Replacing GraphicsEnabler with an EFiString

[ertepechis]

lols, yeah JaS is still active on these forums. hes great

 

yeah apple does suck, i think i might have lost my whole 700gb hd tvshow collection due to a bug in Paragon NFTS drivers. arrrrgh

 

i am going to update the above two posts to be a bit more clear and understandable

 

hey, i need your help, osx86tools keeps giving me applescript errors so i cant use it(its done it before so its not spontaneous) how do you import hex the hard way(where do i import it to?)

[errandwolfe]

Okay, I have got the graphics dump, but I get this error when I try to bring it into osx86tool.

 

Is there a way to covert this file to plist with another app?

error.tiff

[ANARCHiNTOSH]

hey, i need your help, osx86tools keeps giving me applescript errors so i cant use it(its done it before so its not spontaneous) how do you import hex the hard way(where do i import it to?)

 

Okay, I have got the graphics dump, but I get this error when I try to bring it into osx86tool.

 

Is there a way to covert this file to plist with another app?

 

hmm ok, if osx86tools is playing up, you can use commandline tool gfxutil

 

download it here

 

put it in root (drag the unzipped executable file "gfxutil" to hardrive). it makes the commands a lot shorter to type if you do.

 

these are the commands you will need for it:

 

in - represents the file thats to be converted

out - represents the converted file that gfxutil creates

 

you have to change "in" to the actual filename of the file you want to convert.

"out" can be named anything.

 

its easiest if you put the file you want to convert in root (/)

 

you type the commands in terminal

 

its best to use 1) rather than 2) , but if 1) doesnt work 2) is a fallback

 

1) Converting from hex to plist using string and number detection

/gfxutil -s -n -i hex -o xml /in.hex /out.plist

 

2) Converting from hex file to plist file

/gfxutil -i hex -o xml /in.hex /out.plist

 

3) Converting from plist file to hex file

/gfxutil -i xml -o hex /in.plist /out.hex

[errandwolfe]

Hmmm...

 

Still not working for me. I get the following error trying to run GFX. I am attaching my files to see if I made a mistake somewhere.

 

This is the command I am running:

 

/gfxutil -s -n -i hex -o xml /ge_dump.hex /ge_out.plist

 

NOTE: I had to rename ge_dump.hex to ge_dump..txt to upload to site.

graphicsenabler_dump.txt

ge_dump.txt

[ANARCHiNTOSH]

oh right! scratch that. i just read you uploaded ge_dump.hex

 

in textedit go to format and click Make Plain Text. it was the rich text formatting that was getting in the way of the conversion. i guess that also goes for ertepechis

 

my fault... my textedit is set to plain text by default

 

yo errandwolfe, did you copy from the dump the number only (none of the brackets or text) into a new textedit file?

 

i didnt make that clear enough (fair enough there was a lot of text in that post to digest)

 

you have to delete the

     | |   "device-properties" = <

bit at the the beginning,

and you have to delete the

    | |   "device-properties" = {"acpi-device"="IOACPIPlatformDevice is not serializable","acpi-path"="IOACPIPlane:/_SB/PCI0@0"}

bit at the end

 

it must be a document containing only the number that goes into gfxutil.

 

btw osx86tools is a gui for gfxutil

 

the file you pass through gfxutil or OSX86Tools needs to look like the one attached. i just copied the number only from the dump. the file below is from your dump, you can put it through gfxutil

 

goodluck!

errandwolfe_gedump_readyforconversion.hex.zip

[ertepechis]

finally!!!!!! ive been having problems with encoding, i needed a working hex file, ill try it then get back to you

 

IIIITTTTT WOOOORRRRRKKKEEEEEDDDDD... finallyby the way your original command was wrong

 

ive modified it

 

/gfxutil\ 2 -s -n -i hex -o xml /in.hex /out.plist

 

errandwolf if it doesnt work try using htis command

 

of course "in" is the file name

[ANARCHiNTOSH]

finally!!!!!! ive been having problems with encoding, i needed a working hex file, ill try it then get back to you

im not sure if your referring to the hex file i posted for errandwolfe. its best not to use that as thats for an ati 4650

try and use the dump you made, or something might go horribly wrong!

 

copy only the number then open a new textedit file, go to Format and click Make Plain Text. save as a .hex (make sure that the two boxes arent ticked "Hide extension" and "If no extension is provided, use .txt")

[ertepechis]

im not sure if your referring to the hex file i posted for errandwolfe. its best not to use that as thats for an ati 4650

try and use the dump you made, or something might go horribly wrong!

