PC ATi Rage video cards - do they work under OS X?

jutusjutus
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Time to get a cheapo pci card for the dual head.



Can anyone here vouch that old PC ATi Rage (pre 128 pro) vid cards work no problemo in Macs?



thanks,



- j

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    They function as a base level but IMO there are no "drivers" for it. Apple refuses to support the card.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    b.i.lb.i.l Posts: 30member
    i don't think that any pc card will work on a mac, OS 9 or X. they need to have certain mac code on the card itself, only cards built for macs have these.



    but i think most of the old *MAC* ati cards will work fine in X. i am using a xclaim 3d+ right now. search for "xclaim" on ebay.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    corvettecorvette Posts: 561member
    If you get a card that has OSX drivers, then all you need to do is flash the card. Like you can take a PC GF2mx and flash it, and it will work. There is some software that will allow you to do this. I think tomeviewer or something like that allows you to take off the firmware from apple driver updates.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    b.i.lb.i.l Posts: 30member
    Yeah I thought about mentioning that, but it's a pretty elaborate and potentially risky process...



    You can buy a GF2MX or GF3 (it may only be certain ones that have hardware nearly identical to Apple's version of the GF), get the Mac firmware, put the card in a PC, and use a utility to flash the firmware with the Mac firmware file.



    If you are interested in this there are instructions at xlr8yourmac.com...
  • Reply 5 of 6
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    You know when I first read this I missed the "PC" part of the video card. Sorry.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    thinkingdifferentthinkingdifferent Posts: 1,604member
    [quote]Originally posted by corvette:

    <strong>If you get a card that has OSX drivers, then all you need to do is flash the card. Like you can take a PC GF2mx and flash it, and it will work. There is some software that will allow you to do this. I think tomeviewer or something like that allows you to take off the firmware from apple driver updates.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Uhmm I don't think Apple distrubes the firmware for videocards. That's pretty hardware specific. Usually the manufacture of the hardware supplies the firmware. I did this with a 3dfx voodoo card. 3dfx supplied the mac firmware and the utility needed to upgrade the video card.

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