GFX Strings - DUAL CARDS - How To

[aquamac]

Hi Markymarkus,

Glad you sorted it. It does seem strange that certain things work for some but not for others. I guess there are so many different install types around, you can never be certain of all the kexts people have in their system.

[dirkhh]

Just searching for the final word on the 9800 GX2 card (in an Apple Mac Pro, in case it matters). The way I read this thread there were still some issues with this particular model - have they been resolved?
Reading the walk-through I don't see how I could plug in just one of the two cards that are part of a 9800 GX2...

Thanks for your help!

[aquamac]

Hi Dirkhh,

Welcome to aquamac forums.

You are right - you cannot. For dual cards, they need to be run in Vista to obtain the 2 PCIe addresses. This is all immaterial in a Mac Pro though as it is not going to work anyway. Real Mac cards have quite different firmware to PC cards, in that half of the firmware is made up of an EFI portion that allows the mac to boot. PC cards do not have this so will not work in real macs. Some simpler cards can be got working by flashing with Real mac firmware or by leaving a real mac card in slot 1 that contains the needed EFI code. Sadly not the 9800 GX2 though. This can only be made to work in a Hackintosh where the PC firmware on the card works in tandem with the PC motherboards bios allowing the computer to boot. The EFI portion is still needed but is injected at a later point during boot via GFX strings or NVInject, NVKush or Natit.

I am pretty sure I could get a single 9800 GTX going in a mac pro by modifying a mac 8800GT rom then ramping back up the 9800 clocks. This would also require a rom chip switch (cutting off the PC 64 kb chip and replacing with the mac 128 kb one).

Hope this clears up your question.

[brujack]

Will this same basic way work with ATI cards. I have a 3850 and 1950pro that work fine independently on a Asus p5k-premium. What do I need to do to get them to work together to drive 3 monitors?

Bruce

[kdawg]

Would I be doing something wrong if I get the same PciRoot info with gfxutil? I made sure to only have one card plugged in at a time while running gfxutil. Do I need to change my BIOS PEG order in order for the correct PciRoot info? I have a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 mobo.

[aquamac]

You need your monitor plugged in and be looking at the picture on it with each card individually installed one at a time. This should get you 2 different PCI addresses. Probably only 1 number will be different though.

[kdawg]

OK got different PciRoot addresses using gfxutil. PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0x1c,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0) and PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0). I can get each card work independently but when I try them both together in a combined hex I freeze on startup. Anyone?


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
<dict>
<key>@0,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,NVMac</string>
<key>@0,device_type</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>@0,name</key>
<string>NVDA,Display-A</string>
<key>@1,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,NVMac</string>
<key>@1,device_type</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>@1,name</key>
<string>NVDA,Display-B</string>
<key>NVCAP</key>
<data>
BAAAAAAAAwAMAAAAAAAABwAAAAA=
</data>
<key>NVPM</key>
<data>
AQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==
</data>
<key>VRAM,totalsize</key>
<string>0x20000000</string>
<key>device_type</key>
<string>NVDA,Parent</string>
<key>model</key>
<string>nVidia GeForce 8800 GT</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>rom-revision</key>
<string>nVidia GeForce 8800 GT OpenGL Engine [EFI]</string>
</dict>
<key>PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0x1c,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
<dict>
<key>@0,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,NVMac</string>
<key>@0,device_type</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>@0,name</key>
<string>NVDA,Display-A</string>
<key>@1,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,NVMac</string>
<key>@1,device_type</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>@1,name</key>
<string>NVDA,Display-B</string>
<key>NVCAP</key>
<data>
BAAAAAAAAwAMAAAAAAAABwAAAAA=
</data>
<key>NVPM</key>
<data>
AQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==
</data>
<key>VRAM,totalsize</key>
<string>0x10000000</string>
<key>device_type</key>
<string>NVDA,Parent</string>
<key>model</key>
<string>nVidia GeForce 8500 GT</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>rom-revision</key>
<string>nVidia GeForce 8500 GT OpenGL Engine [EFI]</string>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>


[aquamac]

This looks wrong to me:

PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x3,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

I would expect something more like:

PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

for the first PCI address.

[kdawg]

The first address is:
(0x1)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

Second is:
(0x1)/Pci(0x1c,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

But you're saying it should be more like?
(0x1)/Pci(0x3,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

Would you just start guessing? These addresses work when I use them each individually. For the life of me I can't get gfxutil to spit out anything different. Is there any other way to retrieve these addresses?