 

copy only the number then open a new textedit file, go to Format and click Make Plain Text. save as a .hex (make sure that the two boxes arent ticked "Hide extension" and "If no extension is provided, use .txt")

 

oh, no i didnt use it for myself, i just used it for its coding(utf-8) i kept getting problems with coding

 

i replaced his number with mine and used his file as a basis for encoding

 

BTW is there another alternative to xcode THAT ISNT 2.3GB!!!!!!! it'll take me 2 days to download all that

[ANARCHiNTOSH]

oh, no i didnt use it for myself, i just used it for its coding(utf-8) i kept getting problems with coding

 

i replaced his number with mine and used his file as a basis for encoding

 

BTW is there another alternative to xcode THAT ISNT 2.3GB!!!!!!! it'll take me 2 days to download all that

ah ok

 

XCode is highly compressed and the disk image is only 787.7 mb

 

its only when its installed that it takes up 2.3gb

[ertepechis]

ah ok

 

XCode is highly compressed and the disk image is only 787.7 mb

 

its only when its installed that it takes up 2.3gb

 

whered you get yours from, the one from the official apple developer site(http://developer.apple.com/technologies/xcode.html) says 2 gigs

[ANARCHiNTOSH]

whered you get yours from, the one from the official apple developer site(http://developer.apple.com/technologies/xcode.html) says 2 gigs

ah sorry, i just checked and it seems that you now have to download the iOS SDK as well as XCode, you cant download them separately. thats why its 2.3gb

 

i know its bloated just for a plist editor, but theres no other plist editor i have found that successfully converts data to string values. plus this is the real deal, its the plist editor developers actually use when writing kexts etc....

[ertepechis]

ah sorry, i just checked and it seems that you now have to download the iOS SDK as well as XCode, you cant download them separately. thats why its 2.3gb

 

i know its bloated just for a plist editor, but theres no other plist editor i have found that successfully converts data to string values. plus this is the real deal, its the plist editor developers actually use when writing kexts etc....

 

1% and going, ill be back in a week to post that i installed it (lol) jk it'll b done by tomorrow

[errandwolfe]

Well that was a first attempt failure for me...

 

I removed graphics injector from boot.plsit and replaced it with the proper EFI device string. Rebooted and crashes as soon as chameleon starts to load. Luckily I had a 10.5 distro burned sitting around so I was able to go in via terminal and restore my original boot.plist.

 

Now I don't want to discourage anyone, this was only a first attempt and I had not modified the EFI string at all. If you read earlier in the thread you will see highlighted. I figure one of the most likely causes of the failure is because using the EFI string we are FORCING a boot onto a (theorized) non-existing ADC port. This is pure logic guess work for me here, so take it as that.

 

I would love to give it another try with a modified EFI string, but that will have to wait for the weekend. Recovery just takes too damn long and I cant afford to be down that long.

[ertepechis]

wait quartzgl has never been activated? hmm so thats why theres all these bugs(like green screen) in my apps... i guess thats what we need to work with first, this might fix the green apple problem that has eluded some so(10.6.3 users mostly)

 

anarchintosh, you mind using the quartz debug app and force enable QuartzGL as shown in the picture attached, and please tell me if the green apple problem persists

 

i would try this with photoshop but i accidentally uninstalled it(that was my only green screen example i had)

 

i got to quit talkin so smart

 

++EDIT++ heres my idea of why the dvi port wont work, its being classified as vga(just a theory though)

hd4350.plist.zip

[ANARCHiNTOSH]

wait quartzgl has never been activated? hmm so thats why theres all these bugs(like green screen) in my apps... i guess thats what we need to work with first, this might fix the green apple problem that has eluded some so(10.6.3 users mostly)

 

anarchintosh, you mind using the quartz debug app and force enable QuartzGL as shown in the picture attached, and please tell me if the green apple problem persists

 

i would try this with photoshop but i accidentally uninstalled it(that was my only green screen example i had)

 

i got to quit talkin so smart

 

++EDIT++ heres my idea of why the dvi port wont work, its being classified as vga(just a theory though)

 

ok, well i forced QuartzGL and nothing happened, i think Quartz and Quartz Extreme are working fine. when experimenting in photoshop i went to preferences > performance and discovered this (see attached tiff image file.)

when i disabled OpenGL Drawing in photoshop, i could use it normally, free of the green problem.

 

Interestingly, photoshop cs4 tells us that 4350 owners are using a prototype OpenGL driver. (see attached tiff)

i think this explains the green problem.

 

The Green problem is completely within the OpenGl driver i think.

