RageII/RagePro ID: Several readers have asked what the Apple System Profiler 2.1.2 ID is for a RagePro or RageII. Look at the 'Card model:' field. If it says the card type is 'GT-B' it's a Rage II, a 'GT-C' is RagePro.

An anom. source says that Adobe is beta testing ATM Deluxe v4.5 now. Hopefully it will be available soon to existing owners.

MacGurus is accepting advance orders for Initio's new BlueNote SCSI card (also compatible with B&W G3s they say) at $118.99. The BlueNote features external 50-pin MicroD to 25-pin Apple SCSI adapter, a hybrid Mac/PC CD-ROM with .pdf user manuals for both platforms, and SmartSCSI 1.09 for Mac.

Someone wrote that 35C was too high for the problematic TAM G3 CPU noted earlier today (email address bounced on my attempted reply), but that is actually a fairly low reported temperature. My PB G3/250 (in a far more confined space than the TAM) runs 76C to 80C. (Note: The apple powerbook G3 CPUs are believed to be models rated for 85C to 105C max internal junction temperature - the standard (used in desktops) G3 CPUs are usually the 65C rated parts. However remember software utils reported temperatures may not be 100% accurate.) As shown on the Tips/Misc. page G3 Temp/Cooling article, first model PB G3s (aka 3500) ran as hot as 120C (!) according to one Powerlogix test. The Motorola's G3 specs doc linked in that article listed a max operating temperature of 105C. (Note that most desktop/common G3 CPUs are only rated for 65C - higher rated versions are often reserved for portable/notebook systems.) I suspect the stock 603e chip ran hotter than 35C at 250MHz and again the software CPU temperature utilities may not be 100% accurate. (In some cases with later copper based G3s, the reported temperatures are often very low - much too low to be accurate as sometimes the utility reports CPU temperatures below ambient room temperature. My Beige G3/266 had reported temperatures of 50-55C usually as a FYI. Faster G3s are lower voltage parts and run cooler however.)

MythII/Rage128 Rave Resolutions: There have been reports of different resolutions in Rave mode (Apple's 3D Game API) offered in Myth II on the new B&W G3's. Some readers report 1024x768 is offered, others only 800x600 maximum. Here's a comment from Chris Bentley:

" Hi Mike,
the RAVE version of MythII can run at 1024x768. At least it can on some monitors. We are currently working with Bungie to track down why 1024x768 isn't shown when running on some monitors. The Rage128 can definitely support RAVE at that res - there's no fundamental limit in RAVE or in the Rage128 to keep us from running 1024x768.

Talking w/ Jason Regier at Bungie: it may be that there is some interaction w/ DrawSprockets, since the list of acceptable RAVE resolutions is based of the resolutions that the software renderer can run in.
I'll keep you posted,
chrisb "

Wayne Chang wrote that using the 'ATI Graphics Accelerator' from the new B&W G3 Rage128 update (see sidebar) seems to have sped up his beige G3 with RagePro chip (no benchmarks were run).

Carmine's MiM News Feed [links may not work in the future]

