Mac OS9 Radeon 9250 drivers

[SnakeCoils]

As requested by MacTron I opened a new thread with this subject.
The Radeon 9250, as far as I know, was never supported by ATI drivers but happened to me to have purchased on eBay such board flashed for Mac but the standard extensions refused to load and accelerate the System.
The vendor told me that some modified drivers existed and pointed me to an archive where I have downloaded them and, if I remember well, after dropping this drivers in the System the card was correctly recognized and used.
The system was at the time a B&W Yosemite G3 and the graphic performances were more than honest.

Attached I provide the archive I downloaded some years ago, I do not provide any warranty or support, but if someone want to do some experiments feel free to pick up while it is still hot :-)

[supernova777]

i have a radeon 7500 in my powermac g3 450mhz.. and as i have said before about this system, i alway find it be remarkably fast for a g3!

[MacTron]

...
The vendor told me that some modified drivers existed and pointed me to an archive where I have downloaded them and, if I remember well, after dropping this drivers in the System the card was correctly recognized and used.
...

Thank You.
...but those aren't modified drives, just Radeon 9200 drivers.
BTW, the most updated ATI drivers for Mac Os 9.

and we have it already 
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=1101.0

[SnakeCoils]

Excellent! This means that at a certain point, in the latest ATI driver updates, the 9250 support has been quietly added directly from the manufacturer.
I didn't knew about the july 2005 update but I discovered a nice side effect of ATI ROM Xtender 1.2 when used with a Mac-flashed Radeon X800XT: it activates che DDC/EDID communication with the connected display and permit to the Display Manager to select all the monitor's supported resolutions and not only the one stored in the PRAM when booted in OS9. No 2D or 3D acceleration of course, no DVD decoding but at least I can choose the display resolution that I want :-)

[supernova777]

i have a radeon 7500 in my powermac g3 450mhz.. and as i have said before about this system, i alway find it be remarkably fast for a g3!

i mean for a PCI video card.. on a g3 processor.. it seems just as fast if not faster then my g4 450mhz.. perhaps the radeon 7500 pci is just as fast as the agp geforce MX4?
*shrug*

op; (snakecoils) were u talking about radeon 9250 PCI or AGP?

[SnakeCoils]

op; (snakecoils) were u talking about radeon 9250 PCI or AGP?

The PCI version, I remember at the time it was been a really nice addition to my Yosemite G3, it greatly improved my Mac user experience.
Personally I prefer the ATI stuff to nVidia cards because the acceleration is done on a wider front including Video, 2D and 3D apps while the nVidia seems to do its best in gaming field leaving video decoding acceleration almost forgotten.
I speak from my experience on the G5: while the HD video playback was choppy on a Nvidia 6800Ultra it was silk smooth on a X800XT (this using the VLC media player). Maybe under OS9 the balance goes in the opposite side but on OSX there's a lot of difference using one gfx brand or the other.

[MacTron]

Personally I prefer the ATI stuff to nVidia cards because the acceleration is done on a wider front including Video, 2D and 3D apps while the nVidia seems to do its best in gaming field leaving video decoding acceleration almost forgotten.

That's not my experience...
Both nVidia and Ati do video/2D/3D acceleration on the models that support Mac Os 9. I don't prefer one brand over another, but nVidia has the fastest video card for Mac Os 9 the TI4600,  and this is way faster in 2D and 3D than the faster Ati for Mac Os 9 (Radeon 8500/9000).

[SnakeCoils]

nVidia has the fastest video card for Mac Os 9 the TI4600,  and this is way faster in 2D and 3D than the faster Ati for Mac Os 9 (Radeon 8500/9000).

I agree because we are talking about OS9 performance but I would like to do some experiments with heavy video decoding to see if really nVidia OS9 drivers are optimized also on this front. What I need is a player with MPEG-2 format support (since MPEG-4 or H264 support was never developed for OS9) like VLC for OSX, can the Quicktime MPEG-2 component for QT6 (OS9) do the job? If it is abandonware where I can pick it? I already tried in Macintosh Garden but is not in the download area, the extension should be named like "QuickTimeMPEG2.qup".
My plan is to create a serie of HD clips converted from a 1080p source (via Handbrake) with different compress ratios and see how high I can push the data rate before in OS9 the video starts to choke.

