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thepawn

macrumors 6502
May 27, 2009
413
7
Hi folks. I just realized that I may posted this at the wrong site. The reason is that I found this site through googling and after adding the PCI id, I felt that I had the responsibility in sharing the findings.

I have a desktop Mac G5 and opted out on getting a Mac Pro. Instead, I purchased leopard (the kit) to install on my home built PC utilizing the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard.

The frustration lies in not being able to get a system like this from Apple. I want to play and learn CUDA with 2 CPUs running from one PCIE slot. Furthermore, the power savings.

I will post the OpenGL Extensions Viewer Tests results in my next post.

Oh, so you didn't have to put the EFI Bios onto the card then? which is where Mac Pro folks are running into problems.
 

mroy

macrumors member
Jul 31, 2009
35
0
EVGA GTX 295 Co op Edition works

This home PC was driven entirely by wanting to play with CUDA. Again, I have both a PowerMac G5 2.5 (will need to retire this box) and a MacBook Pro.

I find the GTX 295 Single PCB edition very fascinating. Above all, I find Apple's Leopard OS to be the most spectacular OS out there. Here's what I witnessed with the GTX 295 card under Leopard:

I ran 2 instances of the nbody CUDA demo simultaneously as such:
./nbody --device=0 & This will utilize the first GPU
./nbody --device=1 & This runs on the 2nd GPU

Afterwards, I ran iTunes with the visualizer enabled inside the window.
This is where I witnessed the fluidness of Leopard's OS (possibly the kernel) when moving windows around, minimizing and resizing. It remained fluid. The interactivity of the OS shined.

Now, I did the same test under Windows 7 and SUSE Linux 11.1. The fluidness is not quite there. Kudos to Apple for it's amazing OS. Kudos to BSD. Kudos to all the amazing folks who made Leopard what it is today.

The power savings of utilizing one PCB versus 2 discrete cards installed in 2 slots is another plus. My system utilizes 150 watts in idled mode. With one GPU running nbody, the wattage goes up to about 280 and 350 when both GPUs are running nbody.
 

mroy

macrumors member
Jul 31, 2009
35
0
EVGA GTX 295 Co op Edition works

This is truly amazing to see 2 nbody demos running simultaneously from the single PCB edition containing 2 GPUs and computing near 650 GFLOP/s combined. All this utilizing 355 watts (not including the displays). The graphics card makes less noise than a busy Power G5 2.5 GHz.

Attaching the photo.

Technology has come a very long way since the Power G5 days.
 

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mroy

macrumors member
Jul 31, 2009
35
0
EVGA GTX 295 Co op Edition works

Amazingly and very fluid Leopard OS in processing the interrupts for the underlying hardware. Attaching an image showing 2 nbody demos running -- note down to nearly 600 GFLOP/s and iTunes running in the background.

Enjoy.
 

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10THzMac

macrumors 6502
Dec 17, 2007
376
0
The results from OpenGL Extensions Viewer. I believe only one GPU is utilized for this unlike with CUDA both can be utilized simultaneously.
This is all fascinating. The OpenGL scores are weak but in all other respects this is amazing, especially now we see a boot card is not needed.

Can you run the Cuda program MonteCarlomultiGPU as that will show the performance of (a) two cards (b) how the card is being clocked and power-managed. A Single 285 will show about 100,000 options per second, and my two 285s will show about 80000 each when both are up. I took a chance on going for a twin 285 set up but was always wondering about a 295.
 

MacVidCards

Suspended
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,056
Hollywood, CA
10thz,

he is running a Hackintosh, so results vary from what we will likely see

(I'm gonna guess a Mac Pro will still need an EFI boot helper)

The slightly lower OpenGl numbers are in line with what could be predicted given numbers from 9800GX2 and a 4870x2. (slightly lower than base card)

Could you have a look at the trouble I am having in the "2 Gig Bug" thread and test yours with Halo, Doom3 or COD4? (or some other OpenGl game)

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/756526/
 

10THzMac

macrumors 6502
Dec 17, 2007
376
0
10thz,

he is running a Hackintosh, so results vary from what we will likely see

(I'm gonna guess a Mac Pro will still need an EFI boot helper)

The slightly lower OpenGl numbers are in line with what could be predicted given numbers from 9800GX2 and a 4870x2. (slightly lower than base card)

Could you have a look at the trouble I am having in the "2 Gig Bug" thread and test yours with Halo, Doom3 or COD4? (or some other OpenGl game)

