1729 replies to this topic

[cmf]

################################################################################
## Changelog:

update 2011/08/24:

• go get lion and latest chameleon trunk! ;P

update 2011/06/12:

• go get lion dp4 and latest chameleon trunk!

update 2011/03/31:

• updated howto
  
• 10.7 dp2 / 11A419 brings new fermi drivers (r270)

update 2010/11/21:

• updated howto (10.6.5)
  
• new fermi package
  
• modified nvc0 mem detection in accordance to the linux nouveau driver
  
• added many (all?) fermi device ids to the bootloader
  
• bootloader is based on chameleon svn r644 trunk, diff:  fermi_20101121_diff.txt   3.78K   2138 downloads

update 2010/11/16:

• nvidia released a new driver including a new NVDAGF100Hal.kext: http://www.nvidia.co...f03-driver.html

update 2010/08/03:

• added fermi vram detection (props go to the linux nouveau driver and chrisbmr and his nvc0 patch)
  
• added rom version detection (cosmetic, but still nice to know)
  
• added fermi quadros device ids (still working on sub-device id recognition)
  
• fermi package 2010/08/03 is based on a wild mixture of 10.6.4+macmini+imac+nvidia kexts
  
• bootloader is based on chameleon svn r301 trunk, diff:  fermi_20100803_diff.txt   27.11K   1313 downloads

update 2010/07/15:

• added gtx 460 + fermi tesla bootloader support (edit: to clarify this again: this doesn't mean os x supports it!)

update 2010/06/18: it's finally working

################################################################################
## Status:

10.7:

• full support after patching: 10.7.0/10.7.1, 10.7.2
  
• opencl fix for non-gf100/gf110/sm2.0 cards: http://www.insanelym...howtopic=266318
  
• status of freeze/kp issues: none / ymmv

10.6:

• GF100 based cards (geforce gtx 480/470/465, quadro 4/5/6000, tesla *2050/*2070): full support, except for opencl and video acceleration
  
• GF10x based cards (geforce gtx 460/gts 450/possibly others): same as GF100, but with freeze/kp issues
  
• GF11x based cards / geforce 500 series: not supported

################################################################################
## Howto:

(follow the links if you don't know what i mean):
1. install or update to at least 10.6.5
2. grab fermi package 2010/11/21 from here [link dead, if you're on Snow Leopard use the nvidia Quadro 4000 drivers]
3. install bootloader located in bootloader/ (if you don't have 'fdisk440', use normal 'fdisk' for now; you already should have installed chameleon before this)
4. add this to your boot plist if you haven't done so already:

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

5. copy all kexts from kexts/ to /System/Library/Extensions (replace old ones)
6. clear caches and reboot, or reboot and ignore caches on boot-up

 Screen_shot_2011_03_31_at_10.00.30_PM.png   25.56K   827 downloads
 Screen_Shot_2011_08_24_at_1.59.12_AM.png   25.67K   198 downloads
 Screen_shot_2011_03_31_at_10.33.54_PM.png   65.45K   809 downloads
 Screen_shot_2010_11_22_at_12.51.28_AM.png   110.16K   1918 downloads
 Screen_shot_2010_11_22_at_12.52.53_AM.png   108.93K   1097 downloads
 Screen_shot_2010_11_22_at_12.54.30_AM.png   108.71K   1036 downloads

[The Finale of Seem]

Aw, WHAT? No 5xxx support yet but Apple is already adding support for Nvidia's power-gobbling branding iron of a card?

Screw the Fermi. I don't need a 300w video card that nearly hits 100C under load. Give me 5870 support or give me death!

[cmf]

hm, general observation these days: as soon as someone mentions "fermi", nvidia haters pop up ... please go flame somewhere else kid.

there are actually people that want to use fermi, b/c of it's insane compute capabilities, something that ati lacks. they only just got even with g80/gt200 feature wise, but still lack the performance.

------

on topic: what are the chances that fermi has an efi chip, next to or instead of a pc bios chip?

[The Finale of Seem]

And you don't think that a card that is so power hungry and so hot isn't going to have a ludicrously high failure rate? Read some of the reviews. Legion Hardware talked about how loud it got and how they had to handle the card with gloves after testing. The most disturbing thing is how surprisingly hot and soft the PCIe power cables became.

