The Golden Guide to Flashing Graphic Cards

[Maverick2880]

Thanks you you fast reply, I have been using heaven as my multi platform benchmark test and on my it performs around 40-65 FPS on mac and 80 FPS on windows this makes we think the Web driver is not optimised for the GTX980Ti yet, when running in windows you do still get the PCI 1,1 speed but you get some performance gain which I find strange as it should be worse than mac, even though when I was playing Battlefield 4 it sits around 70-80 FPS on a 1080p monitor most other people get 140 FPS so this is a huge loss, obviously this is due the the 1,1 bottle neck that can only be overcome by the EFI flash, from you reply you say this is not public are there any 900 series card that are as I can take the Bios and re-work it to see if I can implement it on the 980Ti

when buying the card I knew I would be stuck at PCI 2.0 and that fine but PCI 1.0 is not what I hoped for as I could have bought a GTX 770 and had the same performance

 

[Synchro3]

Then send your card in to flash: http://www.macvidcards.com/store/p49/Nvidia_GTX_980_Ti_6_GB.html

 

[Fl0r!an]

Nope, all Maxwell-EFIs are MVC's secret.
That OS X drivers (especially Nvidia) perform quite crappy isn't new though. Can't say if your performance is 'normal' on PCIe 1 or if there's another problem.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Thanks you you fast reply, I have been using heaven as my multi platform benchmark test and on my it performs around 40-65 FPS on mac and 80 FPS on windows this makes we think the Web driver is not optimised for the GTX980Ti yet, when running in windows you do still get the PCI 1,1 speed but you get some performance gain which I find strange as it should be worse than mac, even though when I was playing Battlefield 4 it sits around 70-80 FPS on a 1080p monitor most other people get 140 FPS so this is a huge loss, obviously this is due the the 1,1 bottle neck that can only be overcome by the EFI flash, from you reply you say this is not public are there any 900 series card that are as I can take the Bios and re-work it to see if I can implement it on the 980Ti

when buying the card I knew I would be stuck at PCI 2.0 and that fine but PCI 1.0 is not what I hoped for as I could have bought a GTX 770 and had the same performance

PCI version only makes a few frames difference.

Mac 3D performance sucks compared to Windows. That's just the way it is for the moment. Heaven and Valley are always faster with Direct X than OpenGL (Mac version). Tomb Raider on Mac is half the speed of the Windows version and that's with much less detail and no TressFX.

 

[Macbot07]

PCI version only makes a few frames difference.

Mac 3D performance sucks compared to Windows. That's just the way it is for the moment. Heaven and Valley are always faster with Direct X than OpenGL (Mac version). Tomb Raider on Mac is half the speed of the Windows version and that's with much less detail and no TressFX.

Sorry to perhaps hijack this thread. I'm fairly new to Macs in general and to ALL of this efi/bios stuff and am trying to find out the current (2015) process to transform an older ATI card to work in my very old Mac Pro. Getting very confused as to what method/rom files/flash, do it from a pc, in a Mac. Etc etc etc. Just when I think, Yes!....I run into a " this no longer works" or similar type of answer. I'm hoping someone can direct me to the most current and most importantly, working tools and files. Some may ask why bother?...well for one thing, the machine still runs quite well and secondly it's what I have so I'm trying to make the most of it. The card I'm trying to use is an ATI Radeon X1900XT. I believe it's a Windows version and needs to be flashed to use it in my Mac (just a black screen in the Mac) I think I have the most current tool (Zeus) but after that I'm lost...any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Fl0r!an]

I don't think the X1900 even has drivers in recent OS X versions. Wasn't it dropped with the move to 64bit?

 

[Macbot07]

I don't think the X1900 even has drivers in recent OS X versions. Wasn't it dropped with the move to 64bit?

I have no clue, but I'm still using 32 bit Lion, it's a 2006 Mac Pro upgraded to 2.1, 2 dual core 3ghz 32 gigs of ram. I'm planning on moving to 64 bit os at some point but that's another can of worms following that process and for another distant day..

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

OS X 10.7 Lion with a 32-bit kernel is the end of the line for the ATI X1900 XT, the last OS X version that supported it. I still have a flashed XTX version in a drawer somewhere. I recall flashing it from a command line utility by booting a FreeDOS CD-ROM I had to make because Zeus was never quite working.

To move to a 64-bit kernel and newer OS X versions you'll need a newer card. That old Mac Pro will run OS X 10.11 Yosemite perfectly if you replace the boot.efi boot loader on the hard drive with Pike's version and the graphics card itself.

 

[Caesar_091]

Is Zeus still working for newer OSs and video cards?
(i.e.: OS X 11.11.3 and let's say an nVidia 980Ti?)

 

[Fl0r!an]

Nope and nope. Zeus was made 5-6 years ago and is limited to those GPUs and operating systems.

 

[Caesar_091]

Thanks! Are there any other updated tools outhere?

