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http://www.macnn.com/articles/01/03/20/new.drivers/firmware/

New drivers/firmware for GeForce2 MX

updated 09:00 am EST, Tue March 20, 2001

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Apple has posted new drivers for the GeForce2 MX, which also updates the card's firmware, "improving performance and applications compatibility."

by MacNN Staff

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03/20, 09:26am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Improved OS Performance

This is a good thing for 9.1's...Look what Apple has to say:

Mac OS 9 system extensions which improve performance and applications compatibility.

Is this a good sign for Classic under OSX? I think so.

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03/20, 10:01am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Its about time

I've been bitching at Apple for weeks now after I found out about the 1.1.1 builds. I received a replacement GeForce after my BTO copy was defective. I installed it, and got that blasted split monitor problem. Apple didn't know what was wrong, so they sent another card. Then another card. Finally I found some 1.1.1 drivers from a friend and used those as a test, and *surprise* they worked.

I guess I should be happy they finally released these, plus a firmware update, but it sure did take a long, long time.

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03/20, 10:12am | report spam | close Reply | delete
good first step

Now if they could just update their radeon drivers.

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03/20, 10:34am | report spam | close Reply | delete
new drivers

drivers for things like video cards don't work under classic, they will just fail to load

and actually, it's ATi that does the drivers for their card, apple just certifies them as working. I suspect that they may have a similar relationship with nVidia, just that nVidia is better about updating the drivers =p

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03/20, 10:39am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Of course...

30 monkeys with stone tablets and chisels could get out updaters faster than ATI.... ;)

Still, it's good to see nVidia is getting off to a good start with timely driver updates.

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03/20, 11:00am | report spam | close Reply | delete
PC GeForce

Anyone know if the firmware update will work on a retail (PC) of the GeForce?

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03/20, 11:36am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Radeon Drivers

Do Radeon drivers NEED periodic updates? I mean, com on, it's like you're all hypochrondriacs.

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03/20, 11:55am | report spam | close Reply | delete
ATI is needed

It sure would be nice if this were done for all the ATI cards. Come on ATI!

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03/20, 12:14pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Rune works!!

Farewell software rendering!!

Hello rave compatible!!

Rune now works with the new drivers!!

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03/20, 12:30pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Update not working

I have NVIDIA ROM 1017F and the extensions are 1.0.9 but the Apple installer says that my system doesn't require the update. I can't install it. Anyone else has that problem?

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03/20, 01:00pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
benchmarks?

Can anyone run some benchmarks?

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03/20, 01:26pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Failed install

I attempted the GeForce2 update and immediately got an error message saying the installer "could not locate the InterfaceLib." This is a brand new Cube - I have not altered the system in any way - and that file does not exist. Any ideas?

cdeuce

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03/20, 01:31pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Update not working

Same problem: NVIDIA 1017F and extensions 1.0.9; the installer says that my system doesn't require the update... curious.

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03/20, 01:43pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
PC GeForce !

Hey - has anyone tried using a retail PC card w/ the new
Mac drivers/firmware update ?!

Most curious.

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03/20, 02:04pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Pissed

Well very nice one apple, after I waisted my time downloading this it says not working, how many systems do you have to test for compatibiliy????? 10-11-12, not really, I can't belive you release something like this without a warning or showing a sign of respect for the users, very mad and pissed

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03/20, 02:13pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Fix & trix

I also had the problem that the installer "could not locate the InterfaceLib", this seemed to be caused by automount of Stuffit (the shrinkwrap way). I ejected the image and mounted by doubleclick. Then, it worked.

However, I got the message stating that I didn't need the update. I have 1017F rom, so I took tomeviewer to extract stuff. Put the extensions in place and my machine is much faster. Slight twitch of the screen during start-up, to afraid to run rom flasher though. Any comments, ideas?

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03/20, 02:36pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
updates 2001 G4 OK

Try rebooting w/extensions off, then run the updater. I had problems when running it right after unstuffing it from download -- couldn't find itself. Should update the ROM to 1027F.

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03/20, 02:38pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Tomeviewer

Where to you get "tomeviewer"?

Btw, this is the second update form Apple in one week that is buggy. Airport 1.3 is incompatible with the sleep function of PowerBooks, when used with a software base station.

Dont' they test their stuff anymore, before uploading??

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03/20, 02:47pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
drivers / firmware

Is there anyone that cod send me a copy of the drivers / firmware files and firmware-updater (the files that came from Apple whit the G4.... I mean not the updated files 1.1.1.....:-)

Send it to bett@mac.com

:-)
Mark from Denmark

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03/20, 03:32pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
TomeViewer

Tomeviewer couldn't open the tome on my image at all...weird...

Why are all updaters for English OS anyways? Come on, this is drivers...not finder updates!

e r i k

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03/20, 04:59pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Retarded

Apple and nVIDIA, like every company EVER that releases consumer products tests their driver updates. If it's not working for you but for the majority of the users out there don't go talking about how Apple is a pack of idiots that can't ship a driver. Maybe it's you who doen't have a new enough driver to patch, a bad card (unlikely), an extensison conflict, or not enough knowledge to properly install firmware and device driver updates. Mac users are so bitchy sometimes. Oh well, at least it's less common here on MacNN forums. MacCentral readers (well those who leave news comments) make me want to vomit.

