I am thinking about upgrading to the Radeon 7500 card in order to take advantage of QE when 10.2 is released - and I have a bunch of games I want to get in the meantime. I can get the 'PC' version of the 7500 for under $130, but I don't want to buy it unless the drivers I can download from ATi will work with it (or unless I can get them from Apple's web site somehow. I figure it makes no sense to get the older Radeon Mac Edition for MORE money, but I'm hoping someone can comment as to whether they've seen this done with any success / whether it can be done in general. Meantime I'll check out XLR8 for similar stories (non-OEM stories I mean). Is Janitor correct in his assertion that the Radeon 7500 AGP is a.less.

capable card than the Radeon Mac Edition? This seems totally counter-intuitive given how long the latter has been around / is now going out of stock everywhere. What's the verdict guys? Should I just play it safe, spend my $150 on the Radeon Mac Edition AGP card and go from there?

It is a two year old machine I'll be putting it into, so I'm thinking doesn't make sense to buy an 8500 Mac Edition. : Message edited by: Moogs. That's what I suspected, but not being a major video card geek I wasn't sure / didn't want to call him on it. Anyway, It seems all the retailers are offering three solutions: Radeon Mac Edition AGP Radeon 7000 PCI Radeon 8500 AGP The latter is about $100 more expensive than the original Radeon everywhere I look but it's an AGP 4x card - I'm wondering if it will be choked down on my 2x Mac. THinking the performance won't be hugely different than the original Radeon for gaming at resolutions below 1280x1024, and not different at all for things like Quartz Extreme (although it does have more VRAM).

So are we all agreed then that XLR8 is essentially correct in that there is no way to flash a PC Radeon card so that it will work on a Mac? quoteOriginally posted by Moogs: So are we all agreed then that XLR8 is essentially correct in that there is no way to flash a PC Radeon card so that it will work on a Mac? The 7500 is significatnly faster then the Origonal Radeon AGP 2. XLR8yourmac does not say you cannot flash a PC R 8500. A few of the forum members have tried & had varying levels of success. Some have gotten it to work perfectly, some have gotten it to work relatively well (with only some colour problems) & others have run into major problems.

If you plan on trying to flash a PC R 8500 then you should try to find one that matches the Mac R 8500 as closely as possible. 1.250/275 Mhz 2. Ram = 3.6ns 3. Not an LE version (preferably not OEM) 4. It needs to have the larger 128k rom size.

Some newer ones apparently have a 64k rom size. This is bad becuase the mac rom is around 73k. Preferably manufactured by ATI. Other manufactures at times stray from ATI's design (cut corners). This could cause problems with mac drivers. Really the bottom line is that Retail ATI manufactured cards are the best way to go (not OEM or LE since they usually use slower clock speeds or ram).

In reality this relates into small savings since these cards are in the 200+ area. After considering that you could toast the card & your totally unsupported (it may work now but will it have problems in the future? Some have had difficulties with updating the flashed Nvida 2mx cards) it really diminishes the value of trying (but for some it may be worth it). Hopes this helps to clarify things.

: Message edited by: X704. X704: I pulled the XLR8 comment directly from their FAQ where someone asked Mike if you can use PC Radeon cards on your Mac. His answer was no, that there was no way to flash them properly. I guess since the FAQ was answered some folks have had better luck.

Anyway, your point about warranty support is well taken. That alone will steer me away from the PC cards (hadn't thought about that till now). Edit Decided on the Radeon Mac Edition - $145.

Not a bad price all in all. Hopefully it will extend my Mac's useful life for another year once QE hits the scenes. : Message edited by: Moogs.

This article needs additional citations for. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Contents. Architecture R200's 3D hardware consists of 4, each with 2. It has 2 and a legacy Direct3D 7 unit, marketed as Charisma Engine II. It is ATI's first GPU with programmable pixel and vertex processors, called Pixel Tapestry II and compliant with Direct3D 8.1.

