SLI in Mac Pro. It's True Onlooker!!

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  • Reply 61 of 146
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by theapplegenius


    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=223663



    That alone tells me that EFI has a BIOS compatibility layer as the 7900GTX isn't an EFI card,



    Oh, I guess you must have missed the very first part of the first post in there, which said so eloquently:

    Quote:

    Although the Mac OS doesn't see this card at all (no video at startup)



    Quote:

    oh, and that thing called Boot Camp. That uses the layer too.



    Not for video.
  • Reply 62 of 146
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chucker


    Oh, I guess you must have missed the very first part of the first post in there, which said so eloquently:



    That's because of the double-roms. Like I said in my earlier post. iirc, the card *does* show up in OS X, but you can't use it in OS X.



    Once hacked Mac Pro OS X comes around though, I could see that changing..
  • Reply 63 of 146
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by theapplegenius


    That's because of the double-roms.



    The only card I know of that features a hybrid ROM is an ATi one with BIOS and OpenFirmware. I know of no card that supports both BIOS and EFI. I'm sure it's possible; I just don't believe ATi or nVidia have done it at this point.
  • Reply 64 of 146
    tombtomb Posts: 29member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chucker


    ...I know of no card that supports both BIOS and EFI...



    I'm about 99% certain that the Apple 7300 does. I even made that assertion on the Strangedogs forum and none of the Mods has challenged it yet. Of course, they (Strangedogs Mods) haven't had the actual 7300 ROM very long, so they may not have had a chance to study it yet. But it's about the only way to explain the size of the ROM and the fact that it will boot a normal PC and a MacPro. It almost has to have a dual platform ROM.



    It would also be safe to assume that a future PC Video card that supports both BIOS and EFI might have a 128kb ROM chip onboard rather than the standard 64kb one. But, the actual 'Meat' of the ROM code is not very large, so it might be possible that the PC Card makers might fit a Dual ROM on a standard 64kb ROM chip. Whereas, we know that the Apple Dual ROM 7300 uses a 128kb ROM chip.



    It's still early, I'm interested in what the Strangedogs people have to say about the 7300 ROM
  • Reply 65 of 146
    slugheadslughead Posts: 1,169member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TomB


    I'm about 99% certain that the Apple 7300 does. I even made that assertion on the Strangedogs forum and none of the Mods has challenged it yet. Of course, they (Strangedogs Mods) haven't had the actual 7300 ROM very long, so they may not have had a chance to study it yet. But it's about the only way to explain the size of the ROM and the fact that it will boot a normal PC and a MacPro. It almost has to have a dual platform ROM.



    The 7300 does, my friend popped his (from his mac pro) in his PC and it worked fine.



    I think it was macrumors.com someone did a ROM dump and found 2 ROMs on the card.
  • Reply 66 of 146
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by slughead


    The 7300 does, my friend popped his (from his mac pro) in his PC and it worked fine.



    I think it was macrumors.com someone did a ROM dump and found 2 ROMs on the card.



    That's a good sign.
  • Reply 67 of 146
    tombtomb Posts: 29member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Placebo


    That's a good sign.



    Good in what way?





    This is part of the reason that I believe that Apple has no intentions of allowing OSX to work with standard PC ROMs. They put a standard PC ROM on their OEM card and then coded OSX not to use it! They only want OSX to work with the Apple based EFI ROM. And when the PC card makers change to EFI cards, they will have the same basic PC ROM on them. The same basic PC ROM that Apple has coded OSX not to work with!



    And then throw in the fact that the Hackintoshers have OSX booting and trying to use the standard PC ROM found on their PC video cards without success. Those people are actually now trying to rewrite the OSX video drivers to work with the standard PC ROM. They've been trying for over a year. And I have a very strong feeling that if Apple even allows the MacPro to boot from an EFI PC ROM video card, we'll find ourselves in the same position as the Hackintoshers. The standard OSX video drivers will not work with the standard PC ROM. And to quote one of the people at InsanelyMac, OSX without video acceleration is basically useless.



    And if this is the same Slughead that made the post 'Newbie with a Mac Pro' at Strangedogs, you probably heard that from me. I'm Tbarr at Strangedogs
  • Reply 68 of 146
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    I always hope Mac users choose that platform because they're willing to break with a few norms and actually move forward one little step at the time, but every single time the graphics card discussion comes up, I'm presented with people who, rather, blindly defend a hacked, broken, non-standard technique from the late 70s / early 80s over two far superior, standardized but not as widely deplyoed, techniques from the early and mid-90s.
  • Reply 69 of 146
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TomB


    Good in what way?





