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Getting closer - An ATI graphics guide

captainsquash

By captainsquash,
in OSx86 10.4 (Tiger)

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Fausto
Fausto
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Update: I should pay more attention! Specifically, I've now got OS X running nicely (except for the small mouse artefact in Finder that occurs on each mouse-up event), but the main problem getting to this point turned out to be me... neglecting to uncheck certain JaS options (e.g., SSE3) during installation. So I'm both delighted and sorry that I didn't have to try any of captainsquash's much-appreciated instructions! :thumbsdown_anim: At least others will benefit, and I'll certainly keep the instructions handy in case I need them in the future. Again, fantastic work, captain!

 

Whoa, I can hardly express my gratitude, captainsquash! Now that's detail! Actually, I haven't yet implemented your suggested resolution (I just finished downloading Darwin), but I'll certainly update you as soon as I can!
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captainsquash
captainsquash
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Fausto - Glad to hear you got it working.

 

2DC - A long time ago, I loaded OSx86 on a friends laptop with a X200M and it didn't work so well, but that was using the old method. Last I checked (which was quite long ago) QE wasn't available to X200M users as there wasn't a wonder fix available at the time (the card is pretty far off from any of Apple's default kexts). So, I'd say give Katana 0.2c a shot, it should at least help.

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Rammjet
Rammjet
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Should be able to do this in single-user mode. When booting OSX, just as soon as you select OSX in the bootloader, press and hold the F8 key until a command prompt appears. If the grey Apple screen with the spinning gear icon appears, you were too slow, try again. Type -s at the prompt.

 

This will boot to a command line interface. Type:

mount -uw /
cd /System/Library
rm -rf Extensions.mkext Extensions.kextcache
cd Extensions
rm -R Callisto* AGP*
reboot

If this doesn't work, then Kantana installed more things that need to be removed. Boot into single user mode and type the same things except for the "rm" part, use "rm" to remove any other offending kexts.

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captainsquash
captainsquash
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Rammjet - Thanks for the speedy reply

 

themessenger500 - .2c is more or less the going standard, so if that didn't work you might want to consider other options, Katana .3d is still under development (but its not getting anywhere speedy as I don't have a mac to work on it (or test it) with) but it could work for you. I can send you .3c if you'd like, but because you have a 9700 - you may not need Katana (as you already have QE, but you have tearing). You might want to try this. If that doesn't work, shoot me a PM (or for anyone thats interested) and I'll put up manual installation instructions for .3 (w/ Callisto 005 and AGPGart 2.2). Though, all you should need to change resolutions is a working Callisto, with your info.plist in ATIRadeon9700GA.plugin to use CallistoFB and not IONDRVFrameBuffer (under <key>IOProviderClass</key>). Again, I can walk you through that too if you'd like.

 

Edit: The asterisks are wildcards, Because the /System is the only folder that exists in / that starts with an S, specifying S* means (in this case) go to the first folder that starts with S. On most OS X installs, typing cd /System and cd /S* will yield the same result (as S* --> System (and L* goes to Library, etc.)).

 

To ensure that your system continues to boot, make sure AGPGart.kext, Callisto.kext and CallistoHAL.kext are not present in your /System/Library/Extensions folder, removing those will completely uninstall all aspects of 0.2c and your system should be back to normal. If they are still there, remove them and erase /System/Library/Extensions.mkext and /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache.

Edited by captainsquash
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nogeek
nogeek
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captainsquash - First, thanks for the great job. I installed Katana on my Hacintosh. With ATI Mobility Radeon 9200, now i have AGP and resolution switching. Screen saver and other apps using OpenGL don't crash anymore. Screen saver is very slow though, like 1fps. Chess doesn't crash anymore, but it is not working correctly. it doesn't refresh the window and eats up my cpu. VLC player crashes. Is this the best condition you got on your pig lately? Actually, I feel about 20-30% deceleration in UI graphics performance after installing Katana. Is it normal? However, I think it is better to have those applications working even for the price of slower graphics.

 

From one of your post i got the idea that I should have ATINDRV.kext deleted from my /system/library/extensions directory. Is that true?

 

About the installer, it is very professional and better than most of the patches and hacks all around this forum. I have a suggestion though. You can add a rescue option to the boot options so that if the new setup doesn't work for someone and they aren't able to boot OS X to run the restore they can still restore their systems from backups to the last settings.

 

keep up with the great job. :graduated:

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captainsquash
captainsquash
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themessenger500 - Well, I guess it's (unfortunately) come to the point where you pick your poison. You can get mouse tearing etc with QE or just OpenGL with a Katana fix. I've never worked with a mobility radeon 9700 pro before, but as far as I know you're going to have to live with the tearing and flaky cursor if you want QE (I could very well be wrong though).

 

Although I've never tried it - I hear that Mouse Locator helps in this setup. You can get it here.

 

nogeek - Yes, the performance leaves much to be desired - but it's as good as we can get at this point in time with software rendering et al. Leave ATINDRV be - in some rare cases it has caused stability issues but I'd recommend you keep it. In the de-brick guide I made a bit ago it was removed as a precaution but in many cases it's safe to leave there.

 

I'm glad to hear Katana is working for you - thanks for your idea. I was thinking of releasing the rescue app as a separate utility though, most likely as a appended darwin installer cd - that way the user doesn't have to worry about booting into OS X. That way, if OS X is on the blink they can at least boot from the darwin installer cd.

 

Another utility I'm working on (completely separate from Katana) is KextPlop. The goal of it is to simplify kext installation - you would drag a kext you want to install into the app, then enter your password, and it would install the kext for you. I figure it might be useful -more to come soon.