[MacTron]

... since MPEG-4 or H264 support was never developed for OS9...

There is MPG4 support for Mac Os 9: Apple MPG4, 3ivx, and Divx (well Divx can or can't be considered MPEG4) but no one supports h264 all are h263 v2.

...What I need is a player with MPEG-2 format support ....
... can the Quicktime MPEG-2 component for QT6 (OS9) do the job? If it is abandonware where I can pick it? I already tried in Macintosh Garden but is not in the download area, the extension should be named like "QuickTimeMPEG2.qup".

... but Apple MPEG2 codec for QuickTime is on the "MacTronGarden" ... LOL
I'll upload it ASAP...

If you have a dual CPU the Apple MPEG2 encoder is the faster you can try. It can encode standard definition video in real time!

By the way: the video (movie) acceleration on mac Os 9 is limited to color space conversion. So there is little aid from de video card and it is very difficult to measure.

[supernova777]

I speak from my experience on the G5: while the HD video playback was choppy on a Nvidia 6800Ultra it was silk smooth on a X800XT (this using the VLC media player). Maybe under OS9 the balance goes in the opposite side but on OSX there's a lot of difference using one gfx brand or the other.

well to be fair the X800XT isnt a fair comparison to the 6800 Ultra.. its a more advanced card..

http://www.gpureview.com/all-in-wonder-x800-xt-agp-card-43.html
http://www.gpureview.com/geforce-6800-ultra-agp-card-179.html

the core clock on the x800xt is 500, while the 6800 is 400..

but of course neither of these cards have mac os 9 driver support.
i'm using my radeon 8500 with dual 2x SyncMaster VGA monitors on my mdd 1.25 and so far its been great
im not even using the latest mac os rom or radeon drivers even yet because im lazy to reinstall and always distracted

[MacTron]

I'll upload it ASAP...

Take a look into my FTP folder...

[SnakeCoils]

Take a look into my FTP folder...

Thank you very very much! But... where can I found that FTP folder? :-)

[MacTron]

Here You have:

https://www.adrive.com/public/sEXxXv/QuickTime%20MPEG2%20Decoder.sit
https://www.adrive.com/public/kt87Fn/Apple%20MPEG2%20encoder.sit
https://www.adrive.com/public/usXPGq/3ivx_d4_451_os9.sit

[SnakeCoils]

the core clock on the x800xt is 500, while the 6800 is 400..

but of course neither of these cards have mac os 9 driver support.

It is not a matter of pure memory or core speed, the driver support always makes the difference.
Some years ago I purchased for my collection a G5 dual core machine, I believed that plugging inside a Nvidia 7800GT would resolved all my "needs for speed" related to a PPC machine. I were wrong because while on the 2D and 3D side the performance were really good the HD video decoding was a disaster and reading some posts around about the most powerful Gfx card available, the Quadro FX 4500, the news were almost the same: that incredible video card didn't do nothing for accelerate the video decoding, only the CPU power was involved but always insufficient for a smooth playback.
Unfortunately I haven't that machine no more but I am sure that plugging a X1900GT inside will result in a GLOBAL acceleration on 2D, 3D and Video simply because its drivers take care (if the codec is compliant) of video decoding too.
I say that because I have a X800XT inside my G4 MDD and it can easily playback 720p files in H264 or a 1080p in MPEG2 while if I try to open the same files on a 4600Ti (that I also have) the screen remains black, if would been only a matter of memory or core speed I should see at least a choppy video but not a black screen, if I remember well a Radeon 9000 also performed better than a nVidia 4600Ti (limited to video decoding, we must be clear on this point) but not at the same level of smoothness of the X800XT.
This happened on the OSX side, on the OS9 side we haven't a native support for the 6800 or the X800XT but I bet that ATI's more advanced support in video decoding will show on supported cards some interesting differences, in short: while we all agree of superior performances of 4600Ti over all the other OS9 gfx cards in 2D and 3D I believe that video decoding will be better when seen on an ATI board.
My goal is to verify if this is true comparing the performances in video playback between a 4600Ti and a 9000Pro using various encoded material I will prepare for this purpose.

Stay tuned! :-)

[MacTron]

... but I bet that ATI's more advanced support in video decoding will show on supported cards some interesting differences, in short: while we all agree of superior performances of 4600Ti over all the other OS9 gfx cards in 2D and 3D I believe that video decoding will be better when seen on an ATI board.
My goal is to verify if this is true comparing the performances in video playback between a 4600Ti and a 9000Pro using various encoded material I will prepare for this purpose.

