33 replies to this topic

[Burpethead]

Hey Guys,

I have PCEFI 10.3 working great on my Snow Leopard machine with a MSI 8800GT OC NVIDIA card. I now want to pass the Mac Pro's NVIDIA 8800GT Video ROM to my video card for maximum compatibility. (My card has a 1 MB PC ROM, while the Mac Pro's is a 512k ROM, so flashing the card is not possible).

I have the Mac Pro's Video ROM downloaded and put in my boot partition - /PreBoot/Extra/NVIDIA.ROM

I have edited the com.apple.boot.plist with:
<key>VideoROM</key>
<string>/Extra/NVIDIA.ROM</string>

My system profiler reads as:



Everything is working fine and dandy - but I just wan't to know if the ROM is being passed or not? How can I tell?

Thanks!

[Beerkex'd]

wow, that's sweet, seeing this makes me wish I had a video card that Apple actually use.

I don't know what you could do to test it...obviously it would have to be something that normally only works on a real mac with the same video card as yours. Maybe you can see something in IORegistryExplorer (comes with Apple XCode).

I wonder if I could use the ROM from another G92 based board with Chameleon 2.0 without killing my 9800 GTX+.. I don't care too much about performance, I just want the video card fan throttling and power management to work right, it's a bit flaky - very rarely, on shutdown or wake from sleep the card's fan spins up to the highest RPM (noisy!) and then my PC reboots instead of doing what it was supposed to do.

Maybe AquaMac knows something about this....

[Burpethead]

Maybe you can see something in IORegistryExplorer (comes with Apple XCode).

I wonder if I could use the ROM from another G92 based board with Chameleon 2.0 without killing my 9800 GTX+

Here is my IORegistryExplorer Developer Tool file - the card is located in IODeviceTree under pci-bridge@1.

This method wouldn't kill your card - flashing it could do that. If the passed ROM didn't work, simply reverting the changes would fix the issue. Anyone interested in downloading the Mac Pro's NVIDIA 8800GT 512 ROM can get it here.

Also, is my syntax correct in the com.boot.plist file?

[blackosx]

Just for comparison (if it's any use), I am using the MSI 8800GT OC 512MB which I have activated through patched DSDT. Here's a screenshot of my System Profiler...

Attached Files

•  Screen_shot_2009_09_30_at_21.16.04.png   26.98KB   247 downloads

[SA22C]

Hey Guys,

I have PCEFI 10.3 working great on my Snow Leopard machine with a MSI 8800GT OC NVIDIA card. I now want to pass the Mac Pro's NVIDIA 8800GT Video ROM to my video card for maximum compatibility. (My card has a 1 MB PC ROM, while the Mac Pro's is a 512k ROM, so flashing the card is not possible).

I have the Mac Pro's Video ROM downloaded and put in my boot partition - /PreBoot/Extra/NVIDIA.ROM

I have edited the com.apple.boot.plist with:
<key>VideoROM</key>
<string>/Extra/NVIDIA.ROM</string>

My system profiler reads as:



Everything is working fine and dandy - but I just wan't to know if the ROM is being passed or not? How can I tell?

Thanks!

Looks like it's working. I've got a flashed 8800GT with the Mac Rom and it reports the same string of x's for the rom as well.

[mm67]

 Screen_shot_2009_10_01_at_0.03.52.png   27.71KB   55 downloads

I don't think that that line tells anything. Even my 9600 GT looks the same

[Burpethead]

OK well I disabled the VideoROM pass by reverting the changes and my System Profiler is still reporting the same exact Graphics Card & ROM Revision "xx.xx.xx" - so I guess it's not working.

I also changed the string to point to the ROM with "/Volumes/PreBoot/Extra" with no results.

[d00d]

OK well I disabled the VideoROM pass by reverting the changes and my System Profiler is still reporting the same exact Graphics Card & ROM Revision "xx.xx.xx" - so I guess it's not working.

I also changed the string to point to the ROM with "/Volumes/PreBoot/Extra" with no results.

Are you also using GraphicsEnabler=Yes in your com.apple.Boot.plist file?
If so, perhaps it's overriding VideoROM=/Extra/NVIDIA.ROM.

[Burpethead]

Are you also using GraphicsEnabler=Yes in your com.apple.Boot.plist file?
If so, perhaps it's overriding VideoROM=/Extra/NVIDIA.ROM.

Hmm well I took the GraphicsEnabler line out (yes, I was using it), and then the System Profiler shows all the same information except no ROM Revision information - the line does not show. This then happens regardless if the VideoROM line is also taken out along with the GraphicsEnabler line.

So, basically I see no evidence yet that this feature works.

[d00d]

Hmm well I took the GraphicsEnabler line out (yes, I was using it), and then the System Profiler shows all the same information except no ROM Revision information - the line does not show. This then happens regardless if the VideoROM line is also taken out along with the GraphicsEnabler line.

So, basically I see no evidence yet that this feature works.

Let me know where to get a GTX285 ROM image and I'll check this out.
Also, it's probably better to compare ioreg output for the video device.