R200 has advanced memory bandwidth saving and overdraw reduction hardware called HyperZ II that consists of (hierarchical Z), fast clear, and z-buffer compression. The GPU is capable of dual display output ( ) and is equipped with a video decoding engine ( ) with adaptive hardware, temporal filtering,. R200 introduced version 1.4 (PS1.4), a significant enhancement to prior PS1.x specifications. Notable instructions include 'phase', 'texcrd', and 'texld'. The phase instruction allows a shader program to operate on two separate 'phases' (2 passes through the hardware), effectively doubling the maximum number of texture addressing and arithmetic instructions, and potentially allowing the number of passes required for an effect to be reduced. This allows not only more complicated effects, but can also provide a speed boost by utilizing the hardware more efficiently. The 'texcrd' instruction moves the texture coordinate values of a texture into the destination register, while the 'texld' instruction will load the texture at the coordinates specified in the source register to the destination register.

Compared to R100's 2x3 pixel pipeline architecture, R200's 4x2 design is more robust despite losing one texture unit per pipeline. Each pipeline can now address a total of 6 texture layers per pass. The chip achieves this by using a method known as 'loop-back'. Increasing the number of textures accessed per pass reduces the number of times the card is forced into multi-pass rendering. The texture filtering capabilities of R200 are also improved over its predecessor. For, Radeon 8500 uses a technique similar to that used in R100, but improved with and some other refinements. However, it is still highly angle-dependent and the driver sometimes forces for speed.

NVIDIA's series offered a more accurate anisotropic implementation, but with a greater performance impact. R200 has ATI's first implementation of a hardware-accelerated engine (a.k.a. Higher order surfaces), called, which can automatically increase the geometric complexity of 3D models. The technology requires developer support and is not practical for all scenarios. It can undesirably round-out models. As a result of very limited adoption, ATI dropped TruForm support from its future hardware.

DirectX 8.0 Pixel Shader 1.1 DirectX 8.1 Pixel Shader 1.4 Max. Texture Inputs 4 6 Max.

Program Length 12 instructions (up to 4 texture sampling, 8 color blending) 22 instructions (up to 6 texture sampling, 8 texture addressing, 8 color blending) Instruction Set 13 address operations, 8 color operations 12 address / color operations Texture Addressing Modes 40 virtually unlimited Performance Radeon 8500's biggest initial disappointment was its early driver releases. At launch, the card's performance was below expectations and it had numerous software flaws that caused problems with games. The chip's support was only functional in Direct3D and was very slow. To dampen excitement for 8500, competitor released their Detonator4 driver package on the same day as most web sites previewed the Radeon 8500.

NVidia's drivers were of better quality, and they also further boosted the 's performance. Several hardware review sites noted anomalies in actual game tests with the Radeon 8500.

For example, ATI was detecting the executable 'Quake3.exe' and forcing the texture filtering quality to a much lower level than normally produced by the card, presumably in order to improve performance. HardOCP was the first hardware review web site to bring the issue to the community, and proved its existence by renaming all instances of 'Quake' in the executable to 'Quack.'

The result was improved image quality, but lower performance. However, even with the Detonator4 drivers, the Radeon 8500 was able to outperform the GeForce 3 (which the 8500 was intended to compete against) and in some circumstances its faster revision, the Ti500, the higher clocked derivative Nvidia had rolled out in response to the R200 project. Later, driver updates helped to further close the performance gap between the 8500 and the Ti500, while the 8500 was also significantly less expensive and offered additional multimedia features such as dual-monitor support. Though the GeForce 3 Ti200 did become the first DirectX 8.0 card to offer 128 of video memory, instead of the common 64 MiB norm for high-end cards of the time, it turned out that the GeForce 3's limitations prevented it from taking full advantage of it, while the Radeon 8500 was able to more successfully exploit that potential. In early 2002, to compete with the cheaper GeForce 3 Ti200 and GeForce 4 MX 460, ATI launched the slower-clocked 8500LE (known as 9100 in Europe) which became popular with OEMs and enthusiasts due to its lower price, and overclockability to 8500 levels.

