Lion, 4670, GraphicsEnabler, QE/EI, some help needed

[mcbyte_it]

So, I installed Lion on my Asus P8P67 Pro, i5 2500K, Sapphire 4670 Ultimate 512MB.....

I had issues at first, from which that the installer works only if I connect the monitor with the VGA cable and not the DVI cable. I installed the package by Andy for my motherboard, then Chameleon 2 RC5 1083.pkg to by MBR harddisk to boot directly.

 

after Install everything is working fine, with no hacks, no scripts, Lion detects both outputs.

 

Checking the kexts, I found that Lion ATI4600 Kext plist contains the exact vendor_id and device_id as my video card, so I guess it should be natively supported, am I right?

 

but I have some questions:

1) how do I know if GraphicsEnabler (QE/QI) is enabled or disabled? in the Extra boot plist there is no GraphicsEnabler line.

 

2) with everything as it is, CineBench 11.5 gives me 33fps in OpenGL benchmark, is this the expected result for 4670?

 

3) I tried booting with the GraphicsEnabler=yes in the "boot:" chameleon prompt, and it booted with only VGA output enabled (DVI doesn't work), and doing the same CineBench I got the exact same result, 33fps.

 

4) is there a tool to tell me if QE/QI is enabled and if it is working?

[Peter Board]

So, I installed Lion on my Asus P8P67 Pro, i5 2500K, Sapphire 4670 Ultimate 512MB.....

I had issues at first, from which that the installer works only if I connect the monitor with the VGA cable and not the DVI cable. I installed the package by Andy for my motherboard, then Chameleon 2 RC5 1083.pkg to by MBR harddisk to boot directly.

 

after Install everything is working fine, with no hacks, no scripts, Lion detects both outputs.

 

Checking the kexts, I found that Lion ATI4600 Kext plist contains the exact vendor_id and device_id as my video card, so I guess it should be natively supported, am I right?

 

but I have some questions:

1) how do I know if GraphicsEnabler (QE/QI) is enabled or disabled? in the Extra boot plist there is no GraphicsEnabler line.

 

2) with everything as it is, CineBench 11.5 gives me 33fps in OpenGL benchmark, is this the expected result for 4670?

 

3) I tried booting with the GraphicsEnabler=yes in the "boot:" chameleon prompt, and it booted with only VGA output enabled (DVI doesn't work), and doing the same CineBench I got the exact same result, 33fps.

 

4) is there a tool to tell me if QE/QI is enabled and if it is working?

 

Potentially you might be using the Radeon Generic Frame buffer.

 

Go into the About this Mac in the Apple menu, click on More info, System Report and then PCI Cards in the System Information program. What name appears under the ATI 4670 card? Mine has ATY, Shrike.

 

One way to test if you have a proper frame buffer working is to launch DVD player. If your using the Generic Framebruffer it will crash, if your using the right frame buffer for your card it shouldn't crash.

[mcbyte_it]

With default settings, no GraphicsEnabler in boot.plist, here is what I get:

Under PCI card I have nothing, and under Graphics Display only "ATI Radeon HD 4600" :s

 

anyway, DVD Player crashes, so it is a Generic Framebuffer, that need fixing

 

But I can use either VGA or DVI as output.

 

But when I add GraphicsEnabler=Yes at Chameleon Boot: prompt, I can work only with VGA cable (DVI is not usable, black screen), but DVD Player works. System Information is the same.

 

Update:

After some trys and reboots, I am at this point:

With just GraphicsEnabler set to yes, I can start DVD Player (Which means not a generic FB?), but only with VGA cable, but strangely I have video on the DVI, appears to be mirrored, but in 256 colors, even though it is not written in system info.

 

I tried to start with GraphicsEnabler=y and AtiConfig=Shrike, got video on both DVI and VGA (dual monitor detected), but DVD Player crashed.

 

and now i discovered the bdmesg command, here is what it says about the video card:

Using PCI-Root-UID value: 0

Framebuffer @0xD0000000 MMIO @0xFE620000 I/O Port @0x0000E000 ROM Addr @0xFE600000

ATI card POSTed, reading VBIOS from legacy space

ATI RV730 ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series 512MB (Flicker) [1002:9490] (subsys [174b:e100]):: PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

[Peter Board]

With default settings, no GraphicsEnabler in boot.plist, here is what I get:

Under PCI card I have nothing, and under Graphics Display only "ATI Radeon HD 4600" :s

 

anyway, DVD Player crashes, so it is a Generic Framebuffer, that need fixing

 

But I can use either VGA or DVI as output.

