PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
July, 21, 2003 8:14 PM |
voxxdigital |
Anyone has been lucky flashing a standard PC NVIDIA GeForce PCI graphics card (from PC to Mac)? |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 06, 2003 6:50 AM |
voxxdigital |
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Anyone has succeeded yet? |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 05, 2003 7:06 PM |
joevt |
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I think it's more accurate to say that the card's Open Firmware driver does not know how to handle itself in an Old World Mac. Specifically, the card's firmware is missing code to work around a problem in the OF implementation on Old World Macs. |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 05, 2003 6:35 PM |
lyonsdj88 |
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zorvix, I don't think you can make the first flash in a mac of the pci Nvidia, but if the card is a 0110 chip (NV10) then you can flash it in OS X after it has been flashed in a pc. You might be able to flash it in a Mac if it IS (NV10), but not NV11. IF you card is the PNY Gefroce2 MX200 I think it's NV11 ,but if it is MX400 it's NV10. BUT even if it is NV10 and you could make the first flash in your 7500 it still would not work for display. I'm looking at fixing this, JoeVT said it maybe the Map-in call in the NVIDIA firmware as the card works fine in a G3B&W and later. There is a bug in the map-in for old world mac's. Their is a work a round for the map-in bug, but it will take me some time to figure how to change the NVIDIA rom to inclued the fix. You can put the card in your mac with the pc rom on it check the ASP and look for 0110 or 0111 and that will tell you what you have.If you have the NV10(0110) then post back and I'll tell you how to flash it in X. |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 05, 2003 2:32 PM |
marcush |
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You will need a pc, but even with that it will not work in you machine because OF does not know how to handle the card. |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 05, 2003 1:28 PM |
zorvix |
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So are there an utilities I can use on my 7300 to try and flash this GF2MX? Or do I require a PC to do that? |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 05, 2003 12:23 PM |
w18593323 |
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The GFG4MX is NOT a GF2 repacked. It has a coplete 4 core, but some of the advanced otions for games are out. The speed of the card will be as good as the frequency of the chip and the speed of the memory (video). The G4MX is DX7 (win) compliant (no t&l, no progrmamable vertex shader) and the G4TI is DX8. You will only see a difference between the gf4mx vs gf4ti (at the same speed and with similar memory) if you are running a game that has DX8 type effects. But in 2D or on non-DX*, they have EXACTLY the same speed. |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 05, 2003 12:17 PM |
w18593323 |
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The GFG4MX is NOT a |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 04, 2003 10:24 PM |
lyonsdj88 |
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The GF4MX is better than you think and the 9000 is not as good as you may think. The 9000(RV250) is a watered down chip the Radeon 8500 makes quick work of it in all the BM I've seen. XLR8YOURMAC and others. The 8500 is as much as 25% faster than the GF4MX but the 9000 is not that fast. I've done hard bench marks of both GF4MX and Radeon 8500 and own and use both. Now the 8500 is better and off hand I'd say the 9000 is a small bit better than the GF4MX. But all three are great cards, sure they are not R9800's or GF5900FX's but Doom 3 is next year and I don't have a G5. It's more a matter of choice than ATI vs NVIDIA or this chip vs that chip. Danm it I want to chose from more than one Co. even in my out dated, it'll never run OS X, why wast your time, 8600. Sure a 5200fx pci would be nice ,but unless you buy a G5 or get some one's pull from ebay I don't see any rom's for them, so I'll "work" on the best one I can find. Now the Radeon 9100 is another matter as ,I think it is on par or better than the 8500. But I think JoeVT is working on that. And as far as I know there never were any PCI GF3's or GF4TI's. |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 04, 2003 9:33 PM |
mjoecups358 |
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The radeon 9000 is better then the crappy Geforce 4mx anyhow. The 4mx is remarketed Gerforce 2 anyhow. I don't think wasting time on anything less then the Geforce 4 is worth it... Marty |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 04, 2003 9:17 PM |
lyonsdj88 |
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Any one know any good beginners guide to Forth? Like maybe Forth for dummies;-). It does seem that Nvidia GF2 cards should not be too hard to get working in OW Mac's ,but in light of JoeVT's work on the Radeon 9xxx cards it seems that there would be no advantage to a NV10 or NV11 chip compared to the RV250. However, the GF4MX(NV17) chip could be nice. But it seems that the Mac Rom for that chip is nothing like the NV10's rom or GF3's that's why no one ever had luck flashing one. Damn Apple and Nvidia for not throwing us a bone or two on this one. Here is to hoping the 10.3 needs new FirmWare for NVIDIA cards. |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 03, 2003 11:50 PM |
joevt |
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It would be much easier to edit the Open Firmware driver in the rom for the video card (to make it work with Old World Macs) than it would be to patch all the Open Firmware problems of the Old World Mac. |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