    This is part of the reason that I believe that Apple has no intentions of allowing OSX to work with standard PC ROMs. They put a standard PC ROM on their OEM card and then coded OSX not to use it! They only want OSX to work with the Apple based EFI ROM. And when the PC card makers change to EFI cards, they will have the same basic PC ROM on them. The same basic PC ROM that Apple has coded OSX not to work with!



    And then throw in the fact that the Hackintoshers have OSX booting and trying to use the standard PC ROM found on their PC video cards without success. Those people are actually now trying to rewrite the OSX video drivers to work with the standard PC ROM. They've been trying for over a year. And I have a very strong feeling that if Apple even allows the MacPro to boot from an EFI PC ROM video card, we'll find ourselves in the same position as the Hackintoshers. The standard OSX video drivers will not work with the standard PC ROM. And to quote one of the people at InsanelyMac, OSX without video acceleration is basically useless.



    The Macvidia drivers work with 2d, and CoreImage/Quartz Extreme are almost done.



    Anyway, does OS X authenticate with the EFI chip? Could one install the hacked 10.4.6 image w/o any cracks, and use a regular card with the Macvidia drivers like the Hackintoshes? It should install perfectly under the BIOS layer. I guess you'd just need the restore discs that came with the Mac Pro.
  • Reply 70 of 146
    You'd still risk having updates blow up on you. Your best bet would be to find a way to use TDM, and swap some files with hacked ones, then swap them back when you have to update. That's probably not very easy.
  • Reply 71 of 146
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ZachPruckowski


    You'd still risk having updates blow up on you. Your best bet would be to find a way to use TDM, and swap some files with hacked ones, then swap them back when you have to update. That's probably not very easy.



    But the Mac Pro still has the TPM chip. Anyone with a Mac Pro want to test this hypothesis?
  • Reply 72 of 146
    slugheadslughead Posts: 1,169member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TomB


    And if this is the same Slughead that made the post 'Newbie with a Mac Pro' at Strangedogs, you probably heard that from me. I'm Tbarr at Strangedogs



    Yep! Hello again!
  • Reply 73 of 146
    tombtomb Posts: 29member
    Man!



    Right after I made that last post my ATI x850 Pro arrived. I've been hip deep ever since. I think I finally got it working, so, I need to go over to Strangedogs and post about it before I forget more than I already have 8)



    I really don't know that much about Hackintoshers other than I stopped reading the install instructions after I read something about installing it on a BIOS based PC, on a disc image, or something like that. I just wanted to try and find out how they got OSX past the Black screen firmware (ROM) hangup.



    Lots more playing to do with my new toy
  • Reply 74 of 146
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    Well now it makes me wonder if you can crossfire a pair of X1900XT's?



    Needless to say I think it's obvious Apples MacPro is capable of using both SLI, and Crossfire, and Apple, and ATI should update their drivers for the MacPro. People shouldn't have to go through all this trouble for this.
  • Reply 75 of 146
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    I don't think you can since only the XTX is available in a Crossfire model.
  • Reply 76 of 146
    But you can soft-mod an XT into an XTX, so that might mean that the drivers are similar or identical
  • Reply 77 of 146
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TomB


    The same basic PC ROM that Apple has coded OSX not to work with!



    No, it's the fact that Mac OS X uses EFI and needs an EFI ROM.
  • Reply 78 of 146
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Placebo


    No, it's the fact that Mac OS X uses EFI and needs an EFI ROM.



    I know that. I meant assuming you could get EFI ROM onto an XTX Crossfire card, your XT might work because of the softmodding, and an XT ROM might work on an XTX since they're the same card.
  • Reply 79 of 146
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Placebo


    No, it's the fact that Mac OS X uses EFI and needs an EFI ROM.



    Aww come on, he was having so much fun with his ludicrous little conspiracy theory. 8)
  • Reply 80 of 146
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ZachPruckowski


    I know that. I meant assuming you could get EFI ROM onto an XTX Crossfire card, your XT might work because of the softmodding, and an XT ROM might work on an XTX since they're the same card.



    But the problem there is that the standard ATI ROM chip isn't big enough to fit both the BIOS and EFI ROMs; that's what's so custom about these X1900 XTs, they have extra-large ROM chips.
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