• AppleTIL Updates (FRIDAY_02.12.99)
   NEW 58278 Apple Displays Software 1.7.1 Read Me
   MOD 20535 Open Transport 1.1.1: Read Me (1 of 2)
   MOD 10832 PowerBook Duo: Battery Information and Specifications
   MOD 14829 PowerBook Batteries: Types And How To Recycle
   MOD 24459 PowerBook G3, PowerBook G3 Series: No Contrast Control
   MOD 3550 Apple Monitors Meet VDT Emissions and SWEDAC 2, MPR II Standards
   MOD 24453 Mac OS 8: Appearance Manager Information
   MOD 8556 Macintosh Computers and LaserWriters: Noise Levels
   NEW 58252Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White): SCSI Card Compatibility with Apple Scanners
   MOD 26173 Apple/GV 56K Modem Updater Read Me
   MOD 30830 Mac OS 8.5: Installing ARA Personal Server 3.0
   MOD 24326 56Kbps Modems: Upgrade Options
   MOD 58226 Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White): Technical Specifications
• Apple Displays Software 1.7.1 [This is the software for use with Apple Displays. For complete information, please see the documentation included with this software] (Apple)
• GV V.90 Flex Preferred Script [The GV V.90 Flex Preferred script should be used to tell your V.90 modem to first attempt a Flex protocol connection to your ISP. This script is for use with Apple's OT/PPP and/or Remote Access software. It should ONLY be used if prior to updating your V.90 modem to ROM 2.200 your modem could successfully connect to your ISP at 56K speeds (i.e. 38000,42000, 44000). If you do not meet these requirements then you do not need to use this script.] (GlobalVillage)
• Heartsoft, Inc. Signs Distribution Agreement With Apple Computer Education VAR [Technology Integration Group and Heartsoft Join Forces to Offer Heartsoft's Thinkology to Educators in CA, NV, AZ, and HI] (Yahoo)
• Price cuts, more features for notebooks (News.com)
• Microsoft may face licensing of code (News.com)
• Mix 'n' Match PowerBook? [Apple Computer scores a patent that allows users to switch cases of their laptop computers. The age of multiple choice iMac portables may be closer than we think.] (Wired)
• Nintendo Emulator Code Unleashed [What happens when thousands of hackers get their hands on the source code for a piece of coveted emulation software?] (Wired)
• 3Dfx prepares new Voodoo boards [Move could mark start of consolidation in the graphics accelerator business.] (ZDnet)

8500 Ram Upgrade Tip: Bill Womack found my 1997 8500 Cache Upgrade Guide a big help in adding RAM.

" Dear Mike,
You saved my a)time, b)money, c)life, as relates to my trusty 8500!
I'd ordered a couple of ram dimms for the beast (from MacGurus--the BEST mail-order experience it may be possible to have), and was flummoxed when I couldn't intuit how to de-motherboard the mother. The magicians told me to go to your site (already one of my absolute favorites) and check out the step-by-step guide (with pix and arrows and complete instructions, no less). I am now running the thing, with my new total of 272Mb of phabulous ram. Not a glitch anywhere!
Thank you for providing what neither Apple's tech pages nor the ZiffDavis stalwarts could provide...
Bill Womack "

The 8500 (and 9500) case makes upgrading RAM, VRAM or Cache a real pain, which is why I added the guide a long time ago. Be careful in supporting the motherboard during seating the DIMMS, as the back side of the motherboard has small capacitors that easily be broken off. The new cases of the 8600 and later models will bring tears to the eyes of 8500/9500 owners that have had to do this more than once.

XLR8 300/200/1MB Feedback: Charles indicates this upgrade has his PowerCenter Pro running at near G3/350 performance:

" Mike,
Great site you run. After much consideration I just got the xlr8 300/200/1meg 3:2 for my PCP/180. Great cpu acclerator! Absolutely flawless plug and play. It won't overclock beyond 330/165 with 2:1 (and 55 mhz on PCP bus, original L2 cache pulled), but it runs at virtually the same speed as a Blue G3 350, so I am a happy camper. The information on your site (and at MacGurus) was invaluable in deciding what to get. Thanks for the great work you do! - Charles Bouldin "

The 3D Gaming News page has a mega-update today, including 3Dfx comments on the various Voodoo3 cards, a ducking tip for Unreal, news of Nintendo going after two emulator programmers, and news on Oni, Duke Nukem Forever, the Unreal Level Pak, and more.

Sharky's Extreme has an update on the Final Voodoo3 Specs.

