Resolved GeForce 6200 256MB or Radeon 9000 Pro 64MB?

[Project Alice]

I’ve finally gotten myself a FW80 MDD! I’m about to migrate everything from my Mystic over to it:
SATA card x4 SATA drives
MDD already has a USB 2.0 card in it, so that can stay in the mystic.
My mystic has the title says; a GeForce 6200. The MDD still has the Radeon 9000 Pro. I quick google search shows that the 9000 Pro is faster than the 6200.. but the 6200 is full core image, and has 4x the mount of vram..
It’ll run be running leopard, and will be my main PPC gaming rig aside from my G5.

 

[Project Alice]

Okay, so I put everything in there anyways including the geforce 6200.
No video! Great. I screwed around with it for about 40 minutes; reseating the GPU ect. Finally put the Radeon 9000 Pro back in, and it works perfectly. Sigh.
The Geforce 6200 worked perfect in the Mystic, and a Sawtooth before it, and a Quicksilver before that. The card already has pins 3 and 11 taped. Is there another reason this wouldn’t work in an MDD?

 

[timidpimpin]

I have no idea how to make it work, or if it's possible in the first place. But I do know that the 6200 cards are known to not work in the MDD. AFAIK it's a pin related issue, but not one that can be solved by covering any. The AGP 4x in the MDD must be somehow different than the 4x in the Quicksilver and Digital Audio.

But it's not just the AGP slot. The MDD board and PSU are much different than previous G4's. They're almost like a G5 system that runs a G4 chip IMO.

 

[LightBulbFun]

They're almost like a G5 system that runs a G4 chip IMO

not really no, the MDD and the G5 are completely different systems, with completely different chipsets and buses

as for the OP, sadly indeed the GeForce 6200 is known not to play nice with the MDD

however id recommend picking up a Radeon 9600 of some kind from a G5 or such, they are generally quite cheap, and with,pins 3 and 11 taped, they make good upgrades for MDDs

and are faster then both the 9000 Pro and the GeForce 6200 anyhow

 

[Project Alice]

I have no idea how to make it work, or if it's possible in the first place. But I do know that the 6200 cards are known to not work in the MDD. AFAIK it's a pin related issue, but not one that can be solved by covering any. The AGP 4x in the MDD must be somehow different than the 4x in the Quicksilver and Digital Audio.

But it's not just the AGP slot. The MDD board and PSU are much different than previous G4's. They're almost like a G5 system that runs a G4 chip IMO.

The Geforce 6200 actually functions in G5s. So even if this were true it would not be the reason. As of now I don't think anyone knows why they don't work in MDDs. It's literally the only mac that they don't function in.

not really no, the MDD and the G5 are completely different systems, with completely different chipsets and buses

as for the OP, sadly indeed the GeForce 6200 is known not to play nice with the MDD

however id recommend picking up a Radeon 9600 of some kind from a G5 or such, they are generally quite cheap, and with,pins 3 and 11 taped, they make good upgrades for MDDs

and are faster then both the 9000 Pro and the GeForce 6200 anyhow

I've got a Radeon x800 that just arrived yesterday that I'm going to flash over.
It was cheaper than the 9600s. Ironically I have three G5s and none of them came with the 9600. One had a 9800 Pro and the other two had Geforce 5200s. For some reason I cannot begin to comprehend the 5200s are AGP Pro. That GPU won't even saturate a PCI bus let alone regular AGP and they've got it in a frickin AGP Pro form factor.

Anyways that's why I marked this as resolved. After I found out that 6200s don't work in MDDs I just ordered the X800.

 

[z970]

For some reason I cannot begin to comprehend the 5200s are AGP Pro. That GPU won't even saturate a PCI bus let alone regular AGP and they've got it in a frickin AGP Pro form factor.

Agreed. I had a 5200 in my 600mhz P!!!, and YouTube playback simply wasn't possible. When I switched back to the Radeon 9000, it suddenly became possible again, although choppy. And with the current 9700 being the total max for an AGP 2x bus, the choppiness is even less so.

I'll bet even a PCI Radeon 32 could overpower a 5200, but what do you think it's comparable to? A 2 MX, maybe? I remember seeing multiple claims and reports at places that the 4 MX was apparently even faster than the 5200...

 

[Project Alice]

Agreed. I had a 5200 in my 600mhz P!!!, and YouTube playback simply wasn't possible. When I switched back to the Radeon 9000, it suddenly became possible again, although choppy. And with the current 9700 being the total max for an AGP 2x bus, the choppiness is even less so.

I'll bet even a PCI Radeon 32 could overpower a 5200, but what do you think it's comparable to? A 2 MX, maybe? I remember seeing multiple claims and reports at places that the 4 MX was apparently even faster than the 5200...

