Post by rubytuesday on Feb 4, 2010 0:27:22 GMT
Yeah, I did in fact write the first 7800GS and Gainward Bliss ROMs for Mac. The 7800GS really caught on and is widely known as ultimate Mac AGP card.
I think that this card is quite exciting actually. The fact that it boots and shows a screen indicates that it is in fact a G70 chip. It seems that it is failing when it goes into 3D mode. More than likely, it just needs to have RAM timings moved from it's PC ROM into the Mac one. But it would be worth a shot to just move the clocks over first.
Want to know how to find the clock speeds in the Mac 7800GS ROMs? Download a couple from the wiki that are listed as having different speeds and do a hex compare.. When you find the things that are different, plug those numbers into a Fex to decimal converter and if they correspond to a particular speed, you have found the clock settings.
If moving speeds over doesn't do it...you will need to start moving over the mem init strings. This is where it gets tricky. Arti gives a good explanation in the Wiki. The tokenizing strings are a pain but it IS possible. Take your time and keep testing.
My guess is that someone could get these cards working. In fact, having a 24 pipe core might give them a significant speed boost over our existing 7800GS cards. They are more than likely being made from a pallet of left over GTX cores. Pity they are so pricey...at $50 I would be tempted to buy one and try.
As long as used 7800GS are $75 or so and guaranteed to work, this would be a gamble. And I would be 99% certain that you would get 256 Megs, not the full 512.
Good luck.
(BTW...would be interesting if it turns out these CAN run in 2X AGP....would be a final Cube card that could slay the 9800 King of the Hill there)
I think that this card is quite exciting actually. The fact that it boots and shows a screen indicates that it is in fact a G70 chip. It seems that it is failing when it goes into 3D mode. More than likely, it just needs to have RAM timings moved from it's PC ROM into the Mac one. But it would be worth a shot to just move the clocks over first.
Want to know how to find the clock speeds in the Mac 7800GS ROMs? Download a couple from the wiki that are listed as having different speeds and do a hex compare.. When you find the things that are different, plug those numbers into a Fex to decimal converter and if they correspond to a particular speed, you have found the clock settings.
If moving speeds over doesn't do it...you will need to start moving over the mem init strings. This is where it gets tricky. Arti gives a good explanation in the Wiki. The tokenizing strings are a pain but it IS possible. Take your time and keep testing.
My guess is that someone could get these cards working. In fact, having a 24 pipe core might give them a significant speed boost over our existing 7800GS cards. They are more than likely being made from a pallet of left over GTX cores. Pity they are so pricey...at $50 I would be tempted to buy one and try.
As long as used 7800GS are $75 or so and guaranteed to work, this would be a gamble. And I would be 99% certain that you would get 256 Megs, not the full 512.
Good luck.
(BTW...would be interesting if it turns out these CAN run in 2X AGP....would be a final Cube card that could slay the 9800 King of the Hill there)