PC graphic cards

[Project Alice]

Here's something that has always bothered me. On intel macs, we can plug in any PCIe graphics card that is supported in Mac OS; like RX580's in Mac Pros. Obviously there is no boot screen on these cards, but they work perfectly once a driver is loaded.
Why does this not work for PPC macs? For example, both the GT120 and Radeon HD 2600 XT are supported on Leopard. Obviously there would be no boot screen on these EFI cards, but it doesn't make sense to me that they don't work once OS X has booted and loaded up the driver. Is it that the drivers are only x86? Leopard being a "fully universal OS" you would think have the drivers there for both platforms. The only other thing I can think of is that the open firmware doesn't tell the OS what card is in the slot without the proper rom, but if that were the case, we wouldn't be able to flash cards with graphics accelerator, or even be able to view device ID's for any expansion card supported or not.

I believe I've read that people have used newer cards on PPC Mac's that have linux installed, without a boot screen, but once the OS is booted the cards works. I can't remember where, but I'm fairly certain is was somewhere on these forums. If this would work the same way on Mac OS, it would save a lot of us a world of pain, and money.

 

[barbu]

I am fairly certain there was never a PPC Mac that had PCIe slots.

 

[Amethyst1]

I am fairly certain there was never a PPC Mac that had PCIe slots.

All Late 2005 G5s have them.

 

[barbu]

All Late 2005 G5s have them.

Right you are. Wikipedia lied to me, or I didn't read the chart correctly.

 

[z970]

Right you are. Wikipedia lied to me, or I didn't read the chart correctly.

Wikipedia is good for a lot of things. It's getting better and better by the week, and I'm a firm believer it will eventually be refined and vetted enough to be respected in educational and professional environments.

However, I have previously found it to have some holes when listing and describing the exact specs for various families and versions of PowerPC Macs. For this purpose, I believe EveryMac and MacTracker are better suited resources that I have found little to no holes in once. And at least to my taste, spec information is also listed in an easier to understand layout.

 

[AphoticD]

@Project Alice, Does Leopard running on a Mac Pro properly detect and initialize a PC GPU [post boot]? I’ve only tried this with later versions of OS X.

I’m sure there must be quite a bit to it, otherwise some 3rd party would have figured it out back when ATI and Nvidia were flogging their Mac edition GPUs for twice the price of the PC variant.

Maybe the higher price factored in additional Dev costs for building the Mac ROMs because it was an expensive exercise?

 

[Amethyst1]

Does Leopard running on a Mac Pro properly detect and initialize a PC GPU [post boot]? I’ve only tried this with later versions of OS X.

In my experience, the first/oldest GPU to be "auto-initialised" is the Radeon 68x0 on Snow Leopard. I need ATY_Init (on my MacBook) even for a genuine 2600 to init on Leopard and Snow Leopard (later versions of OS X not tried yet).

So, maybe one of these enablers would do the trick, provided we can get our hands on one that works on PPC and use a card that Leopard/ppc has drivers for. And that's where it gets difficult, since these enablers were pretty much all developed for Hackintoshes (or Mac Pros, to a lesser extent).

 

[Project Alice]

@Project Alice, Does Leopard running on a Mac Pro properly detect and initialize a PC GPU [post boot]? I’ve only tried this with later versions of OS X.

I’m sure there must be quite a bit to it, otherwise some 3rd party would have figured it out back when ATI and Nvidia were flogging their Mac edition GPUs for twice the price of the PC variant.

Maybe the higher price factored in additional Dev costs for building the Mac ROMs because it was an expensive exercise?

That's a good question.. I have a Geforce 6800 PC card. I should stick it into my 3,1 boot into Leopard, and see what it does.

In my experience, the first/oldest GPU to be "auto-initialised" is the Radeon 68x0 on Snow Leopard. I need ATY_Init (on my MacBook) even for a genuine 2600 to init on Leopard and Snow Leopard (later versions of OS X not tried yet).

So, maybe one of these enablers would do the trick, provided we can get our hands on one that works on PPC. And that's where it gets difficult, since they were pretty much all developed for Hackintoshes (or Mac Pros, to a lesser extent).

You'd think with all the amount of work people are putting into PPC browsers, and the Linux distro's being worked on such as phienix, this would be easier.
I would love to do it, I really wish when I was younger I had got into that. I was more into hardware and tinkering. I'd have to clue where to start anymore😂

 

[konqerror]

One of the major issues with PowerPC hardware was that it was big-endian versus little-endian on Intel PCs, essentially meaning that drivers, firmware, and often hardware has to be aware to properly swap the order of bytes. If it wasn't specifically designed to handle big-endian systems, then it won't work.

