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Looking for a graphic card with boot
- Thread starter sevichenko
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thats pricey for a GTX680 you can just flash one yourself then it'll be cheaper
instructions
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/confirmed-and-possible-flashable-gtx-680-models.1578255/
but i still stand on why do you need boot screen, there's only been a few people who iv seen here who relay need boot screen.
like i mentioned iv not had boot display since 2013 when i got my gtx660, dont miss it
if you relay need boot display & dont need a fast gpu & dont want to flash yourself the mac GT120 are cheep http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Graphics-Video-Cards/27386/i.html?_from=R40&LH_BIN=1&_sop=2&_nkw=gt+120 (the gray ones)
instructions
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/confirmed-and-possible-flashable-gtx-680-models.1578255/
but i still stand on why do you need boot screen, there's only been a few people who iv seen here who relay need boot screen.
like i mentioned iv not had boot display since 2013 when i got my gtx660, dont miss it
if you relay need boot display & dont need a fast gpu & dont want to flash yourself the mac GT120 are cheep http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Graphics-Video-Cards/27386/i.html?_from=R40&LH_BIN=1&_sop=2&_nkw=gt+120 (the gray ones)
Can you boot and use the Recovery partition (i.e. to disable SIP temporarily, if needed) without a boot screen capable card? There's one use case since El Cap/Sierra that I have found that I needed to use more than I thought I would.
Personally, I flit between Lion and El Cap on mine depending upon the peripherals I need to use. Having a boot screen is a lot more reliable than using the Startup Disk pane in my experience. If the system ever craps out on booting, at least I am not left waiting with a blank screen and can reboot in verbose mode to troubleshoot.
If you never need to update what you have on your machine and it is mostly left to sleep in between work sessions, then yes, you could probably manage without boot screens.
Recovery partition is accessible without boot screen. I tested it by myself, not sure about other OSX version, but definitely working in macOS Sierra. The only requirement is that the card has to be natively supported by Apple driver.
Well, that is good to hear. I checked online before settling on a card and it seemed that it needed card bios support so I flashed a card for mine. It was trivial enough to do so not a biggie for me. I would assume that the VIO utilities would require bios support as they appear before any drivers are loaded or even before the hard drive is mounted.
ah if you need to use osx10.7 that needs to be mentioned.
recovery boot works fine, iv never had a problem choosing startup disc in system prefs & have manged to install and update my version of osx on this computer from 10.8 to 10.9 then 10.10 and i can boot from install discs it's the GTX9xx cards that give you problems there
all on a gtx660 pc card
what are VIO utilities?
recovery boot works fine, iv never had a problem choosing startup disc in system prefs & have manged to install and update my version of osx on this computer from 10.8 to 10.9 then 10.10 and i can boot from install discs it's the GTX9xx cards that give you problems there
all on a gtx660 pc card
what are VIO utilities?
emm iv used safe boot fine on my pc gtx 660
you hold s on boot job done (think it's s not done it for a bit, had to use it when an background app was casing me to hard crash for troubleshooting)
i think your confusing things, yes with gtx9xx cards you have that problem but with all cards with native drivers it's not a problem.
always worth reading the nvidia sticky to start with
(a lot is true with ati and there are a lot of valid ati options)
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...out-nvidia-pc-non-efi-graphics-cards.1440150/
you hold s on boot job done (think it's s not done it for a bit, had to use it when an background app was casing me to hard crash for troubleshooting)
i think your confusing things, yes with gtx9xx cards you have that problem but with all cards with native drivers it's not a problem.
always worth reading the nvidia sticky to start with
(a lot is true with ati and there are a lot of valid ati options)
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...out-nvidia-pc-non-efi-graphics-cards.1440150/
It would appear the confusion is on your side. Single User Mode (Cmd+S) is not the same as Safe Boot (Shift). Single User Mode relies on EFI and does not load any drivers because the hard drives are mounted in read only mode at the end, so graphics card support is restricted to what the EFI can interact with. You have to manually remount the hard drives (after running the fsck process, of course, for safety's sake) to write to it.
