rastaman Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 Hi all, As you know Andrew and me are trying to load a BIOS (Qemu 0.8 for the moment) and a ATI Firmware on our MacBook. So far this doesn't work entirely but if you want to try i suggest you read the forum at onmac.net. I follow also this thread (and others) here but this would be a time consuming task to copy and paste here the instructions. Grosso modo you should put a 65024 bytes ATI firmware (like the ones at http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/?search=X1600&Submit=Search, use an hex editor like WinHex to add the missing bytes at the end of the firmware (or follow the instructions whith dd given by Andrew on the onmac fourm), a BIOS image (like the one in http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~kazuw/qemu-win/q...-windows-2.zip) at the root of the volume which contain xom.efi. The firmware must be named vga.rom and the bios bios.rom. After this you should boot with the roms. To do this press F4 then in front of the Windows logo of XOM, then press F6 (and another time F6 IIRC) to have the "ROMs enabled" (the message appear in the console). Then you can boot and install the appropriate drivers for the card (i experiment with the Packard Bell drivers, link here : http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Developers/Drivers/Video ). If you want to see something you can boot in safe mode or with the options /basevideo /noguiboot (modify your boot.ini if needed). With this steps the drivers load without problem. Now this is extremely instable, and without /basevideo this doesn't boot, but i guess that this is just a matter of telling to the card which output to use as default output as well as modifying the maximum resolution supported on the default output (because actually if i boot without /basevideo a nice plasma appears on the screen (and the pc boot, caps lock can be activated). So we need to modify the drivers (.inf) file and perhaps the firmware so it support our card and his peripherals (like the LCD screen), and after that this should work without efforts. I try this tonight ! :-) I test since yesterday afternoon without having bricked my MBP, so i suppose that other can test without fear, Best regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac tosh Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 fantastic. Thanks for keeping us updated. I'm not a programmer but this is quite interesting to watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LouD82 Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 Thanks so much for all the hard work by everyone working on this solution. I don't have the technical knowledge to help at this stage, but we all look forward to reading further updates. As soon as you need a broad base of testers, count me in. Good luck! =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truy Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 Excellent work guys! I have at least five friends waiting for this to happen so they can finally switch to mac. Personally, I can't wait to play BFII Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiefsalami Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 The guys at onmac are making quite a bit of progress. I don't think it will be much longer before we have fully supported graphics in the macs: http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=482&page=6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcretlaw Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 Video driver solution found? I am not sure if this was already posted (sorry if it was). Found this on Digg.com today: http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03/apple...me-to-test.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Nightmare Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 All that page is is a link to a blog with someone claiming they have a video driver working. Move along. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
INFNITE Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 the interesting thing is...it's the blog of the president of VoodooPC, which is as many of you know makes high performance gaming PC's (like Alienware). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lane Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 VooDoo PC makes great Desktops and they have world class support for them, take it from a former portables customer (VooDoo PC notebook owner) that they don't offer long term cost effective support for notebooks. I expect that this whole thing is far enough off topic though and that a mod should probably create a new topic from this to discuss VooDoo PC experimenting with OS X. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Crossfire Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Hey maybe Apple is trying to fix for us? Check this out! http://theinquirer.net/?article=30635 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Bond Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 If you look at the article closely, you'll see it deals with Apple having to create drivers to be used with it's virtualization technology. I'd guess that these wouldn't be full windows drivers that you can simply install and use, but be custom made, similar to the drivers that Vmware uses, so it can integrate into the host OS's hardware. Someone correct me If I'm wrong here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eboneceo Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Mr Bond You're absolutely right. They are digging so they can use xp and vista on Leopard. Nice move and it should run smooth on intel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c0nfused Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 All that page is is a link to a blog with someone claiming they have a video driver working. That someone is Rahul Sood, the founder of VoodooPC. I certainly don't think he would be bull{censored}ting about it. He claims his engineers are still working out all the bugs. I'd trust him on this