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[enryfox]

I'm setting up an iBook G3 (dual USB, mid 2001) with Mac Os 9 just for fun. The iBook has an ATi Rage Mobility 128 and I'm wondering if the latest ATI driver is of any use with my video card. After replacement of HDD, I'm reinstalling everything from scratch but I'm not sure if the ATI driver is useful or not; in my previous installation, only the ATI menu was added (with "use video acceleration" enabled) but game like Quake II would still run only in software mode, no openGL available.

Is there any option to use the #D acceleration provided by the video card ?

thanks
bye

[ppcluddite]

Mac OS 9.2.2 should have the latest driver for Rage 128.  The later ATI updates were only for Radeon cards, I think, so unless someone corrects me you'd get no benefit from updating the drivers.

I do that #D typo all the time.

[DieHard]

You can verify you have the latest drivers here

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,1101.0.html

Versions:
ATI 3D Accelerator 7.0.4
ATI 8500 3D Accelerator 7.1.0
ATI Extension 2.9.0
ATI Graphics Accelerator 5.7.0
ATI ROM Xtender 1.2
ATI Video Accelerator 4.9.1

[enryfox]

Thanks for both your reply.

I realised yesterday that in my previous attempts I installed only the ATI update packages, missing some components at all (e.g. the control panel). I now have all the packages and will try again installing first the full packages and then the updates.

Not sure if that will actually helps as the card has a minimal 3D (<- no typo this time ) support and openGL might not be fully supported. 

bye
Enrico

[enryfox]

Wow, installed the full ATI package + updates and 3D acceleration is working !
Quake II is using openGL instead of the software driver and frame rate is very good.

bye

[DieHard]

Glad the downloads proved fruitful

[Protools5LEGuy]

Something in my head tells me that older drivers should go better on Rage 128 than those latest optimized for Radeon. Another test bed for 1kWindows test.

Rage 128 had a lot of iterations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Rage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Rage#RAGE_128
On towers from the G3 B&W, G4 PCI, Sawtooth, Gigabit Ethernet and the lowest Digital Audio G4 all had Rage 128 from the GL on the G3 to the AGPx4 Pro on the DA.

On Portables:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/by_capability/mac-notebook-graphics-cards.html

Bronze PowerBook G3, First G4 Ti, and 4 white iBook G3 share GPU with 8 Mb

[enryfox]

I'm quite satisfied with the current set-up, with the "new" HDD and a fresh new installation, MacOs 9 is really snappy. It's a small laptop but it is more than adequate to run MacOS 9: what amazes me is that the G3 500MHz is actually faster than my Mini G4 (1.25 GHz and four times the RAM) in classic mode on Tiger 10.4.11. Not to mention the fact that it is also a lot more stable (classic in tiger keeps crashing or occupying 100% of CPU time)

thanks
bye