Mac OS 9 Lives

Mac OS 9 Discussion => Mac OS 9, Hacks & Upgrades => Topic started by: alexshendi on June 20, 2025, 10:23:08 AM

Title: MacOS 9.2.2 (from MacOS9Lives CD) runs, but display resolution is hosed
Post by: alexshendi on June 20, 2025, 10:23:08 AM

Hi folks,

So after much effort, I have given up on preserving my Mac OS X partition and after backing everything up, I initialized the disk and made 2 partitions (20 and 95 GB).

I installed Mac OS 9 on the first and so far everything works fine, except for the display resolution.
This seems to be fixed at 1024x768@256 colors. Also there is a "frame" around the portion of the screen that is actually used. See the attached picture.  The machine is a 14" iBook G4.

So how can I fix that? Thanks for any hints.

Title: Re: MacOS 9.2.2 (from MacOS9Lives CD) runs, but display resolution is hosed
Post by: joevt on June 20, 2025, 03:18:23 PM

What GPU does the iBook G4 have?

Does Mac OS 9 have drivers for that GPU?

If there's no Mac OS 9 driver, then you can't change the resolution or color depth. You are stuck with whatever frame buffer Open Firmware provides.

Did you go into Open Firmware to see if the display node has an option to change the display mode?

What version of Open Firmware does your iBook G4 have?

Title: Re: MacOS 9.2.2 (from MacOS9Lives CD) runs, but display resolution is hosed
Post by: alexshendi on June 20, 2025, 04:06:27 PM

I investigated further and found out the following:
* Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 9200
* The active screen resolution is 640x480, 1024x768 would be the native resolution. That explains  the unused border around the display area
* System Profiler doesn't seem  to know about the GPU
* Didn't investigate Open Firmware settings yet.