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

M

MacVidCards

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,057
Hollywood, CA
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 !!!
 

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The card in question

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.
 
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 :D

- Turbo
 
The Rominator said:
The 9800GT has a 128K ROM chip.

Ready for a Mac EFI ROM.
Click to expand...

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
 
So close and yet so FAR !!!!

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.
 

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Driver for windows

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.
 
Picture1-11.png


Just flash a EVGA 9800GT 512m with 8800GT hybrid efi. Everything seems fine but the the 98GT1G rom not working. Anyway working is my best expectation, good job guys.
 
I just fired up 10.6.3 official release to try on my Mac 285 and 2G PC 285, then loaded OpenGL Extensions viewer to see what, if anything, had changed.

1. the 2G bug is still there - OGLEV reports -2G
2. The OpenGL 3 test still fails and OGL reports 91% of it only present

3. But here's the funny thing - if you go look at the drivers and filter on "Mac" it now claims to see drivers for Nvidia GTX 260,280,275,285 and 295...
I have to wonder why it reports this given that there is only an official 285 for the Mac, and with the 295 you only see the benefit of one GPU unless you run a multi-GPU app.

Is it remotely possible that some combination of an '10 Pro and 10.6.3 will support PC cards out of the box, with some injector-type thingy built into the ROM or boot code to overcome the lack of EFI on such cards? This might be a wild extrapolation but I can't figure out why else those cards might all be listed.
 
Cindori said:
no point in doing that when those cards stopped selling and manufacturing a long time ago.
Click to expand...
Are you referring to the 8800GT, 9800GT, or 9800GTX? I think you can still buy a GTX new, and besides, tons of rabid upgraders probably have these lying around.

(Says the proud owner of an 8800GTS 640)
 
I was referring to this:

10THzMac said:
3. But here's the funny thing - if you go look at the drivers and filter on "Mac" it now claims to see drivers for Nvidia GTX 260,280,275,285 and 295...

Is it remotely possible that some combination of an '10 Pro and 10.6.3 will support PC cards out of the box
Click to expand...

no point for Apple to add drivers for cards that stopped manufacturing.
 
Isn't the problem that the Geforce 9800 series is based on the G98b 55nm chip, contra the Geforce 8800GT on the G98 65nm chip?

Although technically the same (in loose terms), the newer chip is not exactly G98.
 
Cindori said:
no point for Apple to add drivers for cards that stopped manufacturing.
Click to expand...
So why do you think those items might be present? While I share your view I am curious about this!
 

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Flash EFI32 8800GT into EFI64 in OSX only.

Cindori has done us all a great service by including Nvidia support in Zeus. I am hopeful that he will get a chance to add some power and flexibility to it so that the device id flags, etc can be dealt with.

Meanwhile, for anyone who wishes to fiddle with G92 ROMs or who wants to change an EFI32 8800GT to an EFI64 one, here is how to do it. While this is specific for 8800GT EFI32 to EFI64, the method can work for other flashes that Zeus does not currently support.

0. From the included files, drag the ROM you want to flash to your user folder.
1. From the included files, load the Nvidia kext. (do this however you prefer)
2. Open a terminal window and drag "NVFlash" to it.
3. Before hitting return, type "-4 -5 -6 88gt64.rom"
4. NOW hit return.
5. You will be alerted that various ids aren't the same. Keep hitting "y" until it quits bugging you.
6. Flash will hopefully go through as in my example. This will in THEORY work for any Nvidia card that has loaded into system. Note that multiple Nvidia cards are NOT supported in a useable way.
 

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While a good start, there are issues with the temp settings.

Also, have you considered patching the heads and moving S-Video to the secondary DVI port since the apple drivers expect this type of head configuration?

Have you looked at a disassembly of the EFI portion of the rom?

It does reference scripts in the legacy firmware so sewing means address adjustments to some init scripts.
 
EFI for 9800GTX

I have a 9800GTX.Can i use the 8800GT EFI to flash the 9800GTX.Can anyone give me the EFI-ROM for 9800GTX
 
zondas said:
I have a 9800GTX.Can i use the 8800GT EFI to flash the 9800GTX.Can anyone give me the EFI-ROM for 9800GTX
Click to expand...

doesn't work that way

there are many MANY versions of 9800GTX, you have to write a rom for the specific card. there are 512 Meg and 1GB versions, and many different RAM configs

there is also the EFI32 vs EFI64 to consider

ie, there isn't just a single 9800GTX rom
 
8800gts efi32 rom

I have a 8800GTS 512MB.I used the 8800GT EFI32-ROM , but it nothing work.Can everyone send me a 8800GTS EFI32 Rom , that work
 
change the device id de100260 to de100060

I have now an EVGA 8800GTS 512MB.The EFI mac 8800 EFI32 works great but , if i change the device id in the Macrom to the device id of my 8800GTS it not work.After the Bootscreen its reboot only.Can someone help me.I will change the Device id , because it must shows on the Display the Name `8800GTS` an not 8800GT
 
interesting thread to bring back form the dead

In fact, I never got the help I asked for, so I ended up figuring it out for myself

The device id on a EFI32 G92 rom exists in three places, it is hardcoded at beginning of both PC BIOS and EFI section. But the tricky part is that it is also coded in the soft straps. And not in a way that is easy to see, it is in the form of math.

This is why many G92 cards can become a different card.

But the math involved is beyond 99% of folks looking.
 
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