The ATI Fire GL X3 256mb VRAM AGP video card that I bought on eBay just arrived today.

I am hoping that the re-flashing process to allow it to work in my dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac will be successful, as it will be a big improvement over my current ATI Radeon 9650 w/256mb of VRAM. The benchmarks that I have found for the 9650 have shown that it performs slower than earlier 9600XT video cards for PowerMac's.

Let me know if you make any progress in obtaining the same bios file that the guy is using that sells these Fire GL X3 video cards converted for use in Mac's on eBay. I would like to know what you have tried yourself and what happened when you tried, so I can avoid any mistakes, or pitfalls that you have already found do not work.

I would like to try to re-flash my card first, then if that is unsuccessful, I might send it to the guy that is doing the conversions and selling the cards on eBay to see if my card is one of the lucky versions that can be converted.

For anyone else interested in using this card in a G4, or G5 PowerMac running MacOSX, or Linux (with the possibility that Jim can successfully get two converted cards into the MorphOS Developers hands and that after they have them, the MorphOS Developers can some day write a MorphOS driver for this card), be aware that not all Windows ATI Fire GL X3 video cards can be converted for use in a Mac and the guy that is selling already converted and tested cards on eBay has told me that only about 15% of the OEM Fire GL X3 video cards convert for use in a Mac. The rest, 85% of OEM versions of the Fire GL X3 will NOT convert to Mac use and many of the cards he converts melt down during the one week of severe testing that he puts them through, before he puts them up for sale on eBay.

He only recommends buying original ATI cards, not the OEM versions and states that even many of the original ATI cards will not convert to Mac use successfully. Some cards can be flashed back for use in a Windows PC and sold again, until you find one that can be converted for Mac use, but his prices are high because of the high failure rate he finds when trying to convert these cards for use in a Mac. He appears to be fairly knowledgeable about converting all kinds of PC video cards for use in Mac computers.

I hope that Jim and this eBay reseller can get a couple cards converted and sent to the MorphOS Developers soon and that it won't be too long (6 to 18 months) before someone can write a MorphOS driver for them, because these cards can be used in G4 PowerMac's that are already supported by MorphOS2.7, not just G5 PowerMac's that might never be supported by any version of MorphOS.

I want to use it as an improvement in my G5 for MacOSX and Linux use. I got mine for $29.99 plus shipping, but did not remember to check if it was an OEM, or original ATI card until after I had bought it, so now I have to just hope that it is one of the 15% that can be converted for Mac use, or I will have to just sell it back to someone else on eBay and look for one of the cards that has a higher chance of converting to Mac use at a decent price, or bite the bullet and buy one of the already converted cards that has passed the stress testing, from the guy Jim and I have contacted who has experience converting them (and other models of video cards) to Mac use.

[ Edited by amigadave 17.02.2012 - 10:19 ]

Things aren't quite as grim as the statistics David just mentioned would suggest.
I originally focused on the FireGL X3s (as an R400 based card), because they were available at a low cost.
I also purchased one that had already been re-flashed for Mac operation and, after taping pins 3 and 11, found that it work in a G4 Powermac.
That original card has stopped working (either due to a problem with the taped pins or card failure) and I haven't had luck flashing the other cards I've bought (I currently own 4 OEM FireGL X3s).

So FireGL X3s may not be our best bet at obtaining R400 cards for our Macs.
X800XTs are still available. All In Wonder versions of these have the same specs as the standard X800XTs and are available at only slightly more the the FiregGL X3's cost.

So I'm going to buy one of those.
I'll be send some of my OEM FireGL X3s to someone with more experience (in conversion) then me.
And I'm looking into buying already converted FireGL X3.

Also, two final notes.
First, I'm looking into replacing the rom on X850 XT and X850 XT PE cards with a 128K rom that will hold the original Apple BIOS.
Second, I've located several PcIe R400 based Mac video cards at better prices then their AGP equivalents (so I'm looking into buying a PCIe G5).

Take care all.

Jim

With recent discussion and some members claiming that they don't think the MorphOS Dev. Team is going to support any of the G5's and might switch to x86 and/or ARM instead, you should consider those statements closely before buying a G5, unless you only want it for running MacOSX, and/or Linux.

I really like my dual 2.7GHz G5 and have used it instead of my 3.0GHz quad core Intel Windows PC since last October (and now I see that my Windows PC will not boot up any longer to the correct screen resolution, so I can't use it even if I wanted to). But, if you are buying a G5 with only the thought that it will some day be supported by the MorphOS Dev. Team, you might be disappointed (but I hope not).

