine under 10.1.x. Jaguar is on preorder, for some reason the online store refuses to ship me 10.2 before Aug 24.

Tests (OS 9.22)
VGA out works
DVI -> VGA (using the R7000 adapter) works
DVI (no flat panel) not tested
S-video out works
RCA video out (via S -> phono R7000 adapter) works

VGA and DVI -> VGA: each work singly or with monitors on both.

TV-out: a cable must be plugged into the S-port on bootup or the TV out options are disabled. Using the TV-out (either direct S-video out, or S -> RCA phono) with a CRT on the DVI port costs you the analog signal on the DVI port (it turns off the attached CRT, but the CRT comes back when you turn off the TV out). Note that when a CRT is attached to the DVI port, TV out has to be turned on in the ATi Displays CP, or the NTSC/PAL resolutions selected in the Control Strip or Monitors CP for the monitor on the DVI port. If nothing is attached to the DVI port, the S-port monitor comes up on bootup. I would assume that an attached flat panel on the DVI would mirror the TV-out instead of vanishing, but I was unable to test this. The system will boot and come up on the S-monitor even if the S monitor is the only monitor. The S-monitor comes up by default at 640x480, this can be adjusted up to 720x480 or 800x600. There are also four PAL resolutions available on this port, for those who live in PAL-standard parts of the world.

Games work fine, no video corruption or tint problems observed. My CPU speed (350) prevented serious benchmarking of the card, but UT does run more smoothly on the flashed 8500 than on either the stock Rage 128 Pro (AGP 16MB) or the Radeon 7000 (PCI 32MB).

DVD playback caused some random green pixels to appear - playback was otherwise perfect. I reflashed the card with the unmodified ATi utility to the default 275 mem / 250 core, which did not fix it. Reflashed to 250 / 250 which banished the green pixels. Although the Newegg card is rated at 275 / 275, I may have gotten a card with marginal 275 VRAM, or it may just be the hot climate where I live.

Further Notes
Apple System Profiler sees the card as an ATi Radeon 8500 Mac Edition with 64 MB (as does the ATi Displays CP). Plenty of resolutions appear in the control strip, more than those available for the R7000.

I did not have to reset the pram. Shut down, switch card (no monitors attached to the 8500), boot up. Flash the 8500 with the Restore utility, reflash with the update utility, shut down, plug monitor(s) in, boot. There was no odd system behavior during the entire procedure. Flashing was done manually while watching on the R7000-attached monitor.

The Newegg card (made by Sapphire) has a GPU fan, but no fans or heat sinks on the VRAM. Cube owners should note that the card is not silent. It measures just under 7 inches long counting from the backplate, 3/4 inch thick including the backplate mounting screws, and just under 4 inches tall counting up from the top of the AGP slot (measured while installed). It comes with a bagged S-video cable and a PC install CD with PC drivers. Video adapters are not included. The card itself has a VGA port, DVI port, and S-video port on the backplate. There are no printed materials.

Part Numbers for those who want the adapters:
ATi adapters are sold separately on some online stores
(numbers copied from R7000 adapter bags)
(I assume "WST" actually made the parts for ATi)

DVI -> VGA adapter
ATI#: 6140007200
WST#: 8245C219-001C

S-video -> RCA phono
ATI#: 6110007900
WST#: C219RM-028

VGA -> old Mac DB15
ATI#: 6140004700
WST#: 8230C219-001

Edit: fiddles

[Herbert]

I ordered a HIS ATI Radeon 8500 "Excalibur" 64MB DDR TV-Out DVI Retail 275MHz from a German PC retailer
�_ 64MB DDR-SDRAM
�_ 32bit/Truecolor/400 MHz RamDac
�_ max. Aufl�sung 2048 X 1536
�_ GPU Takt 275 MHz
�_ Speichertakt 550 MHz
�_ 128Bit Speicherinterface
�_ GPU 256 Bit
�_ AGP x2,x4
�_ TV-Out, Active Big GPU Cooler, DVI-Out, Dual Monitor, DVD Playback
for my G4 450 with 2 drives a) 9.2.2 b) 10.1.5 / 9.2.2
downloaded Firmware update 7.4.2 and the Firmware restore 7.4.
At that time I was not aware of the hints from Ken_F2 on page 5 of this thread: to flash w i t h o u t connected monitor cable.
i.e I flashed with the monitor cable connected for 10 minutes and restarted zapping the pram 3 times but -nada-
I tried it again with the other updaters and restore files and followed the instruction of Ken�F2.
After six hours of work I got 3 different Firmware updates and 2 Firmware restore files but nothing works.

