A Beastly MacBook (4,1) and MacBook Pro (3,1): Fun with entirely unsupported external GPUs

[Amethyst1]

A quick update...

My copy of ATY_Init.kext [dated 2009-05-26] doesn't load in Tiger.

http://netkas.org/?p=56 has a working link to a Natit.kext dated 2008-02-23 so I gave that a try. The kernel messages are slightly different:

Alkor: Setting ATY,MemVendorID=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting device_type=ATY,LamnaParent
Alkor: Setting AAPL,backlight-control=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting ATY,MCLK=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting @0,AAPL,boot-display=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting @0,compatible=ATY,Lamna
Alkor: Setting @0,ATY,EFIDisplay=TMDSA
Alkor: Setting @1,display-type=NONE
Alkor: Setting AAPL00,blackscreen-preferences=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting @0,display-connect-flags=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting @0,display-type=LCD
Alkor: Setting ATY,PCIConfigSpace=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting model=ATI Radeon HD 2600
Alkor: Setting ATY,MRT=
Alkor: Setting ATY,EFIDriverType=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting AAPL,aux-power-connected=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting ATY,HWGPIO=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting ATY,EFIVersionBios=113-B14801-023
found bios dump, setting ATY,bin_image
Alkor: Setting ATY,DeviceID=0x9588
ATY,Lamna: Not usable
ATY,Lamna: Not usable

but the result and System Profiler output is the same.

I then extracted the iMac Software Update 1.2.1 and manually replaced the following files in /System/Library/Extensions with the newer ones [dated 2007-11-05] contained in the update.

• AppleVADriver.bundle
• ATINDRV.kext
• ATIRadeonX2000.kext
• ATIRadeonX2000GA.plugin
• ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver.bundle
• ATIRadeonX2000VADriver.bundle

(The reason I didn't just install it is that would have replaced files in other folders as well which were already there and newer as the update predates 10.4.11, so I'd probably have had to reapply the 10.4.11 combo updater afterwards.)

The result is still the same in System Profiler; nothing on either output. I'll try a DVI-to-VGA adapter with a VGA display next.

edit: Added list of files replaced.

 

[Amethyst1]

Leopard joins the party

 

[LightBulbFun]

very cool stuff

out of curiosity does the X1800 work in Leopard or Snow leopard?

and if so what does its OpenGL engine report back as?

(you can see this by quickly firing up Open mark on a monitor plugged into it)

(I wonder if a GeForce card would fair any better in Tiger?)

 

[Amethyst1]

out of curiosity does the X1800 work in Leopard or Snow leopard?

The X1800 was only borrowed and I've already returned it to its owner after getting the 2600 XT - I'll see that I can get my hands on it again to check.

(I wonder if a GeForce card would fair any better in Tiger?)

So far, I've tested the Quadro FX 1500 in Tiger using an older Natit and while it "attached" to the card, I got the same "not usable" message with regards to the framebuffers and nothing on the DVI ports. Will retest using the 2008-02-23 version of Natit.

BTW, I couldn't help getting a 6850 as well so I'll have some more experiments coming up in Snow Leopard once it's here

 

[LightBulbFun]

ah cool its just a passing curiosity, if its too much hassle dont worry about it

interesting to see the same issue persist with the the FX 1500, I wonder if the issue is with the fact the cards are operating in "PC Card" mode and even at that dont have any option rom loaded during pre boot

or if it might have something to do with the GMA X3100 of the built in screen sitting around not being intilised by anything?

(although I know Mavericks was fine with that)

out of curiosity does the 2600 XT work with the MBP?

(I very much look forward to seeing how the 6850 works!)

(and does the FX 1500 work in Leo/SL? im not sure if the newer natit will work, looks like its setup for ATI cards only, but always worth a shot ATY,Init is setup for NVIDIA cards however despite the name LOL so that should defo have a chance at working )

 

[Amethyst1]

ATM isn't quite right regarding the internal LCD's size and GPU

 

[Amethyst1]

out of curiosity does the 2600 XT work with the MBP?

No way to test I'm afraid; I sold the MBP immediately after getting the setup working with the MB.

(and does the FX 1500 work in Leo/SL? im not sure if the newer natit will work, looks like its setup for ATI cards only, but always worth a shot ATY,Init is setup for NVIDIA cards however despite the name LOL so that should defo have a chance at working )

Using SL and ATY_Init, the machine hangs with a grey screen on the internal LCD and nothing on the external with the FX1500.

[doublepost=1556195485][/doublepost]Took a couple of close-up pictures in an attempt to illustrate the subtle difference between "normal" 1920×1200 and HiDPI 1920×1200 on the ACD.

Normal:

HiDPI:

On a funny note, it is also possible to use higher-than-native "normal" resolutions which are scaled down to 1920×1200. At 2560×1600, larger fonts are still somewhat readable yet visibly blurry but smaller fonts become almost unreadable so it's not really feasible.