It's a big enough pain that IBM's POWER systems are in the middle of a major transition to little-endian and today, NVidia only supports little endian on POWER and I believe any other system for that matter.

 

[MagicBoy]

Most likely no drivers, due to them being big-endian.

Also Leopard doesn't support some of the hardware on PCIe cards like H.264 video decode, even on Intel. Anyone likely to need the power of these GPUs with common sense would have gone Intel by this point, not thrown a $500 GPU in a late G5.

 

[vddrnnr]

Hi guys,

Just one question.
Using Linux for PPC they do work as long as the drivers support them right? Just no boot display correct?

Best regards,
voidRunner

 

[LightBulbFun]

Here's something that has always bothered me. On intel macs, we can plug in any PCIe graphics card that is supported in Mac OS; like RX580's in Mac Pros. Obviously there is no boot screen on these cards, but they work perfectly once a driver is loaded.
Why does this not work for PPC macs? For example, both the GT120 and Radeon HD 2600 XT are supported on Leopard. Obviously there would be no boot screen on these EFI cards, but it doesn't make sense to me that they don't work once OS X has booted and loaded up the driver. Is it that the drivers are only x86? Leopard being a "fully universal OS" you would think have the drivers there for both platforms. The only other thing I can think of is that the open firmware doesn't tell the OS what card is in the slot without the proper rom, but if that were the case, we wouldn't be able to flash cards with graphics accelerator, or even be able to view device ID's for any expansion card supported or not.

I believe I've read that people have used newer cards on PPC Mac's that have linux installed, without a boot screen, but once the OS is booted the cards works. I can't remember where, but I'm fairly certain is was somewhere on these forums. If this would work the same way on Mac OS, it would save a lot of us a world of pain, and money.

the TL;DR is the Radeon 2xxx and GeForce 8xxx (and later) drivers in Leopard are x86 only

and even then, the Auto int of PC Cards was only implemented in later builds of OS X Lion and onwards

the EFI/Fcode option ROMs of a Mac video card, does more then just give boot screens it also sets up certain properties and values in the device tree of the Mac so that the OS X drivers can properly initialize the card and know what they are working with etc

this is why with Hackintoshes you needed graphics injectors or GraphicsEnabler=Yes etc

 

[z970]

Also Leopard doesn't support some of the hardware on PCIe cards like H.264 video decode, even on Intel.

Which is why there's a big push for PowerPC Linux usage and development right now. Forcing a 15 year old CPU to do all the media work is completely unacceptable in the age of Web 3.0 and rampant JavaScript + HD video everywhere. It's a wonder WebKit and TFF are as popular as they are, all things considering.

Anyone likely to need the power of these GPUs with common sense would have gone Intel by this point, not thrown a $500 GPU in a late G5.

...Unless they're dedicated to their hardware of choice, in which case the problem becomes purely software-bound, not the other way around. And that's fixable, hence the above.
[automerge]1582221079[/automerge]

Hi guys,

Just one question.
Using Linux for PPC they do work as long as the drivers support them right? Just no boot display correct?

Best regards,
voidRunner

To my understanding, that is correct. Unless my memory fails me, I THINK @sparty411 may have tested this ability out before.

 

[MagicBoy]

Which is why there's a big push for PowerPC Linux usage and development right now. Forcing a 15 year old CPU to do all the media work is completely unacceptable in the age of Web 3.0 and rampant JavaScript + HD video everywhere. It's a wonder WebKit and TFF are as popular as they are, all things considering.

You can have a big push all you like. Even with a noble goal finding people with the skills and motivation to do that for legacy hardware on a dead platform when better solutions exist will be a challenge.

...Unless they're dedicated to their hardware of choice, in which case the problem becomes purely software-bound, not the other way around. And that's fixable, hence the above.

I did say with common sense, which is in short supply round these parts at times.

 

[z970]

Even with a noble goal finding people with the skills and motivation to do that for legacy hardware on a dead platform when better solutions exist will be a challenge.

I did say with common sense, which is in short supply round these parts at times.

You do of course realize that you're in the PowerPC Mac forum?

Given the above, exactly what are you trying to accomplish?

 

[MagicBoy]

You do of course realize that you're in the PowerPC Mac forum?

Yes.

