I've had some success with VGA passthough of an ATI Mac Edition Rage 128GL PCI card.
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Qemu-system-ppc VGA passthrough.
- Thread starter DearthnVader
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This is on a emulated ppc VM (on a x86 host for example) or a blackbird / raptor type system? I have been wanting to test this for a while now. I haven't tried passthrough on a G5 before but I would think it's not possible there because iommu was not a prevalent thing at the time.
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Oh thats very cool 
I saw some posts about it on the emaculation forum,
nice to see its working, although going by the OpenGL render string I see thats still an issue?
did the OpenBIOS issues ever get resolved to let NVIDIA fcode roms work?
it would also be interesting to see how newer ATI video cards play say a Radeon 9200 or a PCIe X1900 (flashed with the appropriate fcode rom of course)
I saw some posts about it on the emaculation forum,
nice to see its working, although going by the OpenGL render string I see thats still an issue?
did the OpenBIOS issues ever get resolved to let NVIDIA fcode roms work?
it would also be interesting to see how newer ATI video cards play say a Radeon 9200 or a PCIe X1900 (flashed with the appropriate fcode rom of course)
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@DearthnVader can you share some more details? Build, config, etc?
Does this mean you have that specific Rage 128 PCI Card installed on the host or is this card being emulated in the guest with OpenGL passthrough from the host’s modern GPU?
Does this mean you have that specific Rage 128 PCI Card installed on the host or is this card being emulated in the guest with OpenGL passthrough from the host’s modern GPU?
It's a a Ryzen 7 1700 host running Debian, with a PCI-E to PCI bridge hosting a Rage 128 GL PCI card being used for PCI Passthough.
We still need to implement some words to Openbios for nVidia FCode ROM's, and I don't think the patch Zotan commited for the Rage128's words are upstream in Openbios, yet.Oh thats very cool
I saw some posts about it on the emasculation forum,
nice to see its working, although going by the OpenGL render string I see thats still an issue?
did the OpenBIOS issues ever get resolved to let NVIDIA fcode roms work?
it would also be interesting to see how newer ATI video cards play say a Radeon 9200 or a PCIe X1900 (flashed with the appropriate fcode rom of course)
I'd have to look to see if later ATI cards use words that are not implemented in Openbios, but I did try a ATI Radeon 9200 PCI awhile back, in my old PCI-E to PCI bridge, and my host system would not power on with that card installed in the bridge. The card was keyed PCI universal, but maybe it was 3.3v only, and all my bridges are 5v PCI.
Other cards keyed universal( USB/FW ) seem to work just fine in my bridges.
I know my 2 Radeon 9200 Mac Cards are Universal voltage cards
(I have used them in everything from my 9600 to my G5's)
is your PCI 9200 card also a Mac edition card or some non referance 3rd party card?
if its the former then I wonder if its fcode option rom is confusing the host PC?
I know you can flash the Mac PCI 9200's with PC X86 option ROM's (as I have done so when I needed a PCI video card in an x86 PC to flash AGP video cards etc)
and then you can just manually load the 9200's fcode ROM once you have it passed through to the emulated machine
I also have a PCI GeForce 6200 which would be an interesting test, but would currently suffer the same lack of Words in OpenBIOS as you mention
(plus while I have my Xserve3,1 which does IOMMU I dont have any PCI adapters etc sadly)
I have wondered if the PowerMac G5 Quad supports IOMMU or not
as a side note, although I have not done much testing, I know the 9200 uses few enough words to still work with all Old world ROM macs where as I know PCI NVIDIA cards dont work due to a similar issue that plauges openBIOS currently sadly
(it would be fun to have my GeForce 6200 working in my 9600 LOL)
(I have used them in everything from my 9600 to my G5's)
is your PCI 9200 card also a Mac edition card or some non referance 3rd party card?
if its the former then I wonder if its fcode option rom is confusing the host PC?
I know you can flash the Mac PCI 9200's with PC X86 option ROM's (as I have done so when I needed a PCI video card in an x86 PC to flash AGP video cards etc)
and then you can just manually load the 9200's fcode ROM once you have it passed through to the emulated machine
I also have a PCI GeForce 6200 which would be an interesting test, but would currently suffer the same lack of Words in OpenBIOS as you mention
(plus while I have my Xserve3,1 which does IOMMU I dont have any PCI adapters etc sadly)
I have wondered if the PowerMac G5 Quad supports IOMMU or not
as a side note, although I have not done much testing, I know the 9200 uses few enough words to still work with all Old world ROM macs where as I know PCI NVIDIA cards dont work due to a similar issue that plauges openBIOS currently sadly
(it would be fun to have my GeForce 6200 working in my 9600 LOL)
These are not the droids you are looking for.
The Rage128 GPU does not support non-power of 2, so no QE, requires Radeon graphics, or GeForce2+.Awesome
So you have bridged VGA+USB+FW ?
Really interesting. I have a bunch of old PCI Audio Cards only meant for Win 9x and Panther, and a bunch of old graphics cards as most of us. And modern boards, so this is mindblowing.
Can you point us the bridges you have used?
This little setup works well, not my listing.
PCI-E Express X1 to Dual PCI Riser Extend Adapter Card With USB 3.0 Cable | eBay
Using this product, it can be expanded on PCIE 1X/2X/4X/8X/16X card slots to 2 PCI card slots for PCI devices. Support MAC Apple system. USB cable has been improved. PCI-E version also improved! Product Compatibility better after the update.
www.ebay.com
This little setup works well, not my listing.