It is actually more powerful than people give it credit for. When I was a kid, my first fast computer that I built with my dad was an Athlon XP 1.8Ghz, and it had a Geforce FX 5200 128MB AGP card. At the time of course the card was new, and we weren't made of money which is probably why I ended up with that card. I had that computer all the way up to some time after the release of Windows 7.
So basically I grew up using a 5200. I played games like Star Wars Knights of the Old republic I and II, Empire at War, Republic Commando, and a few others on that computer. It also did really well with Windows Aero on VIsta and 7. I knew it wasn't the best card, but it absolutely is capable of more than most people assume it is. Essentially, I would compare it to a Geforce 6200 only without Full core image and possibly a little slower. Its a DX9 card. I also had zero issue with youtube, or HD video on that computer. This was back when it was still possible to watch youtube on my iBook and iMac G3's though, which were obviously not even half the computers my AMD PC was. It was an entry level card, and for the era I don't believe it was any worse of card than say, a GTX 1050 would be today compared to NVIDIA's flagship.

 

[timidpimpin]

I understand all that. My point was that the MDD hardware looks and behaves a lot more like G5 hardware. At least compared to previous G4 towers.

 

[Amethyst1]

Another major strike against FX5200s is their poor TMDS transmitters which have issues running high pixel clocks, making 1920×1200 via DVI problematic.

 

[Project Alice]

I understand all that. My point was that the MDD hardware looks and behaves a lot more like G5 hardware. At least compared to previous G4 towers.

It doesn't. It looks and behaves like a QS 2002, other than the Geforce 6200 problem. G5's are essentially IBM power servers with open firmware in a cool silver box.

Another major strike against FX5200s is their poor TMDS transmitters which have issues running high pixel clocks, making 1920×1200 via DVI problematic.

That's probably true. Regarding my previous comment, I didn't have an HD monitor back then. I used a CRT at 1280x1024@75hz. I haven't really bothered using any 5200s on my 1920x1200 display. I have however used a Radeon 7500 (in my G4 Cube) at that resolution and it doesn't seem to have a problem.

 

[z970]

G5's are essentially IBM power servers with open firmware in a cool silver box.

IBM POWER servers have Open Firmware, though. So... they're even closer.

 

[bunnspecial]

In my experience, in Leopard, even a poor CI card beats a high end non-CI card for general usability. I say this as someone who has a fair bit of experience running Leopard on non-CI cards that are a big step above the Radeon 9000 like the Geforce 4Ti.

With that said, barring the weirdness of the 6200, the world is your oyster for a lot of cards in the MDD.

The Radeon 9600 is always my safe go-to for G4 systems. Tape pins 3 and 11 and they work great, and I've even modified them to power an ADC display(it takes a bit of soldering, but isn't a terrible job).

I haven't looked at what FireGL X3s are running these days on Ebay, but a few years back that was a hot ticket item for both G4 and G5 use. it flashes really nicely into an X800XT, and runs reliably in the MDD.

For an in-between option, it's also worth looking into a Radeon 9800.

 

[bunnspecial]

BTW, if someone wants to continue to insist that the MDD is like a G5, hopefully the block diagrams of the two will show that they are actually nothing alike

 

[DearthnVader]

There were all manor of GF5200's ranging from the Ultra to bargain basement 64bit nvram versions.

The one that came with the G5 was basically a 64MB Ultra with a little lower clocks, and had two "external" TMDS transmitters, thus was not effected by the weak "internal" TMDS.

I think all 5200's with 128MB or more of vram were 128bit cards. All 6200's had 64bit vram, it's all the GPU supports, except some early 6200's that were really 6600's.

The OEM G5 and other 5200 Ultra's were pretty good cards, then you had the 128bit cards, then the 64bit cards. The 6200 was a better GPU for Core Image, even tho it was only 64bit vram.

 

[jmilan0302]

There were all manor of GF5200's ranging from the Ultra to bargain basement 64bit nvram versions.

The one that came with the G5 was basically a 64MB Ultra with a little lower clocks, and had two "external" TMDS transmitters, thus was not effected by the weak "internal" TMDS.

I think all 5200's with 128MB or more of vram were 128bit cards. All 6200's had 64bit vram, it's all the GPU supports, except some early 6200's that were really 6600's.

The OEM G5 and other 5200 Ultra's were pretty good cards, then you had the 128bit cards, then the 64bit cards. The 6200 was a better GPU for Core Image, even tho it was only 64bit vram.

I think the FX 5500 is a 128bit? Cause the one I had sure is a lot faster than a Geforce 4MX. (5500 is just a slightly higher clocked 5200 from what I heard)