Is there a chance to restore the Firmware via a PeeCee or somehow a way to save the card for my Mac or a windoze machine?
The HIS website does not provide any further information for their products.

Thanks in advance for any help

Herbert

[pdot]

Does the Newegg (Sapphire) card have dual monitor support?

Also, I'm considering this card I found on pricewatch.com:
http://www.enetshoponline.com/atirad85ddr61.html
It says "Made by ATI, ATI Original" so I assumed that it's what ATI calls "Built by ATI." One thing that's a bit confusing is that it says the core speed is 250MHz. I know I can use Flash Editor to clock it to 275, but I thought ATI only made 8500 cards at 275.

[Souljah]

pdot...yes it does have dual monitor support,says so in the specs
http://www.sapphiretech.com/8500/8500-149-0A.htm
As far as ATI exclusively making 275 cards...i believe the LE version of the card runs at 250 but for some reason the card will only work for us if it is flashed at 230.I will test mine at 275 some more before i decide to reflash it at 250/275 or 250/250.Can't wait to Jag this comp but waiting for the 6c115 confirmation before i do.
Good Luck with your card.

G4 400 OCed to 450
576mb ram
NewEgg 8500 64(non LE version)
40g Maxtor 7200
10g Fireball 5400
OS Crashic 9.2.2
OSX 10.1.5

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by Souljah:
pdot...yes it does have dual monitor support,says so in the specs
http://www.sapphiretech.com/8500/8500-149-0A.htm
As far as ATI exclusively making 275 cards...i believe the LE version of the card runs at 250 but for some reason the card will only work for us if it is flashed at 230.I will test mine at 275 some more before i decide to reflash it at 250/275 or 250/250.Can't wait to Jag this comp but waiting for the 6c115 confirmation before i do.
Good Luck with your card.

G4 400 OCed to 450
576mb ram
NewEgg 8500 64(non LE version)
40g Maxtor 7200
10g Fireball 5400
OS Crashic 9.2.2
OSX 10.1.5

If you live in Montreal, how did you get newegg to ship it to Canada??? o_O

[pdot]

Originally posted by Souljah:
pdot...yes it does have dual monitor support,says so in the specs
http://www.sapphiretech.com/8500/8500-149-0A.htm
As far as ATI exclusively making 275 cards...i believe the LE version of the card runs at 250 but for some reason the card will only work for us if it is flashed at 230.

Actually, what I meant when I said "support" was whether or not attaching two monitors to the same card would work. I think the Sapphire link just refers to supporting various types of output devices. Some other sites lists this specifically. I guess it doesn't matter now anyway. I can't hold out any longer. I'm going to place my order with Newegg once I'm done with this post.

Oh, how come everyone uses the Firmware UPDATE and not the RESTORE? The RESTORE is capable of restarting the computer after the ROM restore.

[elzinat]

so i got my $109 sapphire branded radeon 8500 from newegg about a week and a half ago. flashed no problem with the "firmware restore" app downloaded direct from ati's website, and then updated successfully with the "firmware update". i have 2 questions:
about speeds, what is the default speed of the flashers from ati's site, and if its less than 275/275 [which this card is rated for], is there any point at all in even bothering to upclock it, in my G4 350?
about VGS, has anyone been able to get VGS to run without screwing up the colour palette? i've spent hours messing around, and managed to get it to run so that it would only screw up the palette while emulation was running, and not on the title screen/while emulation was paused, but it's still useless. can anyone with the specifically-for-mac version of the card report on vgs performance?
thanks

