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elzinat · Aug 28, 2002, 05:04 AM

Originally posted by Souljah:
G4 400 Agp Sawtooth Oced to 450
576mb 100/133 mixed
Radeon 64mb 275/275
OS9.2.2 Crashic
OSX 10.1.5 all

how's the heat in that thing? since installing the radeon 8500 in my G4 350, my proc runs about 16 degrees C hotter than it did before, quickly passing 40 C when using the altivec. altivec fractal test gets all funky

. [the increased power consumption is actually most noticeable in that my hard drives now take about 15 seconds of grinding to spin up on boot/wake from sleep]

Originally posted by wwworry:
Install 10.2 with your original card! It has been quite a headache to try with the converted PC 8500.
In fact, so far I do not know if it is even possible. I'm in the middle of a big mess.

i have successfully installed X.2 (6C106 and 6C115, both using "archive") with the flashed [$109 newegg] 8500. any more specific information about your problem?
for me both installs were completely without problem. performance is great so far. quartz extreme is active. gui is quite noticeably faster; screen savers on desktop behind trasparent terminal are fun

. no new artifacting. my icons are still bleeding and qt-rendered jpegs still crumble (icon bleeding started with X.1, crumbling jpegs somewhere around X.1.2); i am still amused

. these particular glitches of mine have now lasted through two clean installs, qt5 to qt6, X.1 to X.2, and rag 128pro to radeon 8500.

CyberDave · Aug 28, 2002, 09:37 AM

Woohoo! I've taken the plunge and ordered the $109 Sapphire 8500 card from newegg.com. I think I'll get it by the end of the week (I am already impressed with newegg's service...ordered at around 2:00 PST and it still shipped that same day!). I shall be anxiously awaiting its arrival and will report back my successes (or failures) when I'm done.

CyberDave

wwworry · Aug 28, 2002, 09:59 AM

Originally posted by Souljah:
_________________________________________________
Posted by wwworry:
Install 10.2 with your original card! It has been quite a headache to try with the converted PC 8500.
In fact, so far I do not know if it is even possible. I'm in the middle of a big mess.
_________________________________________________

Please explain your problem so we can better isolate what it is exactly you're having trouble with.I'm guessing it's a driver issue.Although I've noticed you bought a Gigabyte Radeon?Now why would you er...do that...since no one here has tried anything but the regular 8500 and the non LE version

G4 400 Agp Sawtooth Oced to 450
576mb 100/133 mixed
Radeon 64mb 275/275
OS9.2.2 Crashic
OSX 10.1.5 all

Dare to be different, eh. plus it was cheaper and came with an adapter.

I finally got my 10.2 upgrade from amazon and installed using the correct disks and the cheap gigabyte card works great! I do not know if my problem was with the upgrade disks I used (my impatience waiting for amazon) or that I installed without the original rage card. One of the read_me s says that you should install with an original card.

So there! Now we know that the cheaper cards also work.

reader50 · Aug 28, 2002, 11:32 AM

10.2 Retail installed without incident. There were no Apple cards in my system during the procedure.

AGP slot: Flashed newegg Sapphire 8500 (one monitor)
PCI 1: Radeon 7000 Mac Edition (one monitor)
PCI 2: Orange SCSI card
PCI 3: ixMicro Ultimate Rez old vid card (one monitor)

All three vid cards/monitors were recognized on boot with the included 10.2 drivers, they came up on the CD boot. QE recognized the flashed 8500. I later used PropertyListEditor to add another line to permit QE on PCI as well as AGP, this resulted in QE acceleration on both the flashed 8500 and the R7000.

Tests are preliminary, I've been exploring PHP / MySQL setups rather than video performance.

Jim Paradise · Aug 28, 2002, 11:40 AM

*ARGH*

*tears hair out*

After my OS X drive getting ****ed up last week (needed to use Disk Warrior because it wouldn't mount) and spending *hours* trying to get games to look as they should, I'm giving up and I think I will flash this card so it works on a PC again and try something else. My main problem is this-
games look pixilated!!! >_< Terribly! It's so noticeable... it's as though someone put a pixilated screen over ever game played in OS 9. Things look fine in OS X but I've tried changing extensions, different updates, different firmware combinations in 9 and I am sick of it! So... either a) does anyone have a fix for this problem of pixilation (it's not just limited to one game) or b) where can I get information about flashing the card so it will work in a PC again? This has been damn frustrating as everyone else seems to have their's working all nicely and yet this pixilation or whatever is driving me up the wall with games in OS 9 (Driver, Carmageddon II, Star Wars Pod Racer, etc).

