GFX Strings - DUAL CARDS - How To

[fonthead]

They are Dell's and they work great. I never thought I would *need* three monitors, but once you start you can't live without em. As for speed, it is noticeable, especially system things, like app startup and shutdown are all much faster. Most of what I do is pretty low-power, so other than overall snappiness, I haven't noticed a huge difference. Did run Xbench on both just to see and it doubled+ my overall score. What's funny is how cold the air feels blowing out the back... Does this thing make any heat? Or maybe the 7 case/cpu/gpu/psu fans are helping :-)

[andrew10ae]

As a relative newbie to osx86 (but not in general), I'm very impressed with this community! So thanks to everyone who has worked on this and shared the knowledge (and esp. aquamac not only for taking the time to host the forum here but for the great instructions on the dual GFX setup)

I'm 99% up and running with my EP45-UD3P Q6600 box with dual 9800GT's running quad displays.

One lagging issue - it seems that under heavy IO load (i.e. I run TimeMachine to backup), my screens will "flicker" one and hang, usually for about 45 seconds, and things go back to normal. The system is still operating, and the mouse cursor still moves, but I cant see any screen updates or do input during that time. Also, every once in a while I get screen corruption when that happens.

The reason I ask about this here is that this didn't happen when I used the generic efi strings and only one PCI-E card, and it seems to happen less (or not at all) with a different screen arrangement.

My arrangement is this:


20" (1680x1050) -- 20" (1680x1050) (on card #2, in PEG1)
24" (1920x1280) ------- 24" (1920x1280) (on card #1, in PEG2)

when I keep them in one line, rather than stacked in the "square" configuration, I dont seem to get the problem.

Has anyone see that before?

Thanks!

Andrew

[andrew10ae]

fonthead-

watch out... monitors are an addiction! I started with a 24" LCD... added a 20" LCD, then another 20" LCD.

Now I have 2 24" LCDs and 20 20" LCDs, on a Visidec Quad Vertical Stand (2 20s on top, 2 24s on bottom, making a square pattern)...

If only I had another PCI-e slot, maybe I would add more

[andrew10ae]

Figured out my problem... defective 9800GT. I had an old 8600GT Fanless card that I replaced it with and it is working perfectly (even though I didnt get a chance to change the EFI string from 512mb to 256mb).

I found a 2nd identical 8600GT on ebay and I'm yanking the 9800's out (and sending that bad one back for RMA). I dont need the trouble of those hot fan cool cards when I dont play games!

[fonthead]

Andrew-

Heh, I don't know what I'd do with a fourth monitor. Though it would surely help speed up the suntan I'm already getting with the three. :-)

[bigweeve]

I have 2x 7600gs 256 cards which after much hair tearing I have managed to get working using EFI strings which I have generated using OSx86 Tools. Both cards will work fine independently giving me full graphic capabilities, but when I try and get them both to work together using your method I get stuck on the apple login screen and get no further.

I have an Asus M3N-HT motherboard with an Nvidia 780a chipset which is capable of running 3 PCIe cards but I can find no way in the bios of choosing Peg2 - I only have the option of PCIe or PCI. Could this be my problem and if so is there any way round it.

If anyone has any ideas I would be most grateful as I am so close to having all 3 monitors working - there must be a way.

Cheers,
Steve

[jorisleem]

I got a FX5500 PCI and a 9600GT PCIe.
Is it possible to run them with the same configuration?
Mine biggist problem is that the 9600gt is supported from 10.5.6 and from 10.5.6 there is no support for a fx5500.

Is there sombody how knows how to fix mine problem?

[andrew10ae]

Strangeness... this works great with 9800GT (PEG1) and 8600GT (PEG2). When I try and make this work with a pair of matching 8600GTs (I had a bad 9800GT and wanted them to match ) it wont work... very strange. hmph.

[twist]

I'm having a bit of some trouble.. I picked up two Asus 9600 GSO 384MB.. I have a single working good, even though its registering as 512MB, but now trying to add the second in isn't going so well, I always end up with a single display, but both graphics cards are getting detected, but not by the gfx strings.

EP45-UD3P M/B booting with Peg2

[jorisleem]

Jul 4, 2009 9:55:31 GMT jorisleem said:

I got a FX5500 PCI and a 9600GT PCIe.
Is it possible to run them with the same configuration?
Mine biggist problem is that the 9600gt is supported from 10.5.6 and from 10.5.6 there is no support for a fx5500.

Is there sombody how knows how to fix mine problem?

I fixt it with a fresch reinstall with 10.5.5 and the 9600gt 10.5.5 drivers. After the drive install the gfx strings

[person1123]

Okay, I'm going to build a new Hackintosh, but I'm confused. It says that you shouldn't have an nVidia mobo, but don't you need one for SLI? Or does it even have to be SLI-compatible?

[aquamac]

Nvidia motherboards are much harder to get going with OSX as Apple use Intel chips in their own boards so there are existing drivers for the chips. Likewise AMD is more tricky but not impossible. As SLi is not currently supported by Apple, the only advantage is if you dual boot windows.

Also X58 boards support both SLi and ATI crossfire, so are the most compatible of the lot as they also use Intel chips.

[gerbitos]

Hi there...

I need a help..

I have a p6t6 ws revolution mobo with 3xnvidia geforce 9500GT, I do this method but it doesn't work..

there is always 1 card working with QE, CI supported but no more..


any idea ??

[aquamac]

Right,
I know this board cos I had one for a short while. You should be able to get 2 cards going but it will not work with 3 I am afraid. They will have to go in the blue slots 1 and 5. This is the only way it will work. You will need to install Vista or windows 7 to get the two PCIe addresses when the cards are in postition. You go to device manager then the drop down box for each card and location paths. You should end up with 2 PCIe addresses in Vista or windows 7 that look a bit like this:

PCIROOT(0)#PCI(0300)#PCI(0000)#PCI(0200)#PCI(0000)
PCIROOT(0)#PCI(0700)#PCI(0000)#PCI(0000)#PCI(0000)

You will not be able to put a card in the centre blue slot, the cards will have to go in the blue slots furthest from each other. When you have the 2 PCIe addresses post them back here and I will make a string for you.

[gerbitos]

ok.. thanks a lot.. I will do that and post the result..

for the blue center pci-e on my computer it work.. and my install work with 3 card but I needed to install leo with this 3 card.. (just the 1st card is supported but we can show them in "about this mac")

and now when I remove one card LEO don't want to start and it freeze..