As the owner of a number of PowerPC Macs I'm not allowed to post?

Given the above, exactly what are you trying to accomplish?

Some resemblance of expectations meeting reality.

Go on, indulge me. Link to the Git repository for the ongoing work for the big push.

 

[0248294]

Which is why there's a big push for PowerPC Linux usage and development right now. Forcing a 15 year old CPU to do all the media work is completely unacceptable in the age of Web 3.0 and rampant JavaScript + HD video everywhere. It's a wonder WebKit and TFF are as popular as they are, all things considering.

I think you kind of put right here why the idea of modern GPU drivers for PowerPC Mac Linux is never going to happen. This is not a one man job, and you're never, ever going to get a team together with all of these skills to make a modern GPU work on a 15 year old machine. Unless they're all hobbyists devoting hours of their free time to get this to work and maintain it, no one will do it. They likely have jobs in the industry, with long hours, do you really think they will go out of their way and spend precious free time to add support for eons old hardware just because some guy doesn't want to use x86 out of irrational fear for the Intel IME or AMD PSP?

This is really not something a ragtag team of PowerPC devouts are going to manage. I don't like to be pessimistic, but this is a pipedream, and I suggest you don't put too much hope into this, as you're going to end up sorely disappointed. I'd look into future developments like RISC-V and ARM PCs, if you're really that set against x86.

 

[DearthnVader]

The trouble is the Mac OS runtime drivers stopped with 10.5.x, so no graphics cards after that are going to have drivers in the OS.

We could write the needed FCode ROM's, but without runtime drivers it's a wash. You'd only get a frame buffer.

Apple never opened up documentation on how to write graphics drivers to interface with OS X's GUI Acceleration.

 

[Project Alice]

The trouble is the Mac OS runtime drivers stopped with 10.5.x, so no graphics cards after that are going to have drivers in the OS.

I was referring to cards only natively supported in Leopard. Because finding compatible cards is hard and overpriced. Mac Pro 1,1/2,1 and 3,1 cards are everywhere for next to nothing. All of those would have support in Leopard. My 3,1 I believe came with 10.5.1.

Anyone likely to need the power of these GPUs with common sense would have gone Intel by this point, not thrown a $500 GPU in a late G5.

Again, I wasn’t referring to modern GPUs. As you see in my sig, I have a fairly beefed up Mac Pro 5,1. I also have a bunch of PPC macs I like to play with. I also have a few modern PCs. I think most of us here do have “modern” computers.

 

[MagicBoy]

Again, I wasn’t referring to modern GPUs. As you see in my sig, I have a fairly beefed up Mac Pro 5,1. I also have a bunch of PPC macs I like to play with. I also have a few modern PCs. I think most of us here do have “modern” computers.

Just to be clear, wasn't a direct reply to you.

Check my sig, similar applies.

 

[LightBulbFun]

All of those would have support in Leopard. My 3,1 I believe came with 10.5.1.

the TL;DR is the Radeon 2xxx and GeForce 8xxx (and later) drivers in Leopard are x86 only

 

[Project Alice]

I saw that. I was referencing my OP, and the comment about $500 cards.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Problem is that a GFX cards needs 2 pieces of SW.

1st initializes it which won't work with OF (PPC) trying to run a x86 BIOS
2nd is the driver itself

As a result you can/need to flash PC cards and have them working IF a similar Mac card existed.

Using my PPC(-Mac)s solely for MorphOS this leads to the following combinations:

- PPC-HW that has an x86-EMU in it's BIOS/OF (Pegasos1/2,Efika,SAM460) capable of running stock PC-cards
- old GFX-cards (Voodoo,Pemedia,etc) whose drivers where written for the GRex (PCI-expansion for classic Amigas) which include the init code in the driver and work regardless of support in the host HW
- PPC-Macs using genuine or flashed Mac-cards
- PPC-Macs using newer Radeon with a modern BIOS that get initialized by the MorphOS-kernel (no boot screen)

Seems situation is similar with PPC linux.

 

[DearthnVader]

I saw that. I was referencing my OP, and the comment about $500 cards.

Caps explode, graphics cards die, but then these old PPC logic boards and power supplies are also subject to the same failures.

On and off over the last several years I've been working to bring graphic acceleration to Qemu-PPC, with mixed results.

A real roadblock is Qemu-PPC doesn't do hard float, thus FPU and Altivec instructions are slow as gravy, the integer performance is pretty good.

Qemu is code, so we can just run it on modern hardware and not worry about aging parts.