The ati4350 opengl driver can be found in S/L/E as ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver.bundle

 

(below details how i found it)

doing some experimentation i used this command to find out what kexts i had loaded:

i typed into terminal

kextstat > /my_loaded_kexts.txt

this gave me text file in root which told me. anyway specific ATI kexts that ATI4350 is dependent on are ATI4500Controller, ATISupport.kext, ATIFramebuffer.kext, ATIRadeonx2000.kext and its various plugins.

I was interested in ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver.bundle which is the ATI RadeonX2000 OpenGL Driver

 

I was thinking back to OSX 10.6.2, when 4350 worked, but worked free of the green problem (i think, at least there was no green apple, i never checked photoshop). In the past i have tried to get ATI kexts from 10.6.2 to work on 10.6.3, but it never worked.

 

Now i wonder if it might make any difference deleting this one, and using the one from 10.6.2, if that doesnt result in a kernal panic. Ive uploaded the one from 10.6.2 if you want to try it ertepechis, ill also give it a go.

 

BACK to efistrings:

 

@errandwolfe

i am interested in knowing what you mean by:

we are FORCING a boot onto a (theorized) non-existing ADC port.

 

the reason i feel so incredulous as to why the efistring dump of what graphicsenabler injects doesnt straightaway work (both for me and you), is because it so should.... theoretically it is exactly the same as what graphicsenabler injects........ so there must be some gap in my knowledge which would explain why it isnt working.

 

 

I think what needs to be done is the question needs to be posed to real experts of osx86:

"Why does my ioreg dump, which should be the same hex code as that injected by graphicsenabler, not work when i put it in boot.plist as a device-properties entry?"

 

This should be a resolvable issue... as the efistring for ATI4850 shows (see first post)

 

I think i might try to get in touch with the insanelymac user hawgguy, as he is credited at this topic for the efistring.

10.6.2_ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver.zip

Enable_Disable_OpenGL.tiff

[ANARCHiNTOSH]

some interesting ati 4350 stuff, unfortunately non-efistring related. i gleaned this from a Chinese/Japanese website, and had to use Google Translate, so its a bit confusing.

again this is about kexts. 0X954F1002 is 4350 device-id, so its definitely for 4350. the gist of what he is saying is on 10.6.3 use PC_EFI 10.6 graphicsenabler, and use from these kexts from 10.6.2: ATI4500Controller.kext (with device-id) + atiframebuffer.kext + atisupport.kext

 

Ive uploaded those kexts to this post

 

I wonder if these deal with the green apple problem.....

However im not sure if its worth it, because i think the choice of resolution might be affected......

zhongtaiyang published in 2010-4-5 02:24

The posts Last edited by the zhongtaiyang at 2010-4-5 23:28

ATI 4350 ID: 0X954F1002

Interface to dvi, vga vga can use only the latest version of Chameleon in win7 security, and is based on the latest boot, this is very important.

http://bbs.pcbeta.com/viewthread.php?tid=689149

The placement of it OK, do not look around with.

Installation original 10A432

-X start updating to 10.6.2 through the router

ATI4500Controller.kext copy to the desktop, got to the desktop changes ATI4500Controller.kext, adding ID: 0x954f1002

With kexthelpb7 installation, which is very important to add in com.apple.Boot.plist GraphicsEnabler

Yes

Restart without safe mode, driving success, QE, CI fully open.

ATI4500Controller.kext + atiframebuffer.kext + atisupport.kext copy to the desktop (important, directly after the upgrade will Huaping, change 4500kext be black, use the above three replacement)

Upgrade 10.6.3

-X into safe mode, with kexthelpb7 to restart the desktop to install the three kext OK, QE, CI fully open.

2298007

2298008

2298009

2298010

2298011

2298013

2298014

2298015

 

zhongtaiyang published in 2010-4-5 02:32

Added: Adjustable resolution, in addition to 1280 * 720, are at 4:3

No 1920 * 1080, expert help click Display Solutions Samsung P2370g

Only Dvi Interface, connection with the original vga switch dvi, buy a new black screen in the DVI cable.

zhongtaiyang_kexts_from_10.6.2_for_10.6.3.zip

[ertepechis]

ok, well i forced QuartzGL and nothing happened, i think Quartz and Quartz Extreme are working fine. when experimenting in photoshop i went to preferences > performance and discovered this (see attached tiff image file.)

when i disabled OpenGL Drawing in photoshop, i could use it normally, free of the green problem.

 

Interestingly, photoshop cs4 tells us that 4350 owners are using a prototype OpenGL driver. (see attached tiff)

i think this explains the green problem.

