I noticed I had an obscure, random freeze every now and then with my loaded 6500 motherboard. I re-seated everything every now and then, but it never really did much. I figured I'd check and see if I had a newer board anywhere (which might be less prone to any particular problems), and I found one a year younger... It has a different ATI video chip onboard, though.. where my normal 6500 board has one with the standard ATI logo and the text "3D Rage II", the one on this other board looks like this:
I was in the middle of trying to find an ATI rage card with the DVD daughter card, so this would pretty much be at its maximum potential, but seeing this chip has intrigued me... I'm still undecided as to whether I really want to take on the task of migrating everything, but if this chip says DVD on it, would that potentially mean it has some kind of DVD decoding capability? The board with the "+DVD" chip has 225 stamped on the motherboard edge, and the 55/65 board I've been using is originally a 250 mhz board... would there perhaps have ever been such a media savvy itteration of one of these machines?
when they used it, it did not mean Digital Video Disc. It was a decoder advanced capabilities it had with 3D apps. It doesn't carry an MPEG-2 De/Encoder whatsoever. I have contemplated this, but on ATI's site, they say that it won't work whatsoever as a hardware decoder.
really? I poked around and found a wikipedia article claiming otherwise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Rage#3D_RAGE_II_.28IIC.2C_II.2B.2C_II.2BDVD.29
but at the same time, I know wikipedia isn't always the best source on things
I am curious, though, about something else... Why is it that both the onboard chip and the pci card I have are recognized as "ATY" rather than ATI? I tried to install some ATI drivers from the disc that came with the video card, and because both chipsets are seen as ATY, the installer doesn't work- it says there's no ATI hardware installed.
All ATI chipsets are seen as ATY, it's normal and is not the reason for problems with your installer. The ATI Radeon 9200 in my G4 mini is shown as ATY,RV280 in System Profiler.
Your Wikipedia link says:
Which says nothing of decoding DVD video, merely that it adds support for playback.
Rage 128 with optional decoder daughterboard
Optional decoder daughtercard that I just bought off ebay
onboard won't do the trick, but I won't be foiled yet.
If you are wanting to play DVDs in OS9, you might need this hack. You probably need a G3 or higher to play DVDs anyhoo.
From what I've heard, the Rage 128 with DVD-decoder board only did DVD decoding in a 66MHz PCI slot (which no earlier Mac had). I don't know if you'll be able to use if for what you want it to do.
... well THAT'S depressing
Thanks for the link, though.. I stumbled upon it a while back and lost it. Oh well, i watch dvds on my xbox anyway.. this just would have been amusing 
Don't give up hope yet. The Rage 128 has enough muscle to decode DVDs in OS 9 if you have a G3 installed. Just use the patch provided at www.os9forever.com.
You don't need the DVD decoder card.
Peace,
Drew