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nogeek
nogeek
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nogeek - Yes, the performance leaves much to be desired - but it's as good as we can get at this point in time with software rendering et al. Leave ATINDRV be - in some rare cases it has caused stability issues but I'd recommend you keep it. In the de-brick guide I made a bit ago it was removed as a precaution but in many cases it's safe to leave there.

 

Another utility I'm working on (completely separate from Katana) is KextPlop. The goal of it is to simplify kext installation - you would drag a kext you want to install into the app, then enter your password, and it would install the kext for you. I figure it might be useful -more to come soon.

 

So you mean you can't play chess now? But I think you once said you have no problem with chess!

 

that's a great idea. It would be also nice if you can write a tutorial on how to create an installer so other people can learn how to do that quickly and othe gurus can add to that tutorial and make it really advanced. A generic installer is also good for lazy people like me. this can be a open source project (OpenInstaller! :thumbsup_anim: )

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captainsquash
captainsquash
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nogeek - Well, I was able to play chess, it just isn't terribly speedy and sometimes had a bit of tearing, but it worked - it was playable (but not extremely enjoyable :thumbsup_anim:)

 

Installers are pretty easy to make with PackageMaker from Xcode - but often you can't use just an installer to perfectly install many things. The Katana 0.3 installer (for example) chugs through 300 lines of additional scripts before and after the installation to achieve the desired result (but you never see them as they run in the background).

 

So, when I've got some free time I can write an installer guide (with scripting), but it might be somewhat lengthy...

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captainsquash
captainsquash
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Hm, looks like whole starchaser.org site is down. At any rate, I've extracted the Callisto 003 kexts from Katana 0.3a4 and attached them below. They don't have omni's messages, etc. and this will be removed once the site is back up - but this should quench your callisto thirst in the interim :wacko:

 

(Also - sorry, I don't have 008)

 

 

EDIT: Omni's website is back - removing attached file. Get it at http://omni.starchaser.org

Edited by captainsquash
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zubi_won
zubi_won
Posted
Posted

Thanks for the help captiansquash, I was wondering what the options for a user who has 10.4.8 sse2 with the 8.8.1 kernel. I have tried the titan/natit options but when the login.app is called My screen just goes white. and then I am forces to power off and start again. Any thoughts?

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captainsquash
captainsquash
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zubi_won - Well, at this point in time you're probably going to have to use Katana. At this point in time there isn't any magic QE/CI fix for the Radeon 9000 unfortunately, so you're just going to use OpenGL acceleration in the interim.

 

ARBYsfranchise - This will probably work on the x1400, but there are options out there which will probably yield better results for you. Although these methods aren't designed for your card, I wouldn't be surprised if they worked well.

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry247328

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry130125

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dSlifer
dSlifer
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Posted

I'm starting to wonder if my sometimes sluggish problems and not being able to run a few certain programs is because I'm using 10.4.3.... I have an ATI R9250, I just realized during boot up it only recognizes it as a 9200, but after seeing all you deal with the kexts, I don't know if I could, and it's probably just registering as that, my resolution is full 1600, it's really nice, and windows are able to use Genie better and better when minimized. Almost no lag!

 

 

My only concern is some programs haven't working too well, such as Pages and Keynote, I guess they are a lot more graphical than I give them credit for, because I'm able to run PS CS2 just fine. I'm really worried that means I won't be able to use iLife because those programs seem even more power hungry.

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captainsquash
captainsquash
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dSlifer - That could be the culprit, Katana has been tested on with 10.4.6 and up so it is a possibility, I'm not sure if Apple did anything too drastic graphicswise from 10.4.4 to 10.4.6, but if you do upgrade some time in the future I'd be interested to see if it does the same thing.

 

It comes as no surprise to me (unfortunately) that iLife and Keynote are giving you a hard time - both use QE liberally, and if you don't have QE you're definitely going to have a hard time. If they are really important to you, you may want to buy a compatible graphics card (you can check the HCL here).

 

nunex - Your 9700 pro should be able to use the Radeon 9700 kexts to some extent. Although I've never tried this before, you might be able to get away with adding your graphics card's device id into your ATIRadeon9700.kext info.plist. If this doesn't work, I can walk you through another procedure.

 

Also, the ATI drivers for OS X will not help you at all :/

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nunex
nunex
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hey captain !

 

thx for the reply !

 

by default, the installation didn't detect my radeon 9700 pro... i'll try to revert the state of my graphic drivers (now that i'm using Callisto to change my resolution) and change the id in the plist of the 9700 kext.

 

But, if its not boring to you, you could explain that "another procedure" of yours.

 

thx in advance !

 

cheers

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dSlifer
dSlifer
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I was so close... A friend of mine got a lot of his computer upgraded, or was in the process of so he said I could take his older hardware since I still have to deal with PCI. The parts were only six to eight months old too, so it was going to be amazing. Then, turns out, he didn't have to get a new CPU, so he used the one he had already which left me with a Mobo and GPU (X1300... quite an upgrade from the 9250, eh?) but I didn't have a CPU that would fit on that mobo. Then I found a motherboard in the house that had AGP, and the chip was 2.5, without hyper-threading, but I told myself I was going to sacrifice a little bit of CPU for a huge jump in graphics. Four power supplies and several several mountain dews later, we finally announced that the mobo just couldn't handle the card. So I slowly put everything back together into the case and just imagined how amazing OS X probably looks on that card.

 

 

One day.... one day....

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