GPU upgrades compatible with Power Mac G4 MDD

[Troika]

Hello there~! I'm new to the forum and while I'm not new to old macs, I currently has a eMac (USB 2.0) and a iBook Clamshell 300Mhz. I just got a killer deal on a Power Mac G4 MDD that's either a 1.0Ghz DP, a 1.25Ghz DP or a 1.25Ghz SP from the lack of Firewire 800 ports and what looks like a Radeon 9000 Pro gpu since its dual DVI rather than DVI and ADC that's on the Geforce4 Ti. I could be completely wrong though. Either way, I'm paying $15 for it and it works so I really don't care TOO much about what model it is since it does work and at that price, its a steal.

Anyways, as the title implies, I was wondering what gpus are compatible with these towers. Just how new of a card can I stick in here and will function as intended? I'll probably be dual booting or triple booting Mac OS 9.2.2, some version of OS X, and a compatible Linux distro to play with.

[GaryN]

If you're looking at two DVI ports, it's probably a Radeon 9600 ATI version. The 9600 was original equipment in some G5s. All in all, it's probably as much GPU as you can stuff into the MDD 4x AGP slot - especially that has a chance of working under 9.2.2.

Read this: http://www.lowendmac.com/video/agp/radeon-9600.html

[darthnVader]

Hello there~! I'm new to the forum and while I'm not new to old macs, I currently has a eMac (USB 2.0) and a iBook Clamshell 300Mhz. I just got a killer deal on a Power Mac G4 MDD that's either a 1.0Ghz DP, a 1.25Ghz DP or a 1.25Ghz SP from the lack of Firewire 800 ports and what looks like a Radeon 9000 Pro gpu since its dual DVI rather than DVI and ADC that's on the Geforce4 Ti. I could be completely wrong though. Either way, I'm paying $15 for it and it works so I really don't care TOO much about what model it is since it does work and at that price, its a steal.

Anyways, as the title implies, I was wondering what gpus are compatible with these towers. Just how new of a card can I stick in here and will function as intended? I'll probably be dual booting or triple booting Mac OS 9.2.2, some version of OS X, and a compatible Linux distro to play with.

If you need GFX acceleration under OS 9, then the only choices would be GF4 Ti or R9000.

The elusive Gainwood dual DVI 4Ti can be flashed to work, if you can find one.

[refinery]

yes as Darth mentioned, 9000 or geforce ti4600 is best you can get under 9 with graphics acceleration.

outside of that, probably the absolute best for that slot that will work on OSX is an ATI FireGL X3.

[Troika]

If you're looking at two DVI ports, it's probably a Radeon 9600 ATI version. The 9600 was original equipment in some G5s. All in all, it's probably as much GPU as you can stuff into the MDD 4x AGP slot - especially that has a chance of working under 9.2.2.

Read this: http://www.lowendmac.com/video/agp/radeon-9600.html

yes as Darth mentioned, 9000 or geforce ti4600 is best you can get under 9 with graphics acceleration.

outside of that, probably the absolute best for that slot that will work on OSX is an ATI FireGL X3.

Looks like the best I'll be able to use across all of them is either the Radeon 9600 Pro or G4 Ti 4600 from the sound of things. Out of curiosity, what sort of gpu support would going to linux bring or is it limited by whatever fits in the AGP X4 slot?

[refinery]

Looks like the best I'll be able to use across all of them is either the Radeon 9600 Pro or G4 Ti 4600 from the sound of things. Out of curiosity, what sort of gpu support would going to linux bring or is it limited by whatever fits in the AGP X4 slot?

they made AGP cards up until the ATI 4xxx generation, that's probably the absolute best for the AGP, but i believe would need to be hard modded to run at 4x IIRC. After a certain point AGP4X is going to be the primary limiting factor of performance anyway.
also keep in mind that you would have to physically switch cards every time you wanted to boot into OSX or 9 as there's no support for anything later than 9200 on OS9 and X850/FireGLX3 on OSX. I have read lots of people have had success with the radeon 9000s in linux PPC ports like Debian:

[Troika]

I think I'll go with a G4 Ti 4600 in that case. It seems like the best "no card swap" solution for performance across all the OSs.