GFX Strings - DUAL CARDS - How To

[oniijin]

can we get the files hosted somewhere else? rapidshare never works for me.. =(

[oniijin]

YAY i got mine working in 10.6.2. the problem was that efistudio was generating the wrong strings. DO IT MANUALLY! also updated device id in nvdanv50hal

attached my file if anyone needs it

<key>PciRoot(0x0)/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,GeForce</string>
<key>model</key>
<string>NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>NVDA,Parent</string>
<key>rom-revision</key>
<string>0x302e3176</string>
</dict>
<key>PciRoot(0x0)/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,GeForce</string>
<key>model</key>
<string>NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>NVDA,Parent</string>
<key>rom-revision</key>
<string>0x302e3176</string>
</dict>

[vampyrate369]

I have a toshiba qosmio gaming laptop. I cannot remove the cards or move them around. I have one nvidia 9400m 256 (the exact same one that the macs come with) and i have 2x Nvidia geforce 9800 gts 512mb. I would like the dual cards to work... but if all i can get to work is the 9400m thats ok too. Right now i have 1028x756 res and 32bit but its slow and it sux and it should be 1680x1050.
I have an ideneb install 10.5.8. Any help you can provide would be awesome thx!

Model Name: Mac
Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
Processor Name: Intel® Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8400 @
Processor Speed: 2.26 GHz
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 3 MB
CPU Features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM SSE3 MON DSCPL VMX SMX EST TM2 SSSE3 CX16 TPR PDCM SSE4.1
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 533 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MP31.88Z.006C.B05.0802291410 (Apple Inc.)
Serial Number: W1234567890


Display:

Type: Display
Bus: PCI
VRAM (Total): 32 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0862
Revision ID: 0x00b1
Kernel Extension Info: No Kext Loaded
Displays:
Display:
Resolution: 1024 x 768
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Software
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Not Supported
QuartzGL: Supported

Display:

Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x8
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0628
Revision ID: 0x00a1
Kernel Extension Info: No Kext Loaded
Displays:
Display Connector:

Display:

Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x8
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0628
Revision ID: 0x00a1
Kernel Extension Info: No Kext Loaded
Displays:
Display Connector:

Attachments:

[vampyrate369]

Forgot to mention i attached my computers spec to the previous post.

[oniijin]

I think if you just put the PCI addresses of the two cards, SL will just ignore the 9400. similar to when I had two cards installed, but only used one.

[ldyun]

hi, aquamac
can you patch to DSDT.aml ?

[digitron64]

Hello aquamac;

First I would like to thank you for all your hard work and dedication to helping newbies like myself. I have read your post on how to setup the nvidia card on the osx systems. I currently have two nvidia 9800gt 512mb cards running in sli on my windows system. Device ID's are 0x0605 and 0x0614 both with revision ID's 0x00a2 respectively. I have made every effort short of applying your methods in trying to get these cards to work under iAtkos v7 10.5.7

I have trialed and errored for ohh 3 maybe 4 days now without success. I have re-installed after re-installed and nothing yet up to this point. I am preparing myself to implement your procedure in editing the EFI strings. I have some questions however, and I am hoping that you would be able to help.

1. You have the gfxutil and plist files for the 9800gt 512mb cards on your instructions for single cards only. Can I use these same files to build my EFI strings for dual cards? or can I use the 9800gtx files?

2. some on the insanelymac forum have used the geforce 9 installer package in conjunction with your methods and have experienced success. Do you suggest installing the Geforce package first or do I change the EFI settings and then apply the package?

3. Do I have to use the voodoo kernel for my AMD processor? and where can I get the vanilla kernel?

All in all, I am hoping that this will do the trick. Your methods seem very promising. In either case, thank you for all your hard work and dedication in putting this project together. Have a wonderful day.

System Specs:
AMD Phenom II X4 945 95w
8gigs (4x2gb) OCZ Blade PC2-8500
XFX 750a Sli Mobo
2x 1tb WD SATA HDD
Hauppauge HVR-1600 TV Tuner
Logitech Webcam Orbit AF
Logitech X5300 5.1 Surround Sound
MX5000 Wireless Keyboard
G7 Wireless Mouse
42" Sharp Aquos 1080p TV/Display

[paul5606]

hey Aquamac

thanks so much for this guide. sorry this is so long..im having a bit of trouble, however, i cant seem to get quartz extreme working. i followed the guide perfectly (atleast i think i did) heres what i did, i really didnt have to change anything in the plist i dowloaded from the top of your guide (dual gtx 280's) everything looked fine(like the card names and the vram values). I have only been able to get a working install of Snow Leopard on this rig(w/ the 280's) i have a leopard install on another mac so i used that to generate the out.hex file after i got the pci id's from the snowleopard install and modifed the in.plist file..After modifying the com.Boot.apple.plist, repairing the permissions and a reboot i now have full resolution and it sees both my cards in "about this mac" with the names i specified from the in.plist. but it doesnt list QE/CE working so no hardware acceleration but i can now change my resolution...i dont have NVIject etc in my extensions folder..man any help would be great. .thanks

[aquamac]

Paul,

On Snow Leopard, QE & CI are not listed in System Profiler like they are in Leopard. If you can launch dashboard and get the ripple effect or run Chess OK then they are both working.