[mitch_de]

Perhaps it is better way (but more work) to modyfy an nv bios by ntibitor in the MHz (down! of course - 30%+ less Mhz should be enough) use that as file for new netcas/PC EFI 10.3 function and look if OpenGL Extensionsviewer bench values also go significant down.
So with 30% less GPU/VRAM/Shader Mhz using OGLViewer fullscreen, bench, multisampling*4 should show if the bios (30% less clocked) has an effect=loaded or not.
Do not use Xbench for that test - not reliable.

[d00d]

Hmm well I took the GraphicsEnabler line out (yes, I was using it), and then the System Profiler shows all the same information except no ROM Revision information - the line does not show. This then happens regardless if the VideoROM line is also taken out along with the GraphicsEnabler line.

So, basically I see no evidence yet that this feature works.

It's working for me.
I'm using GraphicsEnabler=Yes in my com.apple.Boot.plist file, and get the following in System Profiler;
ROM Revision: xx.xx.xx - internal
I got Gigabyte.GTX285.PCIe.1024MB.Rev.01.rom from mvktech.net, copied it to /NVIDIA.ROM and rebooted, now I have;
ROM Revision: xx.xx.xx - NVIDIA.ROM
If I then set GraphicsEnabler=no, the monitor feed goes dead after verbose boot.
So it appears that GraphicsEnabler=Yes must be set if one wants to use a ROM image, and copy it to /NVIDIA.ROM.
If it's in a non default place or named differently, something like VideoROM=/System/gtx285.rom would also need to be added to com.apple.Boot.plist.

[el_charlie]

It's working for me.
I'm using GraphicsEnabler=Yes in my com.apple.Boot.plist file, and get the following in System Profiler;
ROM Revision: xx.xx.xx - internal
I got Gigabyte.GTX285.PCIe.1024MB.Rev.01.rom from mvktech.net, copied it to /NVIDIA.ROM and rebooted, now I have;
ROM Revision: xx.xx.xx - NVIDIA.ROM
If I then set GraphicsEnabler=no, the monitor feed goes dead after verbose boot.
So it appears that GraphicsEnabler=Yes must be set if one wants to use a ROM image, and copy it to /NVIDIA.ROM.
If it's in a non default place or named differently, something like VideoROM=/System/gtx285.rom would also need to be added to com.apple.Boot.plist.

What about if the Bootloader is on the EFI partition?? Should I place the ROM on the root of the SnowLeopard partition or on the EFI partition?????

Do I have to delete the EFI string of my 8800GT too?????

Please help.

EDIT:

So far, I've placed the NVIDIA.ROM on both the root of the SL partition and the EFI partition. I've also placed the ROM on the Extra folder as well and no luck. My Geforce 8800GT is not detected.

I tried with GraphicsEnabler=Yes and without it and still no luck. The only way to detect my card is with the EFI string.

How can I do to use the Mac Pro's 8800GT bios????

I repeat, the bootloader is on the EFI partition. I use Netkas' PCEFI V10.4.1 wich is based on Chameleon 2 RC3.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Cheers!

[el_charlie]

Anyone???

[geo afa]

finally!!! ITS WORKING, dual monitor hw accel....

i ripped my bios with dos.

and i renamed to NVIDIA.ROM and copy it in root

and in my com.apple.Boot.plist

added

<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>NvidiaRom</key>
<string>Yes</string>

and its working!!!!! the key nvidiarom doesnt need the path of rom, needs yes!

Attached Files

•  1.jpg   87.04KB   263 downloads

[shoarthing]

finally!!! ITS WORKING, dual monitor hw accel....

i ripped my bios with dos.

and i renamed to NVIDIA.ROM and copy it in root

and in my com.apple.Boot.plist

added

<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>NvidiaRom</key>
<string>Yes</string>

and its working!!!!! the key nvidiarom doesnt need the path of rom, needs yes!

. . . thank you for sussing this out

[geo afa]

ok i make a test today..

and its worked with and without

<key>NvidiaRom</key>
<string>Yes</string>

[shoarthing]

ok i make a test today..

and its worked with and without

<key>NvidiaRom</key>
<string>Yes</string>

. . oh, right: so all that's needed is the correct extracted: 'NVIDIA.ROM. in root, with no key referencing it in com.apple.Boot.plist ?

. . . . hmm: with my motherboard [using the ION chipset & integrated 9400m] you have to use the key:

<key>VBIOS</key>
<string>Yes</string>

. . . for correct function.

[geo afa]

yes, i dont get my brother have clone of my snow leopard , with the exactly the same machine and doesnt work...

i will try this afternoon VBIOS...

[nvflash]

<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>

Has nothing to do with:

VideoROM | /PATH/TO/THE.ROM

GraphicsEnabler adds the Correct NAME SPACE to the DeviceTree for Nvidia Cards, So the NV*.kext can Match Correctly.

On REAL Mac's EFI does this, it Reads the Module in the Video Cards EFI Rom.

Adding and EFI Rom will not do you any good, as you don't have EFI, adding an Apple/Nvidia EFI Rom won't work unless you are Booting EFI from Apple EFI Kernel, DUET and DUET2 will KP.

OverWriting the Video Bios will let you make changes to the ROM without Flashing it, not much more, it is usefull.

If you have correctly set VideoROM you should see this:

ROM Revision:	xx.xx.xx - /Extra/OPROM1.ROM

Where /Extra/ is the $PATH$
AND OPROM1.ROM is the FILE