Nvidia EFI Renaissance ----WE NEED HELP !!!

[The Rominator]

A long time ago on a website far...well you get it.

We were able to crack enough of Nvidia FCode ROMs to add a bunch of GPUs to the Mac realm.

Once we had a glimmer into the structure, we soon turned out a bevy of options, many still the best PPC GPUs ever. (Apple WAS kind enough to have support in the drivers)

The cards added include:

1. Nvidia 6200 AGP - brough Core Image, silence and a temp monitor to Cube
2. Nvidia 6800 GT - once we added DVI support, these became popular G4/G5 cards
3. Nvidia 7800GS AGP - fastest GPU for AGP Macs.
4. Nvidia 780GTX512 - fastest GPU for PPC Macs. (PCIE)

As a result, the G4 and G5 Macs got BETTER GPUs then Apple ever offered. (Much of this thanks to Arti, another story)

Fast Forward to today. We have made serious inroads with 4870/90 cards. Pipolomo42 and Netkas have brought us much useable info and we have paertially conquered these cards.

But where is out corresponding Nvidia progress? It's time to put our collective nerdy brainpower together and make some progress with EFI Nvidia cards.

To whit, I propose a contest. The big winners will be Mac Folk in general. All ROMs generated will go into Community Chest and be useable by anyone brave enough to boot DOS.

Before we tackle an EFI32 ROM for GTX285, I think we start small with a proof of concept contest. We first need to establish a reliable way to "sew" EFI Nvidia ROMs together, as Pipolomo42 did with ATI roms. I have tried my hand and failed, but I am a twitchy sort and may have just been too stupid, etc.

So I Toss Down the Gauntlet...in the form of a BFG 9800GT with 1 Gig of RAM. It is possible to run this card on the EFI32 ROM for an 8800GT...but then only 512 Megs shows up. And it seems that the fan runs too fast.

Using the Netkas injector package, it will run with it's original ROM, and all 1024 Megs shows up. Doom3 scores are about 7% higher with this extra RAM.

So we are starting off on an easy one. I am attaching the original 1 Gig ROM and the EFI32 ROM that you need to get EFI part from .

Trick is "sewing" them together so it reads properly. (Does EFI have a "GOTO" in it that looks for specific address in Mac 8800GT BIOS?)

Whoever writes the ROM for this card WINS the card. I will mail the card to first person to correctly write and post a working ROM for this. I will test the posted ROMs and anyone else with a BFG 9800GT 1 Gig is welcome to test as well.

The next step will be the 9800GTX. When flashed with EFI32 ROM it will make little flashes at boot...the EFI isn't quite right. So after we figure out "sewing" we will need to start working on finding init strings in the EFI itself and mod those.

FWIW, the 9800GTX cards I have examined (all 2 of them) had 128K chips...so likely a ROM written for those could be flashed by all.

Sewing Nvidia EFI is the breakthrough we need to start adding other cards. Netkas has gained valuable insight into ATI, but that doesn't always translate to Brand B.

I can also tell you this. You will need to mod the device id in the EFI ROM...pretty basic stuff...do a search for "de100206" and you will have it. Most likely you will need to replace it with "de100506" but you be judge of that. Nvidia ROMs also set final byte of device id in the Softstraps near open of ROM. I can explain that if anyone has questions.

As far as "why" goes....my Photoshop test shows that more VRAM = more OpenGL space to work on photos. Also, there are now "green" 9800GTs that DON'T require additional power hookup, might be nice to get running in Mac...this is the key.

Here is the card I have here:

http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr981024gtoce.aspx

Ready? Fire up those Hexeditors !!!

[The Rominator]

Great card, works great as an 8800GT.

If someone else can figure exact means of "sewing" EFI I can handle device id, softstraps, and memory timing strings.

The current shipping version is "Green Friendly"...no power plug.

BTW, when running on it's own ROM via Netkas package, it does same "ramping up" that GTX285 does....so behavior is from PC BIOS combined with Mac drivers.

[T u r b o]

hey Rominator,

did the 9800GT come with 128k flash? I'm pretty confident the ROM images can be merged easily , but my hand isn't steady enough to replace the flash

- Turbo

[The Rominator]

The 9800GT has a 128K ROM chip.

Ready for a Mac EFI ROM.

[T u r b o]

Originally Posted by The Rominator

The 9800GT has a 128K ROM chip.

Ready for a Mac EFI ROM.

Yeah since you flashed it already, I figured it had 128K now - but did it come with 128K or did you put it on there?

I can get it working, but I'll need a card here that I can test with.

- Turbo

[The Rominator]

So, nobody is interested in trying this?

Allright, I'll up the Ante.

If we could get the 9800GTX going, we'd really be on to something. It has a G92 chip, like the 8800GT 512, but the board is just enough different that it won't run the 8800GT ROM as is.

If you put the Mac EFI ROM on it, it starts up right after "Bong" with a geometrically distorted screen. So whatever sort of RAM timing / clocks are in the EFI are too far off for GTX.

So let's try to fix that. How do we "open up" the EFI and find where these clocks & timing are set?

We will also need to "sew" the corrected EFI to the stock PC 9800GTX BIOS. So, it is a 2 part process, but it should be possible to do one without other, but eventually we need both.

Once we conquer how this is done, there are a world of possible cards.

1. The G80 cards can likely be made to work using Quadro EFI ROM mixed with PC BIOS.

2. All G92 cards can likely be made to work. (Including 1 Gig variants of 8800GT and 9800GT, etc)

3. Eventually, we should be able to get many of the GTX 200 series cards going, possibly even in 1st Gens.

But to do ALL of this, we need to conquer the Nvidia EFI ROM. There are parts I am good at, but I need help.

I have attached the EFI32 Mac 8800GT ROM and the PC 9800GTX ROM.

[antovasa]

Hi Rominator:

I used your 98GT1G.rom file to flash an EVGA 9800GT 512 MB. Your flash files it's good and eliminates the mouse lag problem in OSX.

But i have a question, because windows starts with a black screen, i don't know what is the correct driver for this rom on windows.

Can yo tell me , please. i tried nvidia drivers, but not helped.