PC X1900 with OSX only

[phantasm10]

I thought this was interesting:

I have dumped the ROM from my Mac Pro's X1900XT using ATI Winflash on a PC. The ROM weighs in at 47 KB, which is smaller than your average PC ROM.

As a result, I've been able to flash it on an Asus EAX1900XT : the card can then be used in the Mac Pro, and behaves like the stock X1900XT in Mac OS X.

I don't think I can attach files on this board, but I'm ready to e-mail it to the board admins.

PS.: while OS X is perfectly able to use both cards in accelerated mode (using the 8-8-1-8 PCIe configuration), this seems to confuse XP (and Vista) in Boot Camp to no end. XP can't display a thing, and Vista puts out 640x480 in 16 colors.

http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/index.cgi?board=experiments&action=display&thread=1158739989

 

[IlluminatedSage]

wow neaT!!

Hope that some retail cards for pc in future will be both mac and pc dual compatible.

 

[twoodcc]

very interesting. so maybe you could rig up a different pc video card to work in the mac pro?

 

[arythmic]

hey phantasm10
I am getting a Mac Pro with the 1900 card and plan on installing XP64bit ...
Can you explain to me why you have flashed the card (I have not heard of any issues) and what this does exactly ... thanks

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

hey phantasm10
I am getting a Mac Pro with the 1900 card and plan on installing XP64bit ...
Can you explain to me why you have flashed the card (I have not heard of any issues) and what this does exactly ... thanks

He's taken a PC X1900 XT card and has managed to flash it so that it works in OS X. 3rd party PCIe cards do not work in OS X without a bit of hacking. There's nothing wrong with the 1900 cards that come with the Mac Pro or the ones ordered directly from Apple.

 

[BadRambo]

There is always the alternative of just putting the stock Apple card in the top slot, in the Pro, and a full-fledged PC vid card, 7800GTX, as I do, in the bottom slot. The Apple card boots up for OSX and the 7800GTX runs nicely and fast under XP (bootcamp installation). Of course, you have to bring down the +12 volts from up above for the bigger vid cards, but that is easy to do as well.

Of course you have to deal with two video outputs but if you have a twin input monitor, no problem.

It works --- and well --- Bob ---

 

[phantasm10]

I didn't do it personally, I just reposted info from the Strangedogs site (see link in 1st post). I have seen PC X1900XT's as low as $250 and would prefer to save money by going that route rather than through Apple.

 

[slughead]

I didn't do it personally, I just reposted info from the Strangedogs site (see link in 1st post). I have seen PC X1900XT's as low as $250 and would prefer to save money by going that route rather than through Apple.

Indeed. I need the card to work with XP though, using 16 lanes.