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03/20, 05:26pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Jerk

I've been working with Macs since 1988, I KNOW how to install updates etc. Apple has been careless lately, as many of us have had to admit, as far as quality control, buggy software updates, etc, goes. The fact is that this thing does not run on every machine (even with extensions turned off, btw), as it should. And Airport 1.3 is a mess, believe me.

Anyone has any CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions on how to get those damn new drivers on my machine?

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03/20, 05:36pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Not good here!

I looked at my ROM... Older version. I ran the installer, it said I didn't need to update. Re-booted with extensions off. Mounted the SMI. Copied all the files from it to the hard drive. Ran the installer. Same message. "You don't need to upgrade." Used Tome viewer to extract all the files. Ran the ROM upgrade program... It did NOTHING! I copied my old drivers (1.0.9) and put the new drivers in the extension folder. Rebooted. BAD, BAD. Made my screen slide to the side. Put my old drivers back in place. The new drivers wouldn't work with the old ROM. No matter WHAT I did, I could not get the ROM to flash. I also know what the h*** I'm doing and nothing seemed to work. Now, like the above comment, and constructive suggestions?

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03/20, 05:39pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Firmware Instructions

I've done some troubleshooting and was able to manually update my drivers and firmware which seems to point to a possible bug in Apple's installer scripts. Either that or there is some real (but undocumented) reason Apple doesn't want the update installed on our G4 466mhz machines. As far as I know, the GeForceMX2 cards Apple uses are all identical to eachother.

I extracted the the drivers and firmware using TomeViewer. I found that the firmware update application is scriptable (cool for network admins to roll out the update remotely). Using AppleScript you can query if the firmware on your GeForce card is older than the ROM image that comes with the update. A value of "true" will result if you need the update. I then wrote a script that flashes the firmware and it worked! I then copied the new driver extensions to the system folder rebooted and then ran the original ROM compare script just to see if all was well and it returned a value of "false" meaning the ROM image in the update and in the card's firmware were identical.

Just follow these instrucitons and your G4 will be humming along in no time. Also, make sure you have the latest version of TomeViewer you can find (I use 1.3D3) or it might not be able to extract the contents of the tome.

Ben Waisanen
Mac Admin
Portland State University

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03/20, 06:18pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Apple are a bunch of Jerk

Yeah Retarded don't go defending apple when you don't know what your talking about, I have the exact symptoms , my rom is 1017 and it needs to go up to 1027 for the new extestions to function, to the previous poster, can you please post your fix on the web, I tried clicking on the flasher straight but it just hangs forever...... M$ doesn't do this nowadays......

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03/20, 06:32pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Firmware probs

I have 1017F and it will not update either from the installer or from the flash programme extracted using tomeviewer. What a drag and how annoying to have a new G4 533 that apple can't seem to update. Hope someone has a fix!

Dennis UK

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03/20, 06:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Retarded Jerks?

It seams that once again, the simple release of an update - something that should be seen as good news - has triggered a wave of "Apple can kiss my" this and "nVidia are a bunch of" that. Is it the fact that we've come to expect more from them that we are angered when we find out that they too, make mistakes?

Let's remember, Apple still does quite a few things that we _are_ all happy with, and those of you who can't agree with that statement should probably not be in this forum anyways.

nVidia and Apple _will_ work out the driver issues for those of you who can't flash your cards, but I'm sure they've got a lot on their plate right now.

How many people do you think there are, working at Apple or nVidia, who have intimite knowledge of the GeForce 2 MX GPU, how it works, and how to write drivers for it on a totally new OS (Macintosh), then RE-write it for another new OS that's not even available on the market yet (Mac OS X), then go about making the whole thing work _even_ better on BOTH systems... and you can bet your a** that the same guys who are working on all of these things for the GeForce 2 are probably also doing all of these things on the GeForce 3 side of things as well.

Add in the fact that people are screaming, both from the consumer level, and from the management level (big Stevey Jobs) that it all needs to be done, like, LAST WEEK, and it's pretty amazing the stuff works as well as it does!

Be realistic kids. It's a lot better then ATI's ever been.

Lates.

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03/20, 06:53pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
How are you extracting it

I haven't tried the newest stuffit expander (6.0.1), but I had many problems with 6.0. I've stuck with stuffit expander 5.5 forever. Have you guys tried expanding it with different versions of stuffit?

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03/20, 07:55pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Problems before

Did anybody else have problems before the new drivers released? Lets see...2? I don't remember a huge problem documented on macintouch.

When a new driver is released, it doesn't mean your current driver is a POS. Stop whining, you hypochrindriacs.

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03/20, 08:32pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
This problem is VERY HUGE

it looks like nearly EVERYONE is having the same damn problem!

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03/20, 08:33pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Extraction tips

The firmware updater program does not have a GUI interface. That's why when you launch it, it appears as if it is "hanging". As I explained in my earlier post, you need to use AppleScript to tell the firmware updater program what to do-- launch Script Editor and open the updater program's dictionary to see a list of commands and what they do. Your other option is to wait until Apple posts a fix for this.