Though the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 took the performance crown, it was a top line solution that was priced almost double that of the Radeon 8500 (MSRP of $350–399 versus $199 USD), so it didn't offer direct competition. With the delayed release of the potentially competitive GeForce 4 Ti 4200, plus ATI's initiative in rolling out 128 MiB versions of the 8500/LE kept the R200 line popular among the mid-high performance niche market. The greater features of the All-In-Wonder (AIW) Radeon 8500 DV and the AIW Radeon 8500 128 MB proved superior to Nvidia's Personal Cinema equivalents which used the faster GeForce 4 Ti 4200. Over the years the dominant market position of GeForce 3/4 meant that not many games targeted the superior DX8.1 PS 1.4 feature level of the R200, but those that did could see significant performance gains over DX8, as certain operations could be processed in one instead of multiple passes. In these cases the Radeon 8500 may even compete with the newer GeForce 4 series running a DX8 codepath. An example for such a game with multiple codepaths is.

Radeon 8500 came with support for, an early implementation of. Implementations Radeon 8500/8500LE/9100.

Sapphire ATI Radeon 9250 ATI's first R200-based card was the Radeon 8500, launched in October 2001. In early 2002, ATI launched the Radeon 8500LE (re-released later as the Radeon 9100 in Europe), an identical chip with a lower clock speed and slower memory. Whereas the full 8500 was clocked at 275 MHz core and 275 MHz RAM, the 8500LE was clocked more conservatively at 250 MHz for the core and 200 or 250 MHz for the RAM. Both video cards were first released in 64 configurations; the later 128 MB Radeon 8500 boards received a small performance boost resulting from a memory mode. In November 2001 was the release of the All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500 DV, with 64 MB and a slower clock speed like the 8500LE.

In 2002, three 128 MB cards were rolled out, the Radeon 8500, 8500LE, and the All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500 128 MB, which was clocked at full 8500 speeds but had fewer video-related features than the AIW 8500 DV. ATI claimed that the lower clock speed for the 8500DV was due to the interface.

Ati Radeon 8500le Drivers For Mac

Radeon 8500XT (canceled) An updated chip, the Radeon 8500XT (R250) was planned for a mid-2002 release, to compete against the Ti line, particularly the top line Ti 4600 (which retailed for an MSRP of $350–399 USD). Prerelease information touted a 300 MHz core and RAM clock speed for the 'R250' chip. A Radeon 8500 running at 300 MHz clock speeds would have hardly defeated the GeForce 4 Ti4600, let alone a newer card from NVIDIA. At best it could have been a better performing mid-range solution than the lower-complexity Radeon 9000 (RV250, see below), but it would also have cost more to produce and would have been poorly suited to the Radeon 9000's dual laptop/desktop roles due to die size and power draw.

Notably, overclockers found that Radeon 8500 and Radeon 9000 could not reliably overclock to 300 MHz without additional voltage, so undoubtedly R250 would have had similar issues because of its greater complexity and equivalent manufacturing technology, and this would have resulted in poor chip yields, and thus, higher costs. ATI, perhaps mindful of what had happened to when they took focus off their 'Rampage' processor, abandoned the R250 refresh in favor of finishing off their next-generation card which was released as the Radeon 9700. This proved to be a wise move, as it enabled ATI to take the lead in development for the first time instead of trailing NVIDIA. The new Radeon 9700 flagship, with its next-generation architecture giving it unprecedented features and performance, would have been superior to any R250 refresh, and it easily took the performance crown from the Ti4600. Radeon 9000 The Radeon 9000 (RV250) was launched alongside the. The 9000 succeeded the (RV200) in the mainstream market segment, with the latter being moved to the budget segment.