Stay tuned! :-)

I'll be very interested in to see your results. I suggest you to include a test without video acceleration ( removing the video (movie) acceleration extensions: "ATI Video Accelerator" and "NVIDIA Video Accelerator" files alone )
I bet that if the Ti4600 isn't faster, the difference will be around 5% only.

[Jakl]

SnakeCoils have you tried using a dvi port to vga convertor
on the X800XT dvi port in macos9 to see if it works?

It may pass for another lesser ATI card but use the speed of the X800XT.

Have any of the later flashed ATI or Nvidia cards that work in Macosx on a MDD work
in macos9?

Just wondering.

Thanks

[SnakeCoils]

The official X800XT or X850XT from Apple can't be used in a G4 MDD because of their custom layout that does not allow the card to physically fit in a regular G4 AGP slot. Also the whole power can't be provided to the card because on a G5 the extra current is fed from the extra pins of AGP 8x Pro slot while on the MDD this extension does not exist.
However is possible to take a regular FireGL X3 card for PC machines and flashing it with a reduced X800XT ROM and it will act as if were a native X800XT. This card must be feeded with extra Molex power cable but this makes it universally usable, both on G4 and G5 PowerMacs: the only caveats on G4 machines is to mask the pins 3 and 11 of the AGP connector to force the card in 4x mode while on the G5 it can boost its whole power running in 8x mode (no pin masking needed).
If you plan to purchase a FireGL X3 to flash it with a Mac ROM you should look for a Samsung memory equipped because the Apple ROM is built to mate their chips, if the board has the memory chips from a different manufacturer (like Infineon for example) you have to modify the ROM file before flashing or you will risk to burn the card (and the display will shown only garbled graphics).
The FireGL X3 share the same architecture from a X800XT but it is equipped with two DVI-I video ports, both fully functional, this means that you can use both in DVI mode, one in DVI and the other in VGA (through a common mechanical adapter) or also both in VGA, a really wonderful video card.
There is only a drawback in this conversion: since the Apple ROM (usually 128k) has to be reduced to fit in the Flash memory of the board (usually 64k) something in the code had to be cut out, and the missing part is the EDID/DDC routines that interfaces correctly the card with the monitor and the fan speed control.
These missing parts from the ROM are happily replaced by the ATI ROM Extension both under OS9 and OSX where the full functionality of the board is restored again, via software instead hardware but you don't notice the difference at all :-)
Under OS9 the graphic acceleration is completely missed but since itself is a speedy board the regular use is comfortable also without drivers. Also the DVI and VGA out (always through the usual adapter) works on OS9 too but you MUST install the ATI ROM Extender version 1.2 or the monitor resolutions will not be recognized and the Display manager will show you only ONE graphics mode.
For long time I had installed a flashed FireGL X3 on my MDD and it worked like a charm, on OSX the performances are incredible, but since I wanted to be fast also on OS9 I switched to a Nvidia 4600Ti :-)
In the next days I will compare nVidia and ATI on OS9 for best video decoding performance, on OSX there's no match because the ATi drivers boost the video decoding while nVidia doesn't.
Choosing a video board or the other depends on your needs: if OS9 is considered only a "plus" or if your OS9 apps runs happily in Classic mode the best choice is IMHO the X800XT while if OS9 is a vital part of your regular Mac experience then choose the 4600Ti, the only drawback will be the loose the video decoding acceleration on OSX but if you don't care about that then Nvidia is the best and only choice.

[supernova777]

i have a radeon 9800 pro inside my single processor 2003 powermac g5. and yes a good video card makes a huge difference in the perceived speed of those ancient 2003-2004 g5's definately. but yea.. not so much relevant for mac os 9. i wouldnt really try to use mac os 9 for video!!

[supernova777]

My goal is to verify if this is true comparing the performances in video playback between a 4600Ti and a 9000Pro using various encoded material I will prepare for this purpose.

everything i read about the ati 4x agp cards lead me to believe the 8500 is the 'pro' card + was alot more expensive then the 9000 pro
assuming the higher number is the more advanced card is a natural conclusion but not neccesssarily correct