Jump to content

ATI 4890 - compatible?


Detosx
 Share

83 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

The reviews have been encouraging and surprising. The 4890 runs faster, cooler and uses a little less energy than the older 4870 both when idle and, against expectations, also when under load (the spec states 30W more than the 4870 when under load; an HIS card performed pretty much to that value but in another review a "Radeon HD 4890" used less watts under load than a 1GB 4870). Price notwithstanding, and it seems to be significantly cheaper in the US than in the UK... it sounds like the perfect card. As of yet, though, the models reviewed have turned out to have noisy fans.

 

Early days but I wondered if anyone has got hold of this card and tried it out - and if the fateful words 'as yet unsupported' applies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm also wondering whether the HD 4890 will work. In the review it is said there very little difference between the 4870 and the 4890. So the question is if the radion kexts for 4870 will give quartz extreme and core image acceleration. If you edit them with the correct vendor id.

 

My 1950 XTX needs replacement. Still I am hesitant since I have bought the x1950pro in the past and it took some time before the working drivers came.

 

The site Hardmac.com wants to test the card flashed with a mac pro 4870 video card bios. But there is no concrete news about that yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have waded through a lot of reviews and these cards seem to be selling well for the few days hat they have been available but, as yet, I have not found anyone, here, using one and don't know if it will work. I suspect some people are waiting for the so-called 'Toxic' and 'Vapor-x' editions with their improved/quieter cooling and which are due out in a week or two; from what I have read, all of the stock models have very loud fans. I imagine prices on all cards will creep downward over the next month but... at this rate I will never jump in. Hah!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have waded through a lot of reviews and these cards seem to be selling well for the few days hat they have been available but, as yet, I have not found anyone, here, using one and don't know if it will work. I suspect some people are waiting for the so-called 'Toxic' and 'Vapor-x' editions with their improved/quieter cooling and which are due out in a week or two; from what I have read, all of the stock models have very loud fans. I imagine prices on all cards will creep downward over the next month but... at this rate I will never jump in. Hah!

 

I am waiting for the Vapor X edition of Sapphire because an earlier review of the 4870 showed to be one of the quietest high end video cards. Also the ability to overclock to 15% near or at 1000 Ghz is very nice about the 4890.

 

I would risk buying and testing it if in case of incompatibility someone would adjust the kexts to work. Like what was done by Bronya with x1950 pro. In Europe it is more difficult to return a product I think than in US.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of reviews refer to the 4890 essentially being a tweaked 4870, with a few extras. Perhaps it is analgous to 9800 GTX+ models working on 9800 drivers. Still, I would be nervous about jumping in at this stage until we know. Hopefully someone will post their experiences here in the coming days.

 

The 4890, or at least the Asus, seems capable of a 15% improvement from a 'voltage trick' but, like all 4890 models, it is very noisy when maxed out. The Vapor-X and Toxic models haven't appeared over here, yet. Still, I suspect Nvidia aren't breaking a sweat. None of the reviews I have read state that the 4890, though a decent improvement over the 4870, is a bargain. I noticed a few days ago a Saphire 4870 1GB going for £155 inc vat. We can't post links but it is easily found. I am torn! Watching this space.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of reviews refer to the 4890 essentially being a tweaked 4870, with a few extras. Perhaps it is analgous to 9800 GTX+ models working on 9800 drivers. Still, I would be nervous about jumping in at this stage until we know. Hopefully someone will post their experiences here in the coming days.

 

The 4890, or at least the Asus, seems capable of a 15% improvement from a 'voltage trick' but, like all 4890 models, it is very noisy when maxed out. The Vapor-X and Toxic models haven't appeared over here, yet. Still, I suspect Nvidia aren't breaking a sweat. None of the reviews I have read state that the 4890, though a decent improvement over the 4870, is a bargain. I noticed a few days ago a Saphire 4870 1GB going for £155 inc vat. We can't post links but it is easily found. I am torn! Watching this space.

 

I saw that news about the Asus 4890 too. Still I find the quietness of the fan more important. In a hackintosh you never know for certain at what speed the GPU fan will run. If it is going on full speed than the reference fan solution on the 4890 will be too loud.