You get a black screen with rolling text as the EFI probes the hardware. Verbose mode is similar except you get the full boot process in text mode so that if it stops somewhere you can pinpoint the exactly where the boot process stops or what the kernel panic cause is, if that is the outcome.
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Why doesn't anyone try Clover to get boot screen? If it works well, it could be a great solution to flashing and/or paying high prices for flashed cards. If I still had my Mac Pro, I would have tried it the second I heard that it works...
I vaguely remember that some form of Chameleon was first used on unsupported Macs to get past EFI limitations - such as booting in 64 bit mode where the EFI was only 32 bit until hacks got more refined. Having said that, flashing is trivial if you pick the right card and costs nothing extra so why go through Clover?
Well, if you want anything newer than a GTX 680 (which is over 4.5 years old) with boot screens, you're either going to pay through the nose or you're going to have to figure out how to make your own EFI firmware.
I see. There will come a point fairly soon where the Mac Pro is too old to accept any newer cards altogether because they require PCIe 3.0 or whatever so Clover is probably only sticking plaster.
If you want to boot using Clover, I think it will probably work as it is. Try installing it to a USB drive to boot from and head over to any of the larger hackintosh forums to check which settings to put in or remove as most defaults are for hackintoshes rather than genuine Apple hardware. I think you can use your current real SMBIOS definition but I would change the serial number while you tweak things in case it affects your iCloud access.
Yup, I think the Clover solution would be very easy. Obviously, nothing would need patching since the hardware is 100% supported.
Can I just "add" cover on top of my current MacOS partition rather than do a new OS installation? If yes, I am OK for the test.
I never touch any Hackintosh stuff. I don't have a Maxwell card. But if cover gives me boot screen on my 5,1 with 7950 (PC BIOS), that means Maxwell should be the same.
I will be on leave next week. I can test that on my Mac, but can you give me some help?
I need the exact software required. All the terms are very new for me. Clover, multibeast, etc. I don't know which is which, and what do I really need.
I need the exact step. I have both Sierra and Windows 10 partiton. So, as long as these are enough for the procedure. That should be relatively easy for me.
And I need to know what exact setting required (if any). It seems there are lot of settings for Hackintosh. I know the setting for Mac Pro should be relatively easy. But, again, it's too new for me. I don't want my poor setting affect the test result (and I don't even know I am the one who screw the test).
Last but not least, I want to know the risk. I know the worst case of course everything on my SSD is destroyed and I need to recovery from backup. However, what I want to know is if I install cover successfully, but it doesn't work as expected. Can I just leave it as rubbish at there ( I personally don't mind that)? Or I need to remove cover in order to make the Mac function normally again? Or I have to format the SSD and recover from backup? I know that it's hard for you to tell me the exact answer. But, what is your estimation?
Well its been mentioned a few times but I think word just hasn't really got out. Personally I have a flashed card so it does not apply to me.
On the other hand, if we ever get Pascal drivers for OS X, I would consider an unflashed Pascal card + Clover.
On the third hand, if I'd be using Hackintosh tools to get my MP running anyway, I should probably just do the extra step and make a Hackintosh like you've done.
I would try by doing the following:
- Clone your System drive to another drive. (Disable iCloud prior to cloning, just in case.)
- Download and install Clover on the cloned drive.
- Download Clover Configurator to configure the config.plist that is on the EFI partition of your cloned drive. (You need to mount the EFI partition either in Terminal or using Clover Configurator.)
- Once you have your config.plist open in Clover Configurator, enable the two settings I have shown in the images below. You MAY need to set SMBIOS but I don't know for sure, but it's not essential to get booted.
- Select the cloned drive as your startup drive in System Preferences.
- Cross fingers and hope for the best.
[doublepost=1479502563][/doublepost]
Personally, I think that it's a good learning experience in the event that you ever do decide to go the hackintosh route. Also, besides potentially being able to help provide a boot screen, it can be used as a boot loader to help load Linux.
