GFX Strings - DUAL CARDS - How To

[aquamac]

You will get a kernel panic if you enable QE & CI on the centre slot when you try to run 3 cards. You can only get 2 cards going on this board with Quartz Extreme going. Without QE you cannot get a picture out from your cards.

[andrew10ae]

Hmm... this was working perfectly on Leopard. I tried snow leopard, which is working perfectly, except I cannot get dual graphics working.

If I have PEG2 selected as init first, I get a grey screen of death on startup, just after the network interfaces are initialized. No panic shown with -v boot.

Anyone have any thoughts/ideas?

Thanks!!

Andrew

[aquamac]

Andrew,

Have you made a new string in Snow Leopard? If so that is the reason. You cannot make strings in snow - you have to do it in Leopard and transfer them to Snow. Snow Leo will make the string but it will be incorrect.

[za5od]

Aquamac,

First, thanks for all your hard work. I'm a newbie to the hackintosh scene, and I appreciate all the work that you and others have put in to making stuff work.

I just built my first machine, following the instructions that were posted on Lifehacker about a 1.5 weeks go. The build/install went smoothly and I had a fully working system (at least as far as I can tell). Even sound worked, I just had to change the output selection. It might be 2.0 sound, not 5.1, as I haven't installed the kext for the sound card that's recommended in the install guide.

I've been trying for days to get dual video cards to work, and I've tried several guides. I finally found this forum/thread and noticed where you said SL doesn't generate proper EFI strings, and I'm hoping that's my problem. Unfortunately, I don't have a Leopard install to generate correct strings. My old Mac Mini still has Tiger on it, and I'm not sure if that will work?? What's happening is that if I set my BIOS to PEG2, I get the grey screen of death on boot up. I can set it to PEG and boot normally, but I can only see two of my 3 monitors (soon to be 4 soon as I figure out how to mount the 4th above my center 24")

My system is a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P MB, 4 GB ram, Intel E8400 3.0GHz CPU, two BFG Nvidia 8800GS 512MB video cards. I hate to ask but do you (or anyone else) think you could generate an EFI string? I'm going to see if I can any of my friends have a Leopard install and if they can, but I'm not sure what they are currently running.

Again, thanks for all your work, and if you have any suggestions, I'd appreciate them.

Thanks,

Dave

Sept 13, 2009 3:08:52 GMT aquamac said:

Andrew,

Have you made a new string in Snow Leopard? If so that is the reason. You cannot make strings in snow - you have to do it in Leopard and transfer them to Snow. Snow Leo will make the string but it will be incorrect.

[aquamac]

Hi dave,

I can generate the string for you but I need the PCIe addresses. These are different for most motherboards as they are driven by where PCIe slots are placed. Gfx strings can generate the first one and that is why your computer boots in slot 1. The only way to find the PCIe address with dual cards is via vista or windows 7.

You do it by going into device manager, double clicking on each graphics card then selecting location paths from the drop down box. You should end up with something that looks like this:

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

and this for your second card, but the numbers will be slightly different,


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

[za5od]

Thanks

The plists are as follows:

First PCIe slot (the x16 slot): PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)
Second PCIe slot(x8): PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0x6,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

Both cards have 2 dvi output connectos plus the TV output, but I never use those.

Both have 512MB

Do you need any more info? If so, let me know and I'll be glad to post it.

Also, do when I update my com.Apple.Boot.plist, do I modify the one under system configuration and the one under Extras. I'm booting from the HD using Chameleon 2 and I have an Extras folder at the root of my boot drive.

Thanks again!

Dave

Sept 13, 2009 8:16:57 GMT aquamac said:

Hi dave,

I can generate the string for you but I need the PCIe addresses. These are different for most motherboards as they are driven by where PCIe slots are placed. Gfx strings can generate the first one and that is why your computer boots in slot 1. The only way to find the PCIe address with dual cards is via vista or windows 7.

You do it by going into device manager, double clicking on each graphics card then selecting location paths from the drop down box. You should end up with something that looks like this:

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

and this for your second card, but the numbers will be slightly different,


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

[aquamac]

Dave,

Sorry, but I will have to do this tomorrow night, as I need to get on a mac running Leopard, not Snow Leopard!

[za5od]

Thanks. Is thre any other way to generate a string? I found another website where a guy is claiming to have gotten to cards working, but he doesn't give detailed instructions. I've asked for him to post, but he hasn't responded yet.