[Souljah]

Jim Paridise: They would not ship across the border but i had them ship it less than 1 km on the US side in Plattsburg...Champlain to be exact ,to an authorized Fedex drop off warehouse.The return trip from Montreal 1.5 hours.
In your case ship it to Buffalo or any other drop off point close to the border.
I declared it at customs and was charged gst and pst..no duty since it's made in the USA.

pdot:I believe "Dual Monitor" support does mean at the same time.Although they can pull a..."that would be Multiple Monitor support sir ,sorry you miss understood" on me.

[reader50]

Originally posted by pdot:
Does the Newegg (Sapphire) card have dual monitor support?

Also, I'm considering this card I found on pricewatch.com:
http://www.enetshoponline.com/atirad85ddr61.html
It says "Made by ATI, ATI Original" so I assumed that it's what ATI calls "Built by ATI." One thing that's a bit confusing is that it says the core speed is 250MHz. I know I can use Flash Editor to clock it to 275, but I thought ATI only made 8500 cards at 275.

The Newegg (Sapphire) card is indeed dual-monitor. I am looking at two 19" CRTs running from the card.

Although it has three output ports, only two simultaneous video channels are supported. If a digital flat panel is on the DVI, you can manage three monitors from the three output ports, but the S-port monitor would mirror the DVI monitor in this configuration.

Two speed numbers are given for the cards, ie "275 / 275". The first number is the VRAM speed, the 2nd number is the GPU (video processor) core speed. The two numbers do not have to agree. According to the flash editor, the ATi update sets the Mac card to 275 / 250 unless you edit the flasher.

[pdot]

Thanks for the info Souljah and reader50. My order is in place. It should be here no later than Friday. Too bad I don't have any high-end games to try it out on. I guess I can always try out that Giants: Citizen Kabuto demo again.

[bartman00]

I got the $109 deal from Newegg. I don't think anyone directly posted this.. but I had to put the 'bios restore' in my startup folder not the flash to get it to work. After powering up with the bios restore and waiting a few min I powered off. Turned it on and it worked! I then had to run the update flash to get the latest bios ver.

Everything runs great! What can I say.. I smooth flash!

Bart

[j3kyll]

I'm considering trading my Cube 450 for a 466 G4 Tower and upgrading to a Radeon 8500.

I'm just wondering whether it will be worth the moeny and the hassel. I do a lot of 3d gaming and the Cube seems to be the bottleneck when I tried a gf2.

Would someone please be kind enough to test out my Quake 3 config if they have any Digital Audio G4 or similar setup to a G4 466 Radeon 8500 and quake 3? I'm interested to see just how much faster it is.

ICQ: 106216126
AIM: J3kyll
EMAIL: [email protected]

Thanks.

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by Souljah:
Jim Paridise: They would not ship across the border but i had them ship it less than 1 km on the US side in Plattsburg...Champlain to be exact ,to an authorized Fedex drop off warehouse.The return trip from Montreal 1.5 hours.
In your case ship it to Buffalo or any other drop off point close to the border.
I declared it at customs and was charged gst and pst..no duty since it's made in the USA.

pdot:I believe "Dual Monitor" support does mean at the same time.Although they can pull a..."that would be Multiple Monitor support sir ,sorry you miss understood" on me.

Good call! I thought you might have had them ship it to a city in the States that was close to Montreal. By the way, my friend moved down there for three months back in March and I stayed with him for 10 days. I really dig Montreal (been to Quebec city twice and also enjoy it there!).

I'm not sure a Buffalo road trip is really worth it to me just to pick up a graphics card. Ken_F2 pointed me to a Canadian site with some cheap 8500's so even though it'll be a bit more, that's probably what I'm going to go with.

[ReggieX]

Originally posted by Jim Paradise:
Ken_F2 pointed me to a Canadian site with some cheap 8500's so even though it'll be a bit more, that's probably what I'm going to go with.

