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nVidia 9600 GSO 768 on 10.6.8 going black when playing games

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Jul 16, 2010
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i5
Hi everyone.

I wonder if anyone has had this problem, and has found a solution to it.

I just got my Hackintosh working great, just to find out that I cannot play any games on it because the screen goes black whenever I start a game on it. I can hear the game running, but the screen is black. Consequently, I cannot get control back of my hackintosh, and the only way out is to unplug the computer. :thumbdown:

My set up is a Gigabyte GA-Z68M-D2H motherboard, Intel Core i5 2500K, 8 GB 1600 GHz RAM, 500 GB SATA HD, and the video card is the nVidia 9600GSO 768. I used the iBoot + Multibeast method with retail Snow Leopard DVD and 10.6.8 Combo update and GA-Z68M-D2H-F4 DSDT from the DSDT database, no other .kext.

Everything else is working great. It's just the videocard problem that I am having. The graphic card under OS X reports as nVidia 9600 GSO 512 with 768mb of RAM. I get full resolution on the desktop, all desktop applications like Picasa and VLC work fine. 3D graphics also works fine, as I can run Cinebench 95, which runs OpenGL in a windowed environment. I can see the 3D cars being benchmarked (and my 9600 GSO benchmarks at par with other 9600 GSO cards). Other benchmark programs that run video tests in a windowed mode also work fine. 2D games that run in a windowed mode also run fine.

The kind of programs that I am having problems with are 3D game programs like Age of Empire III and The Sims 3. But I am not sure if it is because they run in full screen mode or because they are 3D programs.

By the way, I used this very same video card on my now dead hackintosh that used to run OS X 10.6.4 on a different motherboard. But it needed a custom .kext to work at all. But with that .kext, it worked perfectly with all the games, including Age of Empires III and The Sims 3 worked in full screen.

Is anyone else having this problem? have you found a .kext or a solution? is this a problem with the 10.6.8 or what am I missing? I love my hackintosh, but I would love to be able to play games on it. H E L P !

any input, comments, stories, suggestions are welcomed. thanks :)
 
Here is an update after further pocking around.

The monitor goes black whenever I enter full screen mode, whether it is 3D or 2D graphics mode. The same 3D and 2D apps will have no problems if I start them in a windowed mode. This happens only with this video card, the nVidia 9600 GSO 768. When I replace the video card with my old nVidia 7300SE, the same 3D and 2D apps have no problems in full screen or windowed mode.

Once the screen goes black, if I put the computer to sleep and then I wake the hackintosh up from sleep, then I will get the screen back and the monitor will display everything normally. This happens no matter what monitor I attach to the hackintosh (so the problem is not the hardware monitor).

So I think there must be a kext injector (?) code line for the nVidia 9600 GSO that can be written for the 10.6.8 that will tell the hackintosh not to black-out when it enters full screen mode. Now, if I only knew how to write such code...
 
install nvenabler64bit.kext using kext utility reboot :thumbup:
 
Thanks for the suggestion.

I tried nvenabler64bit.kext, but hackintosh would boot with a black screen.
Since I am in 32bit mode, I tried the nvenabler.kext, but I had the same problem. black screen from boot. If I remove the nvenabler64bit.kext or nvenabler.kext, then I boot to my desktop ok, but I still have the problem of not being able to run apps in full screen mode.

Thanks again for your suggestion.

There is a somthing86tool app that lets you edit/create a EFI string for video cards to fix these kind of problems, I think. I wish I knew what that was and how to use it.

No-one else is using the nVidia 9600 GSO on a OS X 10.6.8 hackintosh and having this same problem out there?
 
post your com.boot.plist and your extra screen shot :)
 
I have had similar problems with my gt 220.

several things I noticed

It seemed that the game changing screen resolutions would cause problem(s), but
It only happened when my machine was in full native power management,
ie....nullcpupowermanagement kext was removed and intelcpupowermanagement worked.
Also, when I did not have an audio option for my sound output (no voodoo or USB sound)
I would get screen lockup/odd behavior.

Hope this helps.......
 
hacman said:
post your com.boot.plist and your extra screen shot :)


my Extra fodler has the following (I don't know how to get a screen shot of it):

DSDT.aml
Extenstions (folder)
Extenstions.mkext
org.chamelion.Boot.plist
smbios.plist
Themes (folder)

and my Extensions folder has the following:

APCIMonitor.kext
ALC8xxHDA.kext
FakeSMC.kext
IntelCPUMonitor.kext
IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext
NVClockX.kext
SuperIOFamily.ext

my hackintosh does not have a com.boot.plist, but had a org.chamelion.Boot.plist instead.

my org.chamelion.Boot.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>arch=i386 npci=0x2000</string>
<key>Legacy Logo</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>2</string>
</dict>
</plist>

my smbios.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>SMfamily</key>
<string>Mac Pro</string>
<key>SMproductname</key>
<string>MacPro3,1</string>
<key>SMboardproduct</key>
<string>Mac-F42C88C8</string>
<key>SMserial</key>
<string>G88451235J4</string>
<key>SMbiosversion</key>
<string>MultiBeast.tonymacx86.com</string>
</dict>
</plist>


PS: Even though my system was able to run on 64bit mode, I opted to run on 32bit because of software and driver compatibility issues (i.e., VMWare Fusion 2.0 would only work on 32bit and my printer driver, etc.) Also, I am staying witn OS X 10.6.8 because MS Office does not run on Lion.
 
pizzamac said:
I have had similar problems with my gt 220.

several things I noticed

It seemed that the game changing screen resolutions would cause problem(s), but
It only happened when my machine was in full native power management,
ie....nullcpupowermanagement kext was removed and intelcpupowermanagement worked.
Also, when I did not have an audio option for my sound output (no voodoo or USB sound)
I would get screen lockup/odd behavior.

Hope this helps.......


thanks for the suggestion.
 
remove NVClockX.kext and remove the arch =i386 npc line in org . chameleon .boot.plist
 
hacman said:
remove NVClockX.kext and remove the arch =i386 npc line in org . chameleon .boot.plist

Thank you for the suggestion.

Interesting things happened.

1. At boot, I get this error:
"errors encountered while starting computer. pausing 5 seconds"
then the computer continues booting after 5 seconds

2. I get a new Apple screen while booting. Instead of the solid grey apple on the white background with the rotating "wait/processing" icon, a newer apple white apple, like the one on the iPhone boot, is displayed on the white background.

3. I get to the desktop, and everything appears to be OK. But when I try to run apps in full screen mode , the screen still went all black. In other words, the suggested changes had no effect. on one occasion, the hackintosh had a kernel panic attack and froze.

So my hackintosh still can not run apps in full screen mode. I reversed the suggested changes, and the boot error message went away and I haven't had kernel panic attacks. Of course, i still can not run apps in full screen mode.

This is so frustrating. :crazy:

Thank you still for your suggestions. I'll keep trying them. I really appreciate them
 
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