Once I have the string, is there anything else I'll need to do? DSDT (haven't had to do anything with DSDT stuff yet).

Thanks,

Sept 13, 2009 21:19:40 GMT aquamac said:

Dave,

Sorry, but I will have to do this tomorrow night, as I need to get on a mac running Leopard, not Snow Leopard!

[gerbitos]

hi..

for 2 cards I have this pci address :

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

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

I test to create my own string with the attached plist but leo freeze with this string..

I do it with my nvcap string.. (you will see in the plist file)

thanks..

Attachments:

[aquamac]

Dave,

Here is your string:

960700000100000002000000c90300001500000002010c00d041030a010000000101060000060101060000007fff040014000000400032002c006e0061006d00650000001100000073656e736f722d706172656e74220000005600520041004d002c0074006f00740061006c00730069007a0065000000080000000000002036000000400032002c00680077006300740072006c002d0070006100720061006d0073002d00760065007200730069006f006e00000008000000000000021c0000006400650076006900630065005f0074007900700065000000100000004e5644412c4765466f7263650e0000006e0061006d00650000000f0000004e5644412c506172656e7422000000400030002c006400650076006900630065005f00740079007000650000000b000000646973706c6179100000006d006f00640065006c000000220000004e5649444941204765466f726365204765466f726365203838303020475322000000400031002c006400650076006900630065005f00740079007000650000000b000000646973706c617912000000400032002c007200650067000000080000000000000222000000400032002c006400650076006900630065005f0074007900700065000000120000004e5644412c6770752d64696f646520000000400032002c0063006f006d00700061007400690062006c0065000000160000004e5644412c73656e736f722d706172656e7422000000400032002c002300730069007a0065002d00630065006c006c0073000000080000000000000020000000400031002c0063006f006d00700061007400690062006c00650000000e0000004e5644412c4e564d616314000000400030002c006e0061006d0065000000120000004e5644412c446973706c61792d413a000000400032002c0068007700730065006e0073006f0072002d0070006100720061006d0073002d00760065007200730069006f006e000000080000000000000226000000400032002c0023006100640072006500730073002d00630065006c006c0073000000080000000000000114000000400031002c006e0061006d0065000000120000004e5644412c446973706c61792d4220000000400030002c0063006f006d00700061007400690062006c00650000000e0000004e5644412c4e564d61631e00000072006f006d002d007200650076006900730069006f006e000000090000003331373261100000004e00560043004100500000001800000004000000000003000c00000000000007000000000e0000004e00560050004d0000002000000001000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000c10300001500000002010c00d041030a010000000101060000010101060000007fff040014000000400032002c006e0061006d00650000001100000073656e736f722d706172656e74220000005600520041004d002c0074006f00740061006c00730069007a0065000000080000000000002036000000400032002c00680077006300740072006c002d0070006100720061006d0073002d00760065007200730069006f006e00000008000000000000021c0000006400650076006900630065005f0074007900700065000000100000004e5644412c4765466f7263650e0000006e0061006d00650000000f0000004e5644412c506172656e7422000000400030002c006400650076006900630065005f00740079007000650000000b000000646973706c6179100000006d006f00640065006c0000001a0000004e5649444941204765466f726365203838303020475322000000400031002c006400650076006900630065005f00740079007000650000000b000000646973706c617912000000400032002c007200650067000000080000000000000222000000400032002c006400650076006900630065005f0074007900700065000000120000004e5644412c6770752d64696f646520000000400032002c0063006f006d00700061007400690062006c0065000000160000004e5644412c73656e736f722d706172656e7422000000400032002c002300730069007a0065002d00630065006c006c0073000000080000000000000020000000400031002c0063006f006d00700061007400690062006c00650000000e0000004e5644412c4e564d616314000000400030002c006e0061006d0065000000120000004e5644412c446973706c61792d413a000000400032002c0068007700730065006e0073006f0072002d0070006100720061006d0073002d00760065007200730069006f006e000000080000000000000226000000400032002c0023006100640072006500730073002d00630065006c006c0073000000080000000000000114000000400031002c006e0061006d0065000000120000004e5644412c446973706c61792d4220000000400030002c0063006f006d00700061007400690062006c00650000000e0000004e5644412c4e564d61631e00000072006f006d002d007200650076006900730069006f006e000000090000003331373261100000004e00560043004100500000001800000004000000000003000c00000000000007000000000e0000004e00560050004d0000002000000001000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Add to device properties in your com.apple.boot.plist. If you don't know how to do that, put yours up for download and I can do it. You will probably need to set your bios to boot from PEG 2.

gerbitos,

Your NVCAP is totally incorrect, your card will never boot with that. Also your PCI address looks suspect. How did you arrive at those?

