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

Another 4890....

Got an MSI 4890 today (would swear it was supposed to be an XFX...)

Had some difficulty getting everything installed. (needed Natit, Exotic Cards patched X2000, and ATI-init) but now it is working.

FWIW...while the iGig 4870 with slightly higher clocks scored nearly identical to OEM Apple 4870, this new 4890 blows them both out of the water on the OpenGl Viewer....past scores @ 2560x1600 were around 1500 for most...now at 1700.

Interestingly, I was able to get 9800GTs to do this same score in past in OSX...so we still have some driver growth coming, I hope.

So, a 4890 working in 10.5.7 using Natit's method.

Now to play with the ROM.........
 

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Cindori said:
About aty_init

I have read alot about it, but not how it works

From my understanding, it is a kext+driver you download and install

The kext somehow initializes a PC radeon on the Mac?

Do I need a Mac card in slot 1?

Or will a single, PC, say 4890, inserted in slot 1, boot up fine in OSX, with original performance?
Click to expand...

I can confirm that you can run a Radeon HD 4890 without any Mac compatible card in slot 1.

I just removed the stock Radeon HD 2600XT and the Radeon HD 4890 runs fine alone.
 
The Rominator said:
Got an MSI 4890 today (would swear it was supposed to be an XFX...)

Had some difficulty getting everything installed. (needed Natit, Exotic Cards patched X2000, and ATI-init) but now it is working.
Now to play with the ROM.........
Click to expand...
Nice!
How well is it working: dual screen, VGA, link speed, dual-link, etc...? Do you need an apple card to make it work (I guess not).

At macbidouille, we're trying the make natit work for non-standard 4870 (should be easy, but so far, no luck. Admittedly, we're not experts). I will report if we succeed.
 
First of all thanks to all for the truly inspirational and helpful thread here! :)

I have 3 questions for experts here:

- If I buy a higher clocked PC version of 4870 and flash it with Mac firmware, what do I get - a standard Mac Edition GPU and memory clock speed - or the original values of slightly overclocked PC card are somehow preserved?

- I know it's easy to overclock the card on a PC side, but what about Mac? Can I overclock it in Windows and to use those settings on Mac side too?

- I'am aiming at SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON HD 4870 TOXIC, 1GB DDR5, DVI, HDTV card as it is available in my local store and it has silent cooling system, any reason not to get this card?

Thank you so much!
 
jeanlain said:
Nice!
How well is it working: dual screen, VGA, link speed, dual-link, etc...? Do you need an apple card to make it work (I guess not).

At macbidouille, we're trying the make natit work for non-standard 4870 (should be easy, but so far, no luck. Admittedly, we're not experts). I will report if we succeed.
Click to expand...

So far it is behaving just like the XFX 1 Gig 4870 it replaced.

I have not dragged a second monitor in to make sure the other port works, nor have I tested VGA yet.

The upper port is single link, lower is Dual Link.

I am sure that there is a way to make Natit, etc run the other 4870s....but melding & flashing the ROM is a much more permanent solution that doesn't need a fix with every upgrade of the OS. Also, having EFI in there gives you the boot screen, very handy thing indeed.

As far as Frixo Cool's questions....

You need to understand that the ROM for these cards has 2 main parts.

The EFI part is what brings the screen up with the "bong"...as the OS loads, it loads the second part of which is the....

PC BIOS which is used by WIndows to define and run the card is also used by the Mac. As far as I can tell, changes in PC Bios to clock speeds also effect Mac side...but I have only done extensive tests to prove this with Nvidia cards.
 
if anyone wants to buy the flashed, working Sapphire 1 GB card from me, I'll sell it to them for what I paid for it, plus shipping. I'm going to be beta testing next releases of Mudbox so I might as well stick to the retail cards for accurate bug logging purposes. email me at daveg at 3eige dot com

The card works well with the exception of the 2.5 GT/s problem and it only gets one monitor out at a time. It will save you flashing it. Altogether, it's $240 US shipped if you're around the East coast. First come, first serve and I only do paypal.
 
Frixo Cool said:
First of all thanks to all for the truly inspirational and helpful thread here! :)

I have 3 questions for experts here:

- If I buy a higher clocked PC version of 4870 and flash it with Mac firmware, what do I get - a standard Mac Edition GPU and memory clock speed - or the original values of slightly overclocked PC card are somehow preserved?

- I know it's easy to overclock the card on a PC side, but what about Mac? Can I overclock it in Windows and to use those settings on Mac side too?

