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Race to dump the 4870 ROM, Who's first?

I just purchased a Sapphire 4870, the same card that Pipolomo42 used (22133-00), it was the last any local store had in stock.

Im waiting for the power cables, but the amount of custom ROMs flying around here is daunting. I've never done this before, but hope it goes well.

Anyone know which page had the custom ROM for this card that Pipolomo42 posted?

I'll be available for further testing if anyone wants to help since I don't really know what I'm doing :)
 
Did anyone else see the electronista article on the 4890 being announced? I wonder what kind of effect this will have on the 4870 prices. Also, sad to see that before Apple can even ship a card it has been replaced by something better. I wonder if the 4890 could be flashed? It is too bad it isn't in a PC/Mac configuration (so far as I can tell).
 
New/replacement card arriving from amazon later today...

I did find out some interesting preliminary stuff regarding the mouse hiccup issue.

When booting off my 10.5 (10.5.2 I think) DVD that came with my mac pro, jumping / hiccup issue IS NOT THERE in the installer screens / apps.

When booting in safe boot mode the jumping / hiccup issue persists.

Resetting of NVRAM / PRAM had no effect.

This makes me think that the issue may be software / driver conflict. I'll try the new card and if the jumping issue persists I'll start diving into software to see if I can narrow it down. If it comes to that, I'm assuming the system will still boot to the finder if I kill the ati drivers posted earlier? I assume this as I was able to boot from the DVD just fine. And then, if killing the drivers eliminates the jumping / hiccup issue... any suggestions as to what might be interfering given that it persists in safe boot mode?

@ zoppa: are you running any tweaks or odd software that may be running at the system level that might be causing a conflict? The ones I can come up with off the top of my head are tinkertool, mac fuse, little snitch, m$, adobe cs3...

More to follow later tonight...
 
Hi all,

so i finally got my hands on an Gainward 4870 golden Sample 1GB VRAM.
I flashed it with the instructions in this thread.
BTW: i own an actual Mac Pro 09 model that i would equip with these card.

Therefore i think i have the neccessary ATI drivers already installed on my system (no need for extra installation ? )

So.... finally: the system chimes and boots up. but when the login screen should appear i always get a black screen. System is boot up and running - but i cannot see anything.
Its the same with the posted Sapphire Toxic ROM.

Could anyone help me ?
Thanks a lot

nasa
 
medsource said:
@ zoppa: are you running any tweaks or odd software that may be running at the system level that might be causing a conflict? The ones I can come up with off the top of my head are tinkertool, mac fuse, little snitch, m$, adobe cs3...
Click to expand...

Hi medsource,
I'm running mac fuse, ntfs-3g, little snitch, m$, virus barrier x5, pureftpd, logitech control center...
Updated ntfs-3g yesterday without luck. I will investigate when I find some spare time. But I'm on Mac (early 2008 MP 2x2,8 GHz) only for around one year and have no clue of deeper matters (usually I just use it with pleasure :). So any hints on getting info out of the system are welcome.
It's strange that m$ os is doing better.
Must be some driver/software environment thing.

P.S.: Also tried jaberwockys rom.
 
@nasabaer: You'll need the 10.5.7 beta drivers.

btw, how do I check if the 10.5.7 beta drivers are installed correctly?
All ATIRadeon related files in my /System/Library/Extensions are dated Dec 2007...
 
just tried elvisizer's modified ROM. My Nehalem machine still shows up with 2.5 GT/s connection. Is it some sort of relevant clue that I have two options in my PCI devices and only one monitor connected?:
 

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nasabaer said:
Hi all,

so i finally got my hands on an Gainward 4870 golden Sample 1GB VRAM.
I flashed it with the instructions in this thread.
BTW: i own an actual Mac Pro 09 model that i would equip with these card.

Therefore i think i have the neccessary ATI drivers already installed on my system (no need for extra installation ? )

So.... finally: the system chimes and boots up. but when the login screen should appear i always get a black screen. System is boot up and running - but i cannot see anything.
Its the same with the posted Sapphire Toxic ROM.

