8 replies to this topic

[charlie]

Ok enough talking about it we need to do some research and some coding.

We need a few people to join this effort thats all it will take. The Nvidia effort has 4 people doing the vast majority of the work and is moving at quite a pace.

As for my efforts so far. Like most people when I try to load the ati drivers I get this
 ATI_Error.jpg   204.05K   506 downloads
and the machine crashes. It seems to be ATIRadeon9700.kext which crashs. Problem is I can't read the error messages as you can see from the photo.


As I see it there are two ways we can get a driver functioning.

1, We can take the simplest route of trying to patch the existing drivers.

2, We can use the linux or other open source drivers as a template and use the apple documentation to build our own.

It think the one thats going to be most likely is the first. This assumes though that the ATI drivers are like the Nvidia drivers almost complete.  Now here is where I need some one elses help.

Can someone with a PPC mac with a recent ati card say the X800 post a list of all the ATI related kexts they have and there file sizes?  I don't have access to such a machine so, it really will need someone else. Then we can check to see how different the files we have are. If like the Nvidia ones it is very close then it is time follow there example. If it proves to be really different then we may need to look at option 2.

Our goals in this as I see it, are:

1  Produce a simple driver which allows people to change resolutions and refresh rates.

2  Produce a driver with 2D accelertion

3  Attempt 3D support. The linux open source guys have got some where with this so we might one day http://r300.sourceforge.net/. But I susspect ATI will come along with their driver by then.

The only one which is really important is number 1. So what do you think?

We also need a centeral space like a Wiki page to comunicate all the developments. May be an irc channel too. So we don't all end discovering the same thing over and over again. Does anyone have access to a server where we could do something like this?

In the mean time if some could posts the list of kexts from a PPC ati shod mac that would be a good start. Come on you know we can do this.

Charlie

[planetusa]

When you load the kext, so that you can read the output,

pipe console output to a file, so it's there upon next reboot....


example

ls -a > dir.txt


You could also run a tail on dmesg and output what happens to a file as well.

Also, you might want to check the messages file....


Michael

[judy]

To get a more usefull kernel panic, boot with debug=0x100. This removes the "you need to reboot" message and reveals the actual panic information. Oh, and btw, why don't you just download the drivers from ATI and have a look at them yourself?

[domino]

i have the 9800 pro which of course doent work. I had to remove all the ATI files from the extentions dir in order to get this install to boot without going into safemode or get a "you need to restart" message. I'm now typing this in native and more than happy to help with what ever needed. However, I'm not a coder and I am only a 3 day old Macster .

My board has an internal Intel graphics chip which Mac sees as Vesa 3. Is Vesa 3 better than Vesa 2?

[Andy4life]

domino, on Aug 29 2005, 11:08 PM, said:

i have the 9800 pro which of course doent work. I had to remove all the ATI files from the extentions dir in order to get this install to boot without going into safemode or get a "you need to restart" message. I'm now typing this in native and more than happy to help with what ever needed. However, I'm not a coder and I am only a 3 day old Macster .

My board has an internal Intel graphics chip which Mac sees as Vesa 3. Is Vesa 3 better than Vesa 2?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Vesa 3.0 is newer then 2.0 therefore yes it is better

[dio]

Hello, I've too an ati card ( exactly an ati fire gl z1 128) For the moment she's recognized as an 9700 and works with vesa 2. Unfortunately I'm not a coder or develloper but I'm graphist... Who very want to work on intel mac...

I dream to run Shake on my mactel ... But i'm affraid to wait a long time ago it's happen ....  

I would like to help you, if you have some test to do juste tell me how to do it and i will do it.

And pray for an ati drivers....

[domino]

Thanks for the confirmation Andy . Im going to try to run Vesa 3 and see if there are any improvments.

[JaS]

if your serious about the drivers why didnt you pm me about joining my project?
instead of starting another topic about the same damn thing ... see this is what im talking about people ...

http://forum.osx86pr...?showtopic=1183

[cyrana]

Thread closed, go to the thread JaS already started.

And, yes, Intel onboard is always better than anything else, since you can't get QE or CI with anything else currently.