The 6400 Zone is created to help you gain access to useful software updates and great shareware programs that add functionality to your system. It is also a one stop road map to other informative sites for answering your questions. Most of the info here is geared towards the 6400, but it is useful for all PCI Performa models and even the 6500 and all-in-one Macs based on the same. It's even useful to other MAC systems. I will be referring to my 6400/200 clocked to 220Mhz as just 6400/220, OK.
I will keep it updated as often as I can but I don't have much free time to work on it, so I suggest you check back at least once a week. That should be sufficient. If you don't see something you would like to see here or have your own software / web site that would benefit the MAC community, please write to me at TMK12v@aol.com and I will check it out.
Hot Topics:
Just Updated 12/24/1999
Happy Holidays! Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Holiday. This will mark the end of a millennium and the end of The 6400 Zone's 4th year running! It doesn't seem like that long but is has been. I would like to thank everyone that has helped this site grow and please keep that info flowing :) I also would like to thank my wife for all the trouble she has put up with for all my testing and updating :) next year I am thinking of holding a contest to make a new logo for my web site. I don't have much to offer but I think a copy of my web site on CD might be nice? If anyone would like to donate a prize I would appreciate it!
Over the next 2 weeks I might not have an update or may not be able to answer your emails. I expect to be back in full production and have an update to my web site by Jan 7th, so until then, Have a great Holiday!
Mac Facts web site: Here is a web site with plenty of ammo to help fight against the MS monopoly machine :) Click here to read all the juicy info. Its very interesting!
Sonnet released Crescendo 1.4.1b2: They just released a newer beta driver for their G3 upgrades. Click here to download it. As before let me know how it works and if they turned off Speculative Addressing yet. The info posted at Sonnets site also says it adds "G3 install only" Maybe that means you can install the driver without all the other crap like LibMoto and their Desktop Rebuild extension. That would be nice!
I have received several emails from users of the 1.4.1b1 driver and they all said that SA was still turned on but one user got a reply from Sonnet saying it is supposed to be off now? Here is what Likos got from Sonnet. Thanks Likos
[The Crescendo extension disables speculative addressing. Have you tried updating the hard disk drivers with FWB since installing the Crescendo, with the G3 active? If not, please do so.
If you used Drive Setup to update the drivers when OS 9 was installed, then use it again to update the drivers now that the G3 is present. If the drive is formatted with FWB, then you must use FWB to update the drivers.]
Likos later wrote me saying that this didn't have any affect that he could see.
IBM SCSI HD issues and fixes: I have had a few readers mention they had trouble getting an IBM SCSI HD to run in their 6400's. Here are a few clips I found about IBM drives in Macs. I hope this helps.
The 1st is from the 6400 forums and the second is from MacFixIt
[Subject: IBM Ultrastar 18ES Hard Drive
Author: Terry L. Johnson
Email: tlj@mn.mediaone.net
Model: 6400/200 AV (with Vimage 240 G3)
Category: Performa 6400 Series
System S/W: Mac OS 8.6
Posted: Saturday, 10/23/99 7:29 AM CDT
I recently decided to add a SCSI drive in the expansion bay of
my Performa 6400. I choose an IBM Ultrastar 18ES. They are available
in 9.1GB and 18.2GB versions. With the help of information found
in this forum, I was able to open up the case and install the
drive with little problem. However, when I went to fire up the
computer, the system froze immediately with just a blank screen.
After HOURS of troubleshooting everything you can possibly imagine
(with the assistance of the retailer and IBM technical support,)
IBM fessed up that they had a confirmed hardware problem. Essentially,
there is a signal being sent out of pin 25 when there should be
none. Apparently, this causes a problem on some computer, but
not on others. To resolve the problem, I carefully removed wire
25 from the SCSI connector. This resolved the problem and everything
has worked fine since then. Also, although not documented on IBM's
wed site, IBM technical support says jumper #7 needs to be installed
for this particular application.
Hope this will help others avoid the hair-pulling experience I
went through if you get an early IBM Ultrastar ES drive.
