[rescue] AppleMacanix GFX cards

[Jonathan Patschke]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2011, Mark Benson wrote:

> No issues in 10.7?

I don't know.  I've no plans to downgrade from 10.6.

> One thing applemacanix are not 100% about is testing in 10.7 -
> apparently they haven't got to that yet. I don't imagine there *are* any
> issues as it's hardware, it's gonna look the same to whatever OS, but
> again it's a lot of wedge for a card that may not work as expected.

If it works with 10.6, and there's a driver for the same card in 10.7,
it's very unlikely that it won't work.  Once you've booted the OS, you're
past the need for Mac-specific firmware.  It's all PCI IDs and drivers
from there.

> <rant>It lasted 3 years then (I suspect) blew a RAM chip (I got massive screen
> corruption to the point that the screen just stops working after 2-3mins).
> It'd be the second time I've laid down big bucks for an NVIDIA card only to
> have it do that.

I had the same thing happen with the ATI x1900xt in my Mac Pro.  The
screen corruption was pretty impressive.

> Apparently Apple's current Radeon 5770 *still* works on a 1,1 and a 2,1
> with 32-bit firmware... but not officially. They cost over 200 GBP
> though.

Correct.

> Bit of a wallet breaker when you consider the Sapphire 5770 in my PC
> cost me 104 GBP a year and a half ago!

Yeah, it's some combination of Apple mark-up, tiny target market, and
support costs.  The end result is sad, but if PCs would ditch BIOS for EFI
(finally), this situation could quickly reverse itself.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke |
Elgin, TX         | "He who is contented is rich." -- Lao Tzu
USA               |