 

But when I add GraphicsEnabler=Yes at Chameleon Boot: prompt, I can work only with VGA cable (DVI is not usable, black screen), but DVD Player works. System Information is the same.

 

Update:

After some trys and reboots, I am at this point:

With just GraphicsEnabler set to yes, I can start DVD Player (Which means not a generic FB?), but only with VGA cable, but strangely I have video on the DVI, appears to be mirrored, but in 256 colors, even though it is not written in system info.

 

I tried to start with GraphicsEnabler=y and AtiConfig=Shrike, got video on both DVI and VGA (dual monitor detected), but DVD Player crashed.

 

and now i discovered the bdmesg command, here is what it says about the video card:

 

The ATI 4600 controller has three different frame buffers, Shrike, Flicker and Gliff.

 

My ATI Mobility 4670 uses Shrike, it looks like your ATI 4670 (non mobility version) uses Flicker.

 

Each of these frame buffers has a preconfigured list of 3 different display connectors (matching Apples Hardware setup). When you use the generic framebuffer it just detects whatever connectors you have and uses them.

 

But to get proper hardware support you need to get your connector list right. So the VGA connector in the Flicker Frame buffer is correct for your VGA port. You will need to work out the correct Connector strings and modify the ati 4600 controller.kext to have your setup.

 

If you get a bios dump of your video cards VGA bios (using Everest Diagnostic tool in windows is one easy way) you can work out your connectors. I have a post a bit early about my Ati Mobility 4670 connectors, and I have been trying to help someone else with theirs.

 

There is a big post by BCC9 which explains it all. Once you get your head around it, it all makes sense.

 

Dump your BIOS and run it through the Bios Decoder script on BCC9's post (link in my post to his main post) to get started.

[mcbyte_it]

I checked the threads you mentioned, and found bcc9 utility.

 

But do I need this now? My system is working with VGA output, graphics seem fine and fast, but is there a way to verify if in the current state QE/CI is working or not?

 

I tried VDADecoderCheck tool, and it says Hardware acceleration is fully supported. Does this mean that everything is working correctly?

 

I need to do the long procedure of checking and patching just to get DVI output work correctly, or are there other advantages?

 

 

Just for the info:

I want to make DVI work, but not until the end of the month, as I have a week off to spend reading and patching, now I have no much free time.

[smartie77]

I checked the threads you mentioned, and found bcc9 utility.

 

But do I need this now? My system is working with VGA output, graphics seem fine and fast, but is there a way to verify if in the current state QE/CI is working or not?

 

I tried VDADecoderCheck tool, and it says Hardware acceleration is fully supported. Does this mean that everything is working correctly?

 

I need to do the long procedure of checking and patching just to get DVI output work correctly, or are there other advantages?

 

 

Just for the info:

I want to make DVI work, but not until the end of the month, as I have a week off to spend reading and patching, now I have no much free time.

 

If you have xcode : there is a tool included "OpenGL Monitor" it has a option for showing Renderer info and will plain simple write "hardware acceleration" = " YES" together with all the capabilities the hardware has to offer. If there is a no, then QE/CI is definately borked.

 

there must be a way to query IOREG for that too but I don't know the magic commandline to do so

[hugosanchez]

hi i discovered i can boot 10.6.8 with graphics enabler=no and -pci1 bootflag and dvi to dvi connection. i also tested it in lion (10.7.1) but with graphics enabler=yes and -pci1. i own a sapphire ultimate 4670 512mb (i think ddr3). i used chameleon bootloader..one of the newer versions. i am on windows right now and a bit in a hurry but i installed it with chameleon wizard not so long ago...

 

i can watch 1080p videos, dashboard has ripple effect so i think QE/CI is working properly.in system profiler its radeon 4600 series or so but as long as everything works i am happy

 

i have not tested hdmi or vga yet, because i got only one main display...but perhaps i will test it just for fun...

 

my mainboard is ep45 ud3lr...someone wrote in another thread that gigabyte boards often need -pci1 to get this or similar cards working...

 

i just connected a second monitor via dvi and my main via hdmi..both working:D now i can finaly use this card again since it stopped working after 10.6.4 update ( i do not remember excatly what update could be it was 10.6.3 or 10.6.6...). i had to buy a cheap gfx card to use my system again..now it is much better:D

 

edit: can´t start dvd-player and ableton strange

 

update: when i start lion only with graphicsenabler=yes and monitor connected via vga dvd player and ableton start...but with dvi or hdmi and/or graphicsenabler=no they wont start..strange