 

[hwojtek]

No, you just use good ol' plain atiflash.exe in FreeDOS or NVflash in Windows.

 

[Caesar_091]

Does these tools works even with new ATI and nVidia card.

 

[hwojtek]

I did my R9/280x using ATIFlash in Freedos, worked no problems. TBH it also worked with a GUI version of ATIFlash Windows 8.1 as well.

 

[Daniel88swe]

Hi guys!

Seems like a nice thread this and very nice from my fellow countryman Cindori.

I am thinking about buying a GTX 970 for my Mac Pro 5,1 from 2010 running El Capitan.

If have a some questions regarding flashing the GTX 970;

1. Does one know how long the card is going to be supported regarding new operating system versions from apple in the future?

2. Is it even possible to flash the GTX 970 on my own? I have quite much both PC and Mac computer knowledge and I have access to both pc:s and mac:s.

3. The guide in the beginning of this thread, is it still actual seven years later?

Thank you guys for all the effort you put in this!

And thanks in advance for any answers.

/Daniel

 

[Beagl3]

1. The GTX 900 series was never officially supported by Apple. The support depends on Nvidia and how long they will keep the Nvidia Web Driver compatible with new OS X versions.
2. MacVidCards provides a GTX 970 flashing service, but in lack of a flashable EFI, you can't do it by yourself
3. The guide refers to older ATI cards and some links are broken

 

[Daniel88swe]

1. The GTX 900 series was never officially supported by Apple. The support depends on Nvidia and how long they will keep the Nvidia Web Driver compatible with new OS X versions.
2. MacVidCards provides a GTX 970 flashing service, but in lack of a flashable EFI, you can't do it by yourself
3. The guide refers to older ATI cards and some links are broken

Okay, that was an incredibly quick answer. Thanks for that!

Short back story:
I once had a gtx 970 (gigabyte g1) in my mac pro but sometimes it failed in the loading screen so I had to remote desktop from my macbook to login and from there switch to the correct gpu drivers on the mac pro.

These days I use the mac pro at the company I work and what I wrote above cannot just happen to me at work. I need a card that is as native as it can be.

Looking at the GTX 970 in sweden I can buy one for €325 and the same card at mac video cards is €500.

Of course, as you say I can't flash the 970 on my own. But a card with similiar performance for about that money would be nice.

What card would you recommend to me; native apple gpu, flashed by mac video cards or flashed by me?

Thanks again,

/Daniel

 

[h9826790]

Okay, that was an incredibly quick answer. Thanks for that!

Short back story:
I once had a gtx 970 (gigabyte g1) in my mac pro but sometimes it failed in the loading screen so I had to remote desktop from my macbook to login and from there switch to the correct gpu drivers on the mac pro.

These days I use the mac pro at the company I work and what I wrote above cannot just happen to me at work. I need a card that is as native as it can be.

Looking at the GTX 970 in sweden I can buy one for €325 and the same card at mac video cards is €500.

Of course, as you say I can't flash the 970 on my own. But a card with similiar performance for about that money would be nice.

What card would you recommend to me; native apple gpu, flashed by mac video cards or flashed by me?

Thanks again,

/Daniel

If only consider Apple native driver support, 7970 (R9 280x) should be the best choice. The device ID is exactly the same as the D700, which basically means it will always be supported until Apple decide not to support the 6,1 anymore.

On top of that, the card can easily be flashed on your own (with the 2nd ROM as backup, very safe to do so).

 

[Daniel88swe]

Okay, thanks for your answer h9826790 and also thanks Beagl3!

So what you are saying is that I can buy this card:
https://www.proshop.se/Grafikkort/Radeon-R9-280X-OC-3GB-GDDR5/2424324

And that card will work directly out of the box with boot screens and everything? No drawbacks?

And you said on top of that... I don't understand, I am a newbie on the flashing field... Why would I need / want to flash that card? Or do I HAVE to flash even that card to get it working with boot screens and everything?

And the last question;

If I would go in that direction with the ATI cards... If I would go up one step in performance and price, which is the next step of cards? I totally have no clue about the ATI Radeon Cards, I am using A GTX 980 TI in my Gaming PC.

Thanks guys!

/Daniel

 

[Beagl3]

The 280X is the most powerful AMD/ATI GPU with public available Mac EFI. I guess the Gigabyte card should work without problems, but you need one 6 pin to 8 pin PCIe power adapter cable to get the card connected to the PSU. The card also works unflashed, but without boot screen and that whole fancy stuff. There are also more powerful AMD GPUs, but some of them work quite unstable in the Mac Pro (R9 290/390) or they are not working at all (R9 Fury/R9 Nano).

 

[h9826790]

I just find out that the EFI is not only for providing boot screen. It also somehow related to the HDMI audio, and screen detection, etc.

In my current config (7950 and OSX 10.11.4 Beta 4), if I boot from non-EFI ROM, I may or may not get the audio via display port. But if I boot from the EFI ROM, I can always get the audio via HDMI and mDP.