G4/400
Radeon 8500 LE
OS 9.2.2

superfula · Aug 28, 2002, 09:29 PM

Well add another to the successes. Got the Radeon 8500 64MB oem from Newegg. Put the Firmware Update into os9 startup etc etc. Followed the directions posted and whammo.

I just ordered 512mb ram from crucial. Once i get that in I'll be ready to take over the world.

Eriamjh · 03:03 PM

I would like to report that a clean install of 10.2 went flawlessly with a flashed newegg radeon card. DVD playback and games are perfect.

Does anyone know if ATI has any updated drivers yet or should I be happy with Jaguar's built in drivers?

Update: A quick check of ATI's website reports that the drivers that are in 10.2 are up to date. They are not available for download yet.

Souljah · Aug 29, 2002, 10:52 AM

Eriamjh:Just curious as to what setting your card is running at 275,250,230?...and you say no artifacts in DVD in 10.2?Also please post your comp's specs.Thanks

G4 400 Agp Sawtooth Oced to 450
576mb 100/133 mixed
Radeon 64mb 275/275 running at 255/255
OS9.2.2 Crashic
OSX 10.1.5

ReggieX · Aug 29, 2002, 12:01 PM

Jim, if you didn't get the PM, here's the place I got my LE:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/video.html

reader50 · Aug 29, 2002, 12:46 PM

Jim Paradise, could you link up a screen shot please? I've not been able to force game pixellation in 9.2.2 on the 8500. Of the games you mention, I have Pod Racer and tried it. Note, it's the full version and not the demo.

Todd Madson · Aug 29, 2002, 02:48 PM

Random artifacts are gone. G4/400 with 64 Meg 275 mhz 8500 Radeon
Retail works great.

My machine is definetely hotter - for a while the Radeon's fan
wouldn't spin up unless I spun it myself.

I can't overclock my L2 cache anymore without frequent crashing
but that's okay.

Souljah · 09:00 PM

Jim Paradise:Sounds to me like you have a card with defective memory.I'd return it pronto and get a non LE version..less headaches it seems.
I've read PC guys get the LE to 250/250 artifact free.
Check the Forums http://www.rage3d.com/
Damn those PC guys run 100fps stock 275/275 with a 1ghz P3!

Well thats it guys i've had it with tweaking.

Without resorting to the pencil mod to up the memory voltage,i'm running at 265/285 mem/core with no artifacts in DVD whatsoever.I've managed to run it up to 265/290 with no problems.
I figured the Apple Radeon must be running at 250/275 for a reason and don't forget a 1ghz Mac can barely achieve 50 fps in MOHAA and RTCW...so my 450mhz will do fine with my Radeon at these settings.

Goodluck All

G4 400 Agp Sawtooth Oced to 450
576mb 100/133 mixed
flashed PC Radeon 64mb 275/275 running at 265/285
OS9.2.2 Crashic
OSX 10.1.5

Jim Paradise · Aug 29, 2002, 04:56 PM

Originally posted by Souljah:
Jim Paradise:Sounds to me like you have a card with defective memory.I'd return it pronto and get a non LE version..less headaches it seems.
I've read PC guys get the LE to 250/250 artifact free.
Check the Forums http://www.rage3d.com/
Damn those PC guys run 100fps stock 275/275 with a 1ghz P3!

Well thats it guys i've had it with tweaking.
Without resorting to the pencil mod to up the memory voltage,i'm running at 265/285 mem/core with no artifacts in DVD whatsoever.I've managed to run it up to 290/265 with no problems.
I figured the Apple Radeon must be running at 250/275 for a reason and don't forget a 1ghz Mac can barely achieve 50 fps in MOHAA and RTCW...so my 450mhz will do fine with my Radeon at these settings.
Goodluck All

G4 400 Agp Sawtooth Oced to 450
576mb 100/133 mixed
flashed PC Radeon 64mb 275/275 running at 265/285
OS9.2.2 Crashic
OSX 10.1.5

You think the warranty will be voided, though since I messed around with the card?

