New ATI Drivers

[munky]

i see from your system_profiler output that it is reporting QE and CI supported. i wonder what a GMA900 reports in this case.

 

keep us posted!!

 

EDIT: my suspicion is that its checking for something in the card's firmware and deliberately blacking out the screen if its not there. alternatively it might be something in the 10.4.4 mach_kernel which we're missing, in which case that'll be solved if/when 10.4.4 gets fixed for non-apple hardware.

 

also, if you're desperate for supported graphics right now, you could always try adding the vendor and device IDs to some of the older ATI kexts (eg the ATIRadeon etc). seems to work for some other cards (eg X800). then again, X1000 series is rather different... who knows?

Edited January 19, 2006 by munky

[rjtd21]

Greets.

Why don't you try to execute also the system properties, nd then the display preferences, and see if you can change resolution?

Also, did you do a ssh -X or export DISPLAY? What OS was running on the machine from where you started the ssh session? Linux or MacOSX?

 

 

Also, did anyone tried to use old ATIRadeon9700.kext (the 10.4.3 one) on the new system, with the ATINDRV and the new IOGraphics kexts?

Edited January 19, 2006 by rjtd21

[munky]

Mac OS X doesnt use X11 (well, it can, but its own GUI is not X11 based), and has no concept of exporting display (sadly).

 

if resolution can be changed from command line, it would be worth trying, to observe any changes.

 

the fact that ajv is seeing the blue screen with the progress spinner when he issues a shutdown, and when he restarts the window server would seem to support my theory, which i've outlined here in a separate thread:

 

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...t=0entry44797

 

EDIT: goodnight ajv

Edited January 19, 2006 by munky

[bofors]

Okay guys, my x1600xt just arrived from Newegg.

 

Nice timing, can you tell us exactly which model card you have? Who is the manufacturer?

 

Is it the connect3D 3051 Radeon X1600XT 256MB?:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814142061

[munky]

ajv: this is a *really* long shot, but it appears some software (notably iMovie 06) checks to see if the OS version is 10.4.4 before it will work properly.

 

want to try that trick on your system, to see if it makes the drivers any happier? i highly doubt it, but might be worth a try.

 

Basically you need to edit /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist. Change it to report 10.4.4 and the build '8G1165' (the build number for the 10.4.4 shipped with the new iMacs)

 

(That is, wherever it says 10.4.3 change to 10.4.4, wherever it says 8F1111G change it to 8G1165).

[zizux]

So I'm confused.

 

I have a PCI-E x800XL

 

I copied the kexts and did all the listed instructions and then the system hangs during reboot.

 

was I only supposed to copy one of the kexts?

[ajv]

Okay, the card is a Sapphire Radeon X1600XT 265Meg,

 

When I HUP the windowserver, the mouse pointer dissapears for a moment, but no other changes.

 

As I mentioned before, HUPing the loginwindow changes the screen blue for a second.

 

Changing SystemVersion.plist to 10.4.4 8G1165 had no effect.

 

I haven't found anyway to change display settings from an ssh session.

 

Something I don't quite understand. Why would rebooting the loginwindow get rid of the blackout for a second if this protection is built into the kext? The kext is the only thing that's changed so the problem has to be there doesn't it? Or maybe loginwindow blacks the screen for any QE enabled driver other the onboard intel one in the dev transition kit?

Edited January 19, 2006 by ajv

[ecstasy]

where's AppleNDRV?

 

will drivers work with Sapphire x700 512MB PCIe? which best card to get?

Edited January 19, 2006 by Serotonin

[munky]

ajv: this black screen behaviour can be seen on a GMA900 card too, using the kexts from 10.4.4, which is why i think it is deliberate behaviour.

 

if the kext is the only change I dont see how it could be down to loginwindow - after all ATI 9000-series cards got QE and CI under 10.4.3.

 

we need to enlist someone with experience of display driver hacking under osx. maybe jas?

[xtraa]

I had all the same symptoms, black screen, multicolor screen and - that was

interesting: no gui.

 

No gui but fully booting. So i was stuck at the commandline-boot window and could

hear frontrow.

 

At this time, the last message was, that the windowserver was unable to initialise or

find or detect the display.

 

Maybe this message is interesting for s.o.

[therenderman]

I backed up my Extensions folder (Extensions.bak), then copied all the new kexts and whatnot into it and typed in this:

sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions

sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions

sudo kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions

 

and then I rebooted. I just got black blocks and crazy artifacts like many others before me. I have a Radeon X300 SE. It worked pretty well before this, and I had CI and QE support, but I just wanted to try these new drivers to see if it would make the little mouse artifacts go away.

 

Now I just want to restore my backed up extensions so that it will be back to normal. How do i do this? The extensions folder is hard to modify, and i'm not too familiar with the terminal yet. Can someone help me out and just tell me what to do? The original extensions are all in /System/Library/Extensions.bak

 

I have read around, and if there is something in another post or thread that I am missing I am sorry. Please do not flame me, just point me to the right info.

 

 

Also, when rjtd said this:

"-> AppleNDRV <- This one has ATI related stuff in it, so don't forget about it.

