Sapphire 4830 very close to working

[jdazzle34]

So I was very excited this morning to see Netkas' big 48x0 guide and finally got around to giving everything a shot this evening. I was ecstatic to see that after updating to 10.5.7 I could at least boot up with my 4830 in my machine and get in at an unrecognized 1024x768. I installed the default Natit and the patched framebuffers, and my system was still running at 1024x768. System profiler was finally recognizing the card, but i couldn't change rez and no qe/ci. So i installed the x2000.kext, since i realized that was the last step on netkas' guide that i hadn't finished, and upon reboot, i've been greeted by a gray screen with strange black & white artifacts. When i move my mouse, these artifacts move as well. I've tacked a picture on just so you all know i'm not delusional. Just wanted to see if anyone had any ideas or knew how to deal with this. I have the Sapphire 4830 with DVI/HDMI/VGA. Any help/suggestions would be amazing.

[The Finale of Seem]

I got that as well on the same card but was able to fix it. Make sure you're installing the 3870x2 package, the exotic QE/CI, and the default Natit package in the same sitting. You'll get DVI output at least, fully accelerated. However, it has the bouncing issue. I tried the Quail patched Natit, but I get no DVI and no VGA. I'll try a DVI -> VGA adapter next. Anyone know if HDMI -> DVI will work with the Quail Natit along with DVI -> VGA?

[jdazzle34]

I got that as well on the same card but was able to fix it. Make sure you're installing the 3870x2 package, the exotic QE/CI, and the default Natit package in the same sitting. You'll get DVI output at least, fully accelerated. However, it has the bouncing issue. I tried the Quail patched Natit, but I get no DVI and no VGA. I'll try a DVI -> VGA adapter next. Anyone know if HDMI -> DVI will work with the Quail Natit along with DVI -> VGA?

 

 

thanks finale. i'll try that after the Lost season finale is over also, if that Quail isn't working for you, i know a lot people have had success with editing their card's BIOS so that the clock speeds remain the same instead of adjusting based on 2d/3d usage. if you're comfortable with doing tweaking the BIOS, i'd suggest giving it a shot

[The Finale of Seem]

thanks finale. i'll try that after the Lost season finale is over also, if that Quail isn't working for you, i know a lot people have had success with editing their card's BIOS so that the clock speeds remain the same instead of adjusting based on 2d/3d usage. if you're comfortable with doing tweaking the BIOS, i'd suggest giving it a shot

I don't mind a little BIOS tweaking as long as it doesn't roast my card. Any idea where I can find instructions? I'm digging through the forum search but I'm not finding anything specific.

[jdazzle34]

I don't mind a little BIOS tweaking as long as it doesn't roast my card. Any idea where I can find instructions? I'm digging through the forum search but I'm not finding anything specific.

 

take a look at techpowerup.com. you'll want to grab the Radeon BIOS Editor and ATIFlash. The Editor will let you load up your current bios, make adjustments to it, then save it to a new .bin. From there, you'll want to set up a DOS boot disk and use ATI flash in DOS to flash your card to the edited BIOS. I believe there's a guide on TechPowerUp that goes through all the steps, or if you couldn't find one, there's always google. It sounds disturbingly technical, but it really isn't that bad. good luck

[The Finale of Seem]

take a look at techpowerup.com. you'll want to grab the Radeon BIOS Editor and ATIFlash. The Editor will let you load up your current bios, make adjustments to it, then save it to a new .bin. From there, you'll want to set up a DOS boot disk and use ATI flash in DOS to flash your card to the edited BIOS. I believe there's a guide on TechPowerUp that goes through all the steps, or if you couldn't find one, there's always google. It sounds disturbingly technical, but it really isn't that bad. good luck

Oh, I've done plenty of BIOS flashing before. I've converted a number of PC cards to Mac. The thing is, where are the values that need to be edited?

[jdazzle34]

Oh, I've done plenty of BIOS flashing before. I've converted a number of PC cards to Mac. The thing is, where are the values that need to be edited?

 

ha, my bad with the basic info then. i think you just have to change the values in the Clock Settings tab section so that they're uniform. i think all of them at 575/900 would be considered to be running them at stock. seems like that's what i've heard of others doing.

 

also: i just got back to working on my 4830, and i removed all the .kext's and reinstalled them at the same time, rebooted, and i got the same funky screen error. how did you go about removing/reinstalling the kexts all at once... do i need to go back to a fresh 10.5.7 and take it from there?