-------
21. December 1997-a Archive
http://www.macfixit.com/archives/december97-a.shtml#ibm-12-15
[12-15-97]
Carrie found that termination problems were indeed the likely
cause of the symptoms (placing the Zip first on the SCSI chain,
rather than last, seemed to help). Bill Bowman reported a similar
situation. IBM hard drive: termination sensitive? Update Yet more
on termination issues: Tim Conway writes: "I couldn't get a new
external 4.3Gb drive with an IBM mechanism to work on my PowerPC
8500/132 unless it was the only device on the external SCSI bus.
If any other device was also on the bus, none of those devices
showed up on the desktop or could be seen by Norton, FWB or SCSIProbe.
I tried the drive on a friend's 7200/90 and it worked OK. I sent
it back to the supplier, who replaced the SCSI ID selector switch.
He tested it and found no problems, but when I got it back again
it still wouldn't work on my 8500 unless it was the only device.
Eventually, I used FWB SCSI Configure to change the ID of one
of my internal drives from 0 to 1. The IBM drive then worked with
other]
BlackFire's SCSI-IDE adaptor has its 8.4G limit removed: I just received word that BlackFire has removed the 8.5G limit on there IDE to SCSI adaptor card. This makes it much more worth the price now since you can only attach one drive to the card. Thanks. Click here for more info on IDE adaptor cards.
[Tom -
I found this updated info at Blackfire's site (at http://www.blackfire.com.au/ide2scsi.html):
"To our valued clients ...
"Update as at 15 December 1999 A sample of the new version of
the IDE-SCSI card (that doesn't have the 8.24Gb formatting limit)
has been received. Limited quantities of stock are expected to
be received before Christmas."
I was looking into this since I have the leftover stock 2.4 GB
drive from my 6400 and just freed up my upper bay by selling my
internal Jaz. The current exchange rate puts the drive around
$63.66 USD plus shipping, which seems a bit pricey just to put
the old 2.4 back in use. Now that they've solved the 8.24 GB formatting
limit, though, I could easily add one of the new Maxtor 40.9 GB
drives and the adapter for under $350.]
Gaming Info
Guess as to why the 6400/6500 has trouble with the ATI Rage128 and Voodoo3 cards?: Edward wrote me with what he thinks may be the problem with these new video cards and L2 G3 accelerated Macs. Thanks Edward.
[A guess to the
"I think that since the V3 and the Rage Orion can run with this
setup now, I can only conclude that the on-board ATI is the culprit
for all my PCI graphics card woes! The only thing I don't understand
is why V2 is not affected. Maybe it's because it's a Voodoo? (!)
Regards, Tiong" part of the posting on your news. As far as I
know, all V2 boards excluding the Banshee one's use the on-board
card (ati) to do the 2D work. And this 3D freeze seems to arise
from the combination of G3L2, V3 and "sleeping" on-board ati card.
The "Ken&Co" of 3dfx have already guessed (without an access to
this hardware, as "unsupportive" as usual) that a possible cause
for these problems could be that the interrupt signals are dealt
with the original 603 processor even with the G3L2 present. Since
I know nothing about what goes on inside my macs circuitry (that's
why I keep on buying macs), I'll just have to guess that the dormant
ati occasionally sleep-walks through the video commands and steals
the attention from the V3/G3L2/603/PCI controller or whatever
is appropriate. This may or may not be relevant with at least
other video board issues with some/most on-board ati equipped
macs. So do not let your on-board ati to sleep when voodoo3 is
at work. So weird that even when my setup now works fine I'll
keep on waiting for someone (probably 3dfx) to explain what is
going on.]
This is possible but I think its more a problem with the video cards addressing the memory on their own rather than the G3's allowing signals to get to the stock CPU since only these latest of video cards have the problem and not older ones. Maybe these new cards are bus mastering type cards and are trying to access something there not supposed to and the older cards did not do this? This is all speculation though so who really knows what's going on!
Sonnets driver 1.4.1b1 may cure Voodoo3 issues?: Tiong wrote me before with news that running a dual monitor setup or with a Mac/PC adaptor on the stock port that he was able to get the Voodoo3 card to work on his Sonnet upgraded 6500. Well now he says he can ditch the second monitor as the Crescendo 1.4.1b1 seems to have cured it for him. Thanks Tiong.
