Boot Screens..?

[Forbidden Era]

Hey.. so I haven't had a boot screen in ages.. and I have been reading about injecting NVMe support into the EFI for our cMPs.. Would injecting some sort of support for a boot screen be possible? like to initialize a graphics card earlier?

I has MBP3,1

For GFX cards I have:
Two random GeForce's, prob 7300s or around there, one is from a 1,1, the other I don't know..system wouldn't post even with one, the other never had drivers loaded for it (too old I guess) and I didn't look up the IDs
GeForce 8800GT (might still be ok)
GeForce 9800GTX (dying I think)
GeForce 560Ti (primary card in my cMP now)
Quadro 2000 (secondary card in my cMP now)
Quadro FX4500 EFI32 Flashed for my old Mac1,1->2,1
Quadro FX4600 (dead I think)
AMD HD3450
AMD HD5450

Is it possible to get a boot screen with any of these? I am willing/able to flash, I even have eeprom/spi/etc programmers. I flashed the 4500 for EFI32, but that's useless in my 3,1.

I think it might be possible to flash the 560ti but I can't find any firmware for it or instructions on how to build my own - I don't know if my eeprom would be large enough.

Is it possible to get a boot screen with maybe a different bootloader or something? I thought I read about this before too.

I am wanting to add an NVMe drive to replace my 4xRAID0 (and eventually do 4x NVMe drives in a raid maybe) but I want to be prepared first - not having any bootscreen to reinstall / troubleshoot in case of issues is scary.

Bootcamp and Linux booting support would be nice to have as well.

If I absolutely have to, I'll order a new card that has firmware available or get one from MVC...but in the meantime..

 

[ActionableMango]

Hey.. so I haven't had a boot screen in ages.. and I have been reading about injecting NVMe support into the EFI for our cMPs.. Would injecting some sort of support for a boot screen be possible? like to initialize a graphics card earlier?

There is for 3,1, but it requires a GOP-compatible card, and all of your cards predate that.

I'm not too familiar with these older cards you have, but IIRC the Nvidia ones generally don't have enough capacity to add the Mac EFI. You might be able to make a ROM for one of the AMD cards, I'd go look at Netkas forums.

Also, I'm not convinced that a 3,1 would be able to take advantage of a 4xNVME RAID. It sounds like an expensive boondoggle.

 

[Forbidden Era]

There is for 3,1, but it requires a GOP-compatible card, and all of your cards predate that.

I'm not too familiar with these older cards you have, but IIRC the Nvidia ones generally don't have enough capacity to add the Mac EFI. You might be able to make a ROM for one of the AMD cards, I'd go look at Netkas forums.

Also, I'm not convinced that a 3,1 would be able to take advantage of a 4xNVME RAID. It sounds like an expensive boondoggle.

I'll check those forums. I don't expect the 3,1 to take full advantage of a 4xNVME RAID - but I do expect my future rig to be able to.. I would be starting with 1x anyway. And really, it'd only be like $400-600 besides the host card depending on 256 or 512gb blades, that's probably about what I invested in my hard drive raid when I built it originally, years ago.when 250gb drives were $100..

I know a lot of NVidia cards can be flashed with MAC EFI...and a lot don't have big enough eeprom, I know as well.. I did flash my FX4500 for my 1,1->2,1 but that's EFI32 and doesn't bootscreen in my 3,1 obviously.

What does GOP mean?

I have looked but I can't seem to find instructions on making/converting a rom to MAC efi yourself anywhere. I know I have big enough eeprom on the FX4500 at least but there was only ever EFI32 ROM available for that. I haven't checked the ROM size on my 560ti yet.. I actually wouldn't be surprised if the FX2000 has a big enough ROM, but again can't find any existing or instructions.

I was hoping that someone here had done it with a hackintosh bootloader, I swear I read about this before but I can't find instructions for that either. Not sure that's the best way, but..

Seeing that people are injecting NVMe drivers into the EFI made me wonder if it would be possible to inject the correct drivers to initialize video for boot with a UEFI video card into the boot rom the same way? I don't see why not?!

 

[startergo]

Hey.. so I haven't had a boot screen in ages.. and I have been reading about injecting NVMe support into the EFI for our cMPs.. Would injecting some sort of support for a boot screen be possible? like to initialize a graphics card earlier?

I has MBP3,1

For GFX cards I have:
Two random GeForce's, prob 7300s or around there, one is from a 1,1, the other I don't know..system wouldn't post even with one, the other never had drivers loaded for it (too old I guess) and I didn't look up the IDs
GeForce 8800GT (might still be ok)
GeForce 9800GTX (dying I think)
GeForce 560Ti (primary card in my cMP now)
Quadro 2000 (secondary card in my cMP now)
Quadro FX4500 EFI32 Flashed for my old Mac1,1->2,1
Quadro FX4600 (dead I think)
AMD HD3450
AMD HD5450

Is it possible to get a boot screen with any of these? I am willing/able to flash, I even have eeprom/spi/etc programmers. I flashed the 4500 for EFI32, but that's useless in my 3,1.

I think it might be possible to flash the 560ti but I can't find any firmware for it or instructions on how to build my own - I don't know if my eeprom would be large enough.

Is it possible to get a boot screen with maybe a different bootloader or something? I thought I read about this before too.

I am wanting to add an NVMe drive to replace my 4xRAID0 (and eventually do 4x NVMe drives in a raid maybe) but I want to be prepared first - not having any bootscreen to reinstall / troubleshoot in case of issues is scary.

Bootcamp and Linux booting support would be nice to have as well.

If I absolutely have to, I'll order a new card that has firmware available or get one from MVC...but in the meantime..

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/gop-boot-screens-part-ii-clover.2154908/
Check the above thread. @DearthnVader says the boot screen works for the 3.1 as long as you have compatible card. We can,t find a way to make it work yet on 5.1.

 

[Forbidden Era]

hm. wasnt sure if my card is GOP. but..from what I read in some random thread, it might be possible to add gop to its rom..

now to figure out how to do it..!

also I really do wonder about modding the efi rom and adding vga/vesa or uefi init?