an1r0n Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 Hey guys, I've been having same performance glitches from 10.5 Leopard and now on fully updated 10.6 SL. In both cases I've used EFI strings. I've also updated nVidia drivers with the latest Fermi ones (since they come with support for 8xxx series). Any kind of effects like expose, dashboard drawing or just moving windows around sometimes experience small slowdowns, framerate drop. Currently, I'm using Nvidia 8800GT 512 from eVGA, but have experienced same issues even with 8600GT. These glitches do not happen every time animation occurs, but on every 3rd or 4th try. For example, try using expose show windows multiple times and it should slow down after three or four animations. Slowdown in animation looks like framerate drops and then stabilizes. And the most important thing is that I have Steam on the same hackintosh and I'm being able to play all HL2 games on high resolutions without any of the glitches. So it has to be something with OS X or EFI strings. I did however hear from Prasys that this is a know issue, and I've heard that Apple likes to cover issues with nVidia (that's why they switched to ATI on new Mac's). But I've also seen a real Mac Pro's and iMac's with Nvidia graphics where there were none of these slowdowns / framerate drops. I just want to know why is this happening, I am being able to use my machine perfectly normal but these things remind me that this is a hackintosh and I want it perfect! : ) Looking forward to your answer! Thanks, an1r0n Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rominator Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 Since you are on on EVGA 8800GT you have a unique option. You can flash that card with Mac ROM. The Hack will ignore the EFI part and use the PC BIOS part. The PC BIOS uses different power states and monitor definitions than EVGA. Pretty obvious that the ones on Mac 88GT would be better "fit" for Mac drivers. If you are wary of flashing, there are injectors that use the card's BIOS directly. Try that and be sure to update NVCAP string for new BIOS. If you use Mac BIOS and still have issues, you have greatly narrowed down where the problems can be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
an1r0n Posted April 1, 2011 Author Share Posted April 1, 2011 Hey Rominator, Thanks for quick response. You're right, it does make sense its going to work faster. I've been thinking about ROM method for some time now, although I'm a bit uncomfortable because of success rate. Do you know where could I find any reliable ROM's? Aquamac or ? I've found a few, one nice guide from reduser forums. Thanks for your reply! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rominator Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 please note, only the EVGA cards are guaranteed to have a 128K EEPROM, so Mac ROM will fit. other brands need to check first 88gt64.rom.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 If the ROM doesn't fit on your card, you can try loading it with Chameleon. Upgrade to Chameleon 2.0 RC5 Name the ROM 10de_xxxx.rom (where xxxx is your video card's device ID) and place it in /Extra Add VBIOS=y and UseNvidiaROM=y to your /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist Use Chameleon's GraphicsEnabler=y instead of your present injection method. On some systems it's necessary to add PCIRoot=1 as well when using GraphicsEnabler. For more info, search this topic: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=225766 To verify that the whole ROM is getting injected (I've seen reports of problems with large ROMs) locate the GFX0@0 node in IORegistryExplorer and where it says vbios, copy all the data (without the at the beginning and end), paste it into a hex editor (I use 0xED) and save it. Then compare the size of the resulting file with the ROM dump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rominator Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 If it is a green PCB with a black fan with blue and white graphics on it...the ROM will fit. Trust me on this. The part number for the EEPROM will be MX1005xxx and you will need to use "nvflash 88gt64.rom -4 -5 -6" to avoid any tedious messages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
an1r0n Posted April 2, 2011 Author Share Posted April 2, 2011 To both Rominator and Gringo Vermehlo, huge thanks for your efforts and help! I've tested out Rominator's rom by using Chameleon to load it, it works just fine. I'm also pretty much sure that rom will fit on VGA because I'm using EVGA Geforece 8800GT like the Rominator described. I've noticed that animations now are a bit more slower than with EFI, but I suppose it's because I'm loading ROM with Chameleon RC4. I also must say that I have tried previously with loading other 8800GT ROM's and performance was same as with EFI, so I'm currently wondering if I should flash ROM at all and stick with EFI. Can anyone verify that loading ROM with Chameleon isn't exactly performant? I mean, the ROM loaded with Chameleon works fine with video, for eg. I'm playing 1080p movie without any glitches, but as soon as I start expose it has slowdowns / glitchy animations (video stays the same, no issues there). I'll definitely give it a try with ROM, but will create backup of the current ROM on my graphics card, just to be sure. Thanks a bunch guys! an1r0n P.S:. I've attached Graphics / Display preferences to verify that the ROM is loaded and in use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 Something is wrong, it should not show xx.xx.xx there, only the vendor_devid.rom. Are you 100% sure there is no other injection method active? Check your DSDT and remove gfx0 device if it's there. System Profiler -> Software -> Extensions and look for injector.kexts such as ATY_Init, NVEnabler, Natit, etc etc. Did you do a full install of Chameleon 2.0 RC5? Replacing /boot is not enough. This could very well be what's causing your slowness issues, there should be no performance penalty when overriding the BIOS ROM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
an1r0n Posted April 7, 2011 Author Share Posted April 7, 2011 Thanks for checking it. Nope, no injectors, only graphics enabler in Chameleon RC4. I didn't wanted to install RC5 yet, might check it out, but I'm not sure that I'm having any graphics improvements there? The xx.xx.xx - internal shows when I'm using Chameleon to auto detect graphics, only when I add EFI string for graphics (and not use chameleon graphics enabler) it doesnt show xx.xx.xx - internal but it's the same performance. Let me know if you think different about it. As for DSDT no gfx0. Thanks for all your help! an1r0n Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted April 7, 2011 Share Posted April 7, 2011 Nope, no injectors, only graphics enabler in Chameleon RC4. I didn't wanted to install RC5 yet, might check it out, but I'm not sure that I'm having any graphics improvements there? That explains the x'es then. The GraphicsEnabler code recieves updates just like any other component of Chameleon. Installing a newer version of Chameleon might help with your issue...who knows. If you need help with your configuration before upgrading, post your /extra/com.apple.Boot.plist and I'll help you "translate" it from RC4 to RC5, if needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrCarembole Posted April 7, 2011 Share Posted April 7, 2011 i'm wondering if the rom flashing would still let the card being recognized under windows ? cuz i'm multibooting osx and windows 7 Regards, MrCarembole Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 Yes, it should work fine, if it doesn't you can always flash it back again. However as you can see from post #7 it is not necessary to flash the ROM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zandera Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 i got this beast working just by extracting ROM patching rom with 512MB ROM Patcher and place this back to card, that was only thing i had to do. But it was on some early SL distribution... G86.bin.rom.zip 512MB_ROM_Patcher.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
an1r0n Posted April 20, 2011 Author Share Posted April 20, 2011 Hey guys, Small update... I realized that it's time to upgrade from my 8800GT and got a dirt cheap Gigabyte GTX460 768MB. Expecting card to arrive today, hopefully it's going to work (loads of useful info on Insanelymac). Thanks to everyone! an1r0n Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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