-> ATINDRV.kext

-> all ATI*

-> IONDRVSupport.kext"

 

Where are AppleNDRV and IONDRVSupport.kext?? I don't have those and don't know where to find them. Maybe that is a problem?

[bofors]

I have read around, and if there is something in another post or thread that I am missing I am sorry. Please do not flame me, just point me to the right info.

I am sorry I can not help, but this certainly is the right thread.

 

Now I just want to restore my backed up extensions so that it will be back to normal. How do i do this? The extensions folder is hard to modify, and i'm not too familiar with the terminal yet. Can someone help me out and just tell me what to do? The original extensions are all in /System/Library/Extensions.bak

Perhaps someone here would like to write some clear instructions for how to undue the additions of the new kexts, because I am sure this question will come up again.

 

Where are AppleNDRV and IONDRVSupport.kext?

Do you mean where these files on your system (or the Internet)?

 

will drivers work with Sapphire x700 512MB PCIe?

No, not now and not likely in the future either.

which best card to get?

Right now, no cards are working so the best options to still to get a motherboard with a GMA 900/950 on it.

 

Otherwise, I believe the once that we will eventually get these new 10.4.4 drivers working and that they will support ATI x1300, x1600 and x1800 cards. The x1600 cards look like the best value to me, but it may be months until it is really useful.

 

Okay, the card is a Sapphire Radeon X1600XT 265Meg,

 

Thanks for the report, I am sorry that you card is not working yet. But I still might get one too just so I can help work on this problem.

Edited January 20, 2006 by bofors

[therenderman]

Do you mean where these files on your system (or the Internet)?

 

I don't think they're on my computer, and if they are not, then where can I download them? Go look at the 2nd post on the 1st page of this thread (posted by rjtd).

 

He gives this link : [Violation of DMCA]

 

And then says this:

"then copy the following extensions properly to the extensions directory

-> AppleNDRV <- This one has ATI related stuff in it, so don't forget about it.

-> ATINDRV.kext

-> all ATI*

-> IONDRVSupport.kext"

 

I downloaded that archive above, but AppleNDRV and IONDRVSupport.kext are not in it. And I do not even know if they are on my computer at all. I looked and they are not in /System/Library/Extensions and I did a spotlight search and that didn't come up with them either, so with respect to those two files I do not know what he is talking about. All I did was copy over ATIDRV.kext and the ATI* drivers...... and to no avail. Now I want to undo it and get my original extensions loaded back up, but I still don't know how.

 

Here's my current situation:

/System/Library/Extensions = BAD

/System/Library/Extensions.bak = GOOD

 

How do I replace the BAD one with the GOOD one?

[therenderman]

Nevermind, I found those two files that I needed.

 

But... It doesn't matter, this is still my situation:

/System/Library/Extensions = BAD

/System/Library/Extensions.bak = GOOD

 

How do I replace the BAD one with the GOOD one?

[ajv]

Nevermind, I found those two files that I needed.

 

But... It doesn't matter, this is still my situation:

/System/Library/Extensions = BAD

/System/Library/Extensions.bak = GOOD

 

How do I replace the BAD one with the GOOD one?

 

sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions /System/Library/Extensions.bad

sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions.bak /System/Library/Extensions

sudo kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions

sudo shutdown -h now

[39thRonin]

sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions /System/Library/Extensions.bad

sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions.bak /System/Library/Extensions

sudo kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions

sudo shutdown -h now

 

 

To get to this point, remember to boot into single user mode ( -s at the OSX boot prompt - hit f8 on start to get there). I have the same card and had the exact results you saw. doing this got me up and running very quickly.

[therenderman]

Thanks AJV. I finally got it all back in line and then I came back and saw your post Too bad I didn't know to do those commands an hour ago....

 

Anyway, I'm back to where I was before with my original Extensions:

10.4.3 Build 8F1111A

ATI Radeon X300 SE

Core Image: Yes

Quartz Extreme: Yes

Resolution: Can't change, but I edited the bootlist to make it 1280x1024x32

Refresh rate still sucks like always

 

I still have little artifacts left by the mouse cursor sometimes... oh well, I can deal with it. I'm sure after a while there will be some better drivers out there that give fuller support for ATI cards.

 

Hey Jbacko, sounds like we have almost the exact same computer. Mine is also a Dell Dimension 8400, with all that same stuff except I have the 3.4Ghz proc

 

How does DVD playback work for you?

[munky]

ajv: (crosspost) maybe we need to get it to find the PCI-E bus - i note that your system_profiler reports the bus as PCI.

 

the iMac Core Duo reports the bus as PCIe:

 

http://appleintelfaq.com/imac/system_profiler.html

 

if we can find out which kext does this, it might help - windowserver might be able to find the display

 

EDIT: examining ioreg details at appleintelfaq, i think IOPCI2PCIBridge is some sort of PCI-E to PCI bridge driver, which probably allows OSX to communicate with PCI-E. then again, i'm totally out of my depth here - someone with more experience of this stuff needs to take a look.

 

EDIT2: another thought - in the DTK machines, and in 915G/945G mobos - is the GMA900 on the PCI-E bus or AGP or what? this might explain why we're seeing the black screen behaviour with GMA900's and the 10.4.4 drivers.

