Fassl and I investigated on the display issue of VAIO laptops with nVidia.
Those are unable to show anything on the internal display as soon as acceleration is enabled.

After many searches we found that those laptops have a proprietary interface that interacts between the ACPI tables and the OS.
This controller is called SNC, there are several variations of it.
A linux driver exists, sources can be found here

Maybe it's possible to port this driver to OSX then use some methods that will make the display appear in a standard way that OSX understands.

No news on this one?

Damn Sony/VAIO!
Tried OS X like 8 months ago, but had this problem. Eventually tired of the terrible default display and uninstalled it. Was hoping there was a fix by now, but seems difficult.

Thanks Krazubu.
Sounds like we're close to a fix, we just need someone who knows enough about coding OS X and Linux, and with an interest in this specific project, to port it. Wish I could teach myself.

Playing with Windows 7 recently, which I like a bit more than Vista, but it still feels years behind OS X. It's basically an optimized Vista with a few visual tweaks. Made me want to give OS X another shot. Wishing I could sell my laptop for a reasonable price (likely lose $1000, though it's less than 2 years old) and get a MacBook these days. I could easily run both with no special hacking.

Im using the macvidia drivers to get a proper resolution in the internal lcd. I know macvidia doesnt support qe/ci, but what would happen when it will? I wonder this because no other injecters/kext gave me the possibility of changing the internal lcd's resolution, or sometimes getting any picture at all, whereas with macvidia I didnt even need to change any nvcap values.

What card do you have pilar? I have osx on my VGN-FZ11M and I wish I could get the video working w/o an external monitor. Also internet & audio would be nice too!

I have a 7600go 128mb.
As I mentioned in my previous post, there was no way to get picture in the lcd with any of the other injecters(at least not with res bigger than 1024x768)

So, any coder owning a vaio who's willing to port the linux drivers?

Hmm.. i have a Vaio laptop as well, i have Geforce Go 6400 which is supporting my screen size of 1200x800, quite nice and i think i have CI..
However, no QE etc..

I used the Manual Install method for drivers by using this post - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=111072

Then following my Device ID and imputting it into the NVDAResman and NVDANV40Hal kexts, i also extracted the MacVidia 1.081 using Pacifist and used those drivers.

Also using NVinjectGO 2.0 which works well.. so my graphics are okay but not the best, tried to run a music video in VLC and it seems to crash VLC.. not very good.

Unfortunately no Wifi for me need to wait for 2200bg support.. (secured networks)

I hope that there is someone who can port it over.. would be great to get better graphics

Any one know how I can get my 9600M GT workin on my vaio VGN aw-120J?

Right now I dont have a exturnal monter to test but every time I install a driver I get a blank screen..
For now It would be nice to be able to do any thing with out the screen being choppy.

Thanks for the help

All I know is I'm never buying a VAIO again. I paid more for this laptop because it was the only 13" I could find at the time that wasn't using Intel integrated POS graphics. But Sony is as bad as Apple, if not worse, with controlling their hardware. nVidia just released a ton of updates for their drivers (though not mine), but the only exception was VAIO users. They instructed VAIO users to get updates from Sony.

I'm tempted to teach myself whatever it is I need to learn so I can try to resolve this problem. Not exactly sure what I'd need to learn or do though.

Currently trying different methods (ie Natit, Manual Install etc).. pretty much given up.. none work due to this reason, now i just receive an apple spinning logo followed by a black screen.

Would editing the NVCap make any difference whatsoever?

Ive tried many nvcap values, everytime getting a black scree, sometimes the external monitor woul work with qe/ci, only with macvidia I managed to get proper display(1280x800) without qe/ci.

By the way, does this problem affect EVERY Vaio user except some who can configure GMA..

So literally even a very supported nVidia card will not run with QE/CI at all, or any acceleration.. however much/however many different methods tried.. due to this SNC problem?

I have some C++ experience but none in writing drivers especially not for OS X. I have, however, been reading alot of the Apple docs on authoring drivers and would like to have a go at writing/modifying existing drivers to work with VAIO internal displays. If a more experienced driver (display specialized maybe?) author would be willing to guide me through parts I'd love to give it a shot.

Well, if you can, then maybe give it a shot and if you do.. then gooood luck! we're all behind you if you decide to start

=D

Wonderful! LIFE in this thread! I thought the all the VAIO users had given up. Courage! I'm getting the iPC final install disc and am going to start trying to get it to work on it.

