Flashing A Quadro FX 4500 For Power Mac G5 Compatibility

[ediflorianus]

Re-did the flash, wiped the Eeprom before doing so. Nvflash now sees it as a geforce go 7800 but same corruption on Mac. Gonna have to try Leopard tomorrow, unless anyone else has same issue of corruption?

I have single sided Ram model (like Mr GearSeekers) but mine must be newer cos came with a default BIOS newer than this... A 3rd revision? I hope not...

Hope it works out.... I only have 7800 GS AGP(from Leadtek) so I dont know much. I did save a 7900GTX from scraper once with the Aquamac bios.

 

[netsrot39]

I just wanted to say thanks to the OP for the guide on how to flash a Quadro FX 4500 for G5s! I flashed 2 Quadros successfully today for my 2 PowerMac G5s. It is really easy if you can track down the correct version of the card (the one with memory chips on the backside). I got a hold of them after a long search online (about 3 years) for a great deal (15€ per card, brand new). As far as I can tell they came from a HP system but the seller told me they were never in use and pretty much were lying around as a backup for the last 16 years. Below some impressions of the flashing process:

First of all, this is the card I've used for flashing:

After preparing the USB stick according to the OP's guide, I got my gaming PC from my mid-teens which I haven't been using for the past +10 years. I emptied it pretty much and made sure that the only PCIe card left was the GPU which I attached via a riser cable (out of convenience since said PC will be my "flashing station" from now on):

I had to read the motherboard manual because I couldn't remember how to access the BIOS options (I've been using Macs only for quite some time now ...):

Typing the necessary command:

Confirm all prompts. It actually seems to have worked!

In goes the Quadro FX 4500 (and out goes the GeForce 6600):

Of course I did everything shown above twice and I can happily report that both cards work in both G5s:

I'm really happy that I'm now in the FX 4500 club but I honestly have to say I do not notice the potential improvements right of the bat. So the next thing to do is to try some benchmarks and games

 

[Methanoid]

Strange issue with my flashed double sided FX4500

It works fine in Slot 2 but refuses to allow machine to boot if its in Slot 1. I've tried 3 times thinking maybe I didnt seat it correctly.

Its not the Slot 1 cos I put a flashed X1900 in their no problem or the original GF 6600 no problem.

I guess its NOT a major issue since I might stick a Radeon X1600 in that slot for MorphOS but.... it bugs me somewhat

And to add insult to injury, MacOS WAS happy at 1920*1080 but now wont display with monitor reporting it needs a 1920*1080x60 signal.... So, maybe have to reinstall MacOS ???

 

[Amethyst1]

And to add insult to injury, MacOS WAS happy at 1920*1080 but now wont display with monitor reporting it needs a 1920*1080x60 signal.... So, maybe have to reinstall MacOS ???

Boot in single user mode (hold Command and S after powering on), remount / read-write (it tells you how) and try

rm -rf /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist rm -rf /Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist

(If the second file isn’t there no problem.)

Does it work using another monitor?

 

[pc297]

I also did not notice massive improvements when flashing a GF 7800 GTX 512Mb to replace a GF 7800 GT 256Mb

 

[DearthnVader]

I also did not notice massive improvements when flashing a GF 7800 GTX 512Mb to replace a GF 7800 GT 256Mb

The GTX has 24 Pixel shader processors, four more than the GT.

It has 8 Vertex shader processors, one more than the GT.

And 24 Texture units, four more than the GT.

Tho I'm not sure Dave unlocked this stuff in the FCode ROM when he created it, and what needs to be unlocked by the drivers that may not exist in OS X.

Other than that you just have higher clocks and twice the VRAM. In situations where you are filling more than 256MB of VRAM you are going to see huge gains.

 

[pc297]

The GTX has 24 Pixel shader processors, four more than the GT.

It has 8 Vertex shader processors, one more than the GT.

And 24 Texture units, four more than the GT.

Tho I'm not sure Dave unlocked this stuff in the FCode ROM when he created it, and what needs to be unlocked by the drivers that may not exist in OS X.

Other than that you just have higher clocks and twice the VRAM. In situations where you are filling more than 256MB of VRAM you are going to see huge gains.

The Quadro 4500 was fully supported so I would somehow imagine that these drivers exist/could be adapted for the 7800 GTX (512Mb version). It also has 24 pixel shaders , 8 vertex shaders, 24 TMUs and 16 ROPs like the 7800 GTX 512. I think the FCode ROM was adapted from the that of the Quadro 4500?

 

[DearthnVader]

The Quadro 4500 was fully supported so I would somehow imagine that these drivers exist/could be adapted for the 7800 GTX (512Mb version). It also has 24 pixel shaders , 8 vertex shaders, 24 TMUs and 16 ROPs like the 7800 GTX 512. I think the FCode ROM was adapted from the that of the Quadro 4500?

It would be interesting to find out if everything is enabled on both the firmware and driver level, but I don't know of any tools for the Mac that will tell us.

 

[pc297]

It would be interesting to find out if everything is enabled on both the firmware and driver level, but I don't know of any tools for the Mac that will tell us.