Close-up at 2560×1600:

[doublepost=1556196435][/doublepost]

or if it might have something to do with the GMA X3100 of the built in screen sitting around not being intilised by anything?

The X3100 is initialised by the firmware tho, otherwise Tiger wouldn't be able to display anything on the internal LCD would it?

It might be due to Natit not being designed to work with multi-GPU setups as most Hacks only have one to "attach" to.

EDIT: Shrunk images.

 

[LightBulbFun]

No way to test I'm afraid; I sold the MBP immediately after getting the setup working with the MB.



Using SL and ATY_Init, the machine hangs with a grey screen on the internal LCD and nothing on the external with the FX1500.

[doublepost=1556195485][/doublepost]Took a couple of close-up pictures in an attempt to illustrate the subtle difference between "normal" 1920×1200 and HiDPI 1920×1200 on the ACD.

Normal:

View attachment 833751

HiDPI:

View attachment 833752

On a funny note, it is also possible to use higher-than-native "normal" resolutions which are scaled down to 1920×1200. At 2560×1600, larger fonts are still somewhat readable yet visibly blurry but smaller fonts become almost unreadable so it's not really feasible.

Close-up at 2560×1600:

View attachment 833753

[doublepost=1556196435][/doublepost]

The X3100 is initialised by the firmware tho, otherwise Tiger wouldn't be able to display anything on the internal LCD would it?

It might be due to Natit not being designed to work with multi-GPU setups as most Hacks only have one to "attach" to.

interesting results

by initialised i mean, nothing has taken over the X3100 GPU, tiger is able to display something on it via the EFI Frame-buffer, but otherwise it cant control it or change its resolution etc

 

[Amethyst1]

by initialised i mean, nothing has taken over the X3100 GPU, tiger is able to display something on it via the EFI Frame-buffer, but otherwise it cant control it or change its resolution etc

Yes, that's what I meant - it's not taken to by any driver.

 

[Eightbitgamer757]

if i remember correctly dosdude1 made a video on how to flash a stock gtx 660 to work on macs, it required windows though

 

[Amethyst1]

if i remember correctly dosdude1 made a video on how to flash a stock gtx 660 to work on macs, it required windows though

My stock GTX 660 is working great. Flashing is only required for boot screens, which the internal LCD handles.

 

[LightBulbFun]

if i remember correctly dosdude1 made a video on how to flash a stock gtx 660 to work on macs, it required windows though

that was a GTX 680

Yes, that's what I meant - it's not taken to by any driver.

yeah thats what im wondering, I wonder if the fact that its not being taken by any driver may be causing issues?

granted its not an issue with 10.9+ luckily

 

[Amethyst1]

yeah thats what im wondering, I wonder if the fact that its not being taken by any driver may be causing issues?

In other words, I'll have to get a GMA950 Mac and check

granted its not an issue with 10.9+ luckily

I'll set up 10.8 - I've been meaning to check if it supports HiDPI modes larger than 1920×1200 like 10.9.3+ does.

 

[Amethyst1]

Finally got my hands on the legendary IBM "[Big] Bertha" T221.

22.2 inches, 3840 × 2400 = 9,216,000 pixels, 204 ppi, 48 Hz using 4× single-link DVI, produced from 2001 (including earlier revisions) to 2005.

First test using one DVI link - 17 Hz is the maximum attainable at 165 MHz pixel clock.

The nice thing about running Bertha like that is that Mavericks automatically offers HiDPI modes larger than the "optimum" 1920×1200, and her being a 16:10 panel means I get proper 2048×1280, 2304×1440, 2560×1600, 2880×1800, 3008×1880 and 3200×2000

Adding a second DVI enables 20 Hz by default; 32.6 Hz is the maximum attainable given pixel clock constraints so I'll have a go at squeezing a little more out of the setup shortly.

When using two links, Bertha obviously appears as two separate 1920×2400 tiles, with the only HiDPI mode exposed being 960×1200 per tile.

 

[LightBulbFun]

thats awesome

and also what are the chances of that as I was just reading up on that LCD monitor the other day! and I was wondering what could be done with one with todays tech

which version did you get? supposedly there where a few revisions + a Box that let you feed in a dual link DVI signal or 2 rather then having to be stuck with single link DVI signals

 

[Amethyst1]

thats awesome

and also what are the chances of that as I was just reading up on that LCD monitor the other day! and I was wondering what could be done with one with todays tech

Cool coincidence! I've wanted one of those for many years, pretty much since having heard about them for the first time.

which version did you get? supposedly there where a few revisions + a Box that let you feed in a dual link DVI signal or 2 rather then having to be stuck with single link DVI signals

She's a DGP, i.e. a DG5 for the Japanese market – the latest revision and compatible with IBM's dual-link splitter box or aftermarket adapters/cables. However, the problem is actually obtaining any of these today.

