Mac OS 9 Lives
Mac OS 9 Discussion => Hardware => Video Cards, Monitors & Displays => Topic started by: Metrophage on December 14, 2014, 06:56:31 PM
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I had a B&Wrev2 G4 600 MHz years ago which I just got back from my ex and have been working on this weekend. For some reason I decided to upgrade the graphics card before I gave it to her, so I flashed a Radeon 9100, which I read worked on 9 and X. It was an unstable mess on 9 so IIRC I removed my 9 drive and gave it to her with 10.4.
Getting it back now, years later, I had to clean it a lot and replace the PRAM battery. Then it worked fine. Of course, I was going to use it mostly in OS 9, so I wanted to tweak the setup to see if I couldn't get it to run with that 9100 in it. I had moved since, and the stock card had been lost. I tried quite a few OS versions. I started with a 9.2.1 CD updated to 9.2.2, I tried Diehard's 9.2.2 image, I tried one of those OS9general images with 9.6.1 ROM on it. And with each of these I tried three sets of ATI drivers - original 9.2.2 update, the Jan 2005 update, and July 2005 update.
The 9.2.1->9.2.2 system with the Jan 2005 ATI extensions was the most "stable". It would boot and I could use it, but it had problems. I had to quit the Finder often, and programs would often hang at launch. This system could not boot with MacsBug installed. Using other ATI drivers it would boot, but it quickly flashed from the desktop to a blank grey screen. Diehard's image hung at boot before extensions loaded. the 9.6.1 image looked like it was booting better than the others, but then the mouse would disappear every time and it eventually froze.
Fortunately, I happened to find a CD which had a folder where I'd archived the firmware, patcher, and web page of instructions. When I flashed it had to be like 7 years ago, so I didn't remember any of this. The notes said that the "ATI Resource Manager" had to be removed from the extensions to avoid crashes, so I did this. Then I was able to boot onto the 9.6.1 ROM system folder. But it was still unstable. Sometimes it hung during boot. Sometimes applications bombed with address exceptions.
So... I don't know if the problem was my setup, the generic 9100 card, the flashed firmware? I couldn't be arsed to troubleshoot it further now. I replace the card with the flashed Radeon 7000 from my 8600 and it worked instantly. I might look around, see if there were ever any improved firmwares for the 9100.
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ive never even seen a radeon 9100
i dont think they were ever supported officially
i posted a thread about my issues with the radeon 7000 + my B&W g3.. u are stuck because u dont have the original card..
try doing a PRAM zap 3 times in a row that helped me when i was messing with getting the radeon 7000 card to work with os 8.6
which i succeeded at eventually
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=1852.msg9140#msg9140
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=1996.msg10315#msg10315
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=1834.msg8923#msg8923
see these threads
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I can see that 8.6 is a bit trickier. When I initially installed the 7000 in the 8600 it was running 9.1, and I had to borrow some 9.2 extensioms to get the proper OpenGL level. It worked, but I can't imagine it would have done if I was in 8.6.
Poking around, I found an archive of the page I was working from to patch my 9100:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040718010120/http://24.13.240.153/overclock/mac9100.html
The card was ok in 10.4, but a big headache in 9. Of course, in the ten years since the post above, some progress might have been made. At least I can see what I'm doing for now.