Although the hd 4890 is pricier than the 4870 it still has my preference since it is so overclock-able. Knowing Apple it will be some time before a new generation of high-end video-cards will be supported and in that case the 4890 can last for more years than the 4870.

 

On the forum macrumors.com in this thread => http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php...9476&page=2 someone has posted the rom of the sapphire hd 4890. I am posting it here.

 

Hopefully one of the gurus here can figure out whether the card will work with 4870 kexts.

RV790.bin.zip

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have the new 4890 card (Gigabyte's version) and yesterday I managed to boot (albeit with severe mouse lag) into Mac OS X 10.5.6 using digital_dreamer's guide here (since I have the GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 (Core i7) MOTHERBOARD):

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...00#entry1057767

 

I first used my MacBook Pro to clone a clean install of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.4 I think) to the drive I want to use in the Hackintosh, an then I ran the combo updater to 10.5.6 (all from the MacBook). After this I ran the script ”Gigabyte X58 Mobo Boot-132 Installer” from digital_dreamer's post linked to above. Then I put the drive in the PC, and after some time I got to the Mac OS X desktop! But, as I said there was sever mouse lag. The mouse cursor would move slow and laggy and after a few seconds it would freeze and slowly redraw itself (for about 20 seconds) then I could laggily move the cursor again for a few seconds then it would freeze again and so on. So more or less unusable.

 

I can imagine one reason for the jerkiness is that the proper drivers fort this card is missing (should come in the 10.5.7 update if 4870 drivers will work with 4890) but it seems somewhat hopeful that it might be possible to get it to work!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have the new 4890 card (Gigabyte's version) and yesterday I managed to boot (albeit with severe mouse lag) into Mac OS X 10.5.6 using digital_dreamer's guide here (since I have the GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 (Core i7) MOTHERBOARD):

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...00#entry1057767

 

I first used my MacBook Pro to clone a clean install of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.4 I think) to the drive I want to use in the Hackintosh, an then I ran the combo updater to 10.5.6 (all from the MacBook). After this I ran the script "Gigabyte X58 Mobo Boot-132 Installer" from digital_dreamer's post linked to above. Then I put the drive in the PC, and after some time I got to the Mac OS X desktop! But, as I said there was sever mouse lag. The mouse cursor would move slow and laggy and after a few seconds it would freeze and slowly redraw itself (for about 20 seconds) then I could laggily move the cursor again for a few seconds then it would freeze again and so on. So more or less unusable.

 

I can imagine one reason for the jerkiness is that the proper drivers fort this card is missing (should come in the 10.5.7 update if 4870 drivers will work with 4890) but it seems somewhat hopeful that it might be possible to get it to work!

Good to know, Star, you're a brave man, keep us posted!! I will try not to check back every ten minutes!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have the new 4890 card (Gigabyte's version) and yesterday I managed to boot (albeit with severe mouse lag) into Mac OS X 10.5.6 using digital_dreamer's guide here (since I have the GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 (Core i7) MOTHERBOARD):

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...00#entry1057767

 

I first used my MacBook Pro to clone a clean install of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.4 I think) to the drive I want to use in the Hackintosh, an then I ran the combo updater to 10.5.6 (all from the MacBook). After this I ran the script ”Gigabyte X58 Mobo Boot-132 Installer” from digital_dreamer's post linked to above. Then I put the drive in the PC, and after some time I got to the Mac OS X desktop! But, as I said there was sever mouse lag. The mouse cursor would move slow and laggy and after a few seconds it would freeze and slowly redraw itself (for about 20 seconds) then I could laggily move the cursor again for a few seconds then it would freeze again and so on. So more or less unusable.

 

I can imagine one reason for the jerkiness is that the proper drivers fort this card is missing (should come in the 10.5.7 update if 4870 drivers will work with 4890) but it seems somewhat hopeful that it might be possible to get it to work!

