radeon 7000 drivers for mac os 8.6 on powermac g3 B&W?? nope...

[supernova777]

i read that this was incompatible but maybe that was old information?
i havent even tried to boot with 8.6 + the radeon 7000 installed yet.....
i guess i should just try it 

[supernova777]

my findings:
mac os 8.6 wont even boot with the radeon 7000 card installed
im not sure if this was because of the 6880m ide card being installed aswell..
but removing the radeon 7000 + replacing back the rage 128 GL card
resulted in the mac booting normally once again, finding the drive on the addon ATA-133 card no problem.

good thing i kept my ati rage 128 gL:)

so it looks like widescreen resolutions are not possible on mac os 8.6..
at least with the radeon 7000..
perhaps another card has drivers? but im not aware of another pci based card that would support this.

http://www.welovemacs.com/pcivideocards.html
maybe syntho's "twin turbo" or a matrox card or another brand...

perhaps the original Radeon PCI card would have drivers for mac os 8.6 to support widescreen..
but widescreen was not a very popular aspect ratio for this time..
4x3 screen ratio was prevalent over 16:9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_%28image%29

[supernova777]

https://discussions.apple.com/message/7369131#24471966

new hope for this combination after reading this discussion!

Try the drivers for osx 10.2 they are in .hqx format and i think are the same as the 9.2 drivers. I think that you should be able to install them in 8.6. There will probably be a popup saying that they are not for you system but you should be able to install them anyway. I have a 7000 on a B&W in 8.6 and the drivers installed fine, the displays panel works and i can turn on and off graphic acceleration.
The retail update here:
http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/mac/macosx10-2x-radeon.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20070210010331/http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/mac/macosx10-2x-radeon.html

(the above links are bad, but driver is linked on this page: http://gona.mactar.hu/ATI_Mac/)
http://gona.mactar.hu/ATI_Mac/ATI_Radeon_Retail_Installer/RADEON-0210.hqx
as noted, the installer will complain that u need mac os 9.0+ but it will allow u to install regardless!

Glad to help, try this is well:
In extensions manager, turn off "ATI graphics accelerator" that was the olde driver, from before you put in the 2002 update, don't need that.
Put the card back in the fast slot, it works fine there but press the CUDA button on the motherboard (while it is off) and reset the PRAM
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86760
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
You might have to boot a couple of times after doing this for it to work properly. But the 7000 will work fine in the correct slot. Its the ideal card for a B&W as it is the fastest card that has acceleration from OS 8.6 to 10.4.11
Once you reset the PRAM and CUDA it will work fine, give it another shot.

ATI RADEON Mac Software Update October 18 2002

Extensions:
ATI Graphics Accelerator 5.6.5 – system extension (INIT)
ATI Extension 2.8.7 – system extension (INIT)
ATI 3D Accelerator 5.0.4 – shared library (shlb)
ATI Rage 128 3D Accelerator 6.4.6 – shared library (shlb)
ATI Radeon 3D Accelerator 6.4.6 – shared library (shlb)
ATI 8500 3D Accelerator 7.0.6 – shared library (shlb)
ATI Resource Manager 3.1.4 – shared library (shlb)
ATI Video Accelerator 4.8.7 – background application (appe)
ATI Video Digitizer 4.3.7 – component (thng)
ATI ROM Xtender 1.1.3 – driver (ndrv)
OpenGLRendererATI 1.3.3 – shared library (shlb) – Apple Computer Inc.
CarbonLib 1.6 – system extension (INIT) – Apple Computer Inc.
Control Panels:
ATI Displays 3.2

This installer supports the following ATI products :
• RADEON 7000 Mac Edition

[supernova777]

tested + confirmed! working radeon 7000 pci on mac os 8.6 on powermac g3 B&W with above driver...!
but.. still no resolutions for widescreen display.. which means being stuck using this with a 4:3 aspect ratio monitor
max resolution 1280x1024  but at least the card is working fine + accelleration is working..
(before moving a window would result in this "rollup refresh" from bottom to top, this is gone, and moving windows is instant.. )
browsing with classilla seems to be quicker
hopefully no more of the strangeness that made me remove the card in the first place.. i think it will be ok.

maybe there is a way to make widescreen res work by overwriting some more files from an os9 installation...

if you are doing a new install of 8.6 on powermac g3 b&w make sure to do your install/restore first.. then overwrite these extensions *before booting 8.6* if u have a radeon 7000!!

[filipetolhuizen]

Great job! I never got this card fully working under Mac OS 8.6.

[supernova777]

i think alot of the last updates for mac os 9 are hidden inside files that are labeled osx 10.0, 10.1, 10.2
these first 3 versions of osx .. were more linked to os 9 then panther or tiger
its almost like panther was the first real version of osx..

remember frm the time of the quicksilver till mdd everything was dual booting.. i mean the quicksilver came from the factory
booting 10.1.3 + os 9.2.2 both..
so from the time the quicksilver was out this was the norm.. when releasing updates...
to release them for both..
same hardware. two os..

its really stupid that people cant be more descriptive and put for 10.2+9.2
but people are stupid in general.. what can u do;)

[supernova777]

hey imic
im wondering if it would be easy to open up the driver file
and add in the widescreen resolutions..
the only reason im suggesting that is because i had done something similar with .inf files on windows 98 with an nvidia Geforce2mx
is the mac drivers the same in that there is some text inside a file of the driver somewhere that lists the available video aspect ratios/screen dimensions?
would it be a trivial easy thing to edit this + add in widescreen support for the radeon 7000?

driver file is attached

[iMic]

I extracted the data from those drivers, and there's nothing in there containing a list of resolutions. Presumably the Radeon 7000 retrieves EDID information from the display itself and uses that to generate a list of supported resolutions.

Perhaps there's something in the Apple / System Monitor Extensions that can be modified. It would be significantly easier to make modifications with the actual hardware sitting in front of me - unfortunately I don't have a Radeon 7000 (but I sure would love one).

I'll have another look at those monitor extensions a bit later.

[supernova777]

dont knock yourself out over it..
i was just curious if it was an easy fix

[OlaHughson]

And I just installed it in my beige minitower with 9.2.2. At the beginning i was worried it may be faulty... but then i realised that ATI's installer enables ALL extensions. So I disabled unnecessary ones and it works good :3

[supernova777]

i am given less options for the same monitor on the radeon 7000
then with the rage 128..

not sure if this is a goof because im using the oct 2002 update on mac os 8.6 (instead of 9.2 as its intended for)
but im using a 1680x1050 monitor atm.. and the highest res i have available is 1280x1024 which is the wrong aspect ratio