[Hi Tom,
More info about V3 in my Sonnet 6500. Seems like the new beta
Crescendo may work with V3 without the dual monitor setup! I was
able to run MacBench 5.0 for 6 hours last night (on Demo run under
"Tests") continuously without any problems! Usually, the V3 will
fail running just the Graphics test. This maybe good news for
those without access to a second monitor. Will be running more
tests to see if the new Crescendo (or maybe it's a combination
of the new Crescendo and the Sonnet Clocker hack?) is finally
coming to terms with V3 without having to stress the on-board
ATI! Will keep you up to date! : )
Regards,
Tiong]
CVGS not working on a 6500 with OS 9?: Mano writes that since he updated to OS 9 that he can no longer get CVGS to work? Since he has a 6500 I was wandering if it may be the SCSI issue also? I know the 6500 was affected before but maybe now it is? Let me know if you have an answer. Thanks
[ Tom,
My Sonnet card has been running pretty strong for the past couple
of days. Thanks for all the info helping me "tweak" it.
I've run into a bit of a snag with Connectix Virtual Game Station
and I'm out of ideas on what to try next. About a year ago when
CVGS first came out I got a copy and tried to run it on my 6500,
obviously it didn't run well but it ran. Since then I've upgraded
to OS9 and of course the Sonnet card. So I figured I'd give CVGS
another try. This time I cant get it to run at all. It crashes
as soon as a CD is inserted. I tried using the Apple CD/DVD extension
but that just crashed the game completely (over CD Speed Tools
4.1 and CD ROM Toolkit 4.0). The other two extensions would eject
the CD and my computer would need a restart if I wanted to mount
another CD. After I force quit CVGS the computer is unstable and
runs slow.
I've tried installing 8.6 (The OS that it originally worked on)
on another partition but to no avail. The only extensions running
are those necessary to run the CD ROM, ATI card (Xclaim Rage Pro
8M), and CVGS. I've looked on the net for postings of similar
trouble and was unable to find any.
Do you have any ideas on what I should try next? Or where to look
for help?
6500 W/ Sonnet 300/1M, Xclaim VR Rage Pro, 128M Ram, Maxtor 8
gig IDE Drive, Apple and NEC CD ROM. (Tried Disconnecting the
NEC and using only the Apple CD ROM)
Sorry for such a long post but I figured it would save time if
you knew what I'd already tried.
Mano]
Reply to issues a reader had with a Game Wizard Voodoo card: Dave wrote me in response to a post I have on my 6400 Gaming page from Jim who was unable to get good game play with his Game Wizard video card. Thanks Dave.
There is a difference in Dave's setup and that he can use the 3dfx drivers and Jim has to use the Mesa drivers. This causes the out or memory errors as Mesa demands a lot of memory and you need to do some tweaking to get the speed up even with a G3! To get rid of the memory errors on my 6400 I had to increase the RAM with RamDoubler to 140M and leave the Quake2/3 apps at their installed settings (I didn't raise their RAM limit). The reason is that Mesa uses system memory and if you increase the games memory alot there won't be enough left for Mesa. Remember that the OS will take about 15-30M then Quake 2/3 like 50-70M which doesn't leave anything left for Mesa if you only have 104M of RAM. Now with a lot of VM or high RD settings you need to worry about CPU/HD time for all this memory swapping. I only had 56M of real RAM but with a G3 installed I only had lag when the scene changed drastically like walking into a new room.
[ Hi,
Regarding the above e-mail on your site, I don't know what Jim
is doing wrong but I've already played through Quake 2 on my Performa
6400. I have a Creative Voodoo2 card using the 3dfx drivers (latest
version with Opengl support.) Other than a few minor glitches
with changing from 2d to 3d (as when configuring the mouse) I
get good framerates at 800X600. In fact it's faster at that resolution
than at 640X480.
Here's my config:
72 MB ram
virtual memory set at 127MB (which actually reads at 128MB)
Creative Voodoo2 8MB video card (bought refurbished from Creative
for
$19.99!!! Great Deal!!!)
latest 3dfx drivers (1.04b ?)
Apple Opengl ver. 1.1.2
I have a Sony420GS 19" monitor and the game looks awesome. Once
I can convince my wife to get a G3 upgrade card I think I'll go
back and play Unreal again ; ) !