[za5od]

Thanks! I'm at work right now, but I will try this soon as I get home. If this doesn't work, maybe I'll just save up money and get an nvidia Quadro board that can drive 4 monitors..think that would work? 8)

Sept 14, 2009 20:50:40 GMT aquamac said:

Dave,

Here is your string:

...

Add to device properties in your com.apple.boot.plist. If you don't know how to do that, put yours up for download and I can do it. You will probably need to set your bios to boot from PEG 2.

gerbitos,

Your NVCAP is totally incorrect, your card will never boot with that. Also your PCI address looks suspect. How did you arrive at those?

[aquamac]

Not really sure, in some ways, it may be more difficult to set up than 2 cards. This is all about motherboard compatibility - some boards good, some boards bad!

[za5od]

Aquamac, Thanks again for generating the string. Unfortunately, it didn't work, even with setting my bios to boot with PEG2. I'm starting to think that it's maybe something in the custom DSDT that is included as part of the instructions I used. The reason I think this is that I can boot with one card using the EFI string you provided, but when I check in System Profiler under Graphics Display, it still lists the same card as it did when booting without the EFI string. I'm going to play around with trying to generate a new DSDT, but I haven't done much with that yet. Do you think that will help?

Thanks,

Dave

Sept 14, 2009 21:26:32 GMT za5od said:

Thanks! I'm at work right now, but I will try this soon as I get home. If this doesn't work, maybe I'll just save up money and get an nvidia Quadro board that can drive 4 monitors..think that would work? 8)

Sept 14, 2009 20:50:40 GMT aquamac said:

Dave,

Here is your string:

...

Add to device properties in your com.apple.boot.plist. If you don't know how to do that, put yours up for download and I can do it. You will probably need to set your bios to boot from PEG 2.

gerbitos,

Your NVCAP is totally incorrect, your card will never boot with that. Also your PCI address looks suspect. How did you arrive at those?

[za5od]

Success!!

It was the DSDT.aml file provided in the Lifehacker guide. I guess it was conflicting with the EFI string. I pulled out all of the information except the "stub" information identificing the PCI roots, re-compiled, installed, rebooted, and I now have 3 monitors working!. Didn't even have to set my bios to PEG2! Now..how do I tell if QE/CI is working?

Edit: found my answer about QE/CI, yes it's working. SL doesn't tell you, so you have to test: run the Chess application, if you can move a piece, apparently it's working. Found this at prasys.co.cc/tag/enable-qeci/


Much thanks to you Aquamac. If you're ever in Lexington, KY, let me know. Beer's on me.

Sept 15, 2009 1:43:02 GMT za5od said:

Aquamac, Thanks again for generating the string. Unfortunately, it didn't work, even with setting my bios to boot with PEG2. I'm starting to think that it's maybe something in the custom DSDT that is included as part of the instructions I used. The reason I think this is that I can boot with one card using the EFI string you provided, but when I check in System Profiler under Graphics Display, it still lists the same card as it did when booting without the EFI string. I'm going to play around with trying to generate a new DSDT, but I haven't done much with that yet. Do you think that will help?

Thanks,

Dave

Sept 14, 2009 21:26:32 GMT za5od said:

Thanks! I'm at work right now, but I will try this soon as I get home. If this doesn't work, maybe I'll just save up money and get an nvidia Quadro board that can drive 4 monitors..think that would work? 8)

[gerbitos]

Sept 14, 2009 20:50:40 GMT aquamac said:

gerbitos,

Your NVCAP is totally incorrect, your card will never boot with that. Also your PCI address looks suspect. How did you arrive at those?

ok..

but with this nvcap the graphic card work perfectly with QE QI enabled, but just with one card..

if I have 2 or 3 cards only the first will be supported (also with QE QI enable)

my PCIe address look strange... I think also..

I had find it in windows 7 pro (in device manager)

thanks..