--Ben

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03/20, 08:58pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Extraction Tips

Ben- Could you please detail the steps that need to be taken with Script Editor to install the updater? That would be a fix for a lot of people. Thanks!

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03/20, 09:42pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
update went great

i updated my drivers without a hitch! I love Apple. Thanks!

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03/20, 10:23pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
driver updated..smooth

no problems, no hangs, no restart with extensions off...

i noticed the shrinkwrap drive on the HD so i unmounted it and double clicked the .smi... mounted fine and installed beautifully.

this on a 733...

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03/20, 11:03pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Applescript for firmware

i tried the updater, same error as some others here. and i turned extensions off and such.
here is what worked for me:
first extract all files using tomeviewer. put everything except "GeForce2MX AE Flasher-1027" in the extensions folder. might want to put the old extensions in a safe place(ie ext(dis) folder)
then run this applescript:

tell application "GeForce2MX AE Flasher-1027"
CompareROMVersion
if (CompareROMVersion) = true then
FlashROM
end if
quit
end tell

notes: i wrote this applescript while at work for the G4 there, now i am rewriting from memeory at home, but i can't test it here. i actually ran it as two differnet applescript commands before, i just tried to put a little thought into it this time. if your scared, don't try it. if you are not willing to run/modify the applescript, don't bother putting the extensions in: they will give you screen artifacts and other c*** without the right firmware(i tried that before the applescript). also the firmware version in the apple sytem profiler may not change until after a restart. and althought the above worked for me, you run the firmware updater apple script at YOUR OWN RISK.

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03/21, 12:38am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Am I updated?

I checked my driver extensions before the update and they showed Version: 1.1.1

Were my extensions already the new ones? When I did the update it did not make the screen go blank, but it did go throught he progress bar.

The only extension I saw that were modified at that exact time were: DVD Region Manager 1.1 & QuickTime Speed (located in the Location Manager Module folder in exts).

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03/21, 02:11am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Not an issue?

From what I am reading here it seems like the 533 and 466 models are not flashing. Maybe they don't need the update. My Cube won't update and my Vid card is from a 533.
Good work with the script Ben BTW.

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03/21, 04:32am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Hey, I'm French

I tried to install the new drivers on my G4 533 but it failed. The installer says that it wants US system :(
Rhhhhhh!!!

The good thing: Rune will now work on my Mac. Great!!!!!!!!

eFraid, from France

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03/21, 08:50am | report spam | close Reply | delete
IT WORKS ON A PC CARD!

Ok after weeks on beating on this damn PC card, the rom in this new update worked!!! I flash a Gladac G-Force2MX PC card (AGP) with the rom contained in this update and it worked flawlessly in my 450mhz G4 AGP.

I had to use my PC with dual video cards (PCI & AGP) and the Nvidia factory flash utility, NVFLASH. I had previously tried extracting the firmware from the Apple OEM card but it never would boot in the PC card. This new 64k rom worked first try.

I'll be posted more detailed instructions to a couple of the news sites when I get a chance. Finally we can but nice cheap PC based cards and use them in our G4.

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03/21, 09:13am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Script

Ben Please post the exact script from home this one is not working.

THanksssss

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03/21, 12:20pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Script

Thanks dude, I copied the script from your post and pasted it into Script Editor, it ran without a hitch. The screen went black for 15 seconds or so, and then refreshed.
Good job on figuring out that the updater was script driven :)

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03/21, 04:20pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
finally

after messing with it yesterday. I just used tomeviewer to update the drivers. then today I ran the script and it looked like it worked. but when I checked system profile it still had the old rom. So I tried one last time with extensions off and the darn thing worked and now my rom is up to date.

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03/21, 06:11pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Script

I just used tomeviewer to update the extensions and then copied the script from Ben... everything worked and now my rom is up to date (after a restart). Thanks!

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03/21, 09:32pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Finaly!!!!

Thanks,, it finaly worked, I think I had to hit the flash app first so the mac knows about it. thanks Ben, apple should hire you, I can't belive how something like that passed out of there doors

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03/21, 11:20pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
PC GForce2GTS NOT MX??

Has anyone tried to flash a PC GForce2 GTS card with the Mac roms? I just happen to have one sitting around, but would hate to toast it trying to find out :-)

Thanks,
bgv

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03/23, 01:22pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Yes, more GTS info.

I doubt the MX ROM will work with a GTS, although it would be great to try. The MX is low end.

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03/25, 12:24am | report spam | close Reply | delete
PC NVidia Cards

They all have a Hardware Abstraction Layer, which allows them to use a single driver for all cards. This leads me to suspect that you can put a GeForce GTS Ultra in a Mac now, using this ROM flash update. Any brave souls out there care to try?

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New drivers/firmware for GeForce2 MX

updated 09:00 am EST, Tue March 20, 2001

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ATI is needed

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PC GeForce !

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TomeViewer

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How are you extracting it

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This problem is VERY HUGE

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Re: Extraction Tips

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Am I updated?

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Hey, I'm French

IT WORKS ON A PC CARD!

Script

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PC NVidia Cards

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