Other games:
Quake3demo test- it looks pretty good but gets choppy in larger
areas.
Unreal Tournament- haven't been able to get it going- it freezes
when starting so I have no idea how it looks/runs.
Descent3 look and plays great at 800X600. Gets a little choppy
in the outdoor areas but still playable.
Thanks for a great site and all the info,
Dave]
Just Updated 12/17/1999
Airport setup help for non-Airport ready Macs: The MacResource has a page on setting up an Airport base station on a non-Airport ready Mac. Since the installer won't run on non-Airport Macs you need to use Tome Viewer which allows you to look inside the installer tome and extract the needed software. Then the rest goes as Apple planned. Its still pretty tricky and worth reading if your going to try it. Let me know how it goes if you try?
Village Tronics MP850 works after all with G3's: Last week I posted that the MP850 video card might be unable to work with L2 G3's. Here is a letter from an anonymous user who has it working. Thanks.
[Hi,
I was just reading about the many video card problems here on
your site. Well, I have a MP850 and a Vimage G3/240 in my 6400.
They work great together.
greetings,]
Sonnet Clocker and Sonnet Clocker II!: The author of the Sonnet Clocker utility has updated it again to fix the issue of 240Mhz users not being able to clock their G3's. It turns out he correctly modified the 240 registers but the problem is that Sonnet was not using those? They were using the 250 registers for both 240/250 speeds. With this update it should work fine. Please let me know how it goes.
Also another person took the source code and made the same changes but also added bus settings for Nubus G3 upgrades! This one is named Sonnet Clocker II. The whole 33-36.7 Mhz range was not in the original version but now it is. He did leave out the 66 and 100Mhz settings for the beige and B&W G3 upgrades but its not certain if it would work on those anyway? This second Author says it won't work on any PCI G3 upgrade, only the Nubus and L2 upgrades. So now you have a choice of either one (both do the exact same thing but each has different bus choices and both have the 6400/6500 settings) which should cover the entire spectrum of Sonnets G3 upgrade offerings :)
Sonnet beta Crescendo 1.4.1b1 driver: Bill was the first to let me know that Sonnet has posted a beta version of the Crescendo driver for greater OS 9 compatibility with Nubus systems and fixes for the startup crashes the L2 G3 systems have! Thanks Bill. Click here to download it and please let me know if they disabled Speculative Addressing?
Several people have written to let me know that it seems to have fixed the startup crash but one person was still getting bad stability in sound apps. Sigh :( Its too soon to tell if the startup crash is really fixed but so far so good. Here is a sample of the emails I got. Thanks.
[Well... since I got the extension the following happened:
4 crashes in SNES9X (just like before!)
2 crashes in the SoundJam MP Demo (once with a visual plug-in
the other seemingly for no reason at all--MP3's courtesy of MP3.com!)
1 crash while Internet Explorer 4.5 was loading
At least it doesn't crash at startup (yet).
DH]
Also I hear the Sonnet Clocker still works so Sonnet hasn't made to drastic of a change.
Another tip on fixing sound issues with Sonnets G3: Gary found a few extensions that seem to make his system more stable if removed. Thanks Gary.
[Hi Tom,
I was going through my extension folder and came across three
extensions that had been there seance 1997, I think they were
for an early version of real player, I don't know so I disabled
them to see what happens...... I don't use real player any more
to unstable on my Mac. Well guess what, the sound issues I've
had with QuickTime are gone....So I turn them back on in the extension
manger, restart and QuickTime sound problem is back (the sound
skips and stutters). Turn them off, problem is gone. Maybe this
will help some of your other readers with Sonnet cards that have
sound issues. If they have them turn them off if they need them,
turn them back on....They are
MSL C.PPC.DLL
MSL Runtime PPC++.DLL
MSL Runtime PPC.DLL
Gary]
Just so you know. I have these on both my PB G3 and my Vimage 6400 and neither have sound issues. They were installed by my AGFA camera software. Let me know if you have these and removing them helped.
What is SOMobjects? Here is the answer!: Last week I mentioned that a Vimage user removed SOMobjects from his extension folder and it solved a stability issue he was having with OS 9. I had asked what SOMobjects was and here is the answer I got from several people. Thanks.