This chip was a significant redesign of R200 to reduce cost and power usage. Among hardware removed is one of the two, the 'TruForm' function, Hierarchical-Z, the DirectX 7 TCL unit and one of the two vertex shaders. In games, the Radeon 9000 performs similarly to the MX 440. Its main advantage over the MX 440 was that it had a full 8.1 vertex and pixel shader implementation. While the 9000 was not quite as fast as the 8500LE or the Nvidia GeForce 3 Ti200, the 8500LE and Ti200 were to be discontinued. Radeon 9200 A later revision of the 9000 was the Radeon 9200 (RV280) released April 16, 2003, which aside from supporting 8X, was identical. There was also a cheaper version, the 9200SE, which had a 20% lower clock speed and only had a 64-bit.

Another board, called the Radeon 9250 was launched in July 2004, being simply a slightly lower-clocked RV280. ATI had re-branded its products in 2001, intending the 7xxx series to indicate DirectX 7.0 capabilities, 8xxx for DirectX 8.1, and so on.

However, in naming the Radeon 9000/9200, which only had DirectX 8.1 rendering features, ATI advertised them as 'DirectX 9.0 compatible' while the truly DirectX 9.0-spec Radeon 9700 was 'DirectX 9.0 compliant'. Laptop versions The Mobility Radeon 9000 was launched in early summer 2002 and was the first DirectX 8 laptop chip. It outperformed the DirectX 7-based nVidia and was more feature-rich than the GeForce 4 Go. A Mobility Radeon 9200 later followed as well, derived from the desktop 9200. The Mobility Radeon 9200 was also used in many Apple laptops, including the Apple iBook G4. Main article: Drivers Unix-related operating systems The drivers from / support almost all features provided by the R200 hardware.

They are shipped by default on most and systems. Newer ATI Catalyst drivers do not offer support for any R500 or older architecture product. The PowerPC-based and, which run on, were supplied with Radeon 9200 GPUs; the final 'Mirrored Drive Door' systems had the 9000 and 9000 Pro cards available as a option. Windows drivers This series of Radeon graphics cards is supported by AMD under operating systems including (except ),. Other operating systems may have support in the form of a generic driver that lacks complete support for the hardware. Driver development for the R200 line ended with the Catalyst 6.11 drivers for Windows XP.

Classic Mac OS The Radeon 9250 was the final ATI card to officially support. AmigaOS The R200 series of Radeon graphics cards is supported by the, Release 4 and higher. 2D graphics are fully supported by all cards in the family, with 3D acceleration support for the 9000, 9200, and 9250-series of cards. MorphOS The R200 series of Radeon graphics cards is supported by See also. References.

The Tech Report. Retrieved 2018-09-13. Bennett, Kyle., Hard OCP, October 23, 2001. Labs, iXBT. Retrieved 2018-03-15. Gavrichenkov, Ilya (January 13, 2002).

Articles: Graphics. X-bit labs LLC. Archived from on 2013-09-21.

Retrieved September 20, 2013. Retrieved September 20, 2013. CNET: Reviews: Graphic Cards. CBS Interactive Inc. Retrieved September 20, 2013. X.Org Foundation. Retrieved September 20, 2013.

Sources. by Dave Baumann, Beyond3D.Com, March 29, 2002, retrieved January 14, 2006. by Dave Baumann, Beyond3D.Com, April 4, 2002, retrieved January 14, 2006. by Tim Tscheblockov, X-Bit Labs, February 5, 2003, retrieved January 9, 2006. by Anand Lal Shimpi, Anandtech, August 14, 2001, retrieved January 9, 2006. by Anand Lal Shimpi, Anandtech, October 17, 2001, retrieved January 9, 2006.

X-plane 10 north america region flight simulator for mac. by Beyond3D, retrieved August 30, 2010. by Beyond3D, retrieved August 30, 2010. by Beyond3D, retrieved August 30, 2010 External links.