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yes. to gain deeper knowledge of what an EFI firmware actually means, read "The golden guide" in my signuatur.
 
Alright awesome! I'll give it a try tonight when I get off work, if I flash with that new "firmware.rom" in windows -- will I still be able to use the card on my PC, but it will also work with OSX (with EFI)?

In Cindori's hurry to be "Mr. Wonderful" handing out the works of myself and Mr. Netkas (without our permission or giving us credit), he has forgotten that flashing a 6870 will be of NO USE WHATSOEVER in a 1,1. The OP has mentioned this many times, but it has been forgotten.

OP, there is no magic in a firmware flash for you. It is ATY_Init or the issues I mentioned. There is a chance that Netkas or I will eventually write an EFI32 for 6870, but when our work gets handed out like free candy by people who want to impress children, we have little incentive.
 
In Cindori's hurry to be "Mr. Wonderful" handing out the works of myself and Mr. Netkas (without our permission or giving us credit), he has forgotten that flashing a 6870 will be of NO USE WHATSOEVER in a 1,1. The OP has mentioned this many times, but it has been forgotten.

OP, there is no magic in a firmware flash for you. It is ATY_Init or the issues I mentioned. There is a chance that Netkas or I will eventually write an EFI32 for 6870, but when our work gets handed out like free candy by people who want to impress children, we have little incentive.

I completely understand, I tried to place the ATY-Init.kext file in the Library/Extentions folder with no luck. (I'm not sure if there's anything else I need to do, I got some error message saying that it rejected the file)
 
^^^You need to use kexthelper or kextdrop app to install the kext. Next repair permissions via Disk Utility and reboot.
 
Another hint: get yourself real power cables. Drawing power for graphics card from optical power line is not recommended. It's good as temporary solution but that's all IMO. You may want to read this thread for more info: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1067969/

PCIe power cables for MP are cheap and widely available. Not to mention that this solution is more clean and elegant (if you care about this).
 
Well guys...I yanked the XFX 6870 out of my desktop gaming PC and it worked like a charm! No BIOS/EFI updates or driver changes. (10.7.4) Only thing I don't have is the ability to use bootcamp, but someone left a suggestion for that. Holy smokes this thing screams now!

Image

Wait, you did no modification to that XFX card's firmware whatsoever?
 
Wait, you did no modification to that XFX card's firmware whatsoever?

Nope.

----------

Another hint: get yourself real power cables. Drawing power for graphics card from optical power line is not recommended. It's good as temporary solution but that's all IMO. You may want to read this thread for more info: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1067969/

PCIe power cables for MP are cheap and widely available. Not to mention that this solution is more clean and elegant (if you care about this).

I have a MP 1,1, -- I don't think it has an extra power plug for PCI-E
 

That's really cool. Do you, by chance, know the card's full model number? I'm sure a ton of people would be stoked to know of a video card that is non-Apple-sanctioned that literally requires no tinkering whatsoever to get working in that Mac Pro. Because the 5870 is simply too old of a card to be paying THAT much for.
 
That's really cool. Do you, by chance, know the card's full model number? I'm sure a ton of people would be stoked to know of a video card that is non-Apple-sanctioned that literally requires no tinkering whatsoever to get working in that Mac Pro. Because the 5870 is simply too old of a card to be paying THAT much for.

Only problem is -- no DVD player or Steam without a patched .kext file.
 
In Cindori's hurry to be "Mr. Wonderful" handing out the works of myself and Mr. Netkas (without our permission or giving us credit), he has forgotten that flashing a 6870 will be of NO USE WHATSOEVER in a 1,1. The OP has mentioned this many times, but it has been forgotten.

OP, there is no magic in a firmware flash for you. It is ATY_Init or the issues I mentioned. There is a chance that Netkas or I will eventually write an EFI32 for 6870, but when our work gets handed out like free candy by people who want to impress children, we have little incentive.

You do realize you used the work of apple to do your thing, right? You didn't invent anything or create something without the hard work of teams of engineers from apple. I've never seen proper credit given to them.
 
You do realize you used the work of apple to do your thing, right? You didn't invent anything or create something without the hard work of teams of engineers from apple. I've never seen proper credit given to them.

Then you haven't read many of my posts. I frequently praise the Nvidia driver team.
 
Well guys...I yanked the XFX 6870 out of my desktop gaming PC and it worked like a charm! No BIOS/EFI updates or driver changes. (10.7.4) Only thing I don't have is the ability to use bootcamp, but someone left a suggestion for that. Holy smokes this thing screams now!

Very cool you got things working.

One suggestion, though: source a couple of Apple-specific PCIe power cables from eBay and use the PCIe power leads on the logic board instead. The install will look a lot cleaner and you can free the Molex leads for other uses (like installing a second optical drive or an 5th hard drive or SSD). Besides, it also looks like you're feeding two PCIe power leads with just one Molex. That's potentially dangerous, as Molex power leads generally aren't assigned the amount of current demanded by high-performance graphics cards.

I bought mine from this seller. They're only about $6 a piece.
 
Still though, you didn't have to hack the firmware! Which model was it specifically?

Your enthusiasm is nice but MANY ATI/AMD cards have worked since the 10.6.6 OS update that came with the MBP that was released quite some time ago.

This includes all 6870s and most 5870 and 5770, etc.

No breakthrough, very old news.

Search & Read.
 
Your enthusiasm is nice but MANY ATI/AMD cards have worked since the 10.6.6 OS update that came with the MBP that was released quite some time ago.

This includes all 6870s and most 5870 and 5770, etc.

No breakthrough, very old news.

Search & Read.

I'm not worried about drivers. Support for that, I know about. It's support for these cards WITHOUT modding their firmware that is news to me.
 
yep, and as I stated above, they have worked OOTB for some time now.

Try that search bar up in the corner.

Why do you care so much about recieving credit? It really doesn't make much sense to me. You've taken other people's/company's work, hacked together a hodgepodge of firmware and claim it as your own without giving the true devs credit yourself. Pure hypocrisy and narcisism.
 
Hey guys --

I installed the Nvidia Drivers and bought a Zotac GTS 450 ECO (It's the fastest Nvidia card you can buy without a PCI-E power cable). Works perfectly!
 
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