Also, if I boot from the non-EFI ROM, the GPU will always detect my 4K TV via the HDMI port (regardless if the TV is on/off). However, when I boot from the EFI ROM, it will only detect the TV when it is on. So my mouse pointer won't accidentally move to a screen that is actually offline.

It's seems a bit strange to me. But I test it quite a few times yesterday, the result is consistent. I am not sure if it's the same for 280X, or other GPU. At least on my card, the EFI may do more job than just provide the boot screen.

 

[Daniel88swe]

Okay,

And as I mentioned before; at home it would be no problem to have those small issues. It would be no problem to not have a boot screen since I can switch card when I want to access to boot screen. But at work I can't have it that way. At work things have to work!

The R9 280X seems like a fine card and the price is decent. But I still have to flash it? And there is a flash for that card available in the public... right? So I can download that EFI, follow a guide, and then flash the card on my own?

1. How future prof will that card be if I flash it? Until apple stops supporting the D700 Cards?
2. If I fail the flashing of the card. Will the card be bricked / totally unusable then?

/Daniel

 

[h9826790]

Okay,

And as I mentioned before; at home it would be no problem to have those small issues. It would be no problem to not have a boot screen since I can switch card when I want to access to boot screen. But at work I can't have it that way. At work things have to work!

The R9 280X seems like a fine card and the price is decent. But I still have to flash it? And there is a flash for that card available in the public... right? So I can download that EFI, follow a guide, and then flash the card on my own?

1. How future prof will that card be if I flash it? Until apple stops supporting the D700 Cards?
2. If I fail the flashing of the card. Will the card be bricked / totally unusable then?

/Daniel

There is a thread in this forum specifically for flashing the R9 280X, some ROMs area avail at there, but I still highly recommend that you make the EFI ROM by yourself. It's just a 5min job, all you need to do is some reading and follow the exact instruction.

1) Yes, until Apple stop support the nMP's D700, R9 280X should always work.

2) Most of the 280X should come with dual ROM design, I highly recommend you get those card. With dual ROM design, even though the flash goes wrong, you can still boot from the other ROM, and re-flash the bad ROM again. DO NOT touch one of the good ROM, as long as you follow this rule, it's almost impossible to brick the card just because you flash a bad ROM on it.

So, in general, after flashing, you will end up have one EFI ROM, and the other ROM is the stock PC ROM. You can just flip the switch to choose the ROM you want.

The card you chose looks OK to me, standard port config, dual ROM design. Should be quite safe for flashing.

 

[Daniel88swe]

Okay! That sounds really good! Thanks for your advice.

So I want one of the dual rom 280X then. And I also want a quiet card.

The power cables you were talking about, I have one at home which I used in my mac pro when I had my 970 in it. It is a 6 pin to 8 pin cable. But I have a question there; Even if I change the amount of pins with a cable, is the power from my mid 2010 mac pro enough?

And what about CUDA? The most heavy thing I do very often on my Mac pro is editing very large photoshop files with very many layers. How much benefit would I get from a Nvidia Card with CUDA? If I would buy one from MacVideoCards?

Many Thanks,

/Daniel

 

[h9826790]

I don't know much about CUDA, so I am not appropriate to answer your question.

However, AFAIK, Photoshop still mainly CPU intensive, only few filters that actually use the GPU acceleration. GPGPU may be the future, but sure not the main stream at this moment, and no need to worry about that too much (we can almost always take the same upgrade cheaper later, if really require). Also, my understanding is Photoshop itself use OpenGL and OpenCL, but not CUDA, there are some 3rd party plugin use CUDA, but it's not a requirement to utilise the Mercury Graphics Engine.

So, for many layers large Photoshop work, you better have a fast CPU (single core speed still the main key factor, but not the core numbers), and lots of RAM. For GPU, even a R9 280X may be overkill. But considering it's not that expensive, I still believe the 280X is a decent choice.

The R9 280X can pull more than 75W from the 8pin port, that mean will pull more than 75W from the 6pin source. If you mainly use it for Photoshop. There is nothing to worry about, I think you can't even warm up the card. However, for heavy video editing, OpenCL, gaming, etc. The 8pin may pull more than 120W which cause the Mac Pro activate the self shut down protection.

So far, the easiest way to avoid that should be balancing the power draw.
dual mini 6 pin -> single 8 pin -> 6+8pin.
Therefore, everything will go through the single 8pin bridge, and the power draw will be shared between the 2 mini 6pin source. The total power draw may still go above the 150W official limit under stress (which won't happen in Photoshop), but the risk to cause any real damage should be very very low. I run 2x 7950 for some time already, and slowly push both cards to higher speed to draw more power. They can now draw ~100W from each of the mini 6pin for few hours. The whole system still stable. So, I must warn you that the 8pin may overload the mini 6pin port, which may cause permanent damage. However, unless your workflow is running Furmark, there should be nothing to worry about.