The Quad Core G5 PowerMac's are all supposed to have the better liquid cooling systems in them and a couple of Mac users have stated that they have never heard of that model having a leak, so that would be a good one to get. I think the dual core 2.3GHz G5 is air cooled, so leaking coolant would not be a concern and it should be plenty fast for most uses.

Running MorphOS3.x on a quad core 2.5GHz G5, although it would be fast, would be a huge waste of electricity, unless you could find some firmware command that could shut down 3 of the cores, or at least one of the two G5 CPU's, while you are running MorphOS. Of course that concern is a moot point if MorphOS is never ported to the G5 and all you can use it for is MacOSX and Linux PPC.

Prices continue to drop, and you might get lucky to find a PCIe G5 PowerMac for a very low price if you look around long enough (not on eBay).

It would be nice to get R400 support for MorphOS, but even without it, I am hoping to use my Fire GL X3 in my G5 PowerMac while running MacOSX and Final Cut Studio II.

[ Edited by amigadave 18.02.2012 - 10:57 ]

David has a good point.
Never buy equipment that isn't supported with the intent (or hope) that it will eventually be supported if the developers have not announced their intent to pursue that support.

That being said, I've already proven that R400 cards will run on Powermac G4s (like my Quicksilver) and under OSX and Linux they run VERY well (a significant improvement over the R300).

So, where this leads is (at this time) purely speculative, but its one possible direction (as I feel the G5 is).

Jim

I received two FireGL X3 cards modified by Christian at oldmacs yesterday.

Once I taped over pins 3 and 11 on the back side of the card edge connector they worked fine in my Quicksilver Powermqac (under OSX and Linux).

They are a little expensive, but worth it for the performance boost.
I'd highly recommend this vendor.

Glad you got your modified cards back and that both of them were converted successfully and passed the rigorous testing that Christian puts all of his cards through.

Have you considered the power consumption of this card over what normally would come stock in a G4 PowerMac? I don't know how much extra power the typical QuickSilver, or MDD PowerMac PSU outputs, above what it takes to run the motherboard, fans, hard drives (considering that the MDD has 4 hard drive bays), optical drive(s), and any PCI cards.

I am just wondering if the PSU for your QuickSilver, or my MDD, will have enough power to feed this more powerful and power hungry video card, when we also have our systems maxed out with hard drives and PCI cards. I have 4 hard drives in my MDD at the moment, but I am not sure I will keep all of them installed in my system. Have you considered this as a possible problem, or is it something that does not need to be worried about?

My other question is regarding the VRAM. Is all of the 256mb of VRAM recognized when you are running MacOSX on your QuickSilver with this video card installed in it? Have you tried to run MorphOS2.7 with this video card installed, to see if the existing 2D drivers work on this video card? If you have and the 2D drivers work, does MorphOS2.7 recognize 256mb of VRAM, or only 128mb of VRAM?

Thanks again for your efforts to get these cards converted for use in our Mac computers and I hope that your work will someday lead to support of this fast card under MorphOS.

David, you've asked a question that I myself have worried about.
The Quicksilver comes with a less powerful power supply then the MDD and I'm not sure if these cards tax that supply or not.
The system starts and runs fine, but only time will tell if this is going to be a problem.

When using R400s under OSX you just have to make sure to have the latest driver installed. I've done this with either a 9200 or 9800 installed, then I power down and switch cards.
And yes, OSX recognizes the entire 256MB. After all, the bios is based on a Mac X800XT rom from a card with the same memory capacity.

I want to try this card with Ubuntu to see if that works (I can't see why it wouldn't).

BTW - this isn't the fastest card we could install in our G4s. It just the most likely candidate for support after the R300.The fastest cards available for the G4 are Nvidia 7800GS based. As MorphOS doesn't support Nvidia cards of any type, we're never going to see drivers for that.
And, as it is, we've got to consider how much our current CPUs limit video performance. At some point, better GPU are going to be severely limited by slower processors. I can attest to a significant increase in performance when moving from an R360 to an R420, but I'm not going to have time to do any formal testing right now as I have to ship these cards out soon.

I will post some comparisons when I get the next cards.

Thanks for the answers Jim.

Have you considered testing the FireGL X3 while running MorphOS2.7 to see if the current Radeon 2D driver supports the R400 based FireGL X3?

I know that it won't have any 3D acceleration, but it would be good to know if it currently works via 2D mode, or if a new driver is required, before the FireGL X3 could be used at all for MorphOS2.7.