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/756526/

Rominator - I do not have those games - I just use these cards for CUDA apps and there the full 2G is recognized without difficulty in the calls to the card. The Hackintosh explains the boot success - thanks. For peak performance comparison against a pair of 285s, I just ran two lots of nbody targetting the separate GPUS as above, and this combo of a Mac 285 and a 2G PC 285 comes in at about 816 GFLOP/s, which is better than the 295, but obviously I had to spend rather more cash to get it. Shot attached (from Mac Pro 08, 8-core 2.8GHz)
 

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10THzMac

macrumors 6502
Dec 17, 2007
376
0
Here also is the result of CUDA deviceQuery and OpenGL EV for easy comparison with the new 295 results. EV is running off the Mac card. Note that the full (+)2G is recognized under CUDA on Device 1. I recall that when running EV off the PC card I got -2048M but all the tests worked with similar numbers. I am very impressed with the price/performance of the 295. To get the full 1.48GHz on the Mac card requires that a 3D app be up, as is the case here.

Edit: I just reran the twin nbody test on the 2X285 under XP32 under bootcamp. Despite being a mac fan I have to confess that (under CUDA 2.2, the Mac was 2.3) under Windows I was getting just over 900Gflop/s. I am not sure what to make of the difference.
 

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mroy

macrumors member
Jul 31, 2009
35
0
This is all fascinating. The OpenGL scores are weak but in all other respects this is amazing, especially now we see a boot card is not needed.

Can you run the Cuda program MonteCarlomultiGPU as that will show the performance of (a) two cards (b) how the card is being clocked and power-managed. A Single 285 will show about 100,000 options per second, and my two 285s will show about 80000 each when both are up. I took a chance on going for a twin 285 set up but was always wondering about a 295.

The card is being managed by the driver I believe. I'm not runnning a 3D app when running this if this is helpful.

Here's the result from MonteCarloMultiGPU:

$ ./MonteCarloMultiGPU
main(): generating input data...
main(): starting 2 host threads...
main(): waiting for GPU results...
main(): GPU statistics

GPU #0
Options : 128
Simulation paths: 262144
Time (ms.) : 1.801000
Options per sec.: 71071.626912

GPU #1
Options : 128
Simulation paths: 262144
Time (ms.) : 1.804000
Options per sec.: 70953.436019

main(): comparing Monte Carlo and Black-Scholes results...
L1 norm : 3.083966E-06
Average reserve: 361.436058

TEST PASSED
Shutting down...

Press ENTER to exit...

Running MonteCarlo to utilize only 1 GPU returns:
GPU options per sec.: 80782.583541
 

mroy

macrumors member
Jul 31, 2009
35
0
there is no need to add device-od to NVDAResman.kext plist

I removed the device-od from the NVDAResman.kext plist. You're correct. Thanks. Initially, I ran an egrep for 05e0 -- the one for the GTX 295 (dual PCB design) and found it here as well as NVDANV50Hal.kext plist.

The 05eb entry is needed in NVDANV50Hal.kext plist though.

Updated my previous post #236 and removed the entry for NVDAResman.kext plist.

Thanks.
 

mroy

macrumors member
Jul 31, 2009
35
0
Rominator - I do not have those games - I just use these cards for CUDA apps and there the full 2G is recognized without difficulty in the calls to the card. The Hackintosh explains the boot success - thanks. For peak performance comparison against a pair of 285s, I just ran two lots of nbody targetting the separate GPUS as above, and this combo of a Mac 285 and a 2G PC 285 comes in at about 816 GFLOP/s, which is better than the 295, but obviously I had to spend rather more cash to get it. Shot attached (from Mac Pro 08, 8-core 2.8GHz)

This is quite a setup you have. I always wondered about the power utilization for a setup like this -- especially both N-Body demos running simultaneously. The watts used for the Mac Pro system -- not including the display(s).
 

10THzMac

macrumors 6502
Dec 17, 2007
376
0
I always wondered about the power utilization for a setup like this -- especially both N-Body demos running simultaneously. The watts used for the Mac Pro system -- not including the display(s).
Somewhere in a box I have a power meter - when I find it I will report usage with 0,1,2 copies of nbody running. My case is open with an external PSU to power the 2G 285 - I switch it off when not using it as my room gets rather warm. Thanks for the MonteCarlo numbers: twice 70k is a very good number for the outlay and my guess is you are heating your room a lot less.
 

mroy

macrumors member
Jul 31, 2009
35
0
Somewhere in a box I have a power meter - when I find it I will report usage with 0,1,2 copies of nbody running. My case is open with an external PSU to power the 2G 285 - I switch it off when not using it as my room gets rather warm. Thanks for the MonteCarlo numbers: twice 70k is a very good number for the outlay and my guess is you are heating your room a lot less.

