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MacVidCards

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,056
Hollywood, CA
I spent most of the day looking at some lovely boot screens on a GTX670, but through countless revisions it crashed after the main drivers took over.

Then I asked Netkas to get involved.

BANG !!!

GTX670 is now a Mac native card !!!

We have boot screens and 4 displays running, just need to get PCIE 2.0 5GT/s figured out. Should be offering them up in 2 weeks or so.

And then, sitting on the counter...a GTX680 and that silver thing...oh yeah, a GTX Titan.

May be looking at a low power 640/650 option as well.

Sadly, it now requires a 512K EEPROM as Apple has ENGORGED the rom to 288K. So a "solder only" operation.

Thanks to Nvidia for writing drivers for their entire GTX6xx line. If there weren't drivers, these EFI cards would have nothing to offer. Let's hope the Titan driver comes soon.

Quite a week, AMD 7xxx cards and now GTX6xx cards as native Mac cards.
 

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bsbeamer

macrumors 601
Sep 19, 2012
4,303
2,681
It is looking like the GTX 670 is a winner across the board for best compromise of cost, performance, and installation. The GTX 570 supply has really started to dry up recently, so this is really good news for those looking to upgrade.

Congrats on this accomplishment, and (hopefully) can start recommending a modded GTX 670 for anyone who asks with a need.
 

Macsonic

macrumors 68000
Sep 6, 2009
1,706
97
Thanks for the good news MacVidCards. This gives Mac Pro users more choices in upgrading videocards.
 

fhenry

macrumors regular
Feb 28, 2012
120
0
Thx you great job, you and netkas would be rewarded with $$!

Keep going !
 

cal6n

macrumors 68020
Jul 25, 2004
2,096
273
Gloucester, UK
Fantastic news!

Will you guys be releasing a ROM creation method or is this purely related to your business venture?

I don't want to seem cheeky but my Gainward Phantom GTX 670 was delivered today and I already miss the boot screens. The link speed issue is of minor importance to me, though.

:)
 

DanielCoffey

macrumors 65816
Nov 15, 2010
1,207
30
Edinburgh, UK
Considering they are a solder job, I would expect they will be from MacVidCards only.

Excellent news. As they say in the Far East... May you live in Interesting Times.
 

scottrichardson

macrumors 6502a
Jul 10, 2007
697
270
Ulladulla, NSW Australia
Very nice work. .I'm running a no-boot-screen 660 Ti here, which gives my 09 Mac Pro performance ALMOST as good as the 27" iMac with 680MX. I assume a desktop 670 would slightly outpace the 680MX in most tasks?

What price point are we looking at for the EFI'd 670s?
 

derbothaus

macrumors 601
Jul 17, 2010
4,093
30
There is a small tear collecting right now. Thanks for the love Apple wont reciprocate.
 

i make movies

macrumors regular
Aug 9, 2007
173
14
Thank you MacVidCards, Netkas, and Rominator.

This is exciting times indeed. I have one of your gtx570 for resolve transcodes and I love it...but throwing a Titan in there...oh man...I need to sit down...I'm getting woozy just thinking about 2688 Cuda cores that just ^*&*ing destroys transcoding.
 

MacVidCards

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,056
Hollywood, CA
Arghhh !!! 3 solid days of flashing and testing. Ruling out how things DON'T work in order to find what DOES work.

It doesn't help that Russia and CA are in slightly different time zones. I wake to several messages from Netkas and answer him but don't hear back til bedtime. Stayed up to 3 trying stuff with him wednesday night but brain is mush then. I will post a pic of the folder full of trial roms. Inventing a light bulb is easy when you do it 2nd time. It's figuring out all the stuff that DOESN'T work that takes time. Fermi's took a month to get perfect, this won't be overnight.
 

andrejkw

macrumors newbie
Jun 28, 2010
28
9
Would it be possible to be put on some sort of a to-be-notified list? I am extremely interested in purchasing one of these cards from you as soon as you make them available.
 

MacVidCards

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,056
Hollywood, CA
If Titan is viable in a Mac Pro I'd gladly pay for it. Keep us informed please.

The 10.8.4 drivers support Titan.

No boot screens and running at 2.5.

The quest to get 5.0 working on EFI 670 has been 6 days straight now.

I have figured out how to enable on PC K5000, now to re-reverse engineer that onto 670/680/Titan.

Nvidia has NOT made it easy.

That is why I find it SO humorous when someone posts "Oh, look, just change these 2 bytes and 5.0 is enabled on card XYZ". The point is, card XYZ has a rom file that has 500,000 or so characters long. Yes, only a couple need to be changed, but FINDING them is FAR more work than pointing at them once someone else has found them.

Someone has to put the long hours in finding them, which is what I am doing now. Back to the Hex code.....
 

fhenry

macrumors regular
Feb 28, 2012
120
0
The 10.8.4 drivers support Titan.

No boot screens and running at 2.5.

The quest to get 5.0 working on EFI 670 has been 6 days straight now.

I have figured out how to enable on PC K5000, now to re-reverse engineer that onto 670/680/Titan.

Nvidia has NOT made it easy.

That is why I find it SO humorous when someone posts "Oh, look, just change these 2 bytes and 5.0 is enabled on card XYZ". The point is, card XYZ has a rom file that has 500,000 or so characters long. Yes, only a couple need to be changed, but FINDING them is FAR more work than pointing at them once someone else has found them.

Someone has to put the long hours in finding them, which is what I am doing now. Back to the Hex code.....

Good luck and keep going ! We are with you
 

MacVidCards

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,056
Hollywood, CA
Well, it is going to get a WHOLE lot easier when we have 2 separate Kepler EFIs to examine.

The whole reason the Fermi cards were so difficult was there was only 1 to look at.
 

Executor

macrumors regular
Mar 1, 2008
149
133
NYC
Thank You for all your hard work MacVidCards. I was considering buying a PC since I like to play games during my time off and the allure of a GTX titan is very strong. With this news I am willing to give Apple a bit more time. I will get a GTX titan and update to 10.8.4 and see how it goes. Please keep us informed of your progress. Boot screens and full speed under OSX would be very nice and I would certainly not mind paying a premium for those features. Does the arrival of the new EVGA GTX 680 mac edition make things easier for you? I would've loved that card a year ago, but now with the prospect of a GTX Titan under the hood of my Mac Pro I am much less interested on a "mere" GTX680 :)
 

IceMacMac

macrumors 6502
Jun 6, 2010
394
18
The 10.8.4 drivers support Titan.

No boot screens and running at 2.5.

The quest to get 5.0 working on EFI 670 has been 6 days straight now.

I have figured out how to enable on PC K5000, now to re-reverse engineer that onto 670/680/Titan.

Nvidia has NOT made it easy.

That is why I find it SO humorous when someone posts "Oh, look, just change these 2 bytes and 5.0 is enabled on card XYZ". The point is, card XYZ has a rom file that has 500,000 or so characters long. Yes, only a couple need to be changed, but FINDING them is FAR more work than pointing at them once someone else has found them.

Someone has to put the long hours in finding them, which is what I am doing now. Back to the Hex code.....


MVC, I applaud your heroic and tireless work. Seriously! If we had more people like you...our country wouldn't be sucking so bad right now. The desire to build something great and thereby profit rightfully from one's work ROCK.

The lazy complainers SUCK.
 
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