Alternatives I've been thinking about are using a Matrox DualHead2Go which takes one DP as input and splits it across 2× SL-DVI but the question is would it be able to handle that resolution (3840×1200 is the highest supported); another way that would not work for Mac OS X (and is thus irrelevant to me) is a DP 1.2 MST hub/splitter.

 

[Amethyst1]

32 Hz using two DVIs

While this works fine in Mavericks, Yosemite doesn't play along well with the 2× 1920×2400@20/32Hz or 3840×2400@13/17Hz settings (it's the same with or without HiDPI) - the UI is extremely slow with constant BBODs; bringing up the desktop's context menu takes several seconds and launching System Preferences takes longer than a minute. Dropping down to 1920×1200@48Hz makes things return to normal - as a test, I ran the left tile at 1920×1200@48Hz and the right tile at 1920×2400@32Hz: the UI was normal on the left and slow as **** on the right.

 

[Amethyst1]

~~~~~ CATFIGHT ~~~~~​

 

[LightBulbFun]

oh thats just ridiculous, I love it LOL

just need a 3rd one now

any word on the 6850 you got?

 

[Amethyst1]

oh thats just ridiculous, I love it LOL

just need a 3rd one now

any word on the 6850 you got?

Third one hopefully comes in tomorrow (no kidding)

6850 arrived a few days ago; going to have a play with it as soon as I can.

Just for kicks, here's what the "Arrangement" tab in the Display prefpane looks like. That "peephole" is the MacBook's 1280×800 LCD LOL!

 

[Amethyst1]

any word on the 6850 you got?

Finally got round to playing with it

As to the name: Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite display "AMD Radeon HD 6xxx" instead.

The card has two DVIs, one DisplayPort and one HDMI - as it supports two non-DP streams, only three of these can be used simultaneously. Attempting to drive three streams at 1280×2400 (two via DVI, one via an active DP-to-DVI converter because the third must be native DP) results in distortion. It should be noted that I used my older T221 DG3 for the test as my newer DGP - which is more flexible in terms of what signal/input configurations it accepts, so might play ball with 3× 1280×2400 - is tied up for another experiment right now.

I then tried running three 960×2400 streams off the 6850 and the fourth off the X3100 but that failed as the X3100 didn't even recognise something was plugged into it.
[doublepost=1561571979][/doublepost]

Yosemite doesn't play along well with the 2× 1920×2400@20/32Hz or 3840×2400@13/17Hz settings (it's the same with or without HiDPI) - the UI is extremely slow with constant BBODs; bringing up the desktop's context menu takes several seconds and launching System Preferences takes longer than a minute. Dropping down to 1920×1200@48Hz makes things return to normal - as a test, I ran the left tile at 1920×1200@48Hz and the right tile at 1920×2400@32Hz: the UI was normal on the left and slow as **** on the right.

Interestingly, this issue is not present with the 6850; Yosemite's UI is fine.

 

[sparty411]

The thread at the top of the PowerPC forum, is a discussion about an Intel machine. Interesting.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Very nice work!

its very interesting to see the weird name that SL gives the Auto inted AMD Radeon HD 6870, I suspect that's due to early drivers for the card etc looking at the driver code 10.6.8 might actually ID a AMD Radeon HD 6970 properly, if you have one of those lying around as well might be worth a quick test (although it's worth noting no mac ever shipped with that GPU so the drivers may be buggy esp in later OS X versions)

very cool to see that it does work with the MB4,1

does anything show up under PCI devices?

its a shame the card does not have a reference port layout as those have 2 display ports

 

[Raging Dufus]

The thread at the top of the PowerPC forum, is a discussion about an Intel machine. Interesting.

Yeah, that happens around here.

MR has no forum for Snow Leopard users, and although there are forums for different Intel-based hardware, threads about early Intel machines are generally not welcome on them. If you have a question about an Intel-based Mac that won't run, say, at least High Sierra or better, you're probably gonna be told to "get a newer Mac." That's often what passes for help on those forums.

It takes just as much - if not more - patience and hardiness to get things done on unsupported early Intel Macs as it does on PowerPC these days. So, since early Intel and/or Snow Leopard enthusiasts tend to be like us; or in many cases, are us; that sort of content is generally welcomed here. Most of us don't seem to mind.

I for one love seeing cool stuff like an old blackbook driving giant displays from an external GPU. Stuff like that is probably more appreciated by this audience than it would be anywhere else on MR, or on the web for that matter. Awesome!

EDIT: a white MacBook, not a black one, but my point still stands!

 

[MisterBiro]

Does this seem like it might be feasible on a 2007 Mac Mini?

This has a mPCIe slot for the AP card, as well a CPU that is technically supported by up to 10.11.