 

The Green problem is completely within the OpenGl driver i think.

The ati4350 opengl driver can be found in S/L/E as ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver.bundle

 

(below details how i found it)

doing some experimentation i used this command to find out what kexts i had loaded:

i typed into terminal

kextstat > /my_loaded_kexts.txt

this gave me text file in root which told me. anyway specific ATI kexts that ATI4350 is dependent on are ATI4500Controller, ATISupport.kext, ATIFramebuffer.kext, ATIRadeonx2000.kext and its various plugins.

I was interested in ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver.bundle which is the ATI RadeonX2000 OpenGL Driver

 

I was thinking back to OSX 10.6.2, when 4350 worked, but worked free of the green problem (i think, at least there was no green apple, i never checked photoshop). In the past i have tried to get ATI kexts from 10.6.2 to work on 10.6.3, but it never worked.

 

Now i wonder if it might make any difference deleting this one, and using the one from 10.6.2, if that doesnt result in a kernal panic. Ive uploaded the one from 10.6.2 if you want to try it ertepechis, ill also give it a go.

 

BACK to efistrings:

 

im going to try it n if i dont post results in 12 hours then i got KP... wish me luck

 

some interesting ati 4350 stuff, unfortunately non-efistring related. i gleaned this from a Chinese/Japanese website, and had to use Google Translate, so its a bit confusing.

again this is about kexts. 0X954F1002 is 4350 device-id, so its definitely for 4350. the gist of what he is saying is on 10.6.3 use PC_EFI 10.6 graphicsenabler, and use from these kexts from 10.6.2: ATI4500Controller.kext (with device-id) + atiframebuffer.kext + atisupport.kext

 

Ive uploaded those kexts to this post

 

I wonder if these deal with the green apple problem.....

However im not sure if its worth it, because i think the choice of resolution might be affected......

 

 

i'd try this but i dont got a dvi screen yet(not enough money to spare for a good one)

[ANARCHiNTOSH]

im going to try it n if i dont post results in 12 hours then i got KP... wish me luck

 

i'd try this but i dont got a dvi screen yet(not enough money to spare for a good one)

i could give you some single user mode commands that would revert changes you make, so that if it doesnt work you can type them in and reboot.

 

make a folder in root called kext_backup. Into the folder move the kexts you are going to replace, so that you can roll back to them if you wish

 

do the test (see if system boots up). if it doesnt and you get kp, reboot and enter single user mode (use boot flag -s at the Chameleon boot screen) .

 

type these commands each on a new line

/sbin/mount -uw /

mv /kext_backup/* /System/Library/Extensions/

chown -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/ATI*

chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/ATI*

rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches

rm -rf /kext_backup (this line is optional, it deletes the kext_backup folder)

reboot

 

 

yeah im looking at moving to the juicy apple 27 inch display, it looks really nice. my current acer 27" kind of makes me feel like my eyes are being fried if i use it for too long.

[ertepechis]

i could give you some single user mode commands that would revert changes you make, so that if it doesnt work you can type them in and reboot.

 

make a folder in root called kext_backup. Into the folder move the kexts you are going to replace, so that you can roll back to them if you wish

 

do the test (see if system boots up). if it doesnt and you get kp, reboot and enter single user mode (use boot flag -s at the Chameleon boot screen) .

 

type these commands each on a new line

/sbin/mount -uw /

mv /kext_backup/* /System/Library/Extensions/

chown -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/ATI*

chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/ATI*

rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches

rm -rf /kext_backup (this line is optional, it deletes the kext_backup folder)

reboot

 

 

yeah im looking at moving to the juicy apple 27 inch display, it looks really nice. my current acer 27" kind of makes me feel like my eyes are being fried if i use it for too long.

 

well no kernal panic, but i checked the files inside the .bundle and all of them are exactly the same besides 2 files(which arent necessary) but i cant tell if quartzgl is enabed/disabled, im going to redownloaad the PS trial to tell

[errandwolfe]

@errandwolfe

i am interested in knowing what you mean by:

 

 

the reason i feel so incredulous as to why the efistring dump of what graphicsenabler injects doesnt straightaway work (both for me and you), is because it so should.... theoretically it is exactly the same as what graphicsenabler injects........ so there must be some gap in my knowledge which would explain why it isnt working.

 

My thinking is this...perhaps graphics_enabler has more flexibility as far as erroring out to the bootloader. As I figure it graphics_enabler is like an auto-detect/plug and pray type thing. Even though the data being returned to the bootloader is wrong, there is enough fault tolerance for the 1 screen to boot.