Me neither. On the PC side though, there are tools that can read and decode FCode roms (I distinctly remember editing a GF2 MX FCode ROM on a PC before flashing) and I thought mac ones. Otherwise from the performance table? The only thing that I can read are the frequencies from the performance table from the ROM in mine:

649112020000003903 (100% fan speed, 1.45V core voltage, 545 Mhz core frequency, 825 Mhz memory frequency x2=1650Mhz DDR, all very close to the PC specs 550 Mhz core and 2x850 Mhz memory)

But maybe it's possible to read further details e.g shaders TMUs ROPs etc from it?

As for the actual operation no idea under osx even less under ppc, if only there was a port of GPU Caps Viewer !

 

[Methanoid]

Boot in single user mode (hold Command and S after powering on), remount / read-write (it tells you how) and try

rm -rf /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist rm -rf /Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist

(If the second file isn’t there no problem.)

Does it work using another monitor?

Had same issue with a X1900 flashed card.

Tried your tip and didnt help. Then tried boot into Safe Mode (hold shift down on boot) and changed resolution.

Funny thing is that BOTH cards HAVE displayed 1920*1080P successfully but can't seem to get it to stick. I seem to recall there is some util that is a free alternative to SwitchResX that should enable custom resolution/timings?

 

[boydie]

Many thanks for this guide.
I've now successfully flashed a single-sided card (Unbranded Revision A00, no metal plate on the back) and it's working great in my G5 Quad
Things I've discovered along the way:

1) NVFlash wouldn't work on my system (3770K/Z68) if the boot drive was created with the HP tool - kept crashing with General Protection Faults. Works flawlessly with Rufus/FreeDOS

2) Flashing with the ROM in this thread didn't work with my single-side card - the G5 could clearly recognise it but there was nothing but artifact on the display

3) Flashing with the ROM in another forum (https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/troubleshooting-quadro-4500-fx-in-g5-quad.40165/), described as being specific for single-sided cards worked great

4) After this first flash, I had the same issue that Aaron111 described - SIGSEGV error and card then identifying as a GO 7800 until reboot. Having run out of things to try, in desperation I rebooted, erased the EEPROM with 'nvflash --eraseeeprom', then immediately flashed with the correct ROM. Fortunately, the gamble paid off - successfully flashed with the single-side bios and it worked in the G5!
Can't comment on what would happen if the machine were rebooted between erasing the EEPROM and re-flashing it - I suspect my 'fix' may only have worked because the system was already aware of the card's existence and probably wouldn't have found it after rebooting.

 

[pc297]

Has anyone ever had any success with the Quadro FX 4500 x2 (or 7800 GT dual)? I know some people tried it but it's it doesn't look like anyone kept on trying

https://aquamac.proboards.com/thread/861/pny-nvidia-quadro-4500-mac

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/my-quadro-fx-4500-x2-is-really-killing-me-i-need-professional-help.731991/

Or with x2 cards on macs at all for that matter, what's the consensus on those?

 

[ToniCH]

Thanks for the guide. All went perfectly trouble free and the card works in my G5. 👍🏻

 

[Amethyst1]

Or with x2 cards on macs at all for that matter, what's the consensus on those?

At least on Intel Macs, the consensus is that dual GPU cards don't work.

 

[mudito]

Many thanks for this guide.
I've now successfully flashed a single-sided card (Unbranded Revision A00, no metal plate on the back) and it's working great in my G5 Quad
Things I've discovered along the way:

1) NVFlash wouldn't work on my system (3770K/Z68) if the boot drive was created with the HP tool - kept crashing with General Protection Faults. Works flawlessly with Rufus/FreeDOS

2) Flashing with the ROM in this thread didn't work with my single-side card - the G5 could clearly recognise it but there was nothing but artifact on the display

3) Flashing with the ROM in another forum (https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/troubleshooting-quadro-4500-fx-in-g5-quad.40165/), described as being specific for single-sided cards worked great

4) After this first flash, I had the same issue that Aaron111 described - SIGSEGV error and card then identifying as a GO 7800 until reboot. Having run out of things to try, in desperation I rebooted, erased the EEPROM with 'nvflash --eraseeeprom', then immediately flashed with the correct ROM. Fortunately, the gamble paid off - successfully flashed with the single-side bios and it worked in the G5!
Can't comment on what would happen if the machine were rebooted between erasing the EEPROM and re-flashing it - I suspect my 'fix' may only have worked because the system was already aware of the card's existence and probably wouldn't have found it after rebooting.

FYI, a 2024 Update here
Using this process I successfully flashed two Quadro FX4500 (single sided VRAM). Attaching pictures of the board here for everybody's reference (bought them on ebay, came from a server with a bracket which I removed)

 

[MDBenson]

I have an identical card to the poster above and flashing it with the single sided ROM seems to have bricked it :\

I used NVFlash 5.31 on an Intel PC motherboard (using the iGPU) via FreeDOS, a setup I used successfully multiple times with my GeForce 7800 GT for flashing G5 ROMs.

The Flash completed successfully with no errors or alerts. The G5 won’t chime with it in and in the PC board NVFlash no-longer sees it.

EDIT: I realise an error I made now, I missed the -j flag in the nvflash command - would that brick it?

 

[Methanoid]

Just thought I'd share some experiences recently doing some BIOS mods on PCs with old GPUs. The version of NVflash DOES matter. One card took a flash from a newer version of NVflash but then cared wouldnt boot but was discovered in Windows and NVflash then reported card as a Go (Mobile) version...

So when flashing I would suggest an OLD version of NVflash... like 5.25 or earlier?