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512Mb nVidia FIX - DONE !


gotoh
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Come and check at http://www.macvidia.com (forum, NvidiaEFI section) for how to fix 512Mb NVIDIA cards issue, and get full 512Mb + QE/CI

 

Already tested successfully on GeForce 7800/7900 series, now need tester for other cards (7600 and other, AGP/PCIe)

 

As this involves modding your NVIDIA card ROM and flash it, this is risky procedure.

This basically allows your card to be detected as 512Mb VESA straight from Darwin Bootloader, which fixes the problem where bootlader detects only 256Mb (or less) then OS detection mismatching, causing the card not to work at all with NVIDIA extensions.

So if you feel you can risk frying your NVIDIA card and try getting it to work as it should, come and see !!

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the issue is Darwin bootloader reads from graphics card ROM, and newer graphics card have missing settings (just because Windows doesn't need these settings) but other OSes could require it (here OS X :D )

so fixing darwin bootloader would mean you would need to have a specific fix depending on installed nvidia card, because bootloader can't get accurate value from the card ROM since it is missing.

Another approach (like NvidiaEFI) it to force OS X to see 512Mb and don't use bootloader detection. This last approach might be much safer, as it stays at OS software level, but it would also might require patching after each system update for compatibility.

 

The ROM patch is definitive, as it would work as long as you're using darwin bootloader. It doesn't affect MS OS, just because Windows don't use it so the card will still behave fine in windows, and presumably in Linux. I even used the same fix to get some GeForce 6200 AGP and other cards correctly working in Windows 98, because memory amount was not set correctly in ROM, and Windows 98 would crash...

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gotoh has graciously provided a fixed ROM image for my 7900 GTO and I am now running in 10.4.8 with full QE/CI!

 

So long as the card flashes properly, this fix really does work!

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its odd, i always had qe/ci on my fx6600 w/512mb

simply because your card had correct setting in ROM, I already tested a 7800GT 512Mb card which worked straight from boot too, but newer cards based on G71/G73 doesn't need this anymore for windows operation, so many new cards don't have it correctly defined in ROM, this won't work in OS X without ROM patching.

 

Now we need GF 7600 and other cards testers !!

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if you can dump your card ROM and flash it back, it could work (only requirement is software/driver support in OS X, but you should at least be able to have QE/CI and card working as unknown NVIDIA)

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if you can dump your card ROM and flash it back, it could work (only requirement is software/driver support in OS X, but you should at least be able to have QE/CI and card working as unknown NVIDIA)

 

 

I Confirm, the trick works well :) ===

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well, so far, few people tried it, and most of them got it to work fine.

Only 2 issues to report, 1 misflashing (which resulted in the need to reflash the card blind), and someone with a 7950 GX2 (dual GPU card) who is not getting good results (but card is not toasted, still can be reflashed to original ROM). The second issue is probably due to OS X lacking dual GPU software support. The first issue is the worst thing which could happen to you...

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well, so far, few people tried it, and most of them got it to work fine.

Only 2 issues to report, 1 misflashing (which resulted in the need to reflash the card blind), and someone with a 7950 GX2 (dual GPU card) who is not getting good results (but card is not toasted, still can be reflashed to original ROM). The second issue is probably due to OS X lacking dual GPU software support. The first issue is the worst thing which could happen to you...

 

So how exactly do I flash the rom? Just out of curiosity? I really want Natit to work on my laptop (but I also want everything to be fine in windows too). I work helpdesk and fix computers for a living so I'm not an idiot, but a point in the right direction would be nice. THANK YOU

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if it's for a laptop, it depends.

if your laptop has an MXM graphics card with its own ROM, you can proceed just like with a desktop PCIe/AGP card. (details at macvidia)

if your laptop has VGA ROM inside the laptop whole BIOS, it's much more complicated and risky (need to extract the VGA part from the BIOS, patch it, insert it back and flash the whole laptop BIOS back, which is highly risky since it can just kill your entire laptop unless you can have it fixed later by a FLASH BIOS RECOVERY company)

 

for standard flashing, everything is detailed at macvidia forum. Anyway, if you can flash your laptop VGA BIOS, you might still encounter the internal display issue (internal display stays blank and only external display works) but this is another issue, whic has nothing to do with correct detection of VRAM. NP_ at macvidia is working on it with nvidiaEFI and laptopDisplay but I know little about this, since I have no laptop to work on it...

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Would this fix help me get OSX to actually boot with any version of natit or titan installed, as at the moment they all leve me with a blue/black screen or the reboot messege?

 

EDIT: sorry forgot to say i have a MSI 7900GTO 512MB

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Hey,

 

I have an Idea for fixing 512MB cards (and also Laptop 512MB cards) without flashing. Some time ago there were dos-based-tools like vbe 0.3 and loader which allowed loading (and testing without flashing) vga-bioses in dos.

 

So, if we would load fixed bioses in dos, then call the bootloader, the bootloader would read the values from the fixed bios instead.

 

The problem is, that fixing darwin 1.3.2 is not enough to get things working here.

 

Also some IO...Familys have to be fixed - and if there is a new version, it has to be fixed as well.

 

So, the tools are there, the sources are there - just an idea from a guy without an nvidia-card... :D

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Hi,

 

I've got a 7900GT with 512Mo. I would fix it with the patch. How could I do it ?

Another important question. Does the card still work under XP after patching ?

 

Thanks.

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