NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT for the Mac Pro?

[amin]

Now that the NVIDIA 7600 GT is an option for the 24" iMac, clearly Apple has the drivers to make it work. How hard could it be to extend that to the Mac Pro? It would be nice to have a slightly less low-end graphics card option for those of us who hesitate to fork out the cash for the ATI X1900 XT option.

 

[Pressure]

It's not as if specific graphic card drivers are that hard to locate in Mac OSX

If someone could upload them from their new iMac Core 2 Duo, then someone with a Mac Pro could test and see if they work

 

[MaxPower2k6]

People have already successfully gotten stock PC 7600GTs to work in the Mac Pro alongside a 7300GT. Don't know if apple will offer their own version, but it does seem to be an option if you don't mind using up another PCIe slot.

 

[alien2108]

Well they'll have to release 7600GT driver in next OS X 10.4 release then! Would be great since you can get it very cheap and passive cooled. And it is not a bad card at all! I am also thinking to get one for my MP.

But still to work on boot your 7600GT would have to have EFI bios, which PC version won't. So at end you'll probably still end up with 2 cards in MP but maybe you would be able to use it after OS X loads...

 

[apfhex]

Unless the 24" iMac has a full size PCIe 7600GT in it that you can rip out and put in the MP (something I highly doubt), it's not gonna happen because it's a firmware issue more than a driver one.

FYI, EFI is an alternative to BIOS, it's not a "bios" itself. I know it's become a sort of common noun itself with the exclusivity it enjoys on Windows PCs.

 

[evp]

Someone already got 7600 working in MP and now Apple is shipping it with iMac.

Connect the dots?

Does the current OS version already have the drivers for 7600 in it?

 

[Wintrmte]

Someone already got 7600 working in MP and now Apple is shipping it with iMac.

Connect the dots?

Does the current OS version already have the drivers for 7600 in it?

No.

I have a 7600 GT card and it does *NOT* work in the Mac Pro under OSX. I have tried all the tricks (leaving the 7300 GT in, etc.) It will not detect any displays connected to it.

 

[amin]

People have already successfully gotten stock PC 7600GTs to work in the Mac Pro alongside a 7300GT...

But they've gotten it to work in Windows, no? I need it to work in OS X.

 

[Wintrmte]

But they've gotten it to work in Windows, no? I need it to work in OS X.

Windows does work, OSX does not. I've tried and tried.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

No.

I have a 7600 GT card and it does *NOT* work in the Mac Pro under OSX. I have tried all the tricks (leaving the 7300 GT in, etc.) It will not detect any displays connected to it.

Have a look into modifying the info.plist files in the GeForce* kexts or the NVDA* kexts in /system/library/extensions. You can't use TextEdit to edit them, you'd be best to use the terminal. Look at the kext package contents and find the kext that includes the product id and vendor id of the 7300 GT, then add the product and vendor ids to that info.plist file and reboot. You can use the calculator to convert from decimal to hexadecimal. Oh, make sure you back up the files first incase you balls up!

 

[Wintrmte]

Have a look into modifying the info.plist files in the GeForce* kexts or the NVDA* kexts in /system/library/extensions. You can't use TextEdit to edit them, you'd be best to use the terminal. Look at the kext package contents and find the kext that includes the product id and vendor id of the 7300 GT, then add the product and vendor ids to that info.plist file and reboot. You can use the calculator to convert from decimal to hexadecimal. Oh, make sure you back up the files first incase you balls up!

Interesting! I will have a look when I get home.

Have you tried this method?

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Interesting! I will have a look when I get home.

Have you tried this method?

If I had a MacPro and some graphics cards to try out in it I certainly would try it out! Find the kexts in the /system/library/extensions/folder then right click them and click "show package contents". You can open up the info.plist files in textedit to look at them and to find the one that matches the (hexadecimal) vendor and product ids of the 7300GT. Have a look at these instructions on modifying an info.plist file to support more devices. The instructions are for a usb serial adapter but the principle is the same, I just don't know which kext will have the 7300GT's ids in so you'll have to do some hunting. If you manage to find the kext (or kexts, it might be present in a few) and then proceed to make the modifications (after saving a backup of the files), delete the extensions.kextcache and extentions.mkext files. Then reboot and see what happens. Before you reboot you *may* want to run Disk Utility and repair the permissions of the drive.

Just in case, I'd make sure to back up any valuable data!

 

[D3LM3L]

Does that 7600GT cause kernel panics when plugged in alongside the 7300GT? I heard that incompatible video cards will do so and I might get a 7600GT later on for my Mac Pro.

 

[Mord]

the device ID is what you all should be worried about, you can change this in the card or you can change it in the driver, either way it needs to match up for the driver to lock onto it.