one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuchdawg Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 If anyone here has an ATI X1600 mobility (not on a MBP or iMac) can you make a copy of your cards Bios? Here are some instructions on how to back up your Bios: http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=865 Another way is by using ATI Tool....I don't know which way works better, if you can please post both.... http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/ If you can back it up will you please upload it to some site such as SILO.ru, bigupload, rapidshare.de, etc. Thank you for any help (please post a link here) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Nightmare Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Any updates? It's been over a week since any new news has come in from vertiably any source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faustus Posted April 2, 2006 Share Posted April 2, 2006 Well kuchdawg wants a bios but I guess no none here has the card to help him. Meanwhile I still thing the trick is going to be rewritting the entire Virtual Video Bios. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMufla Posted April 2, 2006 Share Posted April 2, 2006 Any updates? It's been over a week since any new news has come in from vertiably any source. No updates Velvet Nightmare... This might be because of some little contest which is currently running... Good luck to the rest of us... JMufla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Goodwin Posted April 2, 2006 Share Posted April 2, 2006 I can't seem to find the command online... I'm looking to just undo the bless that I did earlier and go back to a normal mac-only system until a solution is found. That and my computer has become incredibly unstable in the regular mac OS. Why... I don't know. But I'm going to return it to factory just in case. does anyone have the command that I need? Also, anyone with an iMac 17" core-duo notice a squeal or whistle-like sound coming from the computer when you pick up your mouse slightly off the table? I can't find anyone else who has reported that online so I'm concerned. Thanks, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Nightmare Posted April 2, 2006 Share Posted April 2, 2006 I can't seem to find the command online... I'm looking to just undo the bless that I did earlier and go back to a normal mac-only system until a solution is found. That and my computer has become incredibly unstable in the regular mac OS. Why... I don't know. But I'm going to return it to factory just in case. does anyone have the command that I need? Also, anyone with an iMac 17" core-duo notice a squeal or whistle-like sound coming from the computer when you pick up your mouse slightly off the table? I can't find anyone else who has reported that online so I'm concerned. Thanks, Thomas You're better off just backing up and reformatting again. As far as the whining, it's the mouse itself that's making the noise; it's the tracking laser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BitterSweet Posted April 2, 2006 Share Posted April 2, 2006 I was going to say, this should do nothing permanent to a machine, well nothing a format and reset won't fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Goodwin Posted April 3, 2006 Share Posted April 3, 2006 You're better off just backing up and reformatting again. As far as the whining, it's the mouse itself that's making the noise; it's the tracking laser. Indeed on the f&r procedure... All my backup software crashes as it tries to backup. No computers on my network can successfully access my data nor can I access theirs so that I can 'put' my files onto another computer for backup... I'm running out of options. This thing is going to hell in a hand-basket at break-neck speed. I can't imagine what in the world the problem is. Anyways, not to continue off-topic much more, but the whining is definitely coming from the speakers when I lift the mouse. So while I can see where you're drawing the conncetion, I'm curious as to why the rest of my computers don't exhibit this weird problem with the same mouse. Is this something I should 'applecare' away or is it something easily resolved, by your knowledge? thanks again, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rsang2 Posted April 4, 2006 Share Posted April 4, 2006 Today i updated to osx 10.4.6, they finally fixed the hizzing sound coming from the core duo processor. The bad news is that xoom doesnt boot no more, anyways im not using my windows installation sincce there is no ati driver yet. But is something everyone should know. THE LATEST OSX UPDATE FIX THE BOOT BACK TO DEFAULT STATE im gonna try to bless xoom again to see what happens. Edit: Ok blessing the xom.efi again works. Pheeew. Edit: This update rules. It fixed the whining sound and i also feel the macbook runing much cooler than before. Nice Edit: The whining sound is back after blessing the xom.efi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiefsalami Posted April 4, 2006 Share Posted April 4, 2006 Check your power settings. The reason the whining sound probably disappeared is the udpate set your OS X power settings to something more conservative, so the processor doesn't work as hard. Using XP might make the whining come back because XP is more processor-intensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebalaa Posted April 4, 2006 Share Posted April 4, 2006 my MBP doesnt make the wierd sound in Windows only OSX. I am about to try the update. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rsang2 Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 Actually, i dont get the whining sound on xp no matter what i do, the whining sound only comes out in osx. After the update it went away, when i blessed the xom.efi it came back, only on osx. And windows runs photoshop cs2 faster than my g5 powermac from work, so it cant be using conservative speeds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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