 

Great to hear that you have the new 4890 card. As far as I know you need the 10.5.7 beta drivers to make a 4870 to work. This was important news at the site of netkas -> netkas.org

 

To test this you could download the beta driver package at http://rapidshare.de/files/45661062/7_rade...rivers.pkg.html and install that

 

One thing is for sure these kexts/drivers do not contain the vendor and product id in this case for the 4890 that would be 0x94601002. After installation of the above mentioned package you could try to add this id to the info.plist file within the driver ATIRadeonX2000.kext. In the past I have done this to make my x1950 work.

 

To add the id you can do the following

In the root user find the kext in System/Library/Extensions right click the kext and select show package contents. You will see the folder Contents. if you open this it will the Info.plist. You can open this in the text edit and in root you can also edit it.

 

In this string

<string>0x94001002 0x94011002 0x94021002 0x94031002 0x95811002 0x95831002 0x95881002 0x94c81002 0x94c91002 0x95001002 0x95011002 0x95051002 0x95071002 0x95041002 0x95061002 0x95981002 0x95991002 0x95911002 0x95931002 0x94401002 0x94421002 0x94561002 0x944A1002 0x945A1002 0x94901002 0x949E1002 0x94801002 0x95401002 0x95411002 0x954E1002 0x954F1002 0x95521002 0x95531002 0x94881002</string>

 

You need to add 0x94601002 in the above because is the id for 4890. The device id for the 4870 is 0x94401002 and that is mentioned.

 

Alternatively

I have also included the edited kext here. In that case you just want to replace: download it in root user and draw the installed one out and move the downloaded kext in the extensions folder.

 

Repair permissions and delete the Extension.mkext file in the Library and reboot and keep your fingers crossed that the 4890 will work with quartz extreme and core image and resolution change.

 

You could also ask for help on irc.osx86.hu in the channel #radeonhd. I am sure there are more people who want to help to make this card work.

ATIRadeonX2000.kext.zip

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is a 4890 ROM if anyone want's to flash and try if it works..
Flashing hardware is not without risk. I am all for the pioneering spirt but not at the risk of bricking your hardware. Patience is a virtue and something I need to learn! Also, keep in mind that these things are very loud under load. I am still not seeing the Toxic versions anywhere.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It seems we can forget running the 4890 in Mac OS X, at least until Snow Leopard comes out.

 

netkas (who seems to know what he's talking about) says:

 

”4870 = 4890, but a bit different chip”

 

”maybe framebuffer will work, but not qe/ci/3d for sure”.

”snow leopard has some rv790 renderer in x2000GLDriver”

 

Edit:

My 4890 works superb now with the 10.5.7 update and the drivers from Netkas! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its not working BarryBar ;)

 

@Whiteyez

 

I am sorry to hear that. However my previous post was not complete. There is also the ATIRadeonX2000GA.plugin that needs editing.

 

In this driver you can edit this string in the Info.plist

 

<dict>

<key>1002514c-0000-0000-0000-000a27898d3e</key>

<string>ATIRadeonX2000GAFactory</string>

</dict>

<key>CFPlugInTypes</key>

<dict>

<key>ACCF0000-0000-0000-0000-000a2789904e</key>

<array>

<string>1002514c-0000-0000-0000-000a27898d3e</string>

 

 

 

Change 2514c to 9460 in the first line and also in the last.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Whiteyez

 

I am sorry to hear that. However my previous post was not complete. There is also the ATIRadeonX2000GA.plugin that needs editing.

 

In this driver you can edit this string in the Info.plist

 

<dict>

<key>1002514c-0000-0000-0000-000a27898d3e</key>

<string>ATIRadeonX2000GAFactory</string>

</dict>

<key>CFPlugInTypes</key>

<dict>

<key>ACCF0000-0000-0000-0000-000a2789904e</key>

<array>

<string>1002514c-0000-0000-0000-000a27898d3e</string>

 

 

 

Change 2514c to 9460 in the first line and also in the last.

 

This is absolutely useless and worthless.

 

4890 needs patched X2000.kext, noone yet asked me for it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is absolutely useless and worthless.

 

4890 needs patched X2000.kext, noone yet asked me for it.

 

 

It would be great if you would help out. So hopefully your statement will encourage Whiteyez and others who have the 4890 to ask for a patched X2000.kext.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...