Jim Paradise · Aug 29, 2002, 04:58 PM

Originally posted by reader50:
Jim Paradise, could you link up a screen shot please? I've not been able to force game pixellation in 9.2.2 on the 8500. Of the games you mention, I have Pod Racer and tried it. Note, it's the full version and not the demo.

I'll see if I can take a screenshot... Can one take screenshots while playing games that are fullscreen? Yeah, it's the full version of Pod Racer that I have too.

Jim Paradise · Aug 29, 2002, 05:08 PM

Originally posted by ReggieX:
Jim, if you didn't get the PM, here's the place I got my LE:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/video.html

Yeah, I did. Thank you.

Just hadn't had opportunity to reply yet.

Souljah · Aug 29, 2002, 05:56 PM

Jim: tell them it stopped working after a week..I doubt they'll have a way to check it or even bother if they realize you're willing to spend a little more for the non LE version.

Provided they have it in stock ofcourse.

G4 400 Agp Sawtooth Oced to 450
576mb 100/133 mixed
flashed PC Radeon 64mb 275/275 running at 265/285
OS9.2.2 Crashic
OSX 10.1.5

MacFreak · Aug 29, 2002, 06:30 PM

Just purchased a non-LE version of the 8500 Radeon from newegg.com ($109). Looking forward to better video...currenly have original G4/450 Sawtooth with the Rage 128...looks like this will make quite a diff.

I was gonna wait, but it seems some places are running out of stock. Must be other Mac users that don't want to pay extra for the DVI to VGA adapter...

.

Hopefully things will go well as most of you...keeping my fingers crossed...

Thanks to those who tested the waters before the rest of us jumped in...

Tim

reader50 · Aug 29, 2002, 07:04 PM

Originally posted by Jim Paradise:
I'll see if I can take a screenshot... Can one take screenshots while playing games that are fullscreen? Yeah, it's the full version of Pod Racer that I have too.

F12 = Screen Shot in Pod Racer.

parallax · Aug 29, 2002, 08:11 PM

Success!

This was so tempting. :^)

Bought the $109 Sapphire card from newegg, after a few alterations (zapping PRAM, upgrading to 9.2.2 with newest ATI drivers, using RESTORE first), my card now works.

Ran UT with the highest quality settings in 1024x768, and it runs *beautifully*. Now to try WC3 ;^)

ReggieX · Aug 30, 2002, 01:41 PM

I picked and recommended the LE because the price difference here is around CAN$43, so take that as you will. Kudos and coolness to all!

Eriamjh · Aug 30, 2002, 03:05 PM

Originally posted by Souljah:
Eriamjh:Just curious as to what setting your card is running at 275,250,230?...and you say no artifacts in DVD in 10.2?Also please post your comp's specs.Thanks

G4 400 Agp Sawtooth Oced to 450
576mb 100/133 mixed
Radeon 64mb 275/275 running at 255/255
OS9.2.2 Crashic
OSX 10.1.5

My newegg card is flashed at 250/250.
G4 dual 800
512MB
OSx 10.1.5 and 10.2

I also do not see any artifacts in Max Payne or RTCW.

CyberDave · Aug 30, 2002, 03:20 PM

I got my Sapphire card from Newegg last night, but haven't had a chance to flash it yet. I'm going to stress-test it in my PC first before I do that (read: there's a LAN party tomorrow and my GF3Ti200 for my PC is away for warranty replacement

). The card is rated for 275/275, according to the sticker on the back, so I'm quite optimistic about the whole thing.

CyberDave

rt · Aug 30, 2002, 07:30 PM

I'm running a sucessfully flashed 8500 retail card in my G4 Gigabit Ethernet mac. It performed great under 10.1.5. Looked and ran great.

Upgraded to 10.2 this morning and am having problems getting the color calibration to hold for my 18" Sony LCD Display. Using either the mac Display Calibration Assistant in the Utility folder or Super Cal 1.1.2........once I get my display set up properly and the profile saved, if I reboot or restart I loose the setting and my display is either way too bright, way too dark, and generally has a greenish blue hue.

