Mac MDD questions.
I'm looking at buying a 2003 edition of the MDD machine. Basically because it has a fast 167mhz bus speed like Mac Mini and it is fundamentally an expandable system.

I see there is a 4x AGP slot in this thing. And I do have a Radeon 9200 128MB AGP Mac edition card. I read somewhere that the card needs to have a couple of modifications made to it in order to work in the MDD. No big deal, I'll gladly modify it. So my first questions (is this specific card going to work in Morph and is it even any good?). I already have the card and it looks to be 2d/3d supported in Morph and up to 128MB ram level. Or will some better video be supported in Morph3.0? If this is the case this current 9200 card can just stay in the other mac it is sitting in now.

Next... I am assuming the SB Live! PCI audio card I have will not be an issue in this MDD machine physically. This card does have a daughter card for MIDI ports, spdif, and digital din. I am assuming MorphOS only supporting basic functions on this card only (line in, line out, mic and that entire daugeter card crap in addition to 'rear out' and joystick ports of the main board are unsupported. Can anyone confirm? It is looking like there is no benefit over Mac audio at this point. I can always use the card elsewhere if this is the case.

What is the story on the Sonnet Tempo SATA card? It is a 2 port unit that I believe someone with a Pegasus got running once with Morph. What would the benefit be over using the MDD ata/100 or ata/66 ports? ata/100 good for 100mb/s so sata at 150mb/s would be better. That is about all I know though. I inquire about this because SSD's are pretty cheap these days and might be cool in a Morph/Mac rig.

Thanks in advance.

If The radeon 9200 is a Mac edition like you say you don't need to do modify nothing. A much much faster GFX board will be the Radeon 9800, but at the moment only 2D is supported by MorphOS, so stay with your 9200 for now.

The Radeon 9200 and 9250 require a resistor modification detailed here:

http://themacelite.wikidot.com/9250-trick

If you want to do it the easy way, just remove the one resistor that the guide says to move. It will work that way (mine did).

Bios files are also available on that site. And you will need to tape over pins 3 and 11 on the back side of the card edge connector (to use in a 4x AGP slot).

Your card is well supported under MorphOS and among the cards that have 3D support only the Radeon 8500 is faster.

The SB Live is a perfectly useful sound card that is considerably better then on board sound (and yes, only its basic functions are supported).

Sata card support for Macs is slated for revision 3.0.

There are IDE SSDs available now though.

Thanks for the 9800 info and advice on sticking with the 9200. It looks like 9800 would be really good when fully supported.

Thanks for the info jim. I did read about that modification and am glad you confirmed this was necessary. I was looking at a few pata ssd's and they looked crappy and expensive when compared with more widely available sata counterparts. I will have to wait and see with that one.

I am trying to get 2 machines ready for 3.0. This mdd is the first. the second is a 17" powerbook.

Rodomoc,
Quote:

I bought and OWC Mercury Legacy SSD and have been very happy with it... See Here...

matt, not sure how i missed finding those. they look great and a perfect upgrade for mac powerbooks. And of course using in larger desktop machine too.

It looks like the FW800 machine in dual cpu configuration might have the 167mhz bus too. I see many 2x1.42ghz machines out there for sale.

Well I have decided on a 1.42 MDD and am doing some bidding on one. The SB Live! I already have, as well as the Mac Edition 9200 AGP video card. It should be enough to get started with. I wonder if this IO Gear USB card I bought from OWC would work? I see sonnet makes about the same thing too......

I am also getting a 2003 emac, 1.42ghz. $30 for a working, mint condition unit. That is just hilarious...

[ Edited by Rodomoc 09.02.2012 - 12:04 ]