I have a vaio Z520, 9300M GS 128 with the final distro of iPc 10.5.6.. For the others out there with this setup, you can get it to display with the Macbook Pro Latest NVIDIA kexts, but a terrible resolution, so until someone ports over the drivers, I don't think we'll be getting anything better unfortunately.. meanwhile, I'll be looking into doing some coding myself, although I've only been developing in java, c++, basic - but I'll give it try...

i have Sony Vaio VGN-FE41z with GeForce Go 7600 128mb... if someone try to recode this linux driver for osx... ill can be tester

I have some idea about vaios nvidia 7600 go...

i remember... 2 months ago i tryied to install iatkos. v4 and i selected nvinject i think... and after installing ... then comes to select your country and to make profile name... when u select your name u can choose your picture from system or there is option to TAKE YOUR PICTURE FROM WEBCAM!!! and i selected webcam photo and i saw me in camera...
the WEBCAM LED on my notebook monitor gone ON and it worked without selecting some kext for my internal webcam... i took picture and pushed next... after that he restarts or he just want to go on desktop and my internal displey gone off after that.... i restarted and just after bootloader internal display goes off...

i think webcam can go on just when QE/CI is supported... and i think nvinjector or natit (im not sure what i selected...) worked fine on INTERNAL DISPLAY just in low resolution???

so idea is maybee can someone create kext for nvidia go 128mb just in low resolution mode....

it must be some way to make it work....

pls ppl try to do something for vaio users

Hello,

I started to search how the linux driver "sony_acpi" works under linux (ubuntu 8.10) , I load the sony_acpi.ko successfully. But then there is no "brightness" file in /proc/acpi/sony . I would like to test wether setting up the brightness while the lcd is off will turn on the the lcd. I would like to make this driver to work under linux to test under this os, and make some test before porting it under os x.

Here the attached source of sony_acpi.

huh... im sorry but im just windows user... i have no idea how to test this...

I'm going to be working on doing the same thing -- Just might take some time as I am pretty busy, not much time to do leisurely. I'll dl and take a look at the files sometime within the next two weeks. 

@Milance -- get linux first, then test.

Just like to say good luck to all of you! Hope you peeps succeed and bring graphics hope to all Vaio users

I made some trace in the code source and I notice that after a "sudo insmod sony_acpi.ko", the function "sony_acpi_add" is not executed. In fact in ubuntu 8.10 you have to stop the driver "sony_laptop" and "sonypi", by deleting the two drivers and restarting the machine for example. Then you can test.
But for me there is no "brightness" file in /proc/acpi/sony. I think my vaio (VGN-NR21Z) doesn't support it, maybe.

Is this the same reason my GeForce 8400M GT can't enable QE/CI and Open GL?
In that case, will that development go any faster if we threw any money on it?
Seems like alot of vaio folks need this driver. Perhaps a project page and a donation possibility?
I would definitely pay a little if can get a 100% working driver..

How about it?

Yep, exactly the reason, its the exact same for me or any other Vaio user with ANY nVidia driver, except those who have the SZ series...

They have something called a Stamina/Speed switch which allows then to change from the Intel Graphics Media Acceleration which is integrated graphics in the chipset, use that and you get QE/CI etc... but that's only for those who have that, otherwise Nope..

So yep, a lotta vaio users are affected by this problem, unfortunately i don't have money.. or enough skills/time to do the work

Though i can do some tests if a driver is released =D

Are there any good driver writers at this community who you could pay to get this running?
Could any one take this up as a serious project and make it flow?!
How much would they charge?

A donation page would do it?!
Do google still sponsor code projects?

is there any hope for VAIO nvidia users?

I check this page frequently. I was looking to get a MacBook or iMac, but Apple keeps releasing overpriced and disappointing computers. I really hope there's a solution for VAIO owners

hello, nvidia vaio owners,

I discovered a few days ago something very interesting.
Under Ubuntu I managed to redirect the video signal using SNC : either in the LCD either in the VGA port or both.
Now there is a hope to make this internal screen to work.

compile sony_acpi_mod
load the driver

to test this driver under unbuntu 8.10, please remove the sony-laptop driver from the memory, sonypi as well

then compile switchScreen
run it
or you can type in a console

echo -n "1" > /proc/acpi/sony/sodv

any working solutions?

hm cool but i dont use ubuntu??? can someone make test kext for leopard??