 

EDIT: new thought - just noticed that Profiler is showing my 4830 as a 256mb gpu... my old 8600gt i had in is a 256mb, and i'm thinking maybe the old drivers for it are interfering with the radeon drivers... not sure if that makes any sense, but i'm gonna see if i can purge those and make this thing play nice

[The Finale of Seem]

ha, my bad with the basic info then. i think you just have to change the values in the Clock Settings tab section so that they're uniform. i think all of them at 575/900 would be considered to be running them at stock. seems like that's what i've heard of others doing.

 

also: i just got back to working on my 4830, and i removed all the .kext's and reinstalled them at the same time, rebooted, and i got the same funky screen error. how did you go about removing/reinstalling the kexts all at once... do i need to go back to a fresh 10.5.7 and take it from there?

I removed kexts by booting into single user mode and rm-ing the ATIRadeonX2000.kext and the Natit.kext. After that, I was able to get into OS X again and reinstall. I'd run the installer for the Natit, the QE/CI, and the 3870x2 package, then reboot again. I remember that I got the grey screen when the Natit.kext wasn't installed. Make sure to grab the ones listed by Netkas in his 4830 guide, not just any old Natit.

[jdazzle34]

I removed kexts by booting into single user mode and rm-ing the ATIRadeonX2000.kext and the Natit.kext. After that, I was able to get into OS X again and reinstall. I'd run the installer for the Natit, the QE/CI, and the 3870x2 package, then reboot again. I remember that I got the grey screen when the Natit.kext wasn't installed. Make sure to grab the ones listed by Netkas in his 4830 guide, not just any old Natit.

 

alright, went back through and i'm guessing i'm on the exact same page you are with your 4830... one output thru DVI, QE/CI working, native res, and shaking issues. guess we'll have to wait it out and see what netkas and others can come up with. but good god it's nice to have my 4830 working somewhat properly. thanks for your help Finale

[gigathlete]

I have a Sapphire 4830 dual dvi and a get a kernal panic after installing all the patches described above. When I remove the Natit.kext extension it boots but only displays a black screen with artifacts where the mouse is supposed to be. When I move the mouse it creates more artifacts. I don't know what else to try. I used vnc to see what was going on and I saw a bunch of artifacts with images from a game I played earlier today on windows xp that was so weird... I wonder if it has something to do with my motherboard, it is a biostar G31-M7 TE and I had a lot of trouble just getting os x on there. I tried different bios settings but nothing has worked. Any help would be appreciated!

[joeblowm]

ha, my bad with the basic info then. i think you just have to change the values in the Clock Settings tab section so that they're uniform. i think all of them at 575/900 would be considered to be running them at stock. seems like that's what i've heard of others doing.

Taken with a grain of salt, flashing the bios is risky without facts. I've not found anything as to what to set the voltages to aside from one fellow who did a volt and cooling mod to overclock.

 

My initial test was to change the 2d clock (it is 01 in the clock tab) to 575/900/---v to match the others that are at 575/900 and it resulted in screen/memory corruption (my guess is the ---v in that instance was used by the bios to put lower than 1.044v), luckily it worked well enough that I was able to reflash back to the original (though, I did find out that if I boot from the IGP the bios flashing tools do NOT see the PCIe card.) I'm considering cloning eihter the 500/750 from setting 02 (or perhaps the 01 2d setting as I don't game much, and there is the possibility I could still use ati's catalyst to bump it up to 3d speeds when I do) across the board as it has a voltage there, but...

 

Consider: I open my bios with RBE then directly save it without making any changes inside RBE and the resulting file winds up with 4 bytes+checksums altered and re-opening shows the change doesn't reflect "RBE modified" markes of some kind - I don't exactly trust RBE at this point.

 

If you decide to go this route and find something that works (or someone is reading this that has done it and it works), please post back - I don't have a PCI card or a second PCIe slot so I'm not going to risk it again without more info beyond "it's and easy overclock"

 

Meanwhile I hope someone discovers a typo in the quail support somewhere, as a screen that doesn't jump but actually gets put on the screen more than once every couple seconds without odd artifacts would indeed be nice.

[jdazzle34]

Taken with a grain of salt, flashing the bios is risky without facts. I've not found anything as to what to set the voltages to aside from one fellow who did a volt and cooling mod to overclock.

 

My initial test was to change the 2d clock (it is 01 in the clock tab) to 575/900/---v to match the others that are at 575/900 and it resulted in screen/memory corruption (my guess is the ---v in that instance was used by the bios to put lower than 1.044v), luckily it worked well enough that I was able to reflash back to the original (though, I did find out that if I boot from the IGP the bios flashing tools do NOT see the PCIe card.) I'm considering cloning eihter the 500/750 from setting 02 (or perhaps the 01 2d setting as I don't game much, and there is the possibility I could still use ati's catalyst to bump it up to 3d speeds when I do) across the board as it has a voltage there, but...

