My son, who knows more about these things, recommends installing the 9800 to improve photo and movie work. Is this a) advisable b) difficult c) expensive d) worthwhile in my G4 Quicksilver? Details are: Dual 800 Mhz PowerPC; 256 Kb L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache per processor; 1 GB SDRAM; Bus speed 133 Mhz; nVIDIA GeForce2 TwinView display, AGP bus in Slot-1. Currently running 10.3.9 but about to add extra interrnal drives, upgrade to Tiger and install Lightroom. The information about the RADEON 9800 on the AMD website seems daunting.

Also, it appears that the 9800 is not available in Australia (the Radeon website has no area contact for Asia Pacific countries, and my local Apple shop seemed vague and off-putting). Advice appreciated.
Geoffrey

It's very worthwhile, you'll get an excellent boost from it. I had a 9800 Pro in my Quicksilver and it did wonders.

Check out a forum called Strange Dogs - for info on how to buy a "PC" video card (which is way cheaper and very easy to find), and modify it to work on a Mac.

If you follow the recommendations on Strangedogs and find a recommended Radeon 9800, you should be able to buy a PC card for ~ $100 and flash it over yourself relatively easily.

JB

Now you're really scaring me! What does "flash over" mean? The strangedogs site has now moved to problems of canine diseases - it apparently closed last year, although the Mac OSG site says the forums are still alive. As an alternative I tried to find a suitable upgrade nVidia card since there's an nVidia card in already. The company replied it doesn't make cards, only chips and referred me to Apple. From other threads it seems Apple discourages upgrades and wont help. Later, more powerful cards go into new machines and are not for sale. ATI, which makes Radeon doesn't seem to have representation in Australia. This is a totally bizarre situation for someone who doesn't want, and isn't competent to start on something like adapting PC cards to my Mac.

Check eBay.com.au as well, there has been a guy on there who sells flashed Radeon 9800s pretty reasonably priced (already prepared for Mac). You will get a nice speed boost from this set-up, I only got one for my Mirror Drive Doors recently and I definately wouldn't regret it!

Macintouch73 is his ebay user ID. VEry nice and prompt.

Try that out. It'll be about $160ish.


:edit: I should mention that ATI do sell a version of the Radeon 9600 Pro at retail, although they have become extremely hard to find and are astronomically overpriced at $500. Thought I'd put that in if you absoultely *must* own a retail card.

Cheers

Both Streetwise and Epowermac sell graphics cards, with the latter offering a 9800 PRO Mac Edition. No doubt there will be others. They are not cheap but they're available.

will a 9800 even fit in a macpro?

Of course not. He has a Quicksilver G4 (read the thread, there are only 5 posts before yours).

Thanks for the help everybody, esp Arkhum_Eramak! I'm now in touch with the eBay guy who may be able to help. And the flash mystery is solved too.

Geoffrey

Glad to report the 9800 installation was successful - delayed only by the need to acquire an Apple DVI/ADC adapter to connect the screen. The screen is brighter and clearer and reaction time much sharper with instantaneous display of photos. BUT...when I wake the computer from sleep (Apple>Sleep) The desktop display including the Dock is overlaid by a mosaic of colourful little horizontal rectangles arranged in ten vertical columns. This can only be removed by a restart. It does not happen if the computer is allowed to shut itself down via the Energy Saver settings. Clearly some small conflict with the Sleep command - can anyone suggest a fix?

So did you buy a flashed PC 9800 graphics card ? Depending on who did the flashing , there are sleep problems with some flashed cards.Maybe another Rom could be used. As the FAQ at Strangedogs says , there are a lot of variables.
Stewie

fortuna: download the latest available drivers for your card from the ATI / AMD website, and install them, if the chap didn't provide any on disc for you.

If you have installed the latest drivers, and you are still experiencing the video-glitches, then you are unfortunate enough to have a card that cannot be 'slept' -- you will have to de-activate the sleep mode in Energy Saver.


Brains

I did not get a disk and was told driver installation not necessary. Indeed the card worked without straight away. Yes it's a flashed card, and the supplier says he has never known the problem. The ATI site says Retail Update not required for Radeon 9800 Pro Mac. I downloaded and installed the ATI display panel update for Mac 10.3.6. and higher, even though it had no references to the 9800, but it has made no difference. The mosaic effect occurs only after having put the Mac to sleep manually (Apple>Sleep). There is no problem waking it after it has been shut down by the Energy Saver settings. Strange.

Many ATI Radeon cards, PC flashed or not, do have issues with causing graphic corruption when the machine is "woken up" from sleep. The only other suggestion I could make is have you run the latest ATI ROM updates for the card?

JB

Whenever I've used Flashed graphics cards sleep has never been supported - although curently my Belkin USB card does not let my PowerMac sleep either, so I all but gave up on using sleep