Edited January 20, 2006 by munky

[vforce]

As yet another datapoint, I have a Dell Inspiron 600m aka Latitude D600 (same machine, different plastic) with an onboard ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 driving an SXGA+ LCD panel. CI/QE is broken and I get uncorrectable diagonal image corruption when I force the res to 1400x1050 in boot options. The system *does* load ATIRadeon8500.kext on startup and without errors. Same symptoms on either stock 10.4.3 (8f1111+A+Maxxuss) drivers or the 10.4.4 packages installed.

 

System profiler output follows. It seems to not recognize that it's AGP, sees PCI only. Even stranger is that 128MB of video memory; this chip can't have more than 32 or 64 with it. Maybe 128mb is this machine's AGP aperture setting? (can't check to be sure, Dell's BIOS hides most everything)

 

Type: VGA-Compatible Controller

Bus: PCI

VRAM(Total): 128MB

Vendor: ATI(0x1002)

Device ID: 0x4c66

Revision ID: 0x0002

Displays:

Display:

Resolution: 1024 x 768

Depth: 32-bit Color

Core Image: Not Supported

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: No

Online: Yes

Quartz Extreme: Not Supported

[Tek_No]

Hey vforce,

 

I got the same ATI chip (4c66) inside my HP Pavilion ZT3000 series laptop.

 

Same scenario over here but you can get it to use AGP by following the AGP thread on this forum: this works for me... Although I'm not sure if this is optimizing the OS is any way...

 

No Core Image or Quartz Extreme for me either

[ajv]

EDIT: examining ioreg details at appleintelfaq, i think IOPCI2PCIBridge is some sort of PCI-E to PCI bridge driver, which probably allows OSX to communicate with PCI-E. then again, i'm totally out of my depth here - someone with more experience of this stuff needs to take a look.

 

Hmm... no IOPCI2PCIBridge.kext in inteliMac_extensions.zip, where do you see that driver?

[xtraa]

Hmm... no IOPCI2PCIBridge.kext in inteliMac_extensions.zip, where do you see that driver?

 

No, there is no such kext. What he meant was for example, to enter your device and venor of your pci2pci bridge in some .plist file, in order to get PCIe support.

 

EDIT: examining ioreg details at appleintelfaq, i think IOPCI2PCIBridge is some sort of PCI-E to PCI bridge driver, which probably allows OSX to communicate with PCI-E.

 

But what confuses me, is that pcie is already running, the cards work. If the pcie slot would not be supported, we would have no graphic at all. Instead, I have even QE and CI. Afaik, thepci2pcibridge is a kind of superclass, where everything else is forked from. So, no matter if pci, pcie or even agp, it is hanging behind or "on" that bridge.

 

I don't know what kext it was, but I onced managed it to find the one and entered my device and vendor ID for that bridge. no effect. but when I entered the false, OSX was unable to find anything at bootup, and stucked. So that Bridge seems to work, however. I can remember that the preinstalled device and vendor from OSX was actually entered as a range, means there were much "fff" in it, and "f" means that the system accept anything.

 

So for example, if you want a kext for all ati devices, you could just enter 0xffff1002. That would take everything from Ati, no matter if it is a graphics device, or a usb coffecup-holder

 

The downside of this is, that the system may hang if you handle this too optimistic, because it will simply load the wrong devices.

 

EDIT2: another thought - in the DTK machines, and in 915G/945G mobos - is the GMA900 on the PCI-E bus or AGP or what? this might explain why we're seeing the black screen behaviour with GMA900's and the 10.4.4 drivers.

 

I had that black screen, too with nforce4 and ati x300 here. But it was not really a no graphic situation, because I could see and move my pointer. If it would have been hardwaresided, then everything would have to dissappear.

 

But another suggestion:

 

If only somebody with an IntelMac could upload the frameworks, I would very much appreciate that.

 

We have to see how much of the old system we could replace with the new one. And also many frameworks are doing graphically things. look in /frameworks or /privateframeworks how many Quartz, Accelerated, Display VA, GL things are hanging in there It would really worth a try, to tinker around with them.

Edited January 21, 2006 by xtraa

[munky]

hi guys, glad someone responded!

 

the pci2pci bridge is mentioned in the ioreg output - i think its just a class in the heirarchy of the frameworks.

 

i have some experience of getting my GeForce 6800 recognised as AGP (rather than PCI) so I wondered if this PCIe thing might be similar. we need to add the device ID of the correct motherboard device (whatever controls the PCI-E bus, basically) to some plist somewhere in a kext.

 

i agree that having the 10.4.4 frameworks would be a great step forward also.

[hilloki]

I have a question. My card (x850PRO) works in 10.4.3. QE/CE enabled. Whould using these improve performace?

thanks

[39thRonin]

Hey Jbacko, sounds like we have almost the exact same computer. Mine is also a Dell Dimension 8400, with all that same stuff except I have the 3.4Ghz proc

 

How does DVD playback work for you?

 

It works great - using VLC. The standard DVD player bombs on me - green screen, etc. Yeah - the dell is an ok machine - not super hot, it just works...