Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2005 08:08:56 +0800 From: CP Reyes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Personally I have flashed an ATI Radeon 7000 32 MB DDR successfully to Mac. These early release cards ($49 less $10 mail-in rebate) only had a 15-pin VGA terminal. Others in the list have flashed 64 MB DDR cards. The later $39 retail Radeon 7000 with 64 MB DDR, TV out, LCD and VGA that looked like the Mac edition card could be flashed but no video signal could be detected on my 7600 and Beige G3DT (maybe others are more successful). I have no experience with GeForce cards.
The Radeon 7000/64 MB shipped with two different sizes of serial EEPROM (where the flash data is stored). The larger capacity chip is needed for the Mac flashing. The early Sapphire cards shipped with the larger capacity chip and so the card acquired a reputation for flashability, but later cards shipped with the smaller chip or even a completely different brand of chip which wasn't flashable by the ATI utility.
To be certain of flashing the R7000, one needs to buy an ST Micro M25P10 chip and replace the chip on the card. The chip only has 8 pins so this isn't too difficult. Then the October 2002 update which was designed to fix corrupted cards will flash the blank chip on the R7000 just fine in a Mac. So with a bit of soldering, there's no need to flash the card in a PC.
The M25P10 is about $2 at Digi-Key ($25 minimum, or $5 surcharge if you don't meet the minimum) or at Mauser (IIRC) without a minimum.
Strangely, the earlier Sapphire cards had a chip labeled M25P05 but the chip had the capacity of an M25P10. Later M25P05 chips really were half the capacity and needed to be replaced in order for the card to work on the Mac.
I've also seen the cards with Atmel chips (AT25...) on board. The Mac flasher has no idea what to do with those, though they can sometimes be flashed in teh PC. However, if you do so, while it will work on teh Mac, it won't be possible to ever update teh firmware on the Mac.
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