How much, and where? Now that there are more confirmed success stories, I NEED TO DO THIS!
This G4/400 + Rage128 Pro is feeling a wee slow these days.

[Souljah]

Jim Paridise:How cheap?I've seen them for no less than
$250 on this side of the border.
Yeah,Montreal in the summer is a real splendid worth while trip,especially if you can get down during the Montreal International Jazz Festival ,American tourists have flooded the city these past fews years...amazing.We also have something else they come up here for...full nudity in our titty bars

[Glennfield]

Just wanted to report another success story with the 8500 from newegg. Flashed it on my G4/dual450 without a hitch, and everything seems to work just fine. UT plays much, much better under OS X now!

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by ReggieX:


How much, and where? Now that there are more confirmed success stories, I NEED TO DO THIS!
This G4/400 + Rage128 Pro is feeling a wee slow these days.

http://www.ncix.com/canada/productdetail.php?sku=6578

Go there. They've got the 8500 LE for $153!! When it arrives I'm going to use the 230/230 firmware as directed on the LE's and *boom!* I'll have myself some 8500 greatness!!

I'm also on the same setup. G4/400... Rage 128. I can't wait for this needed boost. And QE should be quite nice when 10.2 ships!

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by Souljah:
Jim Paridise:How cheap?I've seen them for no less than
$250 on this side of the border.
Yeah,Montreal in the summer is a real splendid worth while trip,especially if you can get down during the Montreal International Jazz Festival ,American tourists have flooded the city these past fews years...amazing.We also have something else they come up here for...full nudity in our titty bars

Yeah, I'd have loved to have seen the jazz festival but I was there in March, and my friend is now in New Orleans. We have a *small* jazz festival in Waterloo every year. When I was down we went to the old Club Super Sex! (ha ha ha!) Not quite my thing since I've had a girlfriend for close to two and a half years, but it was amusing. But then again we've got ladies who'll walk around with their tops off in the summertime here in Ontario.

Check out the link I provided above for a cheap 8500 LE.

[ReggieX]

Originally posted by Jim Paradise:
When it arrives I'm going to use the 230/230 firmware as directed on the LE's and *boom!* I'll have myself some 8500 greatness!!

Cool, mang! Post ASAP when/if you get it working, I think I can just about afford it

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by ReggieX:


Cool, mang! Post ASAP when/if you get it working, I think I can just about afford it

I *just* started work today so I asked my dad if he'd get it for me and let me pay him back (yeah yeah... I'm 20 and don't have a credit card yet...). I need to get a DVI to VGA adapter but I'll be posting here for sure once I get it setup! I'm so excited.

[j3kyll]

POST SOME QUAKE 3 BENCHMARKS PLEASE

[Eriamjh]

This thread will not die... not as long as there are SUCCESS STORIES to report!

I follwed Ken_F2's instructions and I have a working PC Radeon 8500 in my DP800. I installed the OS9 drivers and then the OSX drivers. I had the "Machine not supported" error in X until I installed the drivers.

There was also an "ATI Update" available through OS9's software update. 180kb so I installed it.

I got the $109 newegg card (sold as an OEM Radeon AGP on their site) flashed it at 250/275 (which is the "ATI Flash Update" speed) and I have working DVD in 9 and X. I only have Quake 3 demo right now and I am trying to get it to work. for some reason classic (which the demo requires to run in OSX) doesn't work anymore. It hangs. I will see if that is related to this.

Bring on Jaguar!

EDIT: The newegg card came with a "Sapphire" driver cd. It is NOT a retail card (that's why it's called OEM).

[ReggieX]

Hey, Jim, check this:

http://www.canadacomputers.com/video.html
Sapphire ATI Radeon 8500LE 64MB DDR OEM $143

That's just down the street from me! No waiting for the mail
I'm going to call them Thursday to see if they have any in stock.

