Mac_Geniuses Mac OS X 10.5 LEOPARD Video Card Compatibility Latest News

To install on an unsupported Mac, use target disk mode connected to a supported Mac.  But, it appears that video cards that work in stock Apple supported Macs with Leopard don't always work as well in Macs technically not supported by Apple even when that Mac has a CPU upgrade of acceptable speed.  So far, it appears this issue affects Sawtooth, Gigabit ethernet, & G4 Cube models most.  Keep in mind, many software titles, especially games like World of Warcraft and other games will need to be updated for Leopard support, and may not work in Leopard right now.  This has nothing to do with a video card/Leopard incompatibility and I expect all of these problems to be solved with software updates.  Finally, some Mac video card upgrades to stock Macs seem to have slow boot times in Leopard, both on the initial installation and upon subsequent re-boot.  Ultimately once Leopard boots, the cards that I've experienced this issue with seem to work fine in every way.  It's too soon to give a complete conclusion, but my guess so far is that Apple has added some type of test for video card support during the boot process that causes Leopard to hang for a bit and do a re-analysis of certain video cards.  But ultimately, all such cards I've experienced this issue with have worked fine after Leopard finally boots.  I suspect this issue will ultimately be resolved by Apple and I recommend reporting to Apple bugs like this, expecially since the number of Modified for Mac video cards out there now has reached a total of at least ten thousand or more!  Yes, it's true.  Mac_Geniuses alone has sold nearly 5000 video cards!

Nvidia Geforce 7800 GS, 7800 XT, & 7800 GT:  No compatibility problems found.  All of these cards that Mac_Geniuses sells were able to install Leopard without the use of any other video card and successfully booted to Leopard without issue.   All of these cards are Core Image & Core Animation supported in Leopard and even have display rotation support in the Display preferences pane.  Additionally, they passed OpenGL and OpenMark tests.  Even such games as Doom 3 and Halo were compatible without any updates needed.  Tests show no incompatibilities with Leopard with these Mac_Geniuses video cards other than a slow initial boot time, which is easily solvable.

ATI FireGL X3:  Not tested yet (tests planned for later today).

Geforce 6800 GT 256MB / 6800 ULTRA:  No compatibility problems found.  Able to install Leopard without the use of any other video card and successfully booted to Leopard without issue.   Core Image & Core Animation supported in Leopard and even have display rotation support in the Display preferences pane.  Additionally, they passed OpenGL and OpenMark tests.  Even such games as Doom 3 and Halo were compatible without any updates needed.  Tests show no incompatibilities with Leopard with these Mac_Geniuses video cards other than a slow initial boot time, which is easily solvable.

Geforce 6600 256MB:  Successfully installs and boots into Leopard and includes rotation support in the Display preferences pane as well as Core Image and Core Animation support.  Also passes Openmark & OpenGL tests and also is even Doom 3 compatible (anti-aliasing not recommended, but that's the same way in Tiger so no change).  So preliminary tests show no incompatibilities with Leopard with this Mac_Geniuses video card other than slow initial boot time.

Radeon 9600 XT (64MB or 128MB):  No compatibility problems found.  Able to install Leopard without the use of any other video card and successfully booted to Leopard without issue.   Core Image & Core Animation supported in Leopard.  Additionally, they passed OpenGL and OpenMark tests.  Even such games as Doom 3 and Halo were compatible without any updates needed.  Tests show no incompatibilities with Leopard with these Mac_Geniuses video cards other than a slow initial boot time, which is easily solvable.

Geforce 5200 (64MB or 128MB):  Successful installation on a Quicksilver 867MHz and the card booted into Leopard without any problems other than a slow boot time which is easily solvable.  Full Core Image & Core Animation support and even screen rotation in the Displays System Preferences pane.  Passed Doom 3 & Halo tests with minor issues.

Radeon 9200 AGP (64MB or 128MB):  Successful install of Leopard & subsequent boot into Leopard with no problems.  Fully Quartz Extreme supported, Core Image & Core Animation supported via software, which affects DVD Player & Time Machine.  Jedi Knight and Return to Castle Wolfenstein work great, even Halo works without shaders.  128MB version is a better choice for Leopard than 64mb in my opinion as Leopard off-loads more graphics info onto the graphics card than Tiger does.

Geforce 4MX:  Installs and boots into Leopard just fine.  Fully Quartz Extreme supported, Core Image & Core Animation supported via software, which affects DVD Player & Time Machine.  No display rotation support.  Halo runs with no shaders enabled and really slow as expected.

Radeon Mac Edition AGP (7200):  A problem with the only true retail Mac Edition I have card has forced an end to this test for now.  Only thing I can definitively say is definitely no Leopard Core Image or Core Animation support other than via software.