More ATM Deluxe 4.0 Comments: [updated from original posting]

"Hello Mike,
I have been running ATM Deluxe 4.03 with MAC OS 8.5.1 for quite a while with no problems. I also use Dreamweaver2 and have not experienced any cursor problems (with 8.5 screen font smoothing enabled). Previewing fonts works flawlessly. I have heard of lots of people I know at AD agencies having problems with Quark 4.04 with ATM and other font Management apps. but since I believe Quark to be the root of all Evil I do not use it unless I have to.
Ian Kimbrough "

Another reader wrote:

" I have long had a problem with ATM 4.00 Deluxe. It would seize if I viewed several fonts within the app. The normal three finger quit would get me back to the finder without problems to the OS or ATM. There has never been an update for those people who gave their money to Adobe early on, although the latest Adobe CD has vers 4.03 (I believe) on it. Hassling Adobe gets you nowhere. ...[v4.03] does not exhibit the same problems as did the 4.00, so they HAVE bug fixed the original release. If there is a 4.05 I have never seen or heard of it.

Recently 'cos we are running OS 8.5.1 and Quark 4.04 (and importing other peoples docs for checking/separating) I turned off all font substitution and autoactivation - this seems like a GOOD idea - especially if you try to run Acrobat/Distiller as well. I have seen some very funny stuff in Quarks kerning edit after Distiller has done its stuff!

The smooth font edges option in ATM (and in OS8.5) seems to cause cursor positioning problems in Dreamweaver2 - and I now run with that off too. At the rate I'm turning off options I might as well run the freeware version of ordinary ATM which comes with the OS8.5 CD and sell off our 'real' copy. BTW Adobe Type Reunion vers 1.2 or vers 2.0 has also been blamed elsewhere for causing problems.

With all this type management stuff there is an invisible folder and file called ATM Temp fonts and ATM temp.ATM - if these are corrupted (and they are not automatically replaced with a simple reload of the software) you can get nasty things happening including a refusal of ATM to run at all - which aborts the normal system boot process with the 'restart with shift key message'.

all the above is from our 7600/120 - but still very relevant.
[Name withheld] "

I don't understand why Adobe has noted post a 4.03/4.05 updater yet (as of today) at their web site.

G3 Upgrade/SCSI Disk Mount Tip: Mihai Parparita sent a tip that may help owners of G3 upgrade cards that won't mount SCSI drives attached to Adaptec SCSI cards:

" Hello Mike, just a tip for your readers
If you happen to own both a 2940UW card and a G3-upgraded Mac that's incompatible with it, and are annoyed of having to mount the disks at each start-up by hand, you should try SCSIProbe, which has an option to mount all disks when it loads (it's a control panel). Although it adds a slight delay (perhaps it has to check all 15 UW IDs), it's worth it. Please note that the newest version (5.0, which is an Adaptec variation does not have the mounting feature), but the older, 4.3 does have it. It can be downloaded from here:

http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/cfg/scsi-probe-43.hqx

Mihai Parparita "

I've added this info to the FAQ (Question 31 on G3 cards).

Tip for ATI Rage cards Pausing in 3D Games?: [Several readers later reported this did not help - indicating that only running 640x480 mode fixes the pausing that occurs at higher resolutions in Rave mode (even on a Yosemite/Rage128)]

" Just a quick note to Jeremy Bascom-
Even with an old RagePro, I had experienced intermittent pauses every couple of seconds when doing anything 3D. The cure, I found is to disable the Launcher (from the extensions manager... even if you don't use the Launcher, if it loads, you get pauses) and any background apps (such as the Gravis Firebird BA) (to find out what background apps you might be running, you can search your hard drive(s) for File Type 'appe') Now my 3d graphics run smoothly. Hope this works for you. -Matthew Hall "

[*UPDATE* For the latest reviews/driver articles, etc. on Mac Graphics card, see the Video articles page.]
I've added this tip to the Rage128 Feedback, Yosemite Gaming Performance and Compatibility pages.

RAVE Brightness Setting Tip: Rave Games too dark? Here's a reader tip on gamma settings:

" Hello Mike and Frank,
I haven't seen anyone mention this anywhere before, but you can use the version of ColorSync built into Mac OS 8.5 or later to adjust the brightness of RAVE games. I have created a web page which will help people setup a ColorSync profile for RAVE games. I think many people might find this useful.