[Souljah]

Reggie X That price is probably for the slower 230mhz card since the 275 is listed above..you sure you want the slower one?
Actually i don't think i eyes can catch the difference!
Almost feel like ordering another one for my next machine
Goodluck

[ReggieX]

Yes, I see it's the 230, so is the one listed at the page Jim gave above (http://www.ncix.com/canada/productre...roduct_id=6578).
But let's face it: I have a 2x AGP slot, and a 400MHz processor, I don't think I'll notice that much difference.

And it's $53 cheaper, which make the difference to me right now.

I'll be posting with my results if they have any in stock.

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by ReggieX:
Hey, Jim, check this:

http://www.canadacomputers.com/video.html
Sapphire ATI Radeon 8500LE 64MB DDR OEM $143

That's just down the street from me! No waiting for the mail
I'm going to call them Thursday to see if they have any in stock.

That's so good! I wish I had seen that link 'cause it'd be a quick trip down to the T-dot for me (and on another note I just drunkly killed a mosquito on my wrist and hurt myself in the process!! >_<). Anyway, I hope the card works out for you! Ncix.com says my card is now shipping so I should have it in a few days!

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by Souljah:
Reggie X That price is probably for the slower 230mhz card since the 275 is listed above..you sure you want the slower one?
Actually i don't think i eyes can catch the difference!
Almost feel like ordering another one for my next machine
Goodluck

Yeah, the LE requires the 230/230 firmware but seriously.... with 64MB of goodness, we're all gonna be happy.

If it works out for both Reggie and I, hell, why not slap a cheap one in a new machine?? ^_^

[jbelch3]

Another success with Radeon 8500 64mb purchased from Newegg. Thanks to everyone for all of the information. I followed the instructions outlined in this forum and had no problems at all. Everything works perfectly!

[pdot]

I got my card from NewEgg today and it's working, but in OS X, the Giants Mecc demo says that it's "unable to initialize OpenGL. Your hardware may not support fullscreen OpenGL."
This was my procedure:
1) Placed Firmware Restore (@ 250/275) in Startup Items in OS 9, then shutdown.
2) unplug everything except power cable (I left it in so that the machine stays grounded to a real ground).
3) replaced Rage 128 Pro with Radeon 8500.
4) plug in keyboard/mouse; begin startup
5) waited 5 minutes, then reboot w/ extensions off
6) removed Restore app and placed Firmware Update modified for 275/275 in startup items, shutdown, then startup monitor disconnected
7) restart w/ ext off; removed Update app and applied July driver update
8) rebooted into OS X

Now, where did I go wrong? Also, how do I check if I successfully flashed my card to 275/275.

UPDATE: Cow Catching Game and Cro-Mag Rally doesn't work either. I'm going to reflash the card back to 250/275 and see what happens.

More Update: Cro-Mag Rally works great under OS9 before and after downclocking to 250, but still does not run in OS X. Also, DVD player does not work in OS X either.

[Eriamjh]

Did you install the ATI drivers in OSX?

What version of OSX are you running?

[ReggieX]

YASE!

On first boot into 9, things look good. I can play Unreal Tournament at 1024x768x32bit colour with everything on High (except for sound, which I turn down to Low anyway). There are some RAVE glitches here and there, but mainly in dark corners. I'll mess around with the settings to see if that helps. But holy moly, what a difference from 640x480 with all the Detail settings on Low!

I think there's an OpenGL conflict, G-Force visual in SoundJam gets more frames in a window than full screen. Hmm. If that's the case, I'm wondering if all the nice OpenGL-powered goodness of Jaguar will run on these things. Anyone else have a comment about that?

Oh, and can someone PLEASE put RaveBench on an iDisk or something? I lost my copy, and can't get the Macwelt.de FTP site to work.

Reg (Hooray for local computer stores!)

[pdot]

Originally posted by Eriamjh:
Did you install the ATI drivers in OSX?

What version of OSX are you running?

I did not install the ATI drivers at the time I wrote the earlier post b/c I heard that there are incompatibilities with Jaguar. I am currently running OS X 10.1.5.

