ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 is out

[Black Knight]

This is my .plist and .hex files Link. Before using this, realize that we probably have different motherboards with different PCIe locations. You'll need to open the plist file and update the location with the one you get from gfxutil. The command to find the location is ./gfxutil -f display

 

After you update it, use gfxutil to go back to hex. Basically throw my .hex file away and don't use it. for converting it back to hex, use ./gfxutil -i xml -o hex ./R3870.plist ./R3870.hex then copy everything in the hex file into your com.apple.Boot.plist. Also, If you want EFI to detect both cores, even though only one works, open IORegexplorer and look for the 2nd display@0 located above the one that gfxutil found. There should only be one hex number difference in the location and duplicate it in the plist. This is similar to adding sound or ethernet to your gfx string except that it's a second graphics card.

 

Good luck,

 

Black Knight

[vlad1966]

Black Knight,

 

So only 1 core works, even though 2 can be detected? That sucks.

Kind of pointless then, with one core going to waste.

[Black Knight]

For most 3870x2s that have only 2 DVI ports, that's the situation. If you are lucky enough to have a 4 DVI card, you might have access to all four DVI ports by having it detect both cores. Unless Apple releases a 3870x2 for Mac Pros, I don't foresee being able to use both cores for a single output. Sorry to break it to you. I use mine mostly in Windows anyways, so I just wanted to at least have 3d and framebuffer support in OS X, which I now have.

[bbarou]

thanks blacknight, i'll try this tomorrow.

Funny your comment about the G400. I had almost the same cards you had. a 9700 and then an x850xt now a 3870 and like you sometimes I miss my G400 for the 2D quality.

[Black Knight]

Yeah, that G400 was a great card. Expensive for it's time, but well worth it. I believe that ATI has come a long way since then in picture quality though.

[vbetts]

Now the only thing I would worry about with this, is would you get performance of 2 gpus, or just one single gpu?

[cyclonefr]

you didn't read the whole thread did you ?it only uses one gpu

[Fux]

is there anything new? i got a 3870 x2 with 4 dvi outputs, so what i have to do?

I installed leo 4 all v3 with the ati 3870 x2 drivers and the whitemenue fix, but when i start normal i only got a black screen with some strange symbols (quarder with a mouse point)

when i boot with -x i only got 1024*768....

please help

[Black Knight]

I had a similar problem after using Leo4allv3 and I fixed it by using the 3870X2 package that is on the IRC channel mentioned above. Once I used that, it worked perfectly. I even have it working with 10.5.4. Also, I'm still not totally sure whether or not it is using the power of both cores or not. I have read recently that due to the nature of crossfire, each GPU has 512MB of memory and both sets of 512MB have the same info in them. Basically, it is really just 512MB total card. Since the memory is duplicated to both sets of RAM, only 512MB shows up in the OS, including Windows. Therefore, if we enable both cores to the OS, which has been done, it might actually be using both of them, seeing how there is no software enabler of crossfire for the 3870X2 in Windows either, maybe it is just using it without us knowing. I haven't used a single 3870 GPU to compare, but I do know that my system is blazing fast with this card.

[BionicRage]

Have you benched it? we can at least try and compare them to other regular 3870s.

[Grehund]

Black Knight,

 

When I created my own GFX String, OS X was detecting my Sapphire 3870X2 with 864MB of Memory. This was using a Vanilla OS X 10.5.4. I am STILL unable to get QE/CI to work using any method though.

[H.I.T]

I installed a fresh iAtkos V4i + 3870x2.pkg from IRC channel , but when i reboot , a black screen appears

So Sad -.-