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8800 GT to Quadro FX 3700


aqua-mac
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Well I was kicking around looking for a project to do so I set about converting my Zotak 8800 GT 1024 MB PCIe card and NVIDIA 8800 GT 512 MB card to Quadro FX 3700's.

 

This is a bit trickier than normal as just changing the softstraps and device id resulted in the card being displayed as a device id of 0619 instead of the 061A that I was looking for (Quadro FX 3700). Well after much messing around, I managed to get both of them up and running showing up correctly in system profiler with the correct device id & memory.

 

quadrofx3700.jpeg

 

dualquadrofx3700.jpeg

 

openglviewerq370.jpeg

 

OpenGL Viewer got around a 200 point boost too!

 

zotakcard.jpeg

 

Here is a link to the roms:

 

http://rapidshare.com/files/160384434/aqua...o_3700_Roms.zip

 

I have only done the 2 cards listed above so far, and before everyone starts PMing me I am away till the end of the week. Also, although these should show up correctly in Hackintosh & Windows I still don't know if there is significant improvement in windows Maya/Spec View and so forth as I don't have it to test.

;)

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Hi Stellair,

 

There is a fair chance it will if you have a 512 card. Which card brand do you have? The std speeds for my card are 680/1600/1900 from memory which is faster than some, but can always easily be adjusted down with Nibitor. If you can save the rom from your card, send it to me and I will see if it is compatible. In the download, I included the original 512 rom from my card, if you compare this with your own cards saved rom in hexeditor and they are the same, you are good to go

 

Good Luck.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi aqua-mac,

I have an MSI 8800GT OC 512MB card and have dl's the rom. Comparing it with your original 512 Nvidia

rom, I got the following diffs. I don't know if it is significant. I'd appreciate any feedback and help. Thanks.

 

Compare error at OFFSET 36

file1 = 14

file2 = A4

Compare error at OFFSET 38

file1 = 31

file2 = 30

Compare error at OFFSET 39

file1 = 30

file2 = 31

Compare error at OFFSET 3C

file1 = 33

file2 = 31

Compare error at OFFSET 3F

file1 = 37

file2 = 38

Compare error at OFFSET 54

file1 = DE

file2 = 62

Compare error at OFFSET 55

file1 = 10

file2 = 14

Compare error at OFFSET 56

file1 = 3C

file2 = 70

Compare error at OFFSET 57

file1 = 5

file2 = 11

Compare error at OFFSET 6D

file1 = AF

file2 = E1

10 mismatches - ending compare

 

 

matt

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i did some tests..

in glviewer the results are almost the same (-200) so it's not such important in order to flash a card

but in openmark u have 44255 and i got 34877

and openmark is a good gl benchmark for me cause it;s duplicating everything in the stage

are u sure u did all the openmark benchmark? (about 10 minutes)

 

anyway post an xbench result also please

and if you have cinebench10 do the opengl test (8800GT normal gives around 6500)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I used a USB floppy to flash my cards. Yes I did all the tests in openmark, there would be no point in publishing results with only half the tests. What res are your tests - that makes a difference.

 

Xbench is literally not worth using as it has virtually no relevant tests for modern graphic cards.

 

9800 GTX has no equivalent Quadro card.

 

Maya works a treat with these cards, but I did not test with the 8800 GT roms beforehand unfortunately.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Thanks for the information !!! Actually you are my last chance, ... but inbox of all the participants of this

thread are full, so maybe someone read this and will get help here.

 

In aquamac's upload is another folder for the Nvidia 8800 GT with two .rom files. What to do with them ???

 

A short instruction to the process would be helpful.

 

--

 

Is it possible to get the old type of card back after flashing the graphic card ?!

 

Answer/Reply ... would be very very appreciated, so the 8800 GT isn't that good at all when it comes to 3D performance. Was very disappointed after buying it.

 

Best wishes, Micheal

 

Well I was kicking around looking for a project to do so I set about converting my Zotak 8800 GT 1024 MB PCIe card and NVIDIA 8800 GT 512 MB card to Quadro FX 3700's.

 

This is a bit trickier than normal as just changing the softstraps and device id resulted in the card being displayed as a device id of 0619 instead of the 061A that I was looking for (Quadro FX 3700). Well after much messing around, I managed to get both of them up and running showing up correctly in system profiler with the correct device id & memory.

 

quadrofx3700.jpeg

 

dualquadrofx3700.jpeg

 

openglviewerq370.jpeg

 

OpenGL Viewer got around a 200 point boost too!

 

zotakcard.jpeg

 

Here is a link to the roms:

 

http://rapidshare.com/files/160384434/aqua...o_3700_Roms.zip

 

I have only done the 2 cards listed above so far, and before everyone starts PMing me I am away till the end of the week. Also, although these should show up correctly in Hackintosh & Windows I still don't know if there is significant improvement in windows Maya/Spec View and so forth as I don't have it to test.

:happymac:

 

 

--

 

WHAT ABOUT THE TWO .rom FILES IN THE NVIDIA SUBFOLDER. COULD YOU SEND INFORMATION OF HOW TO GET THIS DONE !!! BEST WISHES

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Thanks for the information !!! Actually you are my last chance, ... but inbox of all the participants of this

thread are full, so maybe someone read this and will get help here.

 

In aquamac's upload is another folder for the Nvidia 8800 GT with two .rom files. What to do with them ???

 

A short instruction to the process would be helpful.