Here's the link:
http://members.aol.com/wilsonware/colorsyncprofile.html
Have a great day.
Hiram "

ATTO Tools Update: Carmine Pasquale sent a note that ATTO has updated their ATTO ExpressPro-Tools to v2.1.1. The update is available at: http://www.attotech.com/software/step3.phtml

More on ATM 4.0 Deluxe: The latest comments from readers:

" Mike,
In the Adobe ATM Mac User-to-User forum, at URL:
http://wellengaged.com/engaged/adobe.cgi?c=ATM_Type_Mac&f=d
[userID/registration required to access their forums]
numerous people are reporting various problems with MacOS 8.5 and Adobe ATM Deluxe 4. If your reader is having problems it's most likely 8.5, and not the necessarily the new blue & white G3s that's at the root of it.

Adobe have acknowledged that there issues and have posted at least one tech note on how to configure ATM Deluxe 4 to work with MacOS 8.5. (Certain ATM settings WILL cause acknowledged problems with OS 8.5.)

The latest version of ATM Deluxe is 4.0.3. This update is NOT available on the web. It's only available on CD and you have to contact Adobe to get it -- and they may want to charge you $25 dollars for it UNLESS you can demonstrate that you're suffering from a bug that the 4.0.3 update fixes.

The 4.0.3 update is AT LEAST 12 to 18 months old -- it pre-dates MacOS 8.5 quite significantly and therefore obviously DOES NOT fix any of the 8.5-related problems.
Best Regards,
Bill Murray "

Sonnet G3 Upgrades Feedback: Two owners report their experience:

" I just received my Sonnet Crescendo L2 300/1024K upgrade from OWC (nice plug, huh?) for my Performa 6400/200. It took more time to remove my 512K L2 cache then to install the card. All in all took about 10 minutes to install. My ragged 6400's 603e processor's speed was 300 and FPU was 395 prior to my "procedure" using MacBench 4.0. After installation it flies at 1015 and 942 respectively. Now if they can only figure something out for the bus. ;-)

The temperature of the Crescendo upgrade, according to Powerlogix's SpeedMeter, is around 46'C or 116'F. Not bad at all....
Andrew Rodriguez "

Andrew later reported he tried the new 1.3.2 extension but went back to 1.2.8 after seeing crashes with IE 4.5 and Netscape.

A TAM owner reports some issues (possible extensions related, based on the above I wonder if v1.2.8 would help):

" I received my Sonnet CRASHendo G3 300/150 512K L2 cache slot upgrade today. I have found it to run cool and fast. I have also had numerous random crashes and freezes even using the newly released version 1.3 of the Crescendo extension.

I have a Twentieth Anniversary Mac with 250MHz 603e and 512k L2 cache (256k is standard) with 96MB of RAM running OS 8.5.1. I have also upgraded the 2.5" hard drive with a 3GB Toshiba with a 512k buffer so the base numbers are somewhat better than a stock TAM. Installation is simple, just install the Crescendo software and replace the L2 cache with the Sonnet card. The card has a large purple heat-sink that runs the length of the card. With the Crescendo installed, the larger back must be used on the TAM. I already have an ATI Xclaim Rage Pro 3D card driving an Apple LCD Studio Display and an Ethernet card in the CommSlot. I do run a lot of extensions, and did disable both RamDoubler and SpeedDoubler after the crashes started, but no change. The machine was rock solid before installing the Sonnet accelerator and is now prone to frequent seemingly random crashes.

Results:

Test	603/250 512k (Orig CPU w/Cache Upgrade)	G3 300/150 512k (Sonnet Upgrade)
Processor	382	752
Floating Point	490	976
Disk	488	668
Publishing Disk	402	495

This card runs pretty cool. The Sonnet Metronome extension reports the processor temperature at 47 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately, I have experienced frequent and random crashes in Word 98, Photoshop 5.0.2 and crashed a number of times running MacBench. The machine crashed twice while launching MacBench reporting a type 10 error and froze twice while creating test files. Prior to receiving my card I read numerous reports on the TAM website about crashes and instability. I was hoping the revised software would spare me. If Sonnet can solve the crashing problems, this card represents a great value. Mine was $479 from SmallDog Electronics.
Bob Snow "

I welcome other feedback from G3 upgraded TAM owners.

