[MaXimUm]

I have a Beige G3 Desktop 233mhz Rev-B running stock hardware other than a Belkin USB 2.0 PCI card, 32gb HDD, and a 256MB RAM stick. CPU has been overclocked to 300Mhz using J16 jumper tweak. The machine is currently running 9.2.2 and 10.3.9 using XPostFacto.

Problem:
My original Apple monitor recently died and the onboard video is incapable of supporting the Dell monitor I have laying around to replace it. I have an apple-to-pc monitor adapter that I could use but the resolution capabilities of the onboard video are very limited and just barely capable of driving the monitor. I would like to upgrade the video in my G3 but don't want to spend a premium for old tech. I found an HIS RADEON 9250 128mb card on Newegg for under $40 that closely resembles the 9200 Mac Edition and would like to know if it's possible to flash this card for use in my G3, and if so how to go about doing so.

Card:
Newegg.com - HIS Hightech H925H128E1TOPN Radeon 9250 128MB 64-bit DDR PCI Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Thanks!

[SandyG3]

I'd suggest picking up a old ati rage 128 card

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-ATI-Mac-G3...QQcmdZViewItem

16meg should support up to 1280by1024 32bit colors if need be. Then you wont have to worry about osX or os9 compatibly issues.

[MaXimUm]

Originally Posted by SandyG3 

I'd suggest picking up a old ati rage 128 card

Apple ATI Mac G3 Rage 128 PCI video card 16 MB VGA - eBay (item 190223648965 end time May-26-08 18:02:14 PDT)

16meg should support up to 1280by1024 32bit colors if need be. Then you wont have to worry about osX or os9 compatibly issues.

Thanks for you're response Sandy. I honestly had not thought of trying to buy an Apple original card from a later model g4 this would indeed take care of any flashing/compatibility issues, but I want more power under the hood than 16mb and 1280x1024 resolution.

The monitor I plan to drive is capable of 1920x1440 and frankly worth a little extra cash/trouble to get it to display at, or close to, optimum resolution. Besides, I plan to upgrade this machine to be able to run Tiger and a stronger graphics card will eventually become a necessity no matter what so I might as well get it out of the way now. I'm open to an Apple card as long as it is reasonably priced (up to $40) but other than that I'd rather flash my own and save the extra green. As far as OS9 compatibility I thought the 9200 was OS9/X compatible? If I flash it with the 9200 firmware shouldn't OS9 recognize it as such?

[bluedog]

I don't know if any card you get will be able to take advantage of that resolution on such a slow machine. I've installed OSX on beige G3 and upgrade G4 cards in 7300/7600s since 10.0 when they were still reasonably supported by OSX.

I think if you get a card that's better than the Rage128MB cards you may not be able to use them in OS9. If I recall I tried flashing a card and the caveat was it would only display using OSX then (it was a G4 tower I was using at the time and I didn't mind losing the OS9 bootability for that box).

I think you'd be better served if you really are keen on using the monitor to get a MacMini (and use Sheepshaver if you really need an OS9 application). Rather than spending the money on a video card, use it for a new machine purchase (even a G4 box with a better video card already in it). 300mHz is paltry performance for such a large display and really not a speed demon running OSX. Its fine/great for OS9 but I really don't think you'll find a better card than the RagePro/128MB ATIs for OS9 aside from a PCI-based Radeon7300.

I tried for years to put OSX on any machine I had and bought extra SCSI or PCI-IDE controllers to get larger drives into the old beige boxes, but once the mini came out I just couldn't justify the cost for a $99 card or two when the main bus speed and max RAM was not up to par with the mini.

Good luck though and let us know how it all comes out.

[olePigeon]

If it's really just a hobby machine, I'd suggest finding a Formac ProFormance 3 video card if you can. They're getting pretty rare, though, I haven't even seen one on eBay. I had one of those in my G3 and it was awesome. It had support for making games 3D with some LED glasses you could wear. Quake III, Unreal Tournament, and some others. Good performance for its time, too.

Playing Quake III in 3D was fun.

[stevebez]

The Rage 128 in my Blue & White supported 2048x~1600 on an old Dell 21" crt I had. Of course you can buy the whole B&W for about the same price as the card.