[From InformInit 8.1:
SOMobjectsª for MacOS (v2.0.8): a MacOS implementation of IBM's
Standard Object Model (SOM). SOM allows components and component
software written in different languages to exchange data and instructions.
It allows "objects" to break free from ties to a specific programming
language. A quote from IBM explains further: "SOM's language-neutral
character not only allows robust software objects to be easily
used and reused wherever they're needed, it also enables a greater
degree of openness than ever before in the development and use
of object-oriented programming (OOP) facilities across multiple
operating platforms. What's more, SOMobjects incorporates Distributed
SOM technology, which provides a base for OOP development and
use over entire networks." According to Apple, some users have
experienced a Type 11 error when launching OpenDoc v1.0. There
is an incompatibility between some systems and version 2.0.7 of
the SOMobjects file, which is installed by OpenDoc 1.0. The next
release of OpenDoc will address this bug. If you are experiencing
these problems you should install the SOMobjects for MacOS 2.0.8
extension, available from Apple, until the next release of OpenDoc
is available. NOTE: this file is also installed by Mac OS 8, and
must be installed in order for new Contextual Menu Plug-Ins to
function properly.
Edward]
[To answer your question, the file SOMobjects gets put onto your
system as part of the Mac PGP installation. The uninstall feature
does not remove it. I found this out the other day when I was
trying to install PGP on my Performa. The archive I uploaded had
a bad checksum. I uploaded it twice and got the same problems.
I noticed the SOMobjects extension after I did an uninstall.
Ron]
It seems it can be used for many different apps. I would leave it installed unless your certain removing it doesn't affect anything else. It is on both my PB G3 and 6400.
Apple TIL on the 6400: Here is a link to TIL 24215 that Apple made as a FAQ for us 6400 users. Go check it out :)
More SCSI and OS 9 issues with 6400's: Here is a letter from another 6400 user that is also having SCSI issues but not with a scanner. Thanks for the info. I urge all of you that installed OS 9 and are having SCSI problems to please let Apple know. They seem unwilling to fix it unless they get more response! Click here for more info.
[Hey Tom,
I just read that some 6360/5400/6400 users are having problems
with SCSI and OS9. I want to add to that complaint. Since I've
installed OS9 I have been unable to access my 4gig Barracuda drive.
(I've tried internal and external configurations and a myriad
of jumper settings. Once my computer begins scanning the SCSI
bus it freezes when it reaches the Barracuda. Force quitting the
app or disconnecting the drive regains control of the system.
I'm running a 6500, 128M ram.]
Here is an OS 9 user that is happy with it: Gertjan is very happy with his 6400 upgraded with OS 9 and Vimage's G3. Thanks Gertjan.
[ Dear Sir,
First I would like ton congratulate you with your great Internet
site concerning the Performa 6400. I find it very useful.
Secondly I would like to inform you that I own a 6400/180 which
has been upgraded with a Vimage 240 Mhz G3 card and all works
fine for two weeks now. OS9 is very stable on the upgraded 6400.
Furthermore I solved a lot of OS 8.x problems by removing the
Geoport modem. I now use a Dynalink V1456VQE 56k6 modem. In fact
this is a modem for Windows computer but on their site there are
the applicable Apple drivers so that you can use this cheap modem
on your 6400 as well.
I hope this information is useful to you.
Best regards,
Gertjan]
I think removing the Geo modem should be one of the first things on anyone's "increase stability" list. It has been the root cause of many 6400 users problems!
Mac site in Japan: Here is a link to a web site of a reader of mine in Japan. Its named WheelerDealer. It is all in Japanese so I figured it would be nice for my Japanese friends to visit :) He has also posted a Japanese version of the Sonnet Clocker II. Thanks.
Gaming Info---------
Quake 3 Arena strategy guide: Here is a link to a strategy guide on Q3A. It is good reading and some of the more basic stuff is useful for all FPS games.
New Quake 3 Demo out: id software just released a newer Q3D for the Mac. I tried it and it is much better then the previous demo test. I think this will be the final demo until the full version is out. This fixed a problem I had where my game would have massive jitters as I walked around. I had to use vertex instead of lightmap which made the game look horrible but made the jitters less severe. Now it plays as good as the original Q3T!