 

Consider: I open my bios with RBE then directly save it without making any changes inside RBE and the resulting file winds up with 4 bytes+checksums altered and re-opening shows the change doesn't reflect "RBE modified" markes of some kind - I don't exactly trust RBE at this point.

 

If you decide to go this route and find something that works (or someone is reading this that has done it and it works), please post back - I don't have a PCI card or a second PCIe slot so I'm not going to risk it again without more info beyond "it's and easy overclock"

 

Meanwhile I hope someone discovers a typo in the quail support somewhere, as a screen that doesn't jump but actually gets put on the screen more than once every couple seconds without odd artifacts would indeed be nice.

 

yea, the BIOS flashing definitely isn't risk free. i went in to RBE and loaded up the BIOS from my 4830 and just edited each clock speed to 575/900 with the 1.044 voltage setting. All 8 (or however many) settings are identical. After flashing, I messed around in 10.5.7 for about 10 minutes and didn't see the screen shake/jump once, so i'm assuming that's cleared up the problem

[joeblowm]

Have you tried anything that would stress the GPU in 3d mode with those settings? Even furmark or the like?

 

I just did some testing with a DMM and here is what I've found:

2d mode: gpu voltage is sitting at 1.110V (bios setting is 1.044)

3d mode: gpu voltage is sitting at 1.250V (bios setting is ---/ref)

 

Digging through the bios files that were uploaded via gpuz I came across an edited bios with all values set to 575/900, all were also set with voltage to 1.158 which is pretty much inline with my measurements, unfortunately I don't know the source of the file and whether they were doing voltage hard mods to use this with - but it's more facts than I started with at any rate.

[jdazzle34]

Have you tried anything that would stress the GPU in 3d mode with those settings? Even furmark or the like?

 

I just did some testing with a DMM and here is what I've found:

2d mode: gpu voltage is sitting at 1.110V (bios setting is 1.044)

3d mode: gpu voltage is sitting at 1.250V (bios setting is ---/ref)

 

Digging through the bios files that were uploaded via gpuz I came across an edited bios with all values set to 575/900, all were also set with voltage to 1.158 which is pretty much inline with my measurements, unfortunately I don't know the source of the file and whether they were doing voltage hard mods to use this with - but it's more facts than I started with at any rate.

 

i haven't tried anything that would stress the 3D. considering that info, it seems like that 1.158 might be a better voltage to run at if the clocks are all going to be set the same. I might move mine over to that before i start doing any 3D intensive computing

[joeblowm]

Your results were encouraging, so I went ahead and put 500/750/1.044v across the board aside from boot value. It worked, no jumping (though I should mention I haven't gotten the new files netkas released to work and am still using 64bit's accel find) but with minor on-screen artifacts - none of which were present when I ran the tests through catalyst's overclocking tester; so far 2 for 2 with artifacts as a result, successfully returning to the original bios.

 

Tempting fate?

 

edit:/ a note from netkas in his blog comments

4830 guys

 

make sure u dont have both dvi ports connected durring boot, it result in panic

Looks like I need to try again, I've been using a dvi->vga in the spare port.

[gigathlete]

Your results were encouraging, so I went ahead and put 500/750/1.044v across the board aside from boot value. It worked, no jumping (though I should mention I haven't gotten the new files netkas released to work and am still using 64bit's accel find) but with minor on-screen artifacts - none of which were present when I ran the tests through catalyst's overclocking tester; so far 2 for 2 with artifacts as a result, successfully returning to the original bios.

 

Tempting fate?

 

edit:/ a note from netkas in his blog comments

 

Looks like I need to try again, I've been using a dvi->vga in the spare port.

 

Yeah I unplugged the adapter in the other port and it worked finally! Now I just have to figure out the bouncing fix. Does anyone here have the ATY_Quail file? I can't find it anywhere online netkas said that might work with a different Natit file. Thanks!

[joeblowm]

The quail natit is linked on netkas' blog as "Natit for Quail pkg link".

[gigathlete]

The quail natit is linked on netkas' blog as "Natit for Quail pkg link".

 

Yes I already installed that one but that Natit requires the ATY_quail framebuffer if I am not mistaken. Because after I installed it, it was even worst than the normal Natit. Thanks.

[The Finale of Seem]

After all of this I'm wondering if I shouldn't sell off this 4830 and pick up an easier card, like a 9800GT.