The Fermi starts doing emergency throttling at 105C. When it runs at almost 100C under load, all it takes is a hot summer day and some accumulated dust to hit that temperature.

You can call me a "kid" and "Nvidia hater" all you want. Doesn't change the fact that while Fermi does have some impressive performance, the other factors have seriously put it out of mind for many, many people.

[deathpulse]

But does it work on OS X 10.6.3?

[Hangten]

cmf, on Mar 31 2010, 06:53 AM, said:

so, are there already any osx86 users that can call themselves lucky owners of a fermi card?

it seems like 10.6.3 brings support for fermi cards:
doing a "find /System/Library/Extensions/ | xargs strings -arch x86_64 2>&1 | grep -i "fermi"" gives 48 hits, including things like nvFermiGLContext and nvFermiHAL in GeForce.kext.

and it also seems like the geforce opencl driver has support for sm_20 (fermi ptx code).


so the question is if this enables full fermi support and is anyone able to test it yet?

Hmm I would be interested in testing this out but haven't looked into where to buy.
Maybe soon? Will research it. My graphics card is old to me so wouldn't
hurt to upgrade. EVGA has one thats water cooled and within very tolerable specs. Crap my HD4850 hits 190f - 200f and  can heat the room. Bring it on fermi!  Time should tell they might re-tweak the silicon to but would agree that the power draw is though the roof. 500+ when overclocked is not rational when looked at from what ATI has for its power draw but two entirely different beast.

deathpulse, on Apr 2 2010, 08:39 PM, said:

But does it work on OS X 10.6.3?

YEAH I wonder?  

[Daioptych]

I see people are starting to receive those cards, have anyone on insanelymac got their hands on one?

[lkelly2006]

Hello All,

I just purchased a GeForce GTX 480 and am curious to see if anyone has had any hands on experience running this on Snow Leopard x 64.

Would like to hear any failed or successful attempts!

[cmf]

lkelly2006, on Apr 13 2010, 04:37 AM, said:

I just purchased a GeForce GTX 480 and am curious to see if anyone has had any hands on experience running this on Snow Leopard x 64.

no, not yet, mine won't arrive until next week

how about just putting it in and let us know if it just works?
you might want to update your bootloader to rc4 or aserebln. but i've no idea what it will do if it finds an unknown device id (probably nothing?).

[lkelly2006]

I should be receiving mine in the mail tomorrow... crosses fingers!

Very painfull spending $500 for one card but from all of the reviews this seems to be a beast of a card.

Once I have my new part, I will post my results.

[ANARCHiNTOSH]

The Finale of Seem, on Apr 1 2010, 07:10 AM, said:

Aw, WHAT? No 5xxx support yet but Apple is already adding support for Nvidia's power-gobbling branding iron of a card?

Screw the Fermi. I don't need a 300w video card that nearly hits 100C under load. Give me 5870 support or give me death!

It makes sense that apple would support it before 5870 though, it has immense GPGPU capabilities unlike ATi's card, even if it is not much better for de-facto gaming.
given that a lot of people use macs for graphic design and stuff, gtx480 is now a great value solution compared to the quadro range.

but yeah, i think ill sit this card out and wait for a 485 type card

[lkelly2006]

Alright.. I FINALLY got OSX to boot on my new custom pc.. Specs are as follows:

Asus P6X58D
Intel Core i7 920
12gb 1600mhz Ram
2 x 1TB 7200rpm Sata
Nvidia GeForce GTX 480

OSX 10.6.3 x64 will boot but even with graphics enabler = yes the card is not recgonized. I also tried graphics enabler = no with the same result.


Display:

  Type:    GPU
  Bus:    PCIe
  PCIe Lane Width:    x16
  VRAM (Total):    64 MB
  Vendor:    NVIDIA (0x10de)
  Device ID:    0x06c0
  Revision ID:    0x00a3
  Displays:
Display:
  Resolution:    1280 x 1024
  Pixel Depth:    32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
  Main Display:    Yes
  Mirror:    Off
  Online:    Yes



Any thoughts?

lkelly2006, on Apr 13 2010, 11:57 AM, said:

I should be receiving mine in the mail tomorrow... crosses fingers!