Could anyone help me ?
Thanks a lot

nasa
Click to expand...

Did you read the whole thread?

I'm pretty sure someone did a Gainward already.....had the funky HDMI / VGA outputs?
 
I saw an Ebay listing for a flashed 1GB 4870 claiming both DVI ports worked. I emailed the seller for verification and the reply was: "Yes, both DVI ports on this card work simultaneously". I've been following this thread very closely and I might have missed it but I thought that all of the 1 GB cards wouldn't do 2 monitors simultaneously. Did I miss something? Maybe the seller is one of you??? Can anyone verify success with a 1 GB card where both DVI's work together? If not maybe there is something to be learned from this auction. Thanks.
 
Benchmarks?

So I don't recall if anyone did post anything yet, but I finally swapped back in my old 8800GT 'cause I'm really missing the dual monitor setup right now. But because of that, ran a quick Xbench on each card after bootup to check if there really is much of a difference (World of Warcraft hasn't demonstrated anything remarkable for improved performance yet).

Stock 8800GT:
Code: 
Quartz Graphics Test	223.00	
		Line	204.33	13.60 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
		Rectangle	265.81	79.36 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
		Circle	217.75	17.75 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
		Bezier	218.32	5.51 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
		Text	217.74	13.62 Kchars/sec
	OpenGL Graphics Test	190.38	
		Spinning Squares	190.38	241.51 frames/sec
Frankenrom Flashed 1GB Sapphire HD4870 (P/N 288-20E85-130SA, SKU 11133-04-20R)
Code: 
Quartz Graphics Test	222.66	
		Line	217.43	14.48 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
		Rectangle	262.46	78.36 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
		Circle	213.49	17.40 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
		Bezier	215.37	5.43 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
		Text	211.92	13.26 Kchars/sec
	OpenGL Graphics Test	211.85	
		Spinning Squares	211.85	268.74 frames/sec

I'm assuming these are the relevant numbers from Xbench. Regardless, it wasn't very promising to see no significant difference.:(

Edit: If there's a better application(s) for stress-testing the card, I'm willing to try that out instead. Just throw me some suggestions and/or settings I need to run them.
 
Xbench is garbage and hasn't been updated in years. I've tested the Quadro FX 5600 (which is basically an 8800 GT with more memory) and the Radeon 4870 and the Radeon is faster on the Mac because of better drivers by ATI. Apple writes terrible drivers for the Nvidia products.

It's faster in Maya, Mudbox (3x), Cinebench, Windows games. everything.
 
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the poor performance of the 4870 at present is due to immature drivers - Barefeats found the 8800GT to outperform the 4870 on the Nehalem Mac Pro (though not Harpertown...) on apps and earlier testing, though their newest game run showed a hefty advantage to the 4870 (only on Nehalem). As soon as 10.5.7 drops - which should be soon - expect the 4870 to whomp it in tests, benchmarking and apps. That said, I'm wondering how well the flashed 4870s will run when 10.5.7 drops. I want to wait for it before I drop cash on a Sapphire 1 GB card and flash.

Again, still curious - would it even be possible to hack the analog output from the 3870 into the 4870 ROM? Nobody weighed in on it, and I think it's worthy of a little curiosity? Does anybody have enough experience to say, or failing that, a nice theory of how it could be done?
 
@zoppa: thanks - but i already own a mac pro 09 - and the ati drivers are already in i thought.
so ok - i will give the 10.5.7 drivers a shot.

and yes - i have seen that someone has already done the rom for the Gainward 1gb GS card... but i miss a funktion to send a PM here in this forum.
 
nasabaer said:
@zoppa: thanks - but i already own a mac pro 09 - and the ati drivers are already in i thought.
so ok - i will give the 10.5.7 drivers a shot.

and yes - i have seen that someone has already done the rom for the Gainward 1gb GS card... but i miss a funktion to send a PM here in this forum.
Click to expand...

Yes, i did it, with a custom ROM made with pipomolo42 script. With the original Apple ROM, you get the endless boot chime.

