ATI Technologies 9550 - X Radeon 256MB Agp User manual

RADEON™9000 PRO MAC
EDITION
User’s Guide
P/N: 137-40360-00
Copyright © 2002, ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.
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written permission of ATI Technologies Inc. is strictly prohibited.

ii
Disclaimer
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document, ATI Technologies Inc. assumes no liability with
respect to the operation or use of ATI hardware, software or
other products and documentation described herein, for any act
or omission of ATI concerning such products or this
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without further notice to a product or system described herein to
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a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

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Table of Contents
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What You'll Need......................................................................................... 2
Related Documentation............................................................................... 3
Multimedia Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Viewing 3D Graphics................................................................................... 5
ATI Displays Control Panel........................................................................ 7
3D Memory Monitor ................................................................................... 9
Using the 3D Memory Monitor.............................................................. 9
Display.................................................................................................. 10
Textures ................................................................................................ 10
Buffers .................................................................................................. 10
DVD............................................................................................................. 10
ATI Displays Preferences.......................................................................... 11
ATI HELP .................................................................................................. 11
Using QuickTime Playback ...................................................................... 12
Using Digital Flat Panel (DVI-I)............................................................... 13
Video Mode Table...................................................................................... 15
Supported 2D Modes............................................................................ 15
Digital Flat Panel.................................................................................. 16
Specifications.............................................................................................. 17
System Requirements ........................................................................... 17
Operating System ................................................................................. 17
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

1
Introduction
The RADEON 9000 PRO MAC EDITION represents the next
generation in 3D and video acceleration for your Power
Macintosh computer. It includes 64MB of DDR memory for
fast 32-bit true color 3D graphics. Flexible dual-display support
for multiple combinations of CRT and Digital Flat Panel
monitors. Your new graphics accelerator provides:
• Flexible dual-display support enabling many combinations
utilizing the ADC (Apple Display Connector), VGA (using
a third party adapter), and DVI-I connectors.
• OpenGL®and QuickDraw 3D accelerator providing
superior 3D rendering performance and advanced imaging
and filtering techniques.
• QuickTime playback accelerator for full screen, full
motion, TV quality video.

2
What You'll Need
The RADEON 9000 PRO MAC EDITION runs with the
following minimum system requirements:
• Any Power Macintosh computer with an AGP expansion
slot.
• Mac OS 9.2.1 or higher or Mac OS X version 10.1.3 or
higher.
• OpenGL 1.2.2 (required for some 3D graphics).
• Apple multi-frequency monitor, VGA-style monitor (see
note below),DVI-I style digital flat panel or Apple ADC
style digital flat panel.
• QuickTime 5.0 (earlier versions are NOT supported) or
higher.
• Minimum 64MB of system memory required for Mac OS
9.2.1.
• Minimum 128MB of system memory required for
Mac OS X version 10.x.
OpenGL 1.2.2 or higher is required to obtain full 3D graphics
functionality in Mac OS 9.2.1 applications. OpenGL 1.2.2 is
only available from Apple as part of Mac OS 9.2.1. or 9.2.2.
VGA monitors require a DVI-I-to-VGA adapter (included) to
connect to the RADEON 9000 PRO MAC EDITION graphics
accelerator.
Future references to Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X in this manual
are intended to be generic and inclusive of their respective
versions of the Macintosh operating systems.
NOTE
NOTE
NOTE

3
Related Documentation
The README file summarizes the latest product revisions.
Click the README icon on the installation disk to open this
file.
Help is available in both Mac OS X and OS 9 by simply
clicking on the button in the ATI Displays control panel or
through the Apple Help Center. You can browse through the
Help or search for a specific topic.

4
Multimedia Features
Your RADEON 9000 PRO MAC EDITION turns your Mac
computer into a 3D and 2D graphics powerhouse. You can use
your new graphics accelerator card to do the following:
• Enjoy true-color 32-bit 2D or 3D graphics up to
2048x1536.
• Watch full screen, full motion, TV-quality video using
QuickTime playback acceleration.
• Output your Mac’s display to digital flat panels.
The following information describes these new features in more
detail and suggests ways you can optimize your machine to get
the most out of your new card.

5
Viewing 3D Graphics
RADEON 9000 PRO MAC EDITION’s 3D Acceleration
features supports the following advanced 3D graphics
capabilities:
• OpenGL Support.
• QuickDraw 3D RAVE Support.
• Twin Cache Architecture.
• Single Pass Multi-texturing.
• Triangle Setup Engine.
• Bilinear/Trilinear Filtering.
• Line Anti-aliasing.
• Specular Highlights.
• Perspectively Correct Texture Mapping.
• Mip-Mapping.
• Z-buffering and Double-buffering.
• Spherical, Dual-Paraboloid, 3D Texturing and Cubic
environment mapping.
In addition, the RADEON 9000 PRO MAC EDITION brings
new and exciting graphics technologies to the Macintosh
platform:
SMOOTHVISION™is an anti-aliasing solution that raises the
bar for image quality using programmable multi-sampling
methods to post-process graphics before they are displayed.
SMARTSHADER™(supported in Mac OS X only) is a new
technology which revolutionizes the graphics pipeline by
making both the geometry processing and pixel processing
stages more programmable than ever before. Developers can
easily create amazing new graphics effects while maintaining a
high level of performance.

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HYPER Z™II makes Z-buffer bandwidth usage more efficient
by decreasing the amount of information sent to the frame
buffer.
CHARISMA ENGINE™II is a transform and lighting
technology which controls changing shapes and lighting while
maintaining fast 3D game performance.
PIXEL TAPESTRY™II uses six independent texture units per
rendering pipeline giving highly realistic and detailed 3D
graphics.
VIDEO IMMERSION™II incorporates MPEG-2 decoding,
adaptive de-interlacing, and frame rate conversion.
RADEON 9000 PRO MAC EDITION only displays 3D
graphics in thousands and millions of colors. When you use 256
colors, there are too few colors to display complex 3D textures,
so 3D acceleration is not supported.
You can use the 3D Memory Monitor in the ATI Displays
control panel, in Mac OS 9 only, to see how memory on your
RADEON 9000 PRO MAC EDITION is allocated when
displaying 3D graphics. This allows you to optimize 3D
performance.

7
ATI Displays Control Panel
The ATI Displays control panel provides access to the advanced
features that RADEON 9000 PRO MAC EDITION has to offer.
To open the ATI Displays control panel using Mac OS X:
1 Click the Hard Disk icon.
2ClickApplications folder.
3ClickUtilities folder.
4ClickATI Utilities folder.
5 Double-click ATI Displays.
For detailed instructions on how to set up and use these features,
please refer to ATI Help, which can be accessed through the ATI
Displays control panel.
To open the ATI Displays control panel using Mac OS 9:
1ClickApple Menu.
2ClickControl Panels.
3ClickATI Displays.
or
1ClickATI Config Menu in the menu bar.
2ClickATI Displays.
ATI Displays for Mac OS 9