Workaround for PalmIII/Keyspan SX/B&W G3: Greg Sims replied he found a workaround for the problem he reported in yesterday's news:

" Hi Mike,
I have found a lame workaround to the problem I wrote about. If you open the HotSync Manager, disable HotSync, disable "load at startup", restart, put the Palm on its cradle, push the HotSync button, THEN enable HotSync in the Manager, all works fine.

This is a nuisance when compared to the convenience of syncing at the office on my older Mac, but it does at least work.
Greg Sims "

B&W G3/1 GIG RAM Slow Video: Any lucky Yosemite Owners with 1GB of RAM that can verify this?

" After looking over your Rage128 reports, I see nothing that matches my problem. I haven't had much time to really investigate it yet (gotta finish config on the servers first!) but, here's what's up:

I took delivery last Tuesday of a G3/400 with 128megs of ram in it's stock config and a flat screen Studio Display [LCD?-Mike]. When I initially set it up, I set the company logo as a desktop picture. Fine, works. On Monday, my 4 256meg dimms arrived. Yahoo (or so I thought)! After removing the stock 128meg dimm and installing the 4 256megs, the redraw of the desktop picture and all the icons became highly erractic. Close a window and the background pattern is seen in it's place for almost a second. Once the desktop picture redraws that area, all the icons flicker one by one.

Remove the desktop picture, problem solved. Today, I installed the new Rage drivers from Apple. Put the desktop picture back up. Same issue but the redraw and icon flicker happens faster. Pull the picture, ok.... well, almost. Now the menu bar clock disappears when apps/windows open and close and when you click on the clock to display the date. I haven't watched this last bit long enough to figure out if there is a pattern yet. Anyway, that's it so far.

Anyone else you know of seeing anything similar? I haven't heard of or seen anyone else who has put in 1gig of ram yet so.... "

I'd welcome comments on this from other owners of 1GB RAM systems. I suggested he try removing two dimms to see if it was RAM size related and to ensure the dimms were the proper type.

Nathan Morris sent a note that PowerLogix is listing 466MHz ZIF upgrades ($1449). I should be getting one to review soon.

Yesterday's News Summary

• Lego Mac
• Rage128 updated drivers conflict with Kaleidoscope 2.1 conflict
• Carmine's TIL Updates and Net News Feed
• XLR8 1.3 Cache control to add booting from Adaptec Raid drives
• ATM deluxe 4.0, Illustrator/Photoshop 5 w/B&W G3 report
• Reader report of installers replacing ROM file with older version
• 3D Gaming News page updated
• Request for ATM 4.0 Deluxe/B&W G3 Feedback
• My experience with Panasonic PV-DV910 Digital Camcorder w/B&W G3
• Explanation of DVD movie pauses
• Firewire DV report with Sony VX700
• Epson 700 disappearing printer problem with B&W G3
• More B&W G3 compat. comments
• Palm III/Keyspan SX serial card problems with B&W G3
• GLDoom coming to the Mac
• Other net news
• Summary of prev. days news

For other recent site news/features links, see the Recent Site Features page.

Note: Before sending tech support related questions please check the Freq. Asked Questions, Site Contents, CPU Card reviews/articles, SCSI reviews articles, Graphics card reviews, Tips/Misc, Message Boards and Help pages - in many cases the answers to your questions are there and they have far more detail than I can list in an email. For Apple G3 system info - see the G3-ZONE. For links on recent articles, see the Recent Features page. Please try the Men in Mac Help page as an alternative on requests for tech support to help me be able to spend more time on reviews. Thanks.