Installing the drivers was the last decision I made and it solved most of my problems. I just hope I don't experience more problems 9 days from now when I finally get to install Jaguar.
1) OpenGL (in the games anyway) now works and everything runs beautifully (OSX).
2) DVD Player now works, but I get green artifacts (OSX, I haven't tried it in OS9).
3) I am currently running at 275/275. Clocking down to 250/275 does diddly.
4) I still get an "out of sync" message while playing Myth II (OS9).

Question: I can't seem to reset the PRAM with OS X as my startup OS. Does resetting the PRAM while starting up in OS 9 yield the same results? If not, is there another way to do it?

Also, reader50 mentions that his green artifacts in (OS 9) DVD Player disappear when he downclocked to 250/250. I'll try that later tonight and post my results once I get them.

[plbogart]

Originally posted by Jim Paradise:
Yeah, the LE requires the 230/230 firmware but seriously.... with 64MB of goodness, we're all gonna be happy.

Well for stability, yes. The ATI-built 64meg LE I've got is humming along happily at 250/250. I've thought about trying 275/275 just out of curiosity but don't see the need as it wouldn't make much difference on my system anyway (10/1000 G4-400/512MB/2x AGP/OS 10.2).

I've gotten a hold of the 6C106 build of Jaguar and it seems as if OpenGL is slower than in 10.1.5. At least RT Castle Wolfenstein seems slower than it ran previously. According to ATI, the Jag drivers are newer than the July Radeon Update. Everything else is noticeably faster. Classic runs much better as well.

There have been some reports of CD and DVD problems but have not seen either.

[pdot]

Okay, I downclocked to 250/250 and that got rid most of the green pixels/artifact. Every once in a while, small pixels do show up, but they weren't very noticeable. I can't speak impartially since I was actively looking for them. Also, the green pixels vary from DVD to DVD.

I downclocked to 230/230 to see if it makes a difference and it turned out to be a bit worse. I made all my observations in OS X. Shoot, I forgot to check out the Myth II problem in OS 9.

Conclusion: NewEgg (Sapphire) card works great for OpenGL games in OS X 10.1.5 if the July drivers are installed at any of the following speed settings (230/230; 250/250; 250/275; 275/275). DVD only acceptable at 250/250. Well worth saving $50 and having a more powerful card by not getting the 9000 Pro instead.

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by ReggieX:
YASE!

On first boot into 9, things look good. I can play Unreal Tournament at 1024x768x32bit colour with everything on High (except for sound, which I turn down to Low anyway). There are some RAVE glitches here and there, but mainly in dark corners. I'll mess around with the settings to see if that helps. But holy moly, what a difference from 640x480 with all the Detail settings on Low!

I think there's an OpenGL conflict, G-Force visual in SoundJam gets more frames in a window than full screen. Hmm. If that's the case, I'm wondering if all the nice OpenGL-powered goodness of Jaguar will run on these things. Anyone else have a comment about that?

Oh, and can someone PLEASE put RaveBench on an iDisk or something? I lost my copy, and can't get the Macwelt.de FTP site to work.

Reg (Hooray for local computer stores!)

****in'-A! I'm right glad this worked for you, and this is encouraging! I was hoping that the card would work well in OS 9 and this makin' me smile. Though my fav game, Carmageddon II, is all done in rave... I'm sure it should still run well without too many glitches. Have you tried OS X with it? My card should be arriving any day now!! ^_^

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by plbogart:
Originally posted by Jim Paradise:
Yeah, the LE requires the 230/230 firmware but seriously.... with 64MB of goodness, we're all gonna be happy.

Well for stability, yes. The ATI-built 64meg LE I've got is humming along happily at 250/250. I've thought about trying 275/275 just out of curiosity but don't see the need as it wouldn't make much difference on my system anyway (10/1000 G4-400/512MB/2x AGP/OS 10.2).

I've gotten a hold of the 6C106 build of Jaguar and it seems as if OpenGL is slower than in 10.1.5. At least RT Castle Wolfenstein seems slower than it ran previously. According to ATI, the Jag drivers are newer than the July Radeon Update. Everything else is noticeably faster. Classic runs much better as well.