Possible fix to get a Voodoo3 running on a Sonnet G3 accelerated 6400: Tiong sends word that he found a fix to get a Voodoo3 and an ATI Rage128 Orion to work on his 6500 just by having a PC-MAC monitor adapter left on the stock port! It seems that the 6500 wants to think it still is using the stock port even if you just want to use a video card. You will need 2 monitors to start but after following Tiongs instructions on how to move the Happy Mac and menu bar to your new graphics card you can remove the second monitor and place a monitor adapter on the stock port so it always thinks it has one there. Nice fix. Thanks Tiong.
[ Hi Tom,
One of xlr8yourmac.com's readers, mie (AKA miero in 3dfxgamers.com's
forum), has found a fix for the L2G3/V3 bug. Apparently, the on-board
ATI is the problem (just like you suspected quite sometime back).
Running a dual monitor setup is his suggestion and sure enough,
my Sonnet 6500 crashes no more with V3!
How to set it up: first you need another monitor. Any working
monitor should do fine. Hook up this monitor with the on-board
ATI and your main monitor with your V3 (if that's what you prefer).
Bootup and use the Monitor & Sounds control panel to drag the
menu and smiling Mac icon over to your V3 monitor. This will make
the V3 monitor the startup monitor. And if you do not like the
monitor hooked up with the on-board ATI and have no use for it
once this is done, you can detach this (when your Mac is off)
and just add a Mac-VGA monitor adapter to the on-board ATI. This
works on my system for most of the time except when you want to
zap the PRAM, when you'll have to hook up that second monitor
to your on-board again.
PRAM zapping: with the on-board monitor hooked up and turned on
(the thing I describe here doesn't work with the on-board monitor
off on my 6500), go through the normal PRAM zap routine. You'll
see the smiling Mac on your on-board monitor starting up. As the
extensions are just about to load, the Mac OS startup screen should
jump to your V3 monitor and you'll see the extensions loading
up. After startup is complete, you can shut down and detach the
on-board monitor, leaving just the Mac-VGA adapter.
Note: if I zap PRAM on my system without the second monitor attached
and turned on, the menu, etc., will not come back onto my V3 monitor.
Also, this work around works for my Rage Orion too, although now
that my V3 is running, I've got no use for it what so ever. I'm
willing to part it for $100 since it's hardly been used. Oh yeah,
the ATI Xclaim 3D Plus is going for $70.00 (this is one week younger
than my 3, almost 4 weeks old Rage Orion, although total time
spent in my 6500 amounts to like less than 16 hours!) Click here to email Tiong on these offers.
I think that since the V3 and the Rage Orion can run with this
setup now, I can only conclude that the on-board ATI is the culprit
for all my PCI graphics card woes! The only thing I don't understand
is why V2 is not affected. Maybe it's because it's a Voodoo? (!)
Regards,
Tiong]
Voodoo3 on a Newer G3 accelerated 6400 update: Bryan sends word that his 6400 with Newers G3 is running with a Voodoo3 ok. Later he sent a more info stating that he had to reflash the ROM because it may have gotten corrupted? Thanks for the info Bryan.
[ Well, I bit the bullet and bought the card this weekend. Setting
it up was very easy - even flashing the ROM was a snap. Once the
ROM was installed for Mac and the 3dfx extensions were dropped
in the system folder, I just rebooted and the monitor came up
fine... well, almost...
My primary monitor is the old Apple 16" color display, which has
long since passed into obsolescence. It's a fixed frequency 832x624.
And guess what ONE frequency the 3dfx Voodoo 2000 card doesn't
support... you guessed it - mine. So I moved my old NEC 14" display
over onto the card and rebooted. Came up like a champ.
I loaded and ran Unreal Tournament demo on the new card and, let
me just say, WOW! With images and details at highest quality,
it is still faster than my old Rage Pro 4mb card running at medium
detail and images quality. Glide was an excellent name for this
technology... my game just glides through the scenery.
The only problem I have encountered, except for my old monitor
of course, is that my 14" NEC, which is also old, has a difficult
time keeping it's sync. However, I think that's in the monitor.
Like I said, it's old. It seems heat related in the monitor.
So far, no complaints.
For the record, I'll include the specs on FrankenMac again.