Very painfull spending $500 for one card but from all of the reviews this seems to be a beast of a card.

Once I have my new part, I will post my results.

[Hangten]

@lkelly2006

This is great news to follow up on hope you can get it up and running. Try safemode -x
And see if you can at least get to the desktop. I would think you need to put in the graphics string to the controllerkext.

Bump, someone help the lad out! Maybe you should pm someone who understands the "boot loader" so your card is recognized.

[Daioptych]

GraphicsEnabler shouldn't work as Chameleon knows nothing about this card. Try injecting the proper values into DSDT yourself(see Nvidia hacks in DSDTSE).

[lkelly2006]

I was able to make it to my desktop. I wasn't able to boot from any OSX CD that I had so I simply copied over my vanilla OSX from my laptop to my PC drive. I replaced the Extra folder and voila ;-).

As for editing the DSDT, I have done some minor edits but nothing too fancy. Anyone wanna lend a hand ?

Attached Files

•  dsdt.zip   6.47K   191 downloads

[kingtana1]

lkelly2006, on Apr 16 2010, 04:26 AM, said:

I was able to make it to my desktop. I wasn't able to boot from any OSX CD that I had so I simply copied over my vanilla OSX from my laptop to my PC drive. I replaced the Extra folder and voila ;-).

As for editing the DSDT, I have done some minor edits but nothing too fancy. Anyone wanna lend a hand ?

if you get this to work please let us know man i wish you the best of luck i am in the process of building a pc and i have my eyes set on a evga gtx 470 card but will probably have to settle for something else if this doesnt work, i ordered everything except my vid card and have been keeping an eye on this thread til i saw some good news, i appreciate any feedback on here and wish you the best of luck again hopefully you get it to work!

[VCH888]

lkelly2006, on Apr 16 2010, 10:26 AM, said:

I was able to make it to my desktop. I wasn't able to boot from any OSX CD that I had so I simply copied over my vanilla OSX from my laptop to my PC drive. I replaced the Extra folder and voila ;-).

As for editing the DSDT, I have done some minor edits but nothing too fancy. Anyone wanna lend a hand ?

I added your GTX480 device-id and compiled aserenln-Chameleon boot loader.  I copied boot, boot0, boot1h into installer package.  This installer package was not originally created by me, please credit to the person who made the installer package.

 GTX480_testing.pkg.zip   209.94K   497 downloads

add these lines into com.apple.Boot.plist if you don't have them.

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



I got source code from this and selected AsereBLN_v1.1.9.
Go to this thread for info.

I would like to know whether your GTX 480 is supported by OS X 10.6.3 or not.

[lkelly2006]

I tried the package... no success. SL will not boot normal or in safe mode. I am doing to attempt a fresh install as I was having other issues as well. Any file you need to see why the KP?

tmongkol, on Apr 16 2010, 05:41 AM, said:

I added your GTX480 device-id and compiled aserenln-Chameleon boot loader.  I copied boot, boot0, boot1h into installer package.  This installer package was not originally created by me, please credit to the person who made the installer package.

GTX480_testing.pkg.zip

add these lines into com.apple.Boot.plist if you don't have them.

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



I got source code from this and selected AsereBLN_v1.1.9.
Go to this thread for info.

I would like to know whether your GTX 480 is supported by OS X 10.6.3 or not.

[Hangten]

lkelly2006, on Apr 16 2010, 01:55 PM, said:

I tried the package... no success. SL will not boot normal or in safe mode. I am doing to attempt a fresh install as I was having other issues as well. Any file you need to see why the KP?

In trying to make logic of this even with a screen going black or stuck @ the apple icon with the spinner one can use the volume control (my keyboard has one) to here the click sound of the volume changing to see if all is well and its the graphics. So its the boot screwing up with some trait thats not compatible with the "boot" thats gets the computer to the desktop.

Learning curve, I wish i could learn about decompile & compiling the boot. perhaps someone from the Voodoo Team can step in.

If you have a spare graphics card that is working you can boot into SL and repair permissions and clear cache then reboot with the 480.

Just trying to brain storm ideas your way.

[lkelly2006]

Yeah that does not work either...  

I'm sure we'll get it! Thanks everyone for the interest!