[randwill]

I have a beige PowerMac G3 Minitower running OS 9.2.1. Recently the old CRT I had it hooked up to started to die, so I bought a new Samsung 245BW 24" widescreen LCD monitor. The OS doesn't offer the correct resolution (1920 x 1200 @ 60 HZ). I can use the 1600 x 1200 setting but the image is stretched horizontally. Does Apple, or anybody, have anything that adds additional, widescreen resolutions for OS 9.2.1? Are there other options?

[cgc]

You need a new video card. That's why I have my old G4 running 1024x768 on a CRT, because it's video card can't handle higher resolutions.

[ChrisB]

I believe Sonnet sells a PCI video card that is compatible with OS9, and should give you access to that resolution. However, it only has the old Mac video connector and a VGA connector, so you might not get that resolution.

[reader50]

A Radeon 9200 PCI supports 1920 x 1200.

[bowwowman]

ya gotta have >>16mb of video ram to run @ resolutions higher than 16 X 12, so yea the 9200 will definitely do it ! (it has 128mb)

[ChrisB]

$127 - thats a great price. And it's in stock. I'd get it. ATI had a huge backlog a month or two ago.

[randwill]

First, I got a different monitor which offers aspect scaling allowing me to scale the display to 4:3 size, without fiddling with resolutions, meaning no horizontal distortion.

Second, the ATI Radeon 9200, recommended above, will not work with my beige Mac G3 running OS 9.2.2. I've tried it in all 3 PCI slots and contacted ATI support. No go. Only supported in OS 10. So back it goes.

The onboard video of the G3 gives me a picture on this new monitor that I can do work on, but there is noticable noise (flickery lines). Since I know it's not the monitor (it's also hooked up to a PC via a KVM and looks fine), this indicates to me that I still need a video card to get a noise-free picture.

So, can anyone recommend a video card for my Mac G3, OS 9.2.2?

[reader50]

The 9200 ought to work. I'd suspect some kind of driver problem. Does it work if you boot from the OS 9 CD? ie - with default drivers. If it does, try shift-booting from your HD to come up without any extensions.

I'm not thinking of a lot of older graphics cards that can do 1920 x 1200. A Radeon 7000 PCI will do 1920 x 1200 on the VGA output, but the box lists 1600 x 1200 as max DVI output. It might go to the full res even on DVI, but the box doesn't promise that. I'm not familiar with any nVidia PCI solutions - no retail or OEM nVidia PCI card ever shipped for the Mac.

You could try SwitchRes, to see if your onboard could be convinced to go that high.

note: The Radeon 7000 *is* supported on OS 9.0 and above. So is the Radeon PCI, but the specs are the same. 1920 x 1200 over VGA, 1600 x 1200 over DVI.

[randwill]

The Mac will boot with the card in place, sort of. The card displayed the desktop with all the icons, and the mouse moved the cursor around the screen BUT, the cursor had no effect on anything I clicked on, nor did it "draw a box" when I left clicked and moved it.

I didn't try booting from the OS 9 CD. I did load the OS 9 drivers from the CD that came with the card. Even thought the box says, "Mac OS X 10.2.8" and "Mac OS X 10.3.3 and later", the CD did have OS 9 drivers on it.

I wouldn't be able to try SwitchRes because, as I say, I can't affect anything on the desktop when using the card.

Maybe the Radeon 7000 is a better choice. Has anyone successfully souped up their old G3 with one of these?