- I'am aiming at SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON HD 4870 TOXIC, 1GB DDR5, DVI, HDTV card as it is available in my local store and it has silent cooling system, any reason not to get this card?

Thank you so much!
Click to expand...

So far as I know you will only be able to use one screen at a time with the Sapphire card. The XFX card I have supports 2 monitors at the same time one dual link and one single link. If you want that second simultaneous monitor it may be a reason for you not to buy the Sapphire. If you need further information on the card I got and my setup there is lots of info at the tutorial (I link to it yet again):

http://web.me.com/jacobcroft/4870Flash/4870Flash.html
 
The Rominator said:
Got an MSI 4890 today (would swear it was supposed to be an XFX...)

Had some difficulty getting everything installed. (needed Natit, Exotic Cards patched X2000, and ATI-init) but now it is working.

FWIW...while the iGig 4870 with slightly higher clocks scored nearly identical to OEM Apple 4870, this new 4890 blows them both out of the water on the OpenGl Viewer....past scores @ 2560x1600 were around 1500 for most...now at 1700.

Interestingly, I was able to get 9800GTs to do this same score in past in OSX...so we still have some driver growth coming, I hope.

So, a 4890 working in 10.5.7 using Natit's method.

Now to play with the ROM.........
Click to expand...

Can you test 1920x1200 for me as a comparison? I am seeing 2,500 range on the tests with the Sapphire 1GB HD4870 at 1920x1200.
 
Rominator

when u do gl view tests, plz set multisample to 4, anysotropi to 16 and check out benchmark option. otherwise your results is very cpu dependent.

Also, 4890 needs only two pkgs, ati_init and patched x2000 (aka exotic cards), no need to mess with natit :)

jeanlain

as i already told you, you need to replace bin_image for 4870 section with own, bin_image is first 65535 bytes of bios dump, use property list editor from xcode to edit plsit.
 
ok here is a question regarding the 2.5GT vs 5.0GT link speed issue...

I heard a lot of people mention that its not important unless you shift lots of texture/graphics based info in and out of the card and that games don't do that
well I pretty much exclusively play the game Second Life and as such here is what I am worried about ... the nature of second life is basically that whenever and wherever you go in the game the visual content of the region in the game will need to be downloaded and moved into the graphic memory on the GPU and pretty much all in realtime so basically the point that literally on a constant basis this happens would I be correct in saying that for a game like that the link speed would be very important if not crucial for the games performance

:) nuvo
 
First I want to salute all members of this great forum and especially this thread. My English is very bad, sorry for that.

I have a Mac Pro early 2009 and I want to buy an ATI 4870 or 4890. Obviously 4890 is the best graphics but as I read makes a lot of noise and that's precisely what I dislike (do not know if this is true). Search for the best assembly of the market and make less noise. If the 4890 play, makes a lot of noise, because I do not care, but if doing a normal use of the Mac, the 4890 makes annoying noise, then do not buy graphics. So I'm asking for help.

Another question I have is about the overclock graphics that lead by the assembler. The method I use is the first of netkas, but do not rule out changing the bios for the 4870 Apple, if the netkas method gave me problems. Can you operate a 4870 or 4890 with Serial overclock in early 2009 Mac Pro? Is that most graphic I see on the market, but also bring OC best lead heatsinks.

Greetings
 
netkas said:
Rominator

when u do gl view tests, plz set multisample to 4, anysotropi to 16 and check out benchmark option. otherwise your results is very cpu dependent.

Also, 4890 needs only two pkgs, ati_init and patched x2000 (aka exotic cards), no need to mess with natit :)

jeanlain

as i already told you, you need to replace bin_image for 4870 section with own, bin_image is first 65535 bytes of bios dump, use property list editor from xcode to edit plsit.
Click to expand...
Yes master, that's what I'm doing. ;)
But since I don't have the card myself, I cannot test directly, which complicates the thing.
Is it not 65536 (64K) bytes? Plist edit pro indicates that your bin image is that size. Also, it contains a truncated section of the EFI from the apple ROM. I wonder if that could pose problems with 4870 cards.

And why doesn't the 4890 need natit? What's the difference with the 4870? :confused:
 
4890 already has bin_image in natit's plist

65535 or 65536 - dont matter, aty_init will use only bios part anyway, which ends somewhere around 62kb
here around 62kb
 
netkas said:
I merged Natit and ATY_Init together, its able to read bios dirrectly from card now

jeanlain, it will be good to test it with non-reference 4870

before installing this kext (with kexthelper), remove /System/Library/Extensions/Natit.kext
Click to expand...
Never mind about this post, Netkas fixed his link. :)
 
Alright, I am posting this to macbidouille where people have problems with non-flashed 4870.
I'll report here.

update: it seems that people are beginning to encounter problems with 4890s: no video on second DVI port.
I guess that some cards are too much different from the reference 4870 design, which so far produces the best results with apple drivers. There may be "reference" 4890s and non-reference cards.

update (channeling Macbidouille): The semi-compatible 4890 is a sapphire, I am trying to get info on the part number.