Regarding your statement that we need faster CPU's for faster video cards soon, we might already see better video performance from the exact same video cards, if MorphOS support was extended to the G5 PowerMac's. Over in the thread about the possibility of porting MorphOS to the G5, or a bounty for G5 support, I pasted a link that talks about just that subject, and it shows how the improved bandwidth of the G5, when compared to the dual 1.25GHz G4 MDD, does in fact improve the speed of the same Radeon 9800XT video cards.

You might want to check out that linked article.

>Have you considered testing the FireGL X3 while running MorphOS2.7 to see if the current Radeon 2D driver supports the R400 based FireGL X3?

Oh yeah, I don't have OSX on the hard drive I'm currently using in my Quicksilver.
R400 based cards don't even post when MorphOS is your primary OS (no video signal at all).
Unplug the drive and Openfirmware pops up with its icon that lets you know it can't find a boot drive.
I switched to an older drive (one that I'd forgotten I had) with Tiger on it and the card performs perfectly.

I'm sure if Frank and Bigfoot wanted to they could probably modify the R300 drivers to get the R400 running in at least 2D. But you've got to remember that they still have work to do on the R300 driver and there is no commitment to the R400.

One thing the R400 does have in its favor, from a design standpoint its very similar to the R300 only with more shaders, texture units, and ROPS.

And you are right to point out that our existing cards would perform better in a faster system. Comparisons of G4 and G5 computers with either R300 or R400 based cards always show better frame rates in the G5 systems.

But should G5 hardware ever be adopted, we can simply unplug the cards we have in our current Macs and plug them into a G5.
I know the R300 and R400 cards will work and I believe most of the R200s would as well (some would be limited to 4X AGP speeds, but that's not much of a limitation).

Some G5s lack slower speed PCI slots, so our USB and networking cards might not be transferable (and the G5's built in sound is probably better then a Soundblaster making that irrelevant).
But, for the most part, much of what we are currently using will move over.

[ Edited by Jim 26.03.2012 - 11:23 ]

Thanks again. Since the R300 and R400 cards are very similar, that is why I asked if the R400 FireGL X3 worked in 2D mode. It was just wishful thinking on my part and I did not really expect it to work, but thought we might get lucky and find that since they are similar, it might have worked.

I will continue to hope that the MorphOS Dev. Team will reconsider and decide to support some of the G5 models and that my dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac will be one of them (which I think has the right kind of PCI slots that can accept cards that are currently inside my G4 MDD). I think that my dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac could be as much as twice as fast as 1.25GHz and maybe even the 1.42GHz G4 PowerMac's, when running MorphOS.

[ Edited by amigadave 24.03.2012 - 17:35 ]

A quick note.
Christian at Oldmacs has reduced the price he charges for flashed FireGL X3 cards by $50.
The advantage of buying from him is that the cards are tested to assure they have 16 functional pipelines (some FireGL X3 cards only have 12).
He replaces the heatsink/fan with new components using Artic Silver thermal paste.
Then the cards are burned in for one week to assure proper operation.

Of course, these cards are intended for Mac G5s, so in order to use them in a G4 you must mask off pins 3 and 11 on the back side of the card edge.
And currently these cards only function under OSX and Linux.

Originally he sold these cards for $179.99.
But now he is selling used cards for $129.99 and he has new cards available for $139.99.

Here's a link to his website.

http://old-macs.com/pages/Video_Cards/ATIX800XTFGL/

I've worked with this guy, I own cards he has converted and his work is top notch.

Hi. I just purchased a set of 4 FireGL x3 256MB AGP 8x cards and was wondering if anyone has tried flashing these and using them under MorphOS on a G5 Mac as of yet? I see MorphOS 3.6 adds support for X800 XT and FireGL X3 but since these are PC flashed cards I am not sure of the best way to proceed. I have downloaded some 128k and 64k mac roms and ATIFlash tool but it would be nice if someone has already tested and has some instruction to make it MorphOS compatible. I had success flashing a Radeon 8500 to Mac before but this card seems a little more complex. If anyone has done this succesfully then please post your method.

I guess for G4 operation some pins need to be covered but I am mainly interested to get one of these working on my G5 atm. Thanks.

Hi, I tried to flash a X800 but it's not usefull under MorphOS 3.6 (it's grunch on startup)
Boot logo is well displayed.

Quote:

To answer your last comment first, I have had a flashed FireGL X3 running in a G4.
I do not recommend it as the card draws a lot of power, but it can be done. And yes, you need to mask pins 3 and 11 on the back side of the card edge.