Hello I started to write a little driver KEXT to switch the screen under Leopard iDeneb 10.5.5 using XCode
I used the class IOACPIPlatformDevice but although there's no crash, the screen doesn't switch.
I know that the method "SODV" in the SNC device is found, because when I evaluate an object that doesn't exist, the function evaluateObject returns an error.

here the source code project

hope this works someday...

hmmm so how can i test this?? can u post some test kext?

programmers c'mon take ur time and code vaio_nvidia kext pleasee

in the folder build/Release of the archive there is a kext : VaioSNC.kext

to test

to view the message of the driver, in a terminal make:

tail -f /var/logs/system.log

to load the driver, in another terminal make:

sudo cp -R VaioSNC.kext /tmp
sudo kextload -v /tmp/VaioSNC.kext

to unload the driver make :
sudo kextunload /tmp/VaioSNC.kext

...

ok ill try this week.... do i need some drivers???... or i need just clean osx install...without any natit or else.....
i have nvidia 7600go 128mb in vaio vgn fe41z...

cheers

oh and for info i use iPC 10.5.6...

you have to recompile the code and modify the info.plist in the project and put the version of AppleACPIPlatform inside, I don't remember (1.2.4???)

oh before i start installing ... is that version of AppleACPIPlatform included in iPC ???
thats what i have to choose...
if not where can i download it...
im newbe sorry...

there's nothing to choose, AppleACPIPlatform.kext is a driver provided by OS X iPC 10.5.6

this is the DSDT method of the device SNC, which allows me to switch the video output under ubuntu 8.10



I modify this so that there is only the line Notify (GFX0, 0x80)
I compiled the dsl file, copied in initramfstool, then I made a "dpkgreconfigure"
and it's enough to switch the video output under ubuntu 8.10. (with the driver and program I provided)

but under OS X 10.5.6, nothing happen, but I know "SODV" the method is executed by evaluateInteger, since if I put Return(0x01020304) in the dsl file , I see 0x01020304 as result

So there are several questions:

does OS X support full ACPI ?
does the NVidia Driver turn off the power of the LCD on its own?

why don't you try to modify DST with DSDT patcher instead of making a full kext? should be easyier at least for testing, isn't it?

hmm huh im confused now... can u do that epitorus in DSTD like mrroboto sayd

I am glad to see some people working on this issue. I have a MacBook Pro but would like to get OS X on my parents Sony Vaio NR21 with 8400M GT for them.

epitorus is only one hope for us ! vaio users

Well, I'm impatient and I think I could possibly help at this point, so I'm installing OSX again. There's another thread where a person was able to adjust screen resolution, but (maybe) still no QE/CI. http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...amp;pid=1115065
I'll keep everyone updated.

Yep screen resolution can be changed, mine is set to the correct resolution that i should have, but of course the problem still remains with no graphics acceleration, thus QE/CI not working

Is there a chance that Epitorus' kext works...but we do not have the correct NVCAP value? Seems the best test would be with the kext and trying vary nvcaps

well, i followed "Code#"s steps from here
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...amp;pid=1115065
Post #9 (not his first one since that didn't work for him)

i am able to at least adjust the resolution and the special effects may be handled by the processor and RAM, rather than the video card. i am not 100% certain. i am about to mess with QuartzDebug and see what's going on. so far, i'm happy...better than my first attempt installed 6 months ago when i couldn't even adjust the resolution, or if i installed an nvidia solution, i wouldn't be able to see anything on my laptop..

Well, "Enable Quartz Extreme" is grayed out in Quartz Debug.

Under System Profiler, I get:

NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 64 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x01d8
Revision ID: 0x00a1
Displays:
Display:
Resolution: 1280 x 800 @ 60 Hz
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Software
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Not Supported

Sweet!
This thread i going to the right direction!

Should the CI be set at Software?

Quartz Extreme is only supported if open GL is supported..right?
I would really like to get it fully Open GL support!
So I can run Autodesk Maya and other cool stuff!

Great job everyone who are trying to solve this issue!! Kisses to you all!

THANKS for THIS!

I'm looking into ways people not using VAIO's resolved issues with "Quartz Extreme Not Supported" with video cards that are capable of supporting it (nvidia 7xxx Go's should be fine). This may end up being a different path than the original poster (Krazubu) suggested. I think we're all looking for the same solution though.