[joeblowm]

Sounds like a plan if you are set on using mac os on non-mac hardware, picking up hardware that is more common and more directly supported I mean. Far as I know, 3rd party stuff has always been lagging if not down right broken/buggy for ATI hardware (even 1st party driver software in many cases)

Yes I already installed that one but that Natit requires the ATY_quail framebuffer if I am not mistaken. Because after I installed it, it was even worst than the normal Natit. Thanks.

The ATY_Quail.kext is inside the ATINDRV.kext (as a plugin inside, along with ATY_Triakis.kext and ATY_Motmot.kext) that gets installed from the "Patched framebuffers for 48x0 and 3870x2.pkg", so I presume you HAVE to install the quail natit previous to that package so the proper framebuffer gets parsed to a kext.

 

I had absolutely no luck when I extracted the Quail kext from that package and installing it as ATINDRV.kext with kext helper instead of relying on the package installer to pick the right stuff. In fact I have yet to get reliably displayed screen, jumping or otherwise, using these new files. Haven't seen a crashdump/panic from this though, just ones from when I tried to get my sound driver working again after installing 10.5.7 update.

[gigathlete]

Sounds like a plan if you are set on using mac os on non-mac hardware, picking up hardware that is more common and more directly supported I mean. Far as I know, 3rd party stuff has always been lagging if not down right broken/buggy for ATI hardware (even 1st party driver software in many cases)

 

The ATY_Quail.kext is inside the ATINDRV.kext (as a plugin inside, along with ATY_Triakis.kext and ATY_Motmot.kext) that gets installed from the "Patched framebuffers for 48x0 and 3870x2.pkg", so I presume you HAVE to install the quail natit previous to that package so the proper framebuffer gets parsed to a kext.

 

I had absolutely no luck when I extracted the Quail kext from that package and installing it as ATINDRV.kext with kext helper instead of relying on the package installer to pick the right stuff. In fact I have yet to get reliably displayed screen, jumping or otherwise, using these new files.

Yeah I have no idea either, I posted on netkas.org so hopefully someone can help me there. If there was a simple guide on how to flash the card rom I would definitely try it.

[man1ac]

Radeonhd 4830/4890/4870×2 users - dont update yet, i will provide a manual for 48×0 series tomorrow.

 

its common instructions, you still need to carry abotu whatever custom drivers you have.

[Harold33]

Radeonhd 4830/4890/4870×2 users - dont update yet, i will provide a manual for 48×0 series tomorrow.

 

its common instructions, you still need to carry abotu whatever custom drivers you have.

 

 

I`m waiting...

[joeblowm]

Harold33: see http://netkas.org - forum failure/issues over the weekend seems to have misplaced the post you are "waiting" on.

 

Anyone else who is having problems with the 4830 and the new files from netkas:

 

I decided to quit goofing around with the new files from Netkas as I couldn't even get any display and I edited this grouping found by 64bit, now have QE/CI and no jumping WITHOUT flashing my 4830. Long and short, the fix I used is the same as what was being used by the 4850 - providing a clock edited bios instead of flashing the card.

 

http://rapidshare.de/files/47241791/4830_6...tmotfb.zip.html

More info in the zip. Thanks yet again 64bit.

 

Original discussion these files came from:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=165785

 

Now I have to see if the current ones which give a much sharper screen output (quail, though it only displays once every 1.5seconds) can be edited to work on my own card (nope, mangled display on both quail and normal.)

[gigathlete]

Harold33: see http://netkas.org - forum failure/issues over the weekend seems to have misplaced the post you are "waiting" on.

 

Anyone else who is having problems with the 4830 and the new files from netkas:

 

I decided to quit goofing around with the new files from Netkas as I couldn't even get any display and I edited this grouping found by 64bit, now have QE/CI and no jumping WITHOUT flashing my 4830. Long and short, the fix I used is the same as what was being used by the 4850 - providing a clock edited bios instead of flashing the card.

 

http://rapidshare.de/files/47241791/4830_6...tmotfb.zip.html

More info in the zip. Thanks yet again 64bit.

 

Original discussion these files came from:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=165785

 

Now I have to see if the current ones which give a much sharper screen output (quail, though it only displays once every 1.5seconds) can be edited to work on my own card (nope, mangled display on both quail and normal.)

Thank you so much man finally no more bouncing issues!!!! I have a dual dvi Sapphire 4830 and it works great. For others trying just make sure that you have it on port 2 the one farthest from the motherboard and that you have an adapter in the first port (I have a dvi to vga in mine). Thanks again!