October, 03, 2003 10:27 PM |
zorvix |
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I have a PNY GeForce 2MX PC PCI card... and I went to that website about flashing them, but it says it won't work for Old World macs (which my 7300 is)... But, I never got around to trying it, because I don't have a PC to flash it with... But, does it seem possible this could work in OS X, if flashed? Is the OF on this Mac editable to make it work (I didn't think Old World was...)...? |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
September, 30, 2003 9:15 AM |
jseibyl |
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oooppps just saw the date on the first thread! |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
September, 30, 2003 9:14 AM |
jseibyl |
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Vox- Let me know if you have any luck with this, I have that card sitting on my shelf and after doing the research, I went with the ATI, as I was just getting back into mac after being a PeeCee guy.....don't hold it against me.... ;-) That card is supposed to be VERY good. I have had some issues with the NVIDEA drivers on the PeeCee side, so for that platform I stick with Matrox. Good Luck! |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
September, 30, 2003 12:23 AM |
joevt |
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If you e-mail me, I can send you the tools. I'm not sure what a PC BIOS editor can do for an OF ROM but I've never looked at an NVIDIA card before. Maybe those NVIDIA cards have two PCI ROM images, one for PC and another for OF? Apparently some Macs have NVIDIA OpenFirmware code built into the Mac's firmware. |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
September, 29, 2003 11:32 PM |
lyonsdj88 |
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I just use the hex. Like to know how to de-Token the Fcode to Forth if you are willing to share. I use some tools made for hacking PC cards that will work on some Mac rom's too NVIDIA BIOS EDITOR. As well as HexEdit on the mac. |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
September, 29, 2003 10:00 PM |
joevt |
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What are you using to look at the code in the firmware? I made my own tools to convert OF FCode to Forth and I wonder if you've done the same thing? |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
September, 29, 2003 5:06 PM |
lyonsdj88 |
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Seem something in the cards firmware brakes OF on older mac's, but I've been playing with it and now my monitor try's to come on 4-5 times and ASP reads the card as: NVDA,NVMAC as it should be. Soon I hope to find the proper code in the cards Rom to bring NVIDA to the old world. Hoping a GeForce4 pci the the FX5200 card. This would be great to have 4 texture pipe lines for Open GL! I know "they" say that the pci/memory speeds make this mute, but look a the Radeon7000(1 pipe line)vs. Radeon7200(2 pipe lines) and the Voodoo 5. 133/MBs pci bus 33mhz they say all you can put across them is 80/MBs but when has any game really fed 80/MBs to the video card? |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
July, 23, 2003 12:56 PM |
voxxdigital |
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marcush, thanks for the tip. Seems instructions were not much encouraging. I'll give it a check. If anyone have experience with this, posts here will be welcome. |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
July, 23, 2003 11:16 AM |
marcush |
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Here's the URL for the source of the information I got. I considered flashing a GeForce 2MX myself last year until I read through the instructions. You are free to try. I'm sure you'll let us all know if it works. http://www.cybercoment.com/macgeforce.htm |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
July, 23, 2003 9:27 AM |
voxxdigital |
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I tried to plug a non-flashed GeForce 4 into a PCI slot to see what happens. Of course, the scressn was black when a monitor was connected to its out, but using my primary display card, Apple System Profiler in OS 9 showed a "Display Card" in the slot I plugged the GeForce 4. I heard that there are no Mac GeForce 4 drivers out there, is that true? However, I have the flashers for the GeForce2 and GeForce3 cards. Anyone has ever tried? |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
July, 23, 2003 9:27 AM |
voxxdigital |
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"screen", typo |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
July, 22, 2003 11:22 PM |
joevt |
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What do you mean Open Firmware doesn't recognize the card? Does the card not show up in the Open Firmware device tree? Maybe it's just a problem with the firmware on the card? The firmware can be easily modified just like any software. There are some differences in Open Firmware between Old World Macs and New World Macs that need to be taken into account in the firmware. As long as there is no hardware incompatibility, the card can be made to work in Open Firmware. Changing the firmware for the card is a lot easier than changing the driver used by the OS (OS 9 or OS X). It's possible (but less likely) that there might be a problem with the OS's driver running on Old World Macs... |
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RE: PC GeForce PCI card, flashing to Mac, anyone? |
July, 22, 2003 12:28 PM |
marcush |
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The GeForce 2MX PCI is flashable but it is supposed to be non-functional in old world machines because open firmware doesn't recognize the card. |