PCI-E Express X1 to Dual PCI Riser Extend Adapter Card With USB 3.0 Cable | eBay
Using this product, it can be expanded on PCIE 1X/2X/4X/8X/16X card slots to 2 PCI card slots for PCI devices. Support MAC Apple system. USB cable has been improved. PCI-E version also improved! Product Compatibility better after the update.www.ebay.com
ah forgot about those!
given its on the end of a flying USB lead, might actually be able to use that with my Xserve3,1...
will have to look at getting one at some point
(would still have to supply it with power somehow)I assume when you pass devices through, your "just" passing the actual PCIe to PCI bridge through so everything on the PCI end shows up in QEMU/the guest OS inc the bridge itself?
as a side note, Id love to get the reverse, ie
a PCI to PCIe 1x adapter or such, I know they exist from startech etc, but are still somewhat pricey sadly https://www.startech.com/uk/Cards-Adapters/Slot-Extension/PCI-to-PCI-Express-Adapter-Card~PCI1PEX1 (they also used to do a PCI-X to PCIe 4x one but I dont see it anymore)
it would be really interesting to try a GeForce 6600 from a PCIe G5 in say a G3 BW (im pretty sure the GeForce 6200 ROM is based off the 6600 ROM and i know that works in a G3 BW!)
or an ATI Radeon X1900 Mac edition in a G3 beige or 9600 (really see if they kept that old world ROM Open Firmware compatibility LOL)
I do see they are cheaper on amazon...
PCI to PCI Express Adapter Card
www.amazon.co.uk
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Not my listing.
With QEMU on mind with modern machines with this adapther+yours a Full AGP or PCIexpress (CoreImage) stuff + PCI stuff could be achieved.
Can Mac OS 9 be QEMU pci passthrouh?
Mac OS 9 with RAGE 128 is a better player than Mac OS X with Rage 128.
With QEMU on mind with modern machines with this adapther+yours a Full AGP or PCIexpress (CoreImage) stuff + PCI stuff could be achieved.
Can Mac OS 9 be QEMU pci passthrouh?
Mac OS 9 with RAGE 128 is a better player than Mac OS X with Rage 128.
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As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
No success with VGA and OS 9, but a FW card works just fine, and I assume a USB 1.1 card would work, tho I've not tested that yet with OS 9.Not my listing.
With QEMU on mind with modern machines with this adapther+yours a Full AGP or PCIexpress (CoreImage) stuff + PCI stuff could be achieved.
Can Mac OS 9 be QEMU pci passthrouh?
Mac OS 9 with RAGE 128 is a best player than Mac OS X with Rage 128.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Code:
sudo 'qemu-system-ppc' -m 1024 -hdb '/home/jam/os9/os9.2.img' \
-prom-env 'vga-ndrv?=false' -prom-env 'boot-args=-v debug=0xffe kdp=2' \
-prom-env 'auto-boot?=false' -net nic,model=sungem -net tap \
-device vfio-pci,host=29:05.0,multifunction=on,rombar=1,romfile='/home/jam/Downloads/ragepci' \
-bios '/home/jam/openbios-qemu-activedevice-sungem-pci-map-in-rage128.elf' \
-cdrom '/home/jam/Downloads/MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.11PPC.dmg' -boot d \
-hda '/home/jam/os9/Tiger.img' -M mac99,via=pmu \
-vga none -nographic
Oh thats very cool
I saw some posts about it on the emasculation forum,
nice to see its working, although going by the OpenGL render string I see thats still an issue?
did the OpenBIOS issues ever get resolved to let NVIDIA fcode roms work?
it would also be interesting to see how newer ATI video cards play say a Radeon 9200 or a PCIe X1900 (flashed with the appropriate fcode rom of course)
Indeed very cool...
But they REALLY should think about changing their name.
Very informative and helpful forum, but the title always causes me unconscious anxiety...
I was able to get basic VGA to function with OS 9, however graphics acceleration ends in systems lockup.
Also, no joy with passthrough of a USB PCI card to OS 9, the card is detected, but it just doesn't work, not sure the reasons.
Also, my Rage128 PCI card is the Rage Orion PCI retail card, and requires the ATI ROM Xtender as the Mac OS has not 'NDRV' for the card.
OS X will kernel panic without the ROM Xtender, as it doesn't care for the 'NDRV' from the FCode ROM.
OS 9 also doesn't work with the FCode 'NDRV', must be something about PCI Passthrough that breaks the ROM based 'NDRV'
To boot OS X:
This assumes your Rage card is /pci/@10 and your FCode ROM is in the folder "ppc" at the root of the first HD.
To boot OS 9:
Here we us the " ATY,Rage128o" disk based 'NDRV' from the ATI ROM Xtender for OS 9, because OS 9 will lockup if we have an 'NDRV' for the Rage card in ROM before boot.
Also, no joy with passthrough of a USB PCI card to OS 9, the card is detected, but it just doesn't work, not sure the reasons.
Also, my Rage128 PCI card is the Rage Orion PCI retail card, and requires the ATI ROM Xtender as the Mac OS has not 'NDRV' for the card.
OS X will kernel panic without the ROM Xtender, as it doesn't care for the 'NDRV' from the FCode ROM.
OS 9 also doesn't work with the FCode 'NDRV', must be something about PCI Passthrough that breaks the ROM based 'NDRV'
To boot OS X:
Code:
dev /pci ls
dev /pci/@10
load hd:,\ppc\ragepci
" /pci/@10" select-dev
400003f 1 byte-load
bootThis assumes your Rage card is /pci/@10 and your FCode ROM is in the folder "ppc" at the root of the first HD.
To boot OS 9:
Code:
dev /pci ls
dev /pci/@10
" ATY,Rage128o" encode-string " name" property
bootHere we us the " ATY,Rage128o" disk based 'NDRV' from the ATI ROM Xtender for OS 9, because OS 9 will lockup if we have an 'NDRV' for the Rage card in ROM before boot.
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