I've played around w/ this all day but have been unable to resolve the problem. Zapped the PRAM, etc. Don't know if it's a conflict w/ 10.2, the card, or whatever.

Any ideas?

tia

reader50 · Aug 30, 2002, 11:42 PM

Originally posted by rt:
...I've played around w/ this all day but have been unable to resolve the problem. Zapped the PRAM, etc. Don't know if it's a conflict w/ 10.2, the card, or whatever.

Any ideas?

tia

Locate the calibration file and lock it before shutdown. Do the same for the colorsync preference file that selects that profile.

On the other hand, it could be a bad prefs file in the first place that is preventing saving of the profile ... or improper permissions on the files / folders in question. Seems like you should snoop around the file / folders involved a bit more. The problem pretty well has to be in that area.

mrchin · Sep 1, 2002, 03:08 PM

Retaill 8500 card with 128 MB VRAM is on sale at BestBuy this week for 129. I'd get it if I could flash it. Still no luck with these 128s?

Anyone get it to work?

CyberDave · Sep 1, 2002, 04:20 PM

Just another success report to add to the list. Sapphire 275/275 card for $109 from Newegg, flashed with firmware 126. Ran the RESTORE, then the UPDATE. Dual monitor support is working well (though the 19" ViewSonic is still away for repairs, so it's not as nice as it will be). Haven't had a chance to test DVDs or 3D games yet; played Counter-Strike and Jedi Knight II with card in my PC for about 10 hours yesterday, so I'm not expecting any problems.

The best part is I already have a buy for the OEM Radeon this 8500 replaced, so the whole upgrade isn't going to cost more than about $30-$40 (A Good Thing� for a college student like me

).
CyberDave

ReggieX · Sep 2, 2002, 10:51 PM

Originally posted by mrchin:
Retaill 8500 card with 128 MB VRAM is on sale at BestBuy this week for 129. I'd get it if I could flash it. Still no luck with these 128s?

No. Don't even bother, the 64M one is the only one that will work properly in the Mac.

pdot · Sep 3, 2002, 12:08 AM

Just an update on my DVD experience. The cooler weather NY is now experiencing seems to have improved my DVD playback. I'm experiencing fewer pixels than before. Most of the time, there aren't any pixels at all. I'm currently running at 275/275 on 10.2. If the drivers keep improving at this rate, everything will be perfect when Ati release the next driver revision.

Jim Paradise · Sep 4, 2002, 04:44 PM

Well, I called about returning my graphics card and other than having to pay the shipping and 15% of the original cost, I'll get my money back apparently. Urgh... I'll look around for a 8500 at some other point... but my next purchases will be 10.2 and .Mac.

Anyway, good luck to all the rets of you who still haven't done this. It's very worth-while.

c.i.t · Sep 5, 2002, 09:58 PM

Hey,
I'm confused on which speed card to get?Do I want 250/275? 250/250? 275/275? I found a site that has them all and I have no clue which one to get!!

Please help.

Thanks

LeeG · Sep 6, 2002, 11:04 AM

fedex tracking says my newegg card is in philadelphia - hopefully it will be delivered today! I will keep y'all updated on progress--

Lee

MacFreak · Sep 6, 2002, 10:56 PM

Well, I've received and installed my Radeon 8500 ($109) from New Egg. As everyone that has been successful has suggested,

I put both the Restore and Update firmware in my OS 9.2.2 Startup folder, making sure the Restore loaded first.

After a few minutes I rebooted with the Shift key held down and everything seemed fine. I took the ROM updates out of the Startup folder. When I checked the default spped, it was 250/275. I tried this with DVD playback in OS X and had quite a few artifacts (green dots)...

I rebooted in to OS 9.2.2 and set the speed to 255/255 as was noted earlier as a good speed for DVD playback. I rebooted and once up the firmware loaded. I again removed the update from the Startup folder.

I rebooted one last time, this time resetting PRAM (4 times). The system booted into OS X.

DVD playback is considerably better...maybe only saw one or two artifacts (if that)...