I repeat what i said earlier, with this card, you MUST use an HDMI "terminator" on the HDMI port to get image on DVI or VGA port. I use the HDMI->DVI adapter, plus an DVI-VGA adapter, but you can use a connected HDMI cable.

I you understand french, i wrote a news here :http://www.macbidouille.com/news/2009/03/29/en-attendant-la-radeon-hd4890
 
aconu said:
I repeat what i said earlier, with this card, you MUST use an HDMI "terminator" on the HDMI port to get image on DVI or VGA port. I use the HDMI->DVI adapter, plus an DVI-VGA adapter, but you can use a connected HDMI cable.
Click to expand...

I think this HDMI trick is driver related, before window server start i've got image on DVI or VGA port without the HDMI adapter.
 
TheStrudel said:
Again, still curious - would it even be possible to hack the analog output from the 3870 into the 4870 ROM? Nobody weighed in on it, and I think it's worthy of a little curiosity? Does anybody have enough experience to say, or failing that, a nice theory of how it could be done?
Click to expand...

That might be possible but I feel that nobody is gonna bother.

It doesn't seem that anyone here has a real handle on what goes on INSIDE the ATI roms.

So, you are talking about alot of bother to gain a function that is only of value to SOME people....and a shrinking group at that, judging by the CRTs I see on curbs everywhere.

Did you notice that I found VGA to work on my DUal DVI DIamond? Means it is likely it works on ALL Dual DVI 4870s....with certain limitations. (most notably it becomes a SIngle DIsplay card)
 
BEIGE said:
just tried elvisizer's modified ROM. My Nehalem machine still shows up with 2.5 GT/s connection. Is it some sort of relevant clue that I have two options in my PCI devices and only one monitor connected?:
Click to expand...

my p45 machine shows same, i think its system profiler bug
 
BEIGE said:
Xbench is garbage and hasn't been updated in years. I've tested the Quadro FX 5600 (which is basically an 8800 GT with more memory) and the Radeon 4870 and the Radeon is faster on the Mac because of better drivers by ATI. Apple writes terrible drivers for the Nvidia products.

It's faster in Maya, Mudbox (3x), Cinebench, Windows games. everything.
Click to expand...

if u look inside nvidia driver's plist, u will see nvidia copyright there, not apple's.

It's hardware vendors who writes drivers for osx, not apple. Same with ATI.
 
netkas said:
my p45 machine shows same, i think its system profiler bug
Click to expand...

I have a p45 system it shows an 8800gt properly with the 5.0 GT/s for the link speed so unless it is a specific to the card you guys are using bug it will show correctly.
 

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zoppa said:
btw, how do I check if the 10.5.7 beta drivers are installed correctly?
All ATIRadeon related files in my /System/Library/Extensions are dated Dec 2007...
Click to expand...

I tried jaberwockys rom (thanks mate!), he has the same card, but the mouse hiccups persist.
This rom binary differed from the rom I flashed first (sapphire.rom). Strange as both were made for the same card.

@medsource does your new card work?
 
I flashed a Gainward 4870 GS 1GB for my 2008 mac Pro a couple of days ago and besides the known little problems (2.5 GT/s and HDMI-DVI-VGA adapter trick) it's working very well on my good old CRT.
I had to use atiflash and freedos because winflash didn't work for me. I flashed both romchips, one with a Mac+PCstandardBIOS hybrid ROM and the other with reduced clock settings (ironically instead of the 'turbo'-BIOS).
At 450/300MHz the card consumes significantly less power, is still more than fast enough for every 2D-application and it's even quieter than it is with stock settings...
 
netkas said:
if u look inside nvidia driver's plist, u will see nvidia copyright there, not apple's.

It's hardware vendors who writes drivers for osx, not apple. Same with ATI.
Click to expand...

http://macosx.com/topics/os-x-nvidia-drivers-p2.html

"I called nVIDIA for support. They told me that they do not write the drivers for the Mac OS and that I should talk with Apple."

ATI is different but this is commonly known about the Nvidia drivers.
 
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