Thanks to some research, I seemed to have significantly narrowed down my options.
This page turned out to be particularly helpful: http://www.os9forever.com/DVDPlayer.html ...as did this paragraph: "This hack does not enable the hardware decoder card found on some Rage 128 Pro Apple OEM cards. This decoder requires the PCI card to be in a 66mhz PCI slot, which no OldWorld macs have." Further digging into Apple's update archives indicates that only the 2.x versions of Apple DVD Player offer software DVD playback, while completely doing away with support for the hardware decoders, and only through this patched version of 2.7 will I have any access to software decoding on my G3 at all. In any case, patched version or not, I had the feeling I'd be right about being on the edge of the software decoding requirements. 1. IDE or SCSI DVD-ROM drive 2. SCSI DVD drives require Intech's CD/DVD Speed Tools drivers 3. ATI Rage 128 Pro* or higher video card 4. At least a G3 400mhz upgrade card for usable performance The *very* edge. This leaves the Bordeaux card and Apple DVD Player 1.x (Apple's update archives seem to indicate that 1.1 was the last version of this). Unless anyone has any input for/against the Bordeaux option (let alone has one, I sure haven't seen many around), I'll probably be opting for it over software decoding, because performance would likely be too close for comfort. On Nov 16, 9:05 pm, James Chapel <dragnero...@gmail.com> wrote: > Although I discussed this briefly in an earlier topic on this list, > I'm about ready to break down and buy a DVD drive for my Rev. A Beige > G3. This came about because I recently ran across the much-sought- > after Bordeaux personality card, one of the ways to allow DVD video > playback on this machine. I'm in the position, however, where I might > have a couple of options, so I'm looking for some input. > > Because the onboard Rage II+ graphics can't handle much beyond the > lowliest of 1997's 3D offerings, I tossed in a 16mb Rage 128 PCI card > (the one that came with the B&W G3s) several months ago. This card has > pin headers on it for a riser card that basically provides the same > hardware dvd decoding functionality as the Bordeaux, but because I'm > running the 128 on the slower 33mhz PCI bus, I'm not sure whether or > not that would be compatible. Has anyone ever tried it? > > My third and final option is the software decoding approach, but I'm > not entirely sure that, even after throwing in a 400MHz G3 and Rage > 128, my system would be up to that task. > > If it makes a difference, I have no intent on ever running Mac OS X on > this machine, so we're looking at the pre-OS X versions of Apple DVD > Player. > > What do you think? -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