Netkas: I could get the guy to try your new ATY_Init with this card. No success: fans spin at full blast with a LED lit on the card. No boot. This is on a Mac Pro 1.1. But again, I can't confirm that your extension has been installed properly and natit removed. Someone who is more experienced (Rominator?) should try it with an unflashed card. I don't have a PC card here.
 
Netkas, it seems that your new ATY_Init does not work with 4980s (at least). Apparently, Lionel from Macbidouille did the test. The old ATY_Init + Natit used to work fine.
 
risingforce said:
First I want to salute all members of this great forum and especially this thread. My English is very bad, sorry for that.

I have a Mac Pro early 2009 and I want to buy an ATI 4870 or 4890. Obviously 4890 is the best graphics but as I read makes a lot of noise and that's precisely what I dislike (do not know if this is true). Search for the best assembly of the market and make less noise. If the 4890 play, makes a lot of noise, because I do not care, but if doing a normal use of the Mac, the 4890 makes annoying noise, then do not buy graphics. So I'm asking for help.

Another question I have is about the overclock graphics that lead by the assembler. The method I use is the first of netkas, but do not rule out changing the bios for the 4870 Apple, if the netkas method gave me problems. Can you operate a 4870 or 4890 with Serial overclock in early 2009 Mac Pro? Is that most graphic I see on the market, but also bring OC best lead heatsinks.

Greetings
Click to expand...

Nobody can help me with my doubts?

Greetings
 
jeanlain said:
Netkas, it seems that your new ATY_Init does not work with 4980s (at least). Apparently, Lionel from Macbidouille did the test. The old ATY_Init + Natit used to work fine.
Click to expand...

did the package work ? the one which link i removed, and u kept it on macbidoule.
 
netkas said:
did the package work ? the one which link i removed, and u kept it on macbidoule.
Click to expand...
No one has tested this one. But since most are beginners, I am reluctant to use them as beta testers. :D

But in theory, your new method of BIOS dumping should enable the same ATI cards on Mac Pros as those working on hackintoshes, right? Or will we still need to add bin images in Natit plist for every model ?

Modifying the bin_image for the 4870 in Natit enabled non-standard cards, BTW.
 
jeanlain said:
No one has tested this one. But since most are beginners, I am reluctant to use them as beta testers. :D

But in theory, your new method of BIOS dumping should enable the same ATI cards on Mac Pros as those working on hackintoshes, right? Or will we still need to add bin images in Natit plist for every model ?

Modifying the bin_image for the 4870 in Natit enabled non-standard cards, BTW.
Click to expand...

on hackintoshes old nati was dumping bios image of POSTed card from memory (where vga bios normally located), but on macs its different, so bin_image had to be located in plist, now no more need in it since bios getting directly from card. it works for me on hackintosh to run unposted 2600xt (4850 is inital card)
 
which 4870 card ?

Hi,

I need to upgrade my faulty ATI 2600XT on my mac pro Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz but I am confused over which 4870 card you refer to as they seem to be described differently in the US to the UK. Which of these is the best to go for see link as I spoke to Radeon and they said to buy the mac version only which they would I guess? I don't really need it for gaming just to drive two displays (DVI or HDMI input) watch dvds and imaging.

Also they have a 2Gb version i noticed

Thank you. :confused:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-94-566.575-0
 
jules1066 said:
Hi,

I need to upgrade my faulty ATI 2600XT on my mac pro Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz but I am confused over which 4870 card you refer to as they seem to be described differently in the US to the UK. Which of these is the best to go for see link as I spoke to Radeon and they said to buy the mac version only which they would I guess? I don't really need it for gaming just to drive two displays (DVI or HDMI input) watch dvds and imaging.

Also they have a 2Gb version i noticed

Thank you. :confused:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-94-566.575-0
Click to expand...

Those cards are pretty much identical with the difference being that the XXX version is clocked slightly higher (3.3% faster clock speed and 5.6% faster memory speed). Some people have got the XXX, some the normal. I've got the cheaper one although since I followed swissman's guide and downloaded the ROM he linked to (which is for the XXX card), my card's now actually clocked at the same speed. So far, so good. :)
 
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