Any Proper 4870 kext for a 1440 x 900 Resolution?

[alvin777]

Hi. I'm using the Motmot, Natit combo (based on the Netkas website) drivers to make the CI and all the great graphics feature become supported/hardware (enabled) but I still need SwitchResX to have my monitor's native of 1440 x 900 be possible. The problem with using SwitchResX is it's not as sharp or clear compared to OS X having it's own 1440 x 900 native resolution. Also I have to rely on using the VGA port on this Motmot and Natit combo to get it to sleep. I'm using 10.5.8 right now.

 

Doe anyone know of a better solution to Motmot, Natit and SwitchRex. It'd be nice if 1440 x 900 appeared naturally on Control Panel and if I could the alternative to Motmot Natit be compatible with DVI in order for it to sleep, then that'd be great. Thank you in advance.

 

Gbu,

Alvin

[h4ck1nt05h]

It depends on the type/brand of 4870 you have. I have a XFX 4870 512mb. If you are running 10.5, try this:

 

- Back up the files you used to get it working how you had it just in case my instructions don't work. You can always switch back if something doesn't work right this way.

 

- You must update to 10.5.7 or 10.5.8 if you aren't already. It has updated OpenGL framework and ATI drivers for our card.

 

- Restore stock ATI kexts and OpenGL frameworks... easiest way is get them out of a combo update using pacifist or delete your ATI kexts and reinstall combo update, must have 10.5.7 or higher for this to work. I did not need a modified Motmot but you can try it if it gives you sleep (try with stock first).

 

- Remove natit.kext

 

- Get ATY_Init from here: http://netkas.org/?p=116 - this is the best version I have found that gives me the best performance with my XFX 4870 512mb card. put it in your /System/Library/Extensions and set proper permissions

 

sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/ATY_Init.kext

sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/ATY_Init.kext

 

- Rebuild your kextcache by deleting /System/Library/Extensions.mkext

 

- Remove any gfx EFI strings you have in your /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist - these will be generated by ATY_Init on each boot automatically. Back up your file just in case.

 

- Restart and enjoy OS X native resolution switching, awesome OpenGL scores, and QE/CI. Sleep doesn't work for me, but you can give it a shot. Personally I'd rather have a fully working graphics driver than sleep, you can always shut down and start it back up later. I am using DVI on my card and don't need DVI/VGA adapter using Apple stock motmot.

 

A friend of mine has the Sapphire 4870 and he just had to make a graphics string for his, so your mileage may vary. The reason is that different manufactures use different types of ROMs for the same type of card (like XFX and Sapphire). Mine needs an injector or I get really bad OpenGL performance. His gets awesome OpenGL scores but has mouse lag every 4 seconds. I'm happy using the injector, but I tried both ways on his and ATY_Init worked on his too (still had the mouse lag tho...)

 

If you are using 10.6, I've taken the EVOEnabler.kext (injector) and modified it with the binimage/injectors included with ATY_Init to give you x64 support, but performance is not as good as it is in 10.5 (for me at least). If you need this file, just PM me. I have gone back to 10.5 as my primary boot drive because OpenGL performance sucks in SL compared to 10.5... I'm going to wait until some better drivers are out for 10.6 before I switch to it completely.

 

- You can also look at netkas' PC EFI 10.3 (10.6 only) from http://netkas.org/?p=224 which can detect your card and inject the necessary BIOS. This hasn't worked from me yet, but I posted a comment and hopefully netkas will respond and help me to get it working.

 

And just wanted to say... thank you again to netkas! If it weren't for him, I would have really bad OpenGL performance!

[alvin777]

Hi. Thanks so much. I will try this. I have a Palit 4870 1GB dual Sonic edition Specifications here (dual BIOS which is great for experiments). I had traded my 260 GTX for the Palit. Was it a good decision? I thought 4870 would be more compatible for future upgrades like the Snow Leopard and because it had 1GB. It has one DVI, one HDMI, one Display port and one VGA port. I will try this. Although I've tried the Netkas method I might have missed something. Does sleep work with this method or you're also using the VGA port with the EGA to make sleep work (I'm on the VGA port which is the only port sleep would work so far).

 

On backing up. I have Time Machine. It's very easy to back with Time Machine and restore it but when I restored from the latest backup in Time Machine using the DVD installer, it did restore it but it won't boot it. Would you know why it wouldn't boot? I have tried Gparted to check and uncheck the boot flag but that didn't work. I ended up reinstalled OSX86, then updating it to 10.5.8 (manually in short).

 

Thank you in advance.

[h4ck1nt05h]

Personally I wouldn't trust Time Machine for bootable backups... I would just boot off another volume/CD and make an image of the drive using Disk Utility if you needed a bootable backup.

 

Sleep does not work for me in Leopard, and I don't remember if it worked in SL or not. My card only has 2 DVI and 1 HDMI out, and I haven't tried a DVI-VGA Adapter because I never use sleep on my desktop and just didn't have a need for it

 

And whether or not you made a good decision would be if you have the mouse lag issue or not. Hopefully this will be worked out in driver updates from Apple... I was lucky that my card didn't have the issue.

 

Good luck, let us know how it goes!