Performa 6400/180
Newer Technology G3/L2 Chip 300/200/1mb
136mb ram
8gb IDE hd
Asante 10/100 ethernet
3dfx Voodoo 2000 card
Apple 8x CD-Rom drive
Yamaha 4416s CD-RW (internal)
Apple TV Tuner card
Apple Video In card
External Zip drive
Microtek scanner
Dual monitors (NEC 14", Apple 16")
Epson Stylus 850
US Robotics v.90 modem
Amplified speakers
Thanks for all your help and information. I'll keep you posted
on further developments.
Bryan]
Then he sent this.
[I am using the latest Voodoo3 drivers, as well as the latest
ROM file. Interesting thing last night. The card has been working
fine for several days now, but when I fired up my computer last
night, the Voodoo card would not run. Only the stock video would
fire up. No biggie, but it was odd. I reinstalled the ROM and
rebooted, and the Voodoo card came right up. This may have something
to do with Quake 3 Arena demo. I downloaded it and ran it once
the other night, and after playing a little while, it locked up.
Since then, I haven't been able to run it. I have tried several
times and when it goes to load the game file, it just hangs and
I have to force reboot. I'm thinking having to do that a few times
may have scrambled the ROM on the card. You never know...
Bryan]
VR 128 feedback page from Accelerate Your Mac: Here is a page Mike posted on his site with all the VR 128 user feedbacks he's been getting. Interesting reading!
Another reply from ATI on the VR 128 and Vimage G3 issue: Jesse received a reply the other day from ATI and at lease they are somewhat willing to look further into the issue now. Thanks Jesse.
[Dear Jesse,
Thank you for your email. We apologize if you found our previous
answers ambiguous. This issue is very new to us and we are still
investigating.
Regarding the conflict you are experiencing between Xclaim VR
128 and Vimage G3:
We have escalated the details of your report for closer investigation.
We are aware that Vimage is no longer in business, which makes
this investigation even more difficult.
We hope to hope to find a workaround or (preferably) a solution
to this issue, but we have none at this time.
If you feel that a solution is too long forthcoming, then you
might consider returning the Xclaim VR 128 to your vendor for
an exchange or refund, or to continue operating your Performa
with the Vimage card removed.
Regarding a firmware upgrade for Xclaim VR 128:
ATI Technical Support has no information regarding the pending
release dates of ATI hardware or software products. For more information
contact sales@atitech.ca.
Regards,
Robert Gregory
ATI Technical Support
support@atitech.ca
http://support.atitech.ca]
Here is a letter from Allen who made sure that ATI knows what the problem is. Thanks Allen!
[Well,
I spent two hours today with a tech from ATI Canada. My setup
is a 6400/180/72MB/ with a Vimage 240 G3 upgrade card. I have
had the freeze of the screen at the softboot of the Vimage extention.
I did everything he said, so he could find out for himself what
the problem was.
He concluded that it indeed was the ATI card not being able to
redraw after the softboot. We allowed the the full restart with
the screen frozen. So.....with the screen frozen and given adequate
time for the completed bootup....we hit the power button and hit
return.and of course the 6400 responded as it should when fully
booted, and that is to shut down, which it did. So the 6400 does
indeed continue to boot , it is just the image on the screen that
is frozen.
He said he could not garentee that there will be a fix..and suggeted
that I return the card. He did say that he would report the finding
to the proper people and they would have to decide. A bios flash.or
even a new card being produced.
Thank you
Allan]
My suggestion to all of you is email ATI and let them know you would like it fixed. Maybe with enough feedback they will try and fix it.
SuperMac c500 with the Rage Orion: I know this is not a 6400/6500 but it is based on the smae mother board so I thought I would post it. Thanks for the ingo Alvin.
[ Hiya, just thought you'd might like this info I have regarding
the Rage Orion I just installed in my Supermac.
I've got a Supermac c500 with a Vimage G3/240 installed and 64
megs of ram running Mac OS 8.6.. that should be it!
For the most part, the card is awesome!! 2D is vastly improved.
Snappy screen redrawing, and insane scrolling speeds... I can
run at high resolutions, high refresh rates with 32 bit color!
QT playback for the most part is awesome, the acceleration helps
a lot when viewing mpegs. Full screen playback is possible with
no loss in quality!
