10.3: Possibly make older video cards functional again

Nov 07, '03 09:39:00AM

Contributed by: crooner

First off, I cannot take credit for this hint. I came across it on the indispensable xlr8yourmac.com -- it was reported by someone named David. Nevertheless, it's a great hint.

If you have a video card that worked under Jaguar but now refuses to function under Panther, try the following ... booted from Panther, open the Terminal application and type in the following (you can cut and paste if you like):

sudo nvram boot-args="romndrv=1"
Enter your admin password when requested. Reboot and your card will hopefully work. This has worked on older ATI, Formac and other cards that do not have the proper firmware. Saved me about $600 buying an SGI MultiLink adapter on eBay to get my Proformance 3 to work with an SGI 1600SW.

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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20031101233045375