PowerBook G4 1.0 A1046 Resolution/Colour depth

[Greystash]

Hey!

I recently got OS 9 running on my PowerBook 5,2 and it works great! The Airport extreme even worked after the initial install but no longer does :/

My problem at the moment is that I am quite keen to run some games on this, but 90% of them require a resolution change or colour change to 256 colours. At the moment I'm stuck at 1280x800px (Millions of colours).
Are there any modded ROMS out there, or hacks to enable other resolutions/colour depths?
Under Apple System Profiler it says I'm running Mac OS Rom 10.2.1 (Generic), and my graphics chip is the ATI Jasper_A.

P.S thanks for all the great guides on how to achieve this, I never thought this would have been possible! This machine would be perfect if I can change these settings easily!!

Cheers!

[Astroman]

there are 2 versions of the display control panel (you can have both installed for their names are different).
Iirc I could set color depth on my G4 Alu Macbook, but the Airport was 'absent' (in fact the whole left side refused to work), so I put it aside for a while.

[darthnVader]

Hey!

I recently got OS 9 running on my PowerBook 5,2 and it works great! The Airport extreme even worked after the initial install but no longer does :/

My problem at the moment is that I am quite keen to run some games on this, but 90% of them require a resolution change or colour change to 256 colours. At the moment I'm stuck at 1280x800px (Millions of colours).
Are there any modded ROMS out there, or hacks to enable other resolutions/colour depths?
Under Apple System Profiler it says I'm running Mac OS Rom 10.2.1 (Generic), and my graphics chip is the ATI Jasper_A.

P.S thanks for all the great guides on how to achieve this, I never thought this would have been possible! This machine would be perfect if I can change these settings easily!!

Cheers!

Mobility Radeon 9600, not sure of the Device ID.

I could likely whip up an 'NDRV' for it, that would give basic resolution and color depth switching, but you won't get any graphics acceleration, as there is just no support for it.

[Greystash]

there are 2 versions of the display control panel (you can have both installed for their names are different).
Iirc I could set color depth on my G4 Alu Macbook, but the Airport was 'absent' (in fact the whole left side refused to work), so I put it aside for a while.

Hi Astroman,

I've tried the following control panels and none have worked:
Monitors & Sound - (v1.5) OS8.6 - Crashes Finder
Monitors (vB1-7.5.6) OS B-8.5
Monitors (8.6.4) Mac OS CPU Software 4.9
Monitors (8.6.4) Mac OS CPU Software 5.9

I could only source the Monitors & Sound control panel from a Mac OS 8 system, is there another one that will work with OS9?

Hey!

I recently got OS 9 running on my PowerBook 5,2 and it works great! The Airport extreme even worked after the initial install but no longer does :/

My problem at the moment is that I am quite keen to run some games on this, but 90% of them require a resolution change or colour change to 256 colours. At the moment I'm stuck at 1280x800px (Millions of colours).
Are there any modded ROMS out there, or hacks to enable other resolutions/colour depths?
Under Apple System Profiler it says I'm running Mac OS Rom 10.2.1 (Generic), and my graphics chip is the ATI Jasper_A.

P.S thanks for all the great guides on how to achieve this, I never thought this would have been possible! This machine would be perfect if I can change these settings easily!!

Cheers!

Mobility Radeon 9600, not sure of the Device ID.

I could likely whip up an 'NDRV' for it, that would give basic resolution and color depth switching, but you won't get any graphics acceleration, as there is just no support for it.

Hey darthnVader,

That would be amazing if you were able to do that? I don't think graphics acceleration will be necessary as I'm only wanting to play older games (Ambrosia SW classics etc.)

Below is the info I was able to get on the gpu

[darthnVader]

Gave me a day or two and I'll whip you one up.

[Greystash]

Gave me a day or two and I'll whip you one up.

Thanks heaps I really appreciate it!!

[darthnVader]

Try these, use only one at a time. One is from 10.5.1, the other is from 10.3.9.

Just drop one in your Extensions Folder and restart, then try the other.

The size of the NDRV looked a little large, so I don't know if I did something wrong, or they are just large NDRV's.

Let me know how it goes......

[Greystash]

Try these, use only one at a time. One is from 10.5.1, the other is from 10.3.9.

Just drop one in your Extensions Folder and restart, then try the other.

The size of the NDRV looked a little large, so I don't know if I did something wrong, or they are just large NDRV's.

Let me know how it goes......

Thank you so much!! Number 2 works, just tried a bunch of games and everything works perfectly, all resolutions, bit-depths, and the games run flawlessly!

Thank you!

[darthnVader]

Glad that worked for you, game on

[snes1423]

@darthnvader can you whip up a NDRV for a Geforce 5200 go for a Powerbok Al 1Ghz 12"

[Hopfenholz]

@darthnvader can you whip up a NDRV for a Geforce 5200 go for a Powerbok Al 1Ghz 12"

I would massively appreciate this too.

Also, Snes, how did you install OS9 on your 1GHz 12"? I have just got mine home and can't seem to boot from my normal macos9 install CD. Really frustrating! Any tips / hlep would be great as the link to the modded-ROM OS9 CD on this site is broken. I've flagged it but I don't think any of the guys who can do anything about it have seen the post, or maybe they are not active any more.

Cheers,

Joel

[snes1423]

Look on macintoshgarden.org for the g4 universal iso

[Hopfenholz]

I have downloaded the iso from Macintosh garden, thank you, but am having some trouble burning it as a bootable CD. I am using an Apple external USB SuperDrive.

I can’t get the iso to be recognised in the X Finder in Sierra to burn it as a Master. It bugs out with error 35. So frustrating.

How are you guys creating bootable CD media for this iso?

Many thanks

Joel

PS: I have access to many mac systems from OS9 to Catalina so hopefully one of my systems will be able to create this disk

[snes1423]

Did you try on os9 either way yo can’t really game without a drv for it otherwise the colors are going to be messed up

[Hopfenholz]

I’m making progress!

I was falling at the first hurdle... getting my PBG4 12” 1GHz to even recognise the OS9 boot CD. Without this, you can’t even install the OS9 hard disk drivers. People say that you can do it from an OS X boot disk with Disk Utility but that option wasn’t showing up (OS X 10.3 Panther).

So...

- boot into open firmware
- issue the 2 commands shown here on this thread http://www.thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?id=46
- these make your mac appear to be another model
- after entering these commands in OF, boot using the command mac-boot (you will need to do this every time you boot the mac :-/
- hold down C to boot from Panther CD. **You will now see the option to install OS9 drivers when you erase the disk** Do that
- now you can boot from either the Mac OS 9 boot CD or a USB stick

Today’s task is to reinstall Mac OS 9 on my usb stick, making sure its version 9.2.2 (previous versions definitely won’t work) and making sure it has the modified iMic ROM file

Will report back but it was a sweet moment seeing OS9 options in the boot loader and in the startup disk control panel
-