3D for the most part works great too.. Unreal is well, unreal!
I can run it at higher resolutions (800 X 600 and up) than with
my old voodoo1 board. I get an avg. of 20fps, usually the framerate
is higher than that. Quake II plays awesome, as well as the Tomb
Raider II 4 lvl version that comes with the board.
Now here's the bad news: I get frequent problems with sound where
it stutters like crazy. For example: playing an mp3 using the
QT player the sound tends to mess up whenever "ATI Graphics Acceleration"
is checked on the menu.. Turning it off seems to end the sound
distortion. I've also noticed sound problems in some games as
well.
I've tried fixing this by reinstalling OpenGL 1.1.2 and using
the ATI Universal installer 4.2 as well as older versions of both
of these.. I can't seem to make the problem go away...
Seeing as how I bought the card for $115 and plan on getting the
$30 rebate I suppose this is not a MAJOR nuisance, but ATI really
needs to fix their drivers (I wish!), apparently I'm not the only
one having problems with their cards... *sigh*
Anyway, I hope this helped with your site in any way... :)
Alvin]
Just Updated 12/10/1999
Orange Micros OrangeLink FireWire/USB PCI and the 6400: I have received several requests for info on this card. It is a combo FireWire and USB card which would help save PCI slots in your 6400/6500 if you wanted both. If anyone has tried the card please email me any info you have on it. Thanks.
Just Updated 12/3/1999
6400 and Plextor CD rom drives?: Tom would like to know if the Plextor CD Rom drives would fit in the stock CD location of the 6400? Please email me any info you might have. Thanks.
[Sorry if this is not the correct site to email you from. I have
an 8x CD in my 6400 now. I want to upgrade to a 24x or higher.
Plextor makes a 32x or 40x UltraPlex internal compatible with
Mac. Will this CD work with a 6400? Will I need third party software
and will it be bootable?
Thank you and I enjoy your website.
Tom]
My Vimage Info page on Vimage's G3 upgrade for the 6400
My Sonnet Tech Info page on Sonnet's G3 upgrade for the 6400
My Newer Tech Info page on Newer's G3 upgrade for the 6400
My PowerLogix Info page on PowerLogix's G3 upgrade for the 6400
L2/G3 comparison page
CD containing the 6400 Zone plus past history for sale 9/3/1999
I was wondering if anyone would be interested in purchasing a CD with my entire up-to-date site as well as my 6400 Take Apart manual plus many of the past Just Updates included? I think this would be a great idea for anyone who hasn't been able to keep up or never saw my site until recently. Also for those of you with Sherlock the CD is even better cause you can tell Sherlock to index the CD and then you can do a search on any topic and if I ever talked about it, you'll find it! I have info as far back as mid 1997. I'm asking $15 which includes shipping for US residents (not sure what the price for international shipments would be yet?) and I will even include a few surprises! To make this offer even juicier I can add some download that you've been trying to get but just couldn't for some reason. Lets put my cable modem to work :)
amazon.com, books and more 7/2/98
I found a great way to earn some money while getting great deals to you on Macintosh books and software plus they have all kinds of other books, music, and more. Please click on the amazon.com link on the top of this page whenever you feel like purchasing something to help sponsor this site. If you're unsure of what you want and wish to get a list of Mac related items, just type Macintosh in the search field on their home page and you will be presented with many choices to select.
Link to my site that gets rid of AOL's ads! 9/16/98
Jeff did some digging in to the new code that displays the frames
on my site with AOL ads and found a link that can be used which
will not show those annoying ads. Here is the address. http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/TMK12v/home.html
Thanks Jeff, for sending this info. PS don't let AOL find out
:)
Here's an even better link http://members.aol.com/zone6400 I like this one better :)
Current Problems with my System
None :)
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I use a Performa 6400/180 OS 8.6, Performa 6400/200 OS 8.6, PowerBook G3/233 OS 9, and a PowerBook DUO 270c OS 7.5.5. All of the software updates posted here are currently running on one or the other with minimal problems. If I do encounter a problem, I will post it for all to read and respond to. If you are having any problems and would like help just email me and if I can answer it I will, or I will post it here for others to read and respond to.
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This page last updated 12/24/1999