[doublepost=1479502779][/doublepost]
Clover is a boot loader used for making hackintoshes. Fl0r!an recently discovered that using it with Mac Pros, it can provide boot screen. I have not personally tested but Fl0r!an is one of the most knowledgable members around here and I have no reason to doubt him.
Thanks for the detail procedure. That's good enough for me to follow.
Few more questions:
1) I don't have a Nvidia card, but can only test it with a 7950 (PC VBIOS). That particular procedure seems Nvidia focus. Do I need to change anything? Or it's just a general way to provide bootscreen?
2) If test failed. Looks like if I disable that 2 settings, cover will effectively doing nothing, and i can just leave it there and continue use my backup drive. Right?
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wow ^^ this topic is a flash back iv not used Verbose mode since my powerbook G4 1.5ghz, i used to have it boot that way to look cool 
but how meany mac users actually use that, dose the op need Verbose mode (or know what it is) it's more of a feature that you use if your a IT guy than normal user.
safe boot works and recovery boot + booting from install media, ill try verbose mode later it may not work but iv not needed to use it ever in osx (just for fun)
pastrychef dose have a fun and much more interesting solution to the problem.
is it worth adding to the nvidia sticky?
but how meany mac users actually use that, dose the op need Verbose mode (or know what it is) it's more of a feature that you use if your a IT guy than normal user.
safe boot works and recovery boot + booting from install media, ill try verbose mode later it may not work but iv not needed to use it ever in osx (just for fun)
pastrychef dose have a fun and much more interesting solution to the problem.
is it worth adding to the nvidia sticky?
I don't know how this procedure would work with AMD/ATI. My guess is that, Clover should be able to initialize the video card. Secondly, since we don't have to do anything special to activate the AMD/ATI drivers, it should just work. Again, this is all speculation on my part...
Yes, if you don't change any settings, I think that Clover won't do anything and will just act as a boot loader that you can use to select whatever operating systems you have on your system. Example:
Source: Random Clover boot screenshot I got from Google (The appearance of this is completely customizable and will most likely look different for you)
May I know where is the reliable source to download cover? Try few different key words in Google, but couldn't get a good result .
Look at Insanelymac.com. Clover's developer, Slice, posts there.
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/forum/327-clover/
also this thread might be of interest:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/312706-clover-on-real-mac/
A quick test shows no bootscreen. I did…
1) clone primary SSD to backup HDD (tested bootable)
2) install cover (all default setting, GPU is HD7950)
3) select HDD to boot, restart
4) hear the chime, but black screen only. HOWEVER, all USB 3.0 drives work (card reader / HDD enclosure LED shows that all SD cards / HDDs are mounted). That's just few seconds after the chime, so, 100% not load to OS desktop yet. Something properly initialise the USB 3.0 card (KT4004).
5) no loading sound from HDD, the computer seems waiting for something (may be cover is actually there but I just can't see), so, I press Enter (assume it's pointing to the default HDD).
6) continue to boot, and then confirmed that's boot from the backup HDD.
So, the good news is.
A) it won't kill anything
B) USB 3.0 may be bootable!!!
But I need more time to figure out if I can make cover properly initialise the GPU.
1) clone primary SSD to backup HDD (tested bootable)
2) install cover (all default setting, GPU is HD7950)
3) select HDD to boot, restart
4) hear the chime, but black screen only. HOWEVER, all USB 3.0 drives work (card reader / HDD enclosure LED shows that all SD cards / HDDs are mounted). That's just few seconds after the chime, so, 100% not load to OS desktop yet. Something properly initialise the USB 3.0 card (KT4004).
5) no loading sound from HDD, the computer seems waiting for something (may be cover is actually there but I just can't see), so, I press Enter (assume it's pointing to the default HDD).
6) continue to boot, and then confirmed that's boot from the backup HDD.
So, the good news is.
A) it won't kill anything
B) USB 3.0 may be bootable!!!
But I need more time to figure out if I can make cover properly initialise the GPU.