[paul5606]

Aquamac,

Oh right on, i did find it weird that the new version of vlc was working which i think requires QE..man thanks again i really appreciate it, looks like everythings running great!

Paul

[paul5606]

Hey aquamac,

Hey man im sorry but i have one more question. Im trying to add another "device-properties" string ( for ethernet) but when i do the reboot comes up with no video, if i reboot in "single-user" and remove the new string(ethernet) it works fine. could this be a syntax issue? i modified the com.apple.Boot.plist with the same syntax as in your guide. Boot.plist looks like,

<key>device-properties</key>
<string>hex-for-vid</string>
<key>device-properties</key>
<string>hex-for-ethernet</string

i also have kernel flag that says key=EthernetbuiltIn string=yes (not in that syntax, im also not sure if this even matters). id like to get this working in hope it might fix the netflix drm problem. Thanks man any ideas would be really appreciated and would really help me out.. i apologize if this isnt really relevant to the content of your thread, being that its for graphics cards..

[lynge]

Hi. Thank you for making your work available.
I have used your guide in an attempt to get my 2 9800GT's working together and I am very close at the moment, but I have one final (I hope) problem and I was hoping to get some help.

Using the string, booting with the motherboard set to PEG2 and boot-options -v -f, I can get past the loader, but then I get the black screens.

As far as I understand this should be some kind of conflict resulting from having more than one set of gfxcard instructions and in my case that seems to be DSDT.aml.

My install is Snow Leopard install with the help of Kakewalk.

Everything just works except my two graphics cards and that pains me since I have already purchased 4 monitors to use with them (silly me not to check first) so I would be extremely happy to get some help with this.

I don't think I can just delete DSDT.aml since I suspect it contains instructions for more than just my graphics cards, but how do I then proceed?

Can I include the strings in the DSDT or can I include the DSDT into the com.apple.boot ?
Or is there some third way to do it?
I seem to be so close it's almost painful

Some specs:
Gigabyte X58A-UD7
Core i7
ASUS GeForece 9800 GT x 2
Intel X25M SSD

I made the strings on a normal Leopard installed on a different box. And I am sure the pci-info is correct since I can boot with both cards just not at the same time.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

EDIT:
I have found the way to edit DSDT.aml, but now I doubt that it is where my problem is as I cannot find anything that looks like graphics cards in there, but then again I have no idea what they would look like in such a file.

Also since I just used kakewalk for the install I really dont know what is installed (NVinject or one of the other things mentioned that should not be used together with strings). So if you know how to find out or you know what kakewalk uses then please share.

EDIT 2:
I got working... YAY!

When using Kakewalk (at least on my hardware, but I suspect it is the same all around) you must edit the com.apple.Boot.plist in /Extra instead of the one in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration.
Actually I have edited them both, but it only started working after I edited the one in /Extra

aquamac:
Many thanks for the guide, maybe you could add that part about the kakewalk special case, since many of those that choose kakewalk probably do so because it does not require a large amount of skill in creating a hackintosh. And it might save someone else all of the trouble I had

[lordsmoove]

Great board, been following and now that I have my SnowLeopard up and going, I'm really loving this OS. I have a Rampage II Extreme with i7 920 and two 285GTX's in SLI. I have installed 10.3 several times and now have really gotten the hang of getting the system (bare bones) up and running. It even does well with OpenGL graphics and HD video, only now I'd like to have it do my video work and for that I think I need the second card (which is not connected when I work on SnowLeopard) to be used for CUDA. At the least, I would like to not have to unplug the card when I dual boot from Windows. As it is now, I have to because I get a frozen screen right after OSX starts loading and can't get my second card recognized.

I do not have access to OSX 1.5 (Leopard), my MacBook Pro is only Snow. Is there any alternative so I can get the correct info to install my second card?

Once again, thanks for the wonderful site, support Apple, they have created a wonderful OS!

DJ

[kjb]

Finally!! I used EFI Studio and after I saved to com.apple.boot.plist, copied it to the extra folder. Changed the bios to peg2 and it works great!!!
Thanks Aquamac and all who contributed. I like four monitors. Sooo much workspace!
Keith ;D

[lordsmoove]

Still a no go with my setup. I now have both 285's showing up, one with 1024 ram, the other with a long number. No big deal, eyesore only. Problem is only one monitor and no graphic acceleration. I can't see any movies on VLC or Quicktime. I have the stock nVidia drivers installed only, with a boot.plist in the extra folder that allows both cards to boot with power connected. Any help would be appreciated.

DJ