Here are the wattage used from the GTX 295 setup: (excluding the display)

Note: I updated this. I thought I had my display connected in another plug behind the UPS. I moved it to ensure it wasn't included. The watts used are as follow.

System Idled: 100 watts
One N-Body demo on GPU1: 201 watts
Two N-Body demos on GPU1/2: 278 watts

~ 650 GFLOP/s

It's a lot of computation power for 280 watts. This is where technology amazes me.
 

10THzMac

macrumors 6502
Dec 17, 2007
376
0
I found my meter. Mac Pro 08 with GTX 285 driving 1920x1200 desktop, 16M RAM, 8 cores 2/8GHz, otherwise idle 210W (fluctuating around this value). With one nbody on Mac GTX 285 I get a draw of 332W.

The second 2Gig GPU is powered by a separate ATX PSU, which itself draws 25W with the fan going around, and about 50W with the GPU on and idling. This goes up to 140W running nbody. So the total power with both cards is about 472W fluctuating +-10 around this value. My guess is that a twin 285 config powered off a single PSU would run at around 450W.

I am now wondering why my injected (netkas tool) Palit 2G card consumes an extra 90W to run nbody whereas the EVGA 1G Mac card wants 120W more. Same clock speed, twice the memory, 25% less power. it also has two fans.
 

mroy

macrumors member
Jul 31, 2009
35
0
I found my meter. Mac Pro 08 with GTX 285 driving 1920x1200 desktop, 16M RAM, 8 cores 2/8GHz, otherwise idle 210W (fluctuating around this value). With one nbody on Mac GTX 285 I get a draw of 332W.

The second 2Gig GPU is powered by a separate ATX PSU, which itself draws 25W with the fan going around, and about 50W with the GPU on and idling. This goes up to 140W running nbody. So the total power with both cards is about 472W fluctuating +-10 around this value. My guess is that a twin 285 config powered off a single PSU would run at around 450W.

I am now wondering why my injected (netkas tool) Palit 2G card consumes an extra 90W to run nbody whereas the EVGA 1G Mac card wants 120W more. Same clock speed, twice the memory, 25% less power. it also has two fans.

Thank you for this info on the power utilization. I have a single socket quad core processor. The GT200 GPUs do require power. I'm amazed by Apple's hardware with 2 sockets and the powerful GTX 285 at idled state being around 210W. The numbers are about right in which 2 GTX 285 cards will require 100 more watts versus a GTX 295 card and considering that you have 2 populated CPU sockets.
 

10THzMac

macrumors 6502
Dec 17, 2007
376
0
For anyone interested, I can confirm after a bit of playing with a visiting Quadro 4800 in an 08 Pro today that
(a) a PC Quadro CX 4800 works fine with netkas injector with an 8800GT as boot card
(b) replacing the 8800 with an ATi card causes the sticking at a blue screen just before Finder window.

So no surprises there. I was surprised to see the Q needed only ONE 6-pin connector, which means that no power rejigging is needed for the 8800+Q combo in a Pro - this is efficient for 192 cores, though is reflected in clock speed of just under 1.2GHz. BUT, the Q peaks at about 285 Gflop/s running nbody under CUDA. It also likes to power down to 0.6 GHz when not running 3D stuff, in common with the Mac 285, and is double precision capable. Nice power-efficient card, though it reminded me we still need a driver update to get these cards going into fast mode more easily. I might have the time later this month to try that thing loading the 8800 ROM with Refit alone - has anyone done that and produced idiot-guide?
 

fabio67

macrumors newbie
Aug 5, 2009
8
2
Hello mroy,

I own a Gainward gtx 295 with single pcb but this method is not working for me. I have invalid ATY_Init.kext message and invalid NVDANV50Hal.kext message when rebooting
I verified and Gainward has same string of evga co-op.
Any idea?

Thank you

Acquire these 2 files at http://netkas.org/?p=109 Go to post 24 -- both links are shown there.

