6970 PowerPC Hardware Rasterization

[rabidz7]

I have a 6970 running in my PowerMac G5 Quad with Debian. The card is currently using the software rasterizer How do I enable hardware rasterization? Keep in mind that the proprietary drivers are not an option as this is not an x86 system.

 

[NTMBK]

I expect you're out of luck, unless you want to go write the driver yourself...

It's high time you retired that old G5, and got a modern system. A Haswell based system would completely blow it out of the water. The 970MP is hopelessly outdated garbage these days.

 

[MeldarthX]

only thing I could suggest is to check amd's linux open source drivers.

 

[rabidz7]

I expect you're out of luck, unless you want to go write the driver yourself...

It's high time you retired that old G5, and got a modern system. A Haswell based system would completely blow it out of the water. The 970MP is hopelessly outdated garbage these days.

[redacted] I'd rather use a 333MHz PowerPC 750 over a 5960X. The G5 is a backup system. I am building a box with two 6176SEs and a Titan X.

Profanity isn't allowed in the technical forums, and neither is projecting.
-- stahlhart

 

[NTMBK]

[redacted] I'd rather use a 333MHz PowerPC 750 over a 5960X. The G5 is a backup system. I am building a box with two 6176SEs and a Titan X.

Is this some sort of political stand or something? Modern Intel stuff is indisputably faster than that antique PowerPC.

 

[Stuka87]

I was a huge PPC fan back in the day. But to be using a system that is so old and slow is a bit laughable. Even a base dual core pentium is most likely close to a dual socket G5 while using about 1/10th the power.

But back on topic, PPC GPU's ran a different BIOS than X86 cards. Yes you can physically insert a non-apple BIOS card (Some require trimming some pins), and it will display an image, but there will be no hardware acceleration or in some cases no image at all. Now some cards you can flash with the Apple BIOS, but this only works for some cards.

Since the 6950 came out long after your G5 did, you are most likely completely out of luck.

EDIT: Oh yeah, AMD has no modern GPU drivers for PPC linux last I checked. Only x86 Linux.

 

[rabidz7]

I was a huge PPC fan back in the day. But to be using a system that is so old and slow is a bit laughable. Even a base dual core pentium is most likely close to a dual socket G5 while using about 1/10th the power.

But back on topic, PPC GPU's ran a different BIOS than X86 cards. Yes you can physically insert a non-apple BIOS card (Some require trimming some pins), and it will display an image, but there will be no hardware acceleration or in some cases no image at all. Now some cards you can flash with the Apple BIOS, but this only works for some cards.

Since the 6950 came out long after your G5 did, you are most likely completely out of luck.

EDIT: Oh yeah, AMD has no modern GPU drivers for PPC linux last I checked. Only x86 Linux.

Linux recently got full support for the 6xxx series.