[crooner]

Hey, Gang.
Faced with having to likely replace the logicboard and possibly the power supply in my Dual 1Ghz QuickSilver I'm now thinking seriously about just going for a new G5 instead of sinking money into a nearly four year old Mac.

Here’s my question... I'll be keeping my existing display setup which consists of a 22" Apple Cinema Display and TWO SGI 1600SWs. Currently, one is run off the second display connector on my AGP card via a MultiLink adapter and the second is run directly off the old (and admittedly crappy) Formac Proformance III card that is made to work with the 1600SW.

With later versions of Mac OS X, this card does work, thanks to the magical terminal command:
sudo nvram boot-args="romndrv=1"

Bless whoever came up with that one.

My concern is whether or not this old card will function in a G5, brilliant command line prompt or not. Has anyone even tried to use one of these or heard of anyone doing such? Did it work at all or did it render the Mac unbootable?

If anyone could supply some insight or info here it would be a big help as I'd prefer not to have to get a new PCI video card and then a second MultiLink adapter on top of the purchase of a new machine.

TIA for your help.

[tooki]

That depends entirely on whether the card is 3.3V-compatible. If it is a universal 3.3/5V card, it'll work. If it's a 3.3V card, it'll work. If it's a 5v-only card, it won't work.

Don't worry -- if the card's not compatible, it will not go into the PCI slot.

tooki

[Superchicken]

Why not take out the card then and run over to your local apple store and ask if they can help you?

[freebasen]

I use one of these in my SP1.6.

http://www.ultraflexinc.com/gfx.html


Works great, and the support is some of the best I've ever seen (done by one of the designers).

[crooner]

Originally Posted by freebasen

I use one of these in my SP1.6.

http://www.ultraflexinc.com/gfx.html


Works great, and the support is some of the best I've ever seen (done by one of the designers).

I had heard of this but hadn't thought of it until I read your post. My question is this:

Does this card act as an all in one video card or is it used in conjunction with another graphics card? If so, then I won’t be able to use this as my three measly PCI slots in my new, freshly ordered G5 are already spoken for:


FirmTek 4 port SATA adapter
SOME graphics card for the second 1600SW
ATTO UL3D SCSI card

So, if this adapter needs to work with another card, I'm SOL.

[crooner]

Tooki and Superchicken,
Thanks for the advice. I'll let ya know what I find.

[freebasen]

Originally Posted by crooner

I had heard of this but hadn't thought of it until I read your post. My question is this:

Does this card act as an all in one video card or is it used in conjunction with another graphics card? If so, then I won’t be able to use this as my three measly PCI slots in my new, freshly ordered G5 are already spoken for:


FirmTek 4 port SATA adapter
SOME graphics card for the second 1600SW
ATTO UL3D SCSI card

So, if this adapter needs to work with another card, I'm SOL.

It is indeed just a pass-through adapter, so it does need a card to drive it (A radeon 9200 maybe?). There is an email listed on the page I linked for Dan. If you are interested there was a time that this card could actually either be embedded directly into the SGI, or could be used externally. It appears that Ultra-Flex has stopped selling them directly, but I'm sure you could still get all of the relative info direct from Dan.

[crooner]

I just read a post online from an owner of a dual 2.0Ghz G5 who successfully got his Proformance III working using the Terminal command.

I realize that the 2.0Ghz model uses regular PCI slots while the 2.7 I ordered uses PCI-X. Would this constitute a major difference or are the PCI-X slot's backwards compatibility enough to make you folks believe that if it works in a 2.0 it will work in a 2.7?

tia!

[jcadam]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the regular PCI slots in the low-end G5 work with the 5V cards? I wouldn't know, I have a PCI-X equipped G5 (and none of those slots are populated)

[tooki]

No, even the non-X PCI slots are 3.3V only.

tooki