So chalk up another success. Window enlargement is still kinda slow, but not as bad as my Rage 128...

Tim

LeeG · Sep 7, 2002, 07:12 PM

Rebooted in 9, placed the restore and then the update in startup items, switched out for the 8500, rebooted, waited, rebooted with momitor, switched to 10 - NewEgg should be giving you guys a cut for all the business!! So Easy.

Thanks for everyone's help - though it went beautifully (didn't increase my itunes visuals frame rate though - oh well) now for WC3!!

Lee

pdot · Sep 8, 2002, 11:26 AM

Originally posted by c.i.t:
Hey,
I'm confused on which speed card to get?Do I want 250/275? 250/250? 275/275? I found a site that has them all and I have no clue which one to get!!

Please help.

Thanks

the numbers you listed represent the core speed, then the RAM speed in MHz. Since there are many OEMs out there, they put different types (speedwise) of RAM in their cards to save costs or to be competitive. The original Mac Edition cards from Ati use 250/275 and the original Ati Wintel versions use 275/275. Instead of going with core/RAM speed.
I suggest you go with cards that people in the past 8 pages have already tried. That is the easiest way to decide. (note: newegg cards, though most popular, do seem to have its ups and downs.)
The second way is to get either a non-LE or LE card that meets the past successful posters' criteria. I hear LE cards run best at 230/230. Non-LE cards seem to run at higher, though non-noticeable, speeds.
Personally, my non-LE NewEgg card runs games fine at 275/275, but DVDs experience the occasional green artifact/pixel in 10.2.

Alexei · 12:40 AM

Just did it today. Sapphire card from Newegg. So far so good. It actally seems to be way faster than I need for OS 9. It almost feels like processor can't send enough data for it to work with. But for X.2 it's just perfect. Beats my previous card. Original Radeon AGP.
Actually the best thing is more monitor resolution options especially in 1152x864 format.

If anybody needs it and hasn't done it yet - go for it.

D'Espice · Sep 12, 2002, 06:51 AM

Due to the fact that I did NOT succeed in getting an appropriate Radeon 8500 over here in Europe, I decided to go for something else.

I had a GeForce4 MX420 graphics card for PC lyin' in my desk (which I couldn't flash) which I offered to a friend in exchange for his Hercules GeForce2 MX. I took his card, flashed the GF2 MX MAC-BIOS and it's working just fine. Jaguar feels soooooo much faster with it than it did with my original ATI Rage128

Now this question is for all of you who had a GF2 MX before and are now "QuartzExtreming" with a R8500: Did you feel a difference? Is the R8500/R9000 really so much faster in QuartzExtreme than the GeForce2 MX? I'm not talking about games and stuff because I don't play, my only concern is QuartzExtreme.

Todd Madson · Sep 12, 2002, 08:57 AM

My prediction as to why the 8500 Mac was 250 mhz versus the PC
version 275 mhz was because the Mac originally had 2X AGP bus
versus many PCs current 4x and lately 8x AGP buses.

No point in making the card catch on fire if the machine wasn't
going to be able to really take advantage of it.

Also, lately, if you've seen my other posts - watch out when you
put one of these things into an already loaded G4. Your power
supply may be overtaxed and you may run into overheating issues.

Still not sure if it's a drive issue, a video card issue or both.
Or that I just have too much crap inside my G4 for its feeble, tiny
power supply to deal with.

c.i.t · Sep 14, 2002, 09:04 AM

Wow, bought myself a 8500 250/275 and its working perfectly. I just followed the instructions and am now a happy OS X user :-). The card only cost $92 from here: http://store.yahoo.com/buyaib/atirad8564dd.html

Everybody should get one of these cards.

hsl · Sep 15, 2002, 05:48 PM

does somebody know which store in US ships the radeon 8500 250/275 to europe, because i live in holland and I can't get the card anywhere the only cards i found are hercules cards with the ATI 8500 chipset...... and i really want to have a good graphic card!!

greetings harold

LeeG · Sep 15, 2002, 09:54 PM

Anyone know if Apple or ATI is planning a post-jaguar driver revision/speed boost for these awesome 8500's??

