Hello. I am rather new to internet message board posting; I will attempt to abbreviate my literature and to remain as lucid as possible.
I-- as well as many others, was quite disappointed when the 8800GT graphics update will constructed to be incompatible with previous generation Mac Pros. I was a user previously from the enthusiast windows world, so I was quite disappointed that my new dream device(received on december 11th, 2007) was denied an upgrade path. As an impatient malcontent, I now had no intention to rely on apple to do what was right.
Background and Execution- 8800 and Mac Pro
--------------
in the past, it was demonstrated that the 8800 series not only will not display video in OS X, it would become an intransigent element in the OS X EFI boot process( The machine would refuse to past POST); this was with the 7300 GT placed in slot 4 as the primary card. In my experience, it was certainly not a theory in practice.
in a test, I installed the G92 8800GTS OEM in the mac pro's X16 slot; the 7300GT was left in the 8X slot as the primary display adapter. I powered the system and surprisingly-- It booted. I received video on the 7300 GT, and immediately went to system profiler. The system had detected the 8800GTS as a "vga device".
"System Information"
In this photo, you can see the system detected the device ID and vendor ( the information is available in the NVIDIA driver kexts, located in /system/library/extensions/NVDANV50HAL.kext on OS X 10.5.2). I am currently speculating on two possibilities: The newer EFI bootrom revision that is only found on Mac Pros manufactured in late 2007(MP11.005D.B00 instead of MP11.005C.B08), or the new 10.5.2 Nvidia drivers that allowed the system to boot.
There are a few caveats to this operation. As the card cannot interface with the EFI firmware, The GTS is unbearably loud, and if you had the card set up in windows, you would have to connect your monitor to the secondary card if you wished to use it on windows. Windows usage will be explained below.
Background and Execution- 8800 and Mac Pro Part II.
------------------------------------------------------------
With windows, the same principles will apply. I recently installed the trial version of windows server 2008 32 bit on top of my windows XP install ( impossible to boot the windows server install CD in bootcamp-- boot cd hangs). This is were it becomes a little complicated. This same methods will apply to vista, as server 2008 and vista share the same video driver model.
This method worked the best for me: 1. uninstall bootcamp Nvidia drivers, and install the newest forceware drivers ( for 8800GTS 512 compatibility). 2. after driver install and restart, go to display settings and set 8800GTS as primary monitor. 3. Go to device manager and deactivate the 7300GT. 4. Place monitor on 8800GTS DVI port and reactivate the 7300GT. This way, if you boot to the windows partition, windows will be directed to the 8800GTS video card. 5. Game on, or utilize pro apps in windows.
Thoughts
----------
Of course, this is not for everyone, as it does not solve the OS X conundrum. My method is intended for the Mac Pro gamers or those who use windows for some professional applications; the card is not usable in OS X. In addition, when in windows, the card will become whisper quiet. If you reboot to osx without powering down, the card will remain whisper quiet; If you set the computer to sleep, or power on, it will become very loud. I hope my methods will be able to help some users distraught over the current videocard issue.
-Gestalt
I-- as well as many others, was quite disappointed when the 8800GT graphics update will constructed to be incompatible with previous generation Mac Pros. I was a user previously from the enthusiast windows world, so I was quite disappointed that my new dream device(received on december 11th, 2007) was denied an upgrade path. As an impatient malcontent, I now had no intention to rely on apple to do what was right.
Background and Execution- 8800 and Mac Pro
--------------
in the past, it was demonstrated that the 8800 series not only will not display video in OS X, it would become an intransigent element in the OS X EFI boot process( The machine would refuse to past POST); this was with the 7300 GT placed in slot 4 as the primary card. In my experience, it was certainly not a theory in practice.
in a test, I installed the G92 8800GTS OEM in the mac pro's X16 slot; the 7300GT was left in the 8X slot as the primary display adapter. I powered the system and surprisingly-- It booted. I received video on the 7300 GT, and immediately went to system profiler. The system had detected the 8800GTS as a "vga device".
In this photo, you can see the system detected the device ID and vendor ( the information is available in the NVIDIA driver kexts, located in /system/library/extensions/NVDANV50HAL.kext on OS X 10.5.2). I am currently speculating on two possibilities: The newer EFI bootrom revision that is only found on Mac Pros manufactured in late 2007(MP11.005D.B00 instead of MP11.005C.B08), or the new 10.5.2 Nvidia drivers that allowed the system to boot.
There are a few caveats to this operation. As the card cannot interface with the EFI firmware, The GTS is unbearably loud
, and if you had the card set up in windows, you would have to connect your monitor to the secondary card if you wished to use it on windows. Windows usage will be explained below.Background and Execution- 8800 and Mac Pro Part II.
------------------------------------------------------------
With windows, the same principles will apply. I recently installed the trial version of windows server 2008 32 bit on top of my windows XP install ( impossible to boot the windows server install CD in bootcamp-- boot cd hangs). This is were it becomes a little complicated. This same methods will apply to vista, as server 2008 and vista share the same video driver model.
This method worked the best for me: 1. uninstall bootcamp Nvidia drivers, and install the newest forceware drivers ( for 8800GTS 512 compatibility). 2. after driver install and restart, go to display settings and set 8800GTS as primary monitor. 3. Go to device manager and deactivate the 7300GT. 4. Place monitor on 8800GTS DVI port and reactivate the 7300GT. This way, if you boot to the windows partition, windows will be directed to the 8800GTS video card. 5. Game on, or utilize pro apps in windows.
Thoughts
----------
Of course, this is not for everyone, as it does not solve the OS X conundrum. My method is intended for the Mac Pro gamers or those who use windows for some professional applications; the card is not usable in OS X. In addition, when in windows, the card will become whisper quiet. If you reboot to osx without powering down, the card will remain whisper quiet; If you set the computer to sleep, or power on, it will become very loud. I hope my methods will be able to help some users distraught over the current videocard issue.
-Gestalt