 

Get an old PCI video card best if it is a non-nvidia variety and the latest nvflash program which you put on a bootable floppy along with the .rom you wish to flash too the 8800GT. Now once you boot from the floppy you use the nvflash to backup your existing ROM on the card then flash the new shutdown then start the machine again and hopefully it worked. You would have wanted to set your BIOS to initialize the VGA card first before the boot from floppy to flash then have changed it back to PCI-e/PEG in some BIOS to check the result.

 

Is it possible to get the old type of card back after flashing the graphic card ?!

 

Yes you just use the original .rom file you saved to flash it back again.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

The question is whether I buy an old 8800GT and flash it to a Quadro FX3700 or to wait for GTX260/285 support and (if possible) flash it to Quadro CX/FX5800.

 

Quadro FX5800 for 300 Euros would be damn sexy. ;)

 

Anyway, thanks for your effort aqua-mac.

 

 

e1ement

 

btw: I love your stock look Hac Pro. Will there be a new Nehalem Hackintosh?

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Thanks for your comments e1ement, funny you should say that, it's bit of a longer term plan, but I am sure that there will be a core i7 hack along the way, in fact so far I have the board - a Asus P6T6 Workstation board. Still saving for a processor!

 

There will be a problem on the face of it, changing the current GTX series cards to Quadro, as "soft-strapping" can only be applied to the last digit of a device id.

 

As you will see from the details below the two latest Quadro's also have the second digit changed. This is probably set by resistors on the board itself. It would be great to have an example of an actual Quadro FX 5800 to study the resistor layout (or high def pics of both sides of the board), but I cannot see that happening due to the vast expense!!

 

Device id's for current crop of top GeForce/Quadro Cards;

 

0x05E1, GeForce GTX 280

 

0x05E2, GeForce GTX 260

 

0x05E3, GeForce GTX 285

 

0x05FD, Quadro FX 5800

 

0x05FE, Quadro FX 4800

 

0x05F9, Quadro CX"

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There will be a problem on the face of it, changing the current GTX series cards to Quadro, as "soft-strapping" can only be applied to the last digit of a device id.

 

That's not what I hoped to hear but the Quadro FX3700 won't be a bad card for my needs. The FX5000 Series would just be some kind of prestige. :star_smile:

 

Have you already looked at the ATI Workstation series? As far as I know is there a possiblity to modify the drivers so it shows a HD4870 as FirePro V8700. I also found out that changing the DeviceIDs will cause the video card to report as FirePro V8700 but so far it wasn't possible to install the drivers within windows.

Without DisplayPorts the HD4870 1GB seems identical to V8700. Palit/XpertVision's Radeon HD 4870 Sonic has two DisplayPorts and one DVI-connector. Maybe this on will be a good V8700. With Mac OS X 10.5.7's drivers it will probably be possible to run them without any bigger modifications to the OS itself.

 

It would be great to have an example of an actual Quadro FX 5800 to study the resistor layout (or high def pics of both sides of the board), but I cannot see that happening due to the vast expense!!

 

Ha, for every GTX-Series video card I can find pictures of the board layout but no one disassembled a Quadro card. :star_smile:

 

 

e1ement

 

//EDIT: http://www.macrumors.com/2009/04/01/snow-l...boost-and-more/

 

... a Mac Pro bump to 3.2GHz with Quadro FX 5800

 

That means GTX-Series will work and maybe it will be doable to flash a GTX285 to Quadro FX 5800.

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  • 1 month later...

Hey aqua-mac, Great job you've done here. For a noob like me though, is there any chance of writing up a brief step by step? I have a xfx 8800 gt 512 alphadog ed. that i'd love to give this a whirl on.

 

all the best,

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Hi everFrame, I have the same card as you but unfortunately flashing my card with this BIOS did not work for me.

 

I went to flash my card a while ago when Quicktime had the mouse lag problem but ended up flashing back to stock as I had alot of artifacts.

 

I don't know what it is about the XFX but it seems I'll have to put up with it until something more compatible comes along. Of course, the expensive option would be to go to the Apple store and buy a Mac Pro PCIe card but I think I'll wait.

 

My card works pretty damn good with the stock BIOS and EFI string but sometimes the screensaver won't activate and once the display sleeps it comes on randomly on it's own (varies from restart to restart).

 

I also don't feel it's performing as well as it should be especially in WoW. I was running Naxxramas last night and I was dropping to as low as 20 FPS and I'm not even on Ultra settings.

 

I thought this was going to be a good fix but didn't work for me Aqua-Mac, lol I also shat my pants when my display didn't come back on after restart but came on once I switch to the other DVI port which was strange as it's normally the port closest to the motherboard that's primary.

 

If you have any luck getting this to work on my XFX carD aqua-mac then I'll definitely try again!

 

Just to confirm, I have the XFX8800GT 512Mb Alpha Dog (G92).

 

Thanks.

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how does flashing it to a different model (quadro vs regular) change the ability of the card?

I have heard about disabled pipelines and all that from back in the old days when I was flashing Radeon 9800's to work on the Mac... anything like that?

Or does the Quadro bios just overclock the 8800GT? Or is it just better drivers?

I am curious but I doubt it will be any benefit to me having an 8800GS 384MB.

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Aqua-Mac!

 

I realised why I was getting artifacts with the FX3700 BIOS, after comparing it with the stock XFX8800GT BIOS, I noticed it's clocked a bit higher.

 

I altered your BIOS with NiBiTor but not going to flash at the moment as I personally can't see any real benefit if it's not natively supported. I don't really want to use EFI strings as I'll probably still have the same problems I am now.

 

Hopefully that will change with 10.5.7

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