As to flashing FireGL X3s for Mac use, I would recommend you let someone who has experience with these cards do it.
Why?
Simple, many cards do not work correctly after flashing.
And there are a few tricks that can be employed to get a few cards working.
In short, it is a much more daunting task than flashing a Radeon 9800.

Jim

OK, since we are discussing this topic again, I want to make a quick statement.

We should all remember that flashed PC cards are not supported under MorphOS.
That could confuse a few of you in regard to the FireGL X3, as it needs to be re-flashed in order to work in a Mac (and as far as I know it will not work in a Pegasos as it does not support that board's AGP voltage).

To explain, when R400 support was first being discussed, G5 support (for MorphOS) had not been introduced.
There was no Apple R400 card for the G4.
Thus, getting an R400 to work in a G4 meant you had to use a flashed PC card (as the Apple X800XT is G5 specific).

So, an early card that Frank had was a flashed FireGL X3.
It is important to note that this card has also since failed.
Mark's card, which was sourced later, is a genuine Apple X800XT.

Personally, if the card is intended for a G5, I would wholly recommend using an Apple X800XT.
They are now cheap and they do not require an additional molex power connector (which Frank has rightly mentioned as a total PITA).
They are more reliable than a flashed PC card, they are intended for G5 use, and they are probably your best solution for MorphOS.

Since I will soon have 4 of these cards I will give it a try nonetheless. I think I may have better luck in a G5 machine. I will use a reduced 64k rom and perhaps atiflash.exe on a PC to do the flashing. I don't think the ID would need to be hacked for MorphOS but not sure. I will report my findings after receiving these cards and testing.

Quote:

Since you have already purchased the cards, go for it.
You do need to use the reduced rom.
And some versions of ATIflash seem to work better than others.
If any of the cards does not work correctly, throw me a PM.
They still may be salvageable.

As my first R400 was a converted FireGL X3, it was not my intention to discourage anyone, just to warn them of potential problems.
My first attempt went flawlessly, but since then I have seen several other cards with various issues.

I received my shipment of the 4 FireGL X3 cards today. Not sure how I am actually going to flash them as the PC I was going to use has PCI-Express instead of AGP. But in other events I also bought a G5 system from the same reseller and it arrived with a Mac OEM X800 XT card already installed. The computer was listed as having a Radeon 9600 but I lucked out on getting the X800 inside.

Quote:

Congrats on your new G5 system with the X800 video card. That was a nice surprise when you opened it up.

Sorry to reuse this old thread but after reading and browsing everywhere and nowhere i'm still stuck.

Has the riddle been solved how the cards have to be flashed and what leads to the artifacts seen on the screen in OSX/MorphOS with these reflashed cards?

In the thread it is mentioned that some tools might be working better than others. But i have not fully understood what that means. Would it mean that some tools might be able to flash card while others might not?

I myself flashed the ROM in an external flasher (de-/resoldering the flash chip) because it was the quickest way for me. The result is artifacts with Monitor attached, and no artifacts when no monitor attached (during remote control over network).

In some places it is mentioned you need to download some files from old-macs.com. These files are not available any more as the site seems to be down...

Quote:

Did you check at what engine/memory speed the card runs when used via MorphOS ? The GraphicsBoards tool in sys:utilities should give you the required info.

In general, we don't really support custom flashed cards. As it is rather easy to run into problems due to mismatching firmware specs that weren't intended for the flashed card.


[ Editiert durch cyfm 21.11.2015 - 15:15 ]

I fully understood that the card is not supported by MorphOS and can of course live with it.
Just put the question in here because maybe some of the posters have found solutions in the meantime that might help me.

For the MorphOS i need to check the frequencies in the evening. In MacOS both frequencies were like 492 / 478 iirc.

Thanks for your feedback!

Quote:

According to the official FireGL X3-256 specs, core clock is 500 MHz and memclock is 450 MHz, so this might explain the issues ...
Obviously, the flashed openfirmware bios which you used is a customized version to fit the FireGL X3 card but the related memory and core clock haven't been adjusted.

For Mac OS there is a tool to adapt frequencies on the fly. Reducing them didn't help. When i went below a certain threshold for memory clock it got even worse on screen. Turning it back up made the additional distortion go away but it never looked like it should.
I will experiment a little more tonight if i can. In the end i will probably return to use the original 9600 that came with the computer...

Have you tried re-flashing it with the original x86 firmware and testing it on MorphOS? It won't work under OSX or the openfirmware screen but x86 cards have been supported in MorphOS since at least 3.9.

[ Edited by Intuition 21.11.2015 - 16:18 ]