1. Acquire NVIDIA_Retail_Mac_Driver_Installer_18.5.2f16.mpkg.zip
2. Acquire Enabler_for_Nvidia_and_multiple_ATI_cards.pkg

Instructions:

1. Install the Enabler -- do not boot
2. Install the Driver -- do not boot

Driver Info.plist mod (1 file):

## /System/Library/Extensions/NVDANV50Hal.kext/Contents/Info.plist

Look for NVidiaRM and insert the following with the other ids:
0x05eb10de&0xfff8ffff

Now looks like this:

<key>NVidiaRM</key>
<dict>
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>com.apple.nvidia.nv50hal</string>
<key>IOClass</key>
<string>NVDANV50HAL</string>
<key>IOMatchCategory</key>
<string>IOService</string>
<key>IOPCIPrimaryMatch</key>
<string>
0x00f010de&0xfff0ffff
0x019010de&0xfff0ffff
0x040010de&0xfff0ffff
0x042010de&0xfff0ffff
0x05e010de&0xfff8ffff
0x05eb10de&0xfff8ffff
0x05f010de&0xfff0ffff
0x060010de&0xffe0ffff
0x062010de&0xffe0ffff
0x064010de&0xffe0ffff
0x06e010de&0xfff0ffff
0x086010de&0xffe0ffff
0x0a2010de&0xffa0ffff
0x0ca010de&0xffe0ffff
</string>
<key>IOProbeScore</key>
<integer>60000</integer>
<key>IOProviderClass</key>
<string>IOPCIDevice</string>
</dict>


Touch /Systems/Library/Extensions and wait a minute -- Leopard will refresh the cache.

This is what I did. This is great news as the EVGA 295 Co op Single PCB edition works with Leopard.
 

MacVidCards

Suspended
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,056
Hollywood, CA
you need to reset the permissions on those kexts once you have modded them

even moving them in and out of extensions folder will make them useless to the System

an easy way is to download "kexthelper" and use it to reinstall those kexts

there are other ways too

as always, research is your friend

and you must still have another Nvidia card if you are on a Mac Pro.
 

fabio67

macrumors newbie
Aug 5, 2009
8
2
The Rominator, first of all thank you!
My problem was that I didn't know what I have to search. Totally new Mac OSX for me, and for me was strange the message for ATY_Init.kext that I haven't modified.Maybe some internal call from NVDANV50Hal.kext that is the only file I modified.
Now I have all the informations (I hope)
I'll try
thank you again!

you need to reset the permissions on those kexts once you have modded them

even moving them in and out of extensions folder will make them useless to the System

an easy way is to download "kexthelper" and use it to reinstall those kexts

there are other ways too

as always, research is your friend

and you must still have another Nvidia card if you are on a Mac Pro.
 

fabio67

macrumors newbie
Aug 5, 2009
8
2
I solved with kexthelper as The Rominator says, then I started the upgrade with 10.5.8 apple update and apart a problem with ps2 keyboard (solved with an old ps2 voodo kext reinstall) all went fine. GTX 295 is working!
The only little malfunction that I have is with usb logitech optical mouse that seems not perfect in its movement.
Maybe I have to search better if this is a common problem with hackintosh.

Thank you again The Rominator for your help
 

mroy

macrumors member
Jul 31, 2009
35
0
you need to reset the permissions on those kexts once you have modded them

even moving them in and out of extensions folder will make them useless to the System

an easy way is to download "kexthelper" and use it to reinstall those kexts

there are other ways too

as always, research is your friend

and you must still have another Nvidia card if you are on a Mac Pro.

Thank you 'The Rominator' for helping out fabio67. I added the following to my post #236 to ensure folks have the permissions set correctly:

Perform the following: (very important steps, especially after the mod to the kext above)

1. sudo su ;inside the terminal and if not already in sudo root
2. chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/ATY_Init.kext
3. chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/ATY_Init.kext
4. touch /System/Library/Extensions

Wait a minute -- Leopard will refresh the cache.
 

10THzMac

macrumors 6502
Dec 17, 2007
376
0
...

1. sudo su ;inside the terminal and if not already in sudo root
2. chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/ATY_Init.kext
3. chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/ATY_Init.kext
4. touch /System/Library/Extensions

Wait a minute -- Leopard will refresh the cache.

I was doing this script based on an Apple web page for a while, but the latest kext helper apps make it a lot easier than this, and essentially use the same commands buried in a script.
 
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