Lee

yukon · Sep 17, 2002, 01:16 AM

hey, i'm about to buy the origonal ati card. but, i've read in a few places that ATI added a rom check to the flasher on their web page, so that it would not flash a PC card.

Is this true? is there a way around it? if not, can someone psot the origonal rom flasher?

dfiler · Sep 17, 2002, 08:07 AM

Originally posted by yukon:
hey, i'm about to buy the origonal ati card. but, i've read in a few places that ATI added a rom check to the flasher on their web page, so that it would not flash a PC card.

Is this true? is there a way around it? if not, can someone psot the origonal rom flasher?

It still works. You just have to 'restore' then 'update'. The best source for info on this is this thread over at xlr8yourmac.com.

pdot · Sep 17, 2002, 09:57 PM

Originally posted by yukon:
Is this true? is there a way around it? if not, can someone psot the origonal rom flasher?

there are links to the original in the earlier pages of this thread. Check there.

yukon · Sep 20, 2002, 04:54 PM

yes pdot, there are links...to ati's download page ;-)

thanks dfiler, i guessed but it's good to know. i didn't see a mention of it at xlr8, unless it's in a new post, or i was the guy way early who had problems.

pdot · Sep 21, 2002, 11:30 AM

Originally posted by yukon:
yes pdot, there are links...to ati's download page ;-)

Bottom of page 5 by "Ken_F2."

Flash Editor 3/4 down of pg 5 by "I'm the Slime."

I could repost those links, but I wanted you to see for yourself. Both links still works. I checked for you.

yukon · Sep 21, 2002, 10:42 PM

lol

i had a copy of the flash editor, it just didn't seem to be very trustworthy (well, at least for a modification to hardware). i didn't see the link from "i am the slime", it's a lot of reading in the xlr8yourmac, macgamer and macnn forums (needle in the haystack and all). others who asked for it were referred to the ATY link (i believe that was in some xlr8ym thread)

thanks for the link, but do i detect a little "sass"? ;-). just for that, "both links still works" are badnessly grammered :-) nothing to see here, move along with the thread people...

pdot · Sep 21, 2002, 11:05 PM

Originally posted by yukon:
lol

i had a copy of the flash editor, it just didn't seem to be very trustworthy (well, at least for a modification to hardware). i didn't see the link from "i am the slime", it's a lot of reading in the xlr8yourmac, macgamer and macnn forums (needle in the haystack and all). others who asked for it were referred to the ATY link (i believe that was in some xlr8ym thread)

thanks for the link, but do i detect a little "sass"? ;-). just for that, "both links still works" are badnessly grammered :-) nothing to see here, move along with the thread people...

you're a crazy one. Did you happen to be a physics major at one point?

raskol · Sep 25, 2002, 05:30 PM

Another success.

Got the NewEgg/Sapphire 8500 64MB $109 card. Did the restore first then the update. Works great.

FYI: At this moment there is also a refurb OEM POWER by ATI 275/275 card at NewEgg for $81.75. Save ~ $30 and give it a shot.

Todd Madson · Sep 26, 2002, 06:58 AM

All:

After replacing my system fan last night I found that my system with the Radeon
installed would allow me to overclock my L2 cache from 199.2 to 267.5 mhz.

My machine is a teensy bit faster and the
Radeon definetely helps. Ravebench shows
ridiculous scores with this card now.

My power supply fan was dying slowly due
to bad bearings, it finally just died.

I couldn't run it with the Radeon at that
faster L2 speed - now I can. FYI, you can
too in all likelihood.

ReggieX · Sep 28, 2002, 01:03 AM

Crap.

When my new 10.2.1 install wakes from sleep, the display is artifacted like crazy. Any attempt to move windows, etc, results in bizarre pixel washes over the window.

I tried replacing the 10.2 drivers with the working ones I'd saved from 10.1.5, but the same thing happens. So, I put the 10.2 drivers back, and now I can't have DVDs playing behind transparent terminals (not that it's a huge feature, it's just a cool goofy trick to show people

)

Oh, and I installed with the 8500 card in, not the original Rage128 Pro, so I don't know if that would make any difference, all the QE stuff was working perfectly on first install.

OEM 8500LE, 230/230