There have been some reports of CD and DVD problems but have not seen either.

That's exactly what my setup is! I'm going to use the 230/230 on the LE just for the stability as I don't want to chance any problems. I haven't a copy of 10.2 yet but from what everyone else says, things are *snappier* and much happier in general. And the games I most enjoy in X are things such as the OpenGL version of Quake I and II, and the OpenGL version of Doom. Those already run really well so I can't see them running any worse. That's great that the LE is working well for you!

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Hey Jim,

I fixed the problems in Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex: the trick, I believe, is to turn Decals Off. I'm at work at the moment so I can't check (I suppose if I knew my IP address I could SSH into my machine, LOL). I'll post the mods to those when I get home.

Both of those are in 9. UT-X crashes during the "binding objects" phase of startup, not sure what the problem is there. Anyone?

Carmageddon 2 works just fine too!
Though it's pretty much CPU bound at this point.

I'm sticking to 230/230, it's working fine, and I really don't think there'd be that much difference. If I had a faster processor or a 4x AGP slot, I'd be more tempted.

BIG THANKS TO ALL! This is surely one of the best investments I've made in hardware since my original VooDoo 1. Now I can go waste more time playing games

[Todd Madson]

By the way, the results with Ravebench on the 8500 I bought
with my G4/400/AGP are nothing less than ridiculous: the
water portion of the demo was in the 220 fps area, just nuts.

I'll see if I can't put the compressed Ravebench on my website
for a day for the guy who didn't have it.

I've run into a few weird glitches with the 8500 recently though..

During a reboot I noticed that the cooling fan didn't spin up
until I touched the fan and 'gave it a whirl'. Then it kept
running.

I've found that I can't run my L2 cache at 267.5 as much with
the new card in, probably due to the heat. I might have to get
into some active cooling or something.

Also, the OSX drivers are a little......inconsistent. Sometimes
I'll get random artifacts while playing DVD's that go away if I
switch to a higher or lower resolution and go back to my preferred.

For the most part it's flawless. 10.2 ought to be interesting
with Quartz extreme.

[ginoledesma]

I just received my Radeon 8500LE today and I flashed it to 275/250. I think I can push my luck with 275/275, but since I'm just on a G4/400 (1.5GB RAM), I don't see the point in doing so.

I played Warcraft III to test it out and am happy to say that 1280x1024x32 on Mac OS X was playable, albeit choppy when the battles became intensive. I used to play WC3 on Mac OS 9 (640x480x16 on an ATI Rage Pro 128). There's one less reason for me to use Mac OS 9 again.

Really happy with the card. It did originally display blue colors as sort of greenish, but it normalized after a second or two.

Now I just need to upgrade my processor. Perhaps to 550MHz if that's possible.

Next to boosting my RAM to 1.5GB, this has been my best investment.

[Souljah]

pdot:Why did you use restore and then update?I modified update to 275/275 and flashed it in my startup folder as per the instructions then rebooted with extensions disabled and then ran the July driver update in OSX.I believe those few who couldn't get the card to work with Update then used Restore and as last resort a p-ram reset.So not sure but you may have flashed it twice.
Playing MOH:AA with all setttings cranked for 4 hours yielded 1 kernal panick and 2 new mission freezes during loading.This may not be the card's fault since it has been hotter than hell these pasts few weeks and i also have my G4 400 OCed to 450 so givin the extra heat I figure its acceptable.The green intermitent pixals are not too distracting and I imagine they would disappear if lets say a more powerful cpu would push the card(just a thought).I have not taken the time to verify what the Mac OEM 8500s run at but I think it was 250 so it is possible that it's a software issue with OSX and not so much a cpu bound problem.I'm hoping as everyone else is,that Jag will fix this with the extensive work they've done on Open GL which i've read gives a 20% peformance boost.But gaming and DVD aside this card rocks!!!!My whole system feels snappier,scrolling,opening windows,and yes the dreaded resizing is improving...bring on Jag.BTW I doubt very much that ATI will write drivers to mess up the few hundred of us who went this route...they have much more important things to develop,like maintaining or regaining a rapport with Apple (and Mac fanatics) since Nvidea are in bed with them.

