Weird Problem with Weird Workaround

[Zanneth]

Ever since the birth of my beautiful Hackintosh, I have been having this really frustrating problem with Animation and Graphics (Exposé, Spaces, stacks animations to be specific). About half of the time it will run smoothly, but the other half of the time it is very laggy and choppy. I doubt that it is a problem with my hardware not being powerful (see specs below), but I did however find an interesting workaround.

 

For some reason, under Display preferences, there is an option there called "Overscan" (which I don't see on my MacBook Pro Early 2008 model). Only when that is checked can I select my monitor's native resolution of 1920x1200, otherwise the maximum resolution is 1680x1050. Anyway, what I found out is that if I uncheck it, have it change to a lower resolution, then check it, then finally select my native resolution, animations run perfectly smooth after that. How strange!

 

Can anybody offer any sort of explanation for this? Does anybody know why Exposé and other animations run choppy half of the time? My Hackintosh runs perfectly otherwise, and high-end games in Windows run very smoothly.

 

My specs are as follows:

Gigabyte P55A-UD3 Motherboard

Intel Core i7 875K

8GB DDR @ 1333Mhz

nVidia GTX 260 (216 core)

 

Monitor: (Dual) Samsung SyncMaster 2433 24" LCD.

 

Thanks!

[Markrtoon]

Well, it's not a problem..I don' think, when I don't have the graphics driver installed for my pc, animations in leopard are terrible, because OSX can't take control of that hardware like it wants too.

[Zanneth]

Well, it's not a problem..I don' think, when I don't have the graphics driver installed for my pc, animations in leopard are terrible, because OSX can't take control of that hardware like it wants too.

 

How could one explain my workaround (switching Overscan off then back on) then?

 

For the record, I am using EFI Strings to get my card to work. I think at some point I was using NVEnabler and was having the same problem though. Here's what my boot.plist file looks like:

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>arch=i386</string>
<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1920x1200x32</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>0</string>
<key>Legacy Logo</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>device-properties</key>
<string>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</string>
</dict>
</plist>

[Markrtoon]

Hmm...I think it thinks it's like a tv, because that's the only time I've ever heard of that, it allows you to adjust how it looks perfectly for that display. And you couldn't find graphics drivers for you card?

[Zanneth]

Hmm...I think it thinks it's like a tv, because that's the only time I've ever heard of that, it allows you to adjust how it looks perfectly for that display. And you couldn't find graphics drivers for you card?

 

I suppose I haven't... I don't remember encountering any when I was first setting up the card. I followed this guide:

 

http://osx86.co/f19/guide-geforce-gtx-260-...-leopard-t4057/

[Markrtoon]

I guess there isn't but you got it running, you're a lucky man, again. I think that the overscan option is normal for the EFI strings, <key>GraphicsEnabler</key> that makes your bootloader recognize what graphics card you have, and EFI is like BIOS for mac, so they have to emulate it.

[Gringo Vermelho]

Mark is correct, the overscan setting only appears when using a TV....or when the drivers think your monitor is a TV.

 

Visit the NVEnabler thread at the project OSX forums and read about "display-cfg".

 

If you don't want to use NVenabler.kext, you can inject display-cfg values via DSDT alongside your existing injection method. See examples in the NVEnabler thread.