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TOPIC
This article describes a condition in which the startup icon for the ATI 3D Accelerator extension (pictured below) may appear crossed out during system startup on computers that have built-in ATI graphics hardware acceleration.
DISCUSSION
The ATI graphics and multimedia drivers that are installed upon computers with built-in ATI graphics hardware acceleration (such as the Power Macintosh G3, the Power Macintosh 5500 and 6500, and the 20th Anniversary Macintosh) are designed to enable acceleration to the video available at the computer's built-in video port on the logic board, not to the video available via a separate video card, which would offer its own computer video port and require its own software drivers.
Thus, if the computer detects that there is no monitor attached to the built-in video port, the ATI drivers will not function and in fact are not needed. The only ATI driver extension that has an icon to represent it at system startup is the ATI Graphics Accelerator extension, which will be crossed out accordingly. The remaining ATI extensions are: ATI 3D Accelerator, ATI Graphic Driver, ATI MPEG Accelerator, ATI Video Memory Manager, ATI YUV Accelerator, and ATI Graphics Accelerator. These may be safely removed if a monitor is not attached to the built-in video port.
This symptom is commonly observed on Power Macintosh G3 computers that have been built-to-order with an added video card, such as the ix3D Ultimate Rez card. The following extensions are used by that card and should not be removed if a monitor is attached to it: Apple IX3D Graphics Accelerator, Apple IX3D RAVE Engine, Apple IX3D Video Memory Manager.
If monitors are attached to both the built-in video port and the video card, all related extensions may be left on and none should normally become crossed out during system startup.
The IX3D Graphics Accelerator icon and the ATI Graphics Accelerator have the same icon. This can be confusing to customers who see the IX3D Graphics Accelerator icon when they install the software, but do not see the ATI Graphics Accelerator icon, because it is already installed on the system. They assume that the icon they are seeing is the IX3D Graphics Accelerator icon with the red X, but they are most likely seeing the ATI Graphics Accelerator with the Red X through it.
This issue is not to be confused with a similar condition that occurs on computers that do not have built-in ATI graphics hardware, such as is described in Article ID 30077: " Power Macintosh 9600: Graphics Accelerator Extension X-ed Out "