[aquamac]

Sorry,

My bad, thought you said one of them was (0x1)/Pci(0x3,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)
They look fine. Have you tried connecting your monitor to the card in the second PCIe slot and setting your bios to boot from PEG2 ?

[jojomama]

hi everybody,

just wanted to get some feedback on my in.plist file.
i can get individual cards to work (albeit, there are some weird pixel issues)

i am running PCEFI_v8
removed nvinject
repaired permissions etc and booted -f

any help would be great!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0x3,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
<dict>
<key>@0,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,NVMac</string>
<key>@0,device_type</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>@0,name</key>
<string>NVDA,Display-A</string>
<key>@1,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,NVMac</string>
<key>@1,device_type</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>@1,name</key>
<string>NVDA,Display-B</string>
<key>@2,#adress-cells</key>
<string>0x01000000</string>
<key>@2,#size-cells</key>
<string>0x00000000</string>
<key>@2,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,sensor-parent</string>
<key>@2,device_type</key>
<string>NVDA,gpu-diode</string>
<key>@2,hwctrl-params-version</key>
<string>0x02000000</string>
<key>@2,hwsensor-params-version</key>
<string>0x02000000</string>
<key>@2,name</key>
<string>sensor-parent</string>
<key>@2,reg</key>
<string>0x02000000</string>
<key>NVCAP</key>
<data>
BAAAAAAAAwAMAAAAAAAABwAAAAA=
</data>
<key>NVPM</key>
<data>
AQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==
</data>
<key>VRAM,totalsize</key>
<data>
AAAAIA==
</data>
<key>device_type</key>
<string>NVDA,GeForce</string>
<key>model</key>
<string>NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>NVDA,Parent</string>
<key>rom-revision</key>
<string>3172a</string>
</dict>
<key>PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0x3,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
<dict>
<key>@0,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,NVMac</string>
<key>@0,device_type</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>@0,name</key>
<string>NVDA,Display-A</string>
<key>@1,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,NVMac</string>
<key>@1,device_type</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>@1,name</key>
<string>NVDA,Display-B</string>
<key>@2,#adress-cells</key>
<string>0x01000000</string>
<key>@2,#size-cells</key>
<string>0x00000000</string>
<key>@2,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,sensor-parent</string>
<key>@2,device_type</key>
<string>NVDA,gpu-diode</string>
<key>@2,hwctrl-params-version</key>
<string>0x02000000</string>
<key>@2,hwsensor-params-version</key>
<string>0x02000000</string>
<key>@2,name</key>
<string>sensor-parent</string>
<key>@2,reg</key>
<string>0x02000000</string>
<key>NVCAP</key>
<data>
BAAAAAAAAwAMAAAAAAAABwAAAAA=
</data>
<key>NVPM</key>
<data>
AQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==
</data>
<key>VRAM,totalsize</key>
<data>
AAAAIA==
</data>
<key>device_type</key>
<string>NVDA,GeForce</string>
<key>model</key>
<string>NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>NVDA,Parent</string>
<key>rom-revision</key>
<string>3172a</string>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>

[aquamac]

Have you tried connecting your monitor to the card in the second PCIe slot and setting your bios to boot from PEG2? What motherboard do you have? Your PCIe addresses are quite long (not wrong), this usually happens with NVIDIA motherboards or dual cards.

[jojomama]

i've tried the different connections, but no good...
i don't have an option for peg2...

i have a ASUS p5n-d and i'm trying to set up dual evga 9400gt .they have two DVI and tv, but i only ever plan to use the dual dvi. (NVCAP issue?)

I have been able to get each individual card and they both work...just not together.
speaking of which...i get some weird pixel crap that look like 1/2 cm long horizontal lines.

[aquamac]

Unless your board is X45 or X48 you may be sadly out of luck. Quite often you need to boot the 2nd card or your system will hang at the blue screen. Even my X48 Gigabyte DQ6 will only start 2 cards if the bios is set to PEG2. I am surprised you cannot set your bios to boot from the second PCIe slot, That is available on many boards.

[jojomama]

so i might need a different mobo...

ok...how about this:

is it possible to have OSX ignore the PCIe address/port?