 

When you use an EFI string it is like installing drivers for hardware you may not EXACTLY have. For example I have a standard PS2 mouse but I try to load Logitech drivers for it. If it is a Microsoft mouse instead, but you are insisting to the PC it is Logitech then you are going to have bad vodoo.

 

 

This is an incomplete thought...ignore this until I finish it...,

[ertepechis]

i agree with errandwolfe's theory, this is a hit or miss way of dealing with graphics issues, now im going to try something but im going to back up my data first... ill post results tomorrow

[ertepechis]

i agree with errandwolfe's theory, this is a hit or miss way of dealing with graphics issues, now im going to try something but im going to back up my data first... ill post results tomorrow

 

 

++edit++ i tried making a new boot.plist but my bootloader never showed up, not even a hint of the mbr in the bios startup, what did i do wrong?

by the way errandwolf, dont you think it would be easier to fix your system after a failed attempt if you use an external file browser, if you dualboot with windows there is software that makes HFS+ filesystems viewable in your explorer window(like macdrive8), its very useful... u said it takes a day to resolve fatal boot errors, well it took me 2 minutes

com.apple.boot.plist.zip

[errandwolfe]

My thinking is this...perhaps graphics_enabler has more flexibility as far as erroring out to the bootloader. As I figure it graphics_enabler is like an auto-detect/plug and pray type thing. Even though the data being returned to the bootloader is wrong, there is enough fault tolerance for the 1 screen to boot.

 

When you use an EFI string it is like installing drivers for hardware you may not EXACTLY have. For example I have a standard PS2 mouse but I try to load Logitech drivers for it. If it is a Microsoft mouse instead, but you are insisting to the PC it is Logitech then you are going to have bad vodoo.

 

 

This is an incomplete thought...ignore this until I finish it...,

Continuing on with that train of thought....

 

Now forget the MS/Logitech analogy...Refer to the screen shots I have earlier in the thread and look at the highlighted sections. To me it appears as if the OS is in fact sensing a dual-display, but it is under the impression that the second port is ADC (Apple Display Connector) rather then VGA.

 

When the bootloader senses this with the graphics_enable function it merely fails and the VGA port does not power on. With an EFI string though, the bootloader is not sensing the actual hardware, you are telling the boot loader this is EXACTLY the hardware I have. So when it tries to use that ADC port, boom, instant KP.

 

Now if we are able to modify that EFI string (probably easiest in plist form, and again refer to earlier highlighted screen shots) and to tell the boot loader the CORRECT port designations then MAYBE this will all work.

 

Sidenote: As far as system recovery, you are very much correct. I was just in a rush and didn't prep a drive. Very stupid especially since I didn't think about having a distro burned. Luckily I did find an old 10.5 lying around and was able to use terminal to restore my old plist.

 

As always, let me stress this is all just theory on my part. I am no programmer, just trying to look logically at the problem.

[ertepechis]

Continuing on with that train of thought....

 

Now forget the MS/Logitech analogy...Refer to the screen shots I have earlier in the thread and look at the highlighted sections. To me it appears as if the OS is in fact sensing a dual-display, but it is under the impression that the second port is ADC (Apple Display Connector) rather then VGA.

 

When the bootloader senses this with the graphics_enable function it merely fails and the VGA port does not power on. With an EFI string though, the bootloader is not sensing the actual hardware, you are telling the boot loader this is EXACTLY the hardware I have. So when it tries to use that ADC port, boom, instant KP.

 

Now if we are able to modify that EFI string (probably easiest in plist form, and again refer to earlier highlighted screen shots) and to tell the boot loader the CORRECT port designations then MAYBE this will all work.

 

Sidenote: As far as system recovery, you are very much correct. I was just in a rush and didn't prep a drive. Very stupid especially since I didn't think about having a distro burned. Luckily I did find an old 10.5 lying around and was able to use terminal to restore my old plist.

 

As always, let me stress this is all just theory on my part. I am no programmer, just trying to look logically at the problem.

 

thaats been my thinking since the beginning, since i started the bootloader joining theory(its a bust, i cant get past the 4 second white screen)

 

sidenote=if you download the hazard 10.6.2 install dvd, it has chameleon rc3 pre-installed as the dvd's bootloader(if your bootloader fuks up) and you can use it just to enter mac osx then reinstall your last working bootloader(saved my az a couple times) but my osx is on external hdd with 2 partitions, 1-mainosx 2-osx important files

 

see im ready for all kinds of trouble

[errandwolfe]

Question: Has anyone tried Chameleon RC5?