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
Hey Jim,

I fixed the problems in Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex: the trick, I believe, is to turn Decals Off. I'm at work at the moment so I can't check (I suppose if I knew my IP address I could SSH into my machine, LOL). I'll post the mods to those when I get home.

Both of those are in 9. UT-X crashes during the "binding objects" phase of startup, not sure what the problem is there. Anyone?

Carmageddon 2 works just fine too!
Though it's pretty much CPU bound at this point.

I'm sticking to 230/230, it's working fine, and I really don't think there'd be that much difference. If I had a faster processor or a 4x AGP slot, I'd be more tempted.

BIG THANKS TO ALL! This is surely one of the best investments I've made in hardware since my original VooDoo 1. Now I can go waste more time playing games

Wicked!! I'd have a few friends that'd be mighty annoyed at me if Carmageddon II wasn't still workin' nicely.

If the LE works out well on here (when it arrvives) I might have to splurge and by some updated games.

[pdot]

Originally posted by Souljah:
pdot:Why did you use restore and then update?I modified update to 275/275 and flashed it in my startup folder as per the instructions then rebooted with extensions disabled and then ran the July driver update in OSX.I believe those few who couldn't get the card to work with Update then used Restore and as last resort a p-ram reset.So not sure but you may have flashed it twice.

Well, I first used Restore to get the card at 250/275, then I used Update for the 275/275 setting. I didn't start with 275/275 mainly b/c it sounded like other people didn't. I guess in theory, it shoudn't matter.
I started with Restore b/c from what I read in its description, it sounds like Restore results in a complete flash (safer) whereas Update may or may not flash the ROM completely. Do you think it would change anything if I used restore instead of update?

I don't notice any change in my user experience except when it comes to OpenGL and DVD Player. Then again, I don't have Jaguar, yet. 8 days! (but then there's the shipping time)

[normyzo]

Hi,

Picked up a PowerColor EvilMaster II 275/275 Pro edition from GameVE.com for $96 plus shipping (great deal on a fast card, this _isn't_ and LE card).

Had a bit of a hard time with it, it would flash for me until I:

1) stripped down my OS 9 folder
2) put the "Firmware RESTORE" app in my Startup Items folder (NOT Extensions)

Its also at ROM version 123, not 126, so I'll have to reboot and do the firmware update too. But its working!!

Dan

[techweenie1]

I just bought an 8500 LE 128 DDR from COMPUSA today, however I am having a hell of a time with it. I first flashed it with an 2.3 ROM then with the 2.4.x ROM, I believe all those were running at 250, and then I finally flashed it with the 230 ROM and still no luck, it boots up into 9 but goes hay-wire at the desktop, when I try booting into X it gives me a funky boot up screen then boots me into a pitch black screen with the mac mouse cursor in the corner...and does nothing. Please Help ASAP

[ReggieX]

The 128Meg cards don't work, only the 64Meg ones.

[Souljah]

techweenie1:There hasn't been enough experimenting with the 128mb cards just yet.Too few had success,some have problems,some don't.It very well may be that we need to narrow down a particular brand.
Go for the 64mb card for now it's a lot simpler,also since the 8500 is a little dated I bet we'll be seening the 9700 being hacked.
Good luck.
Check out those who have tried http://bbs.xlr8yourmac.com/ubb/Forum.../000100-2.html

[birddogsf]

I've got an 8500 on the way, and thanks to the help of everyone here, it looks like I'm going to breathe new life into my G4/450. One thing that's nagging me, however, is the refresh rate posted on ATI's website.

I'm posting this through 85Hz of 1280x1024 on a Bondi Blue Whale (21"StudioDisplay), running off an OEM Rage Pro 16mb. According to ATI, the 8500's only capable of 75Hz at this resolution, which I find incredibly hard to believe. Could someone please post a screenshot or listing of actual resolutions/refresh rates capable through their new card?

You guys rock.