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ATI 5770 and Apple 27"

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MeqTrader:

Forgot to note that I've got an ASUS P6T Deluxe noted in my profile, which I made a successful quick test Hack on (with only a basic video config) when I signed up, but I am in fact building the new system based on the GA-X58A-UD3R.
 
The Single Slot XFX 5770 only has 1 MiniDP ouput and 2 DVI. I am not sure of any other cards that will run properly for Multi display. Some of the higher end cards have 4 or more MiniDP and you should use Enabler ATI_Uakari instead of ATI_Vervet.
 
immapc said:
The Single Slot XFX 5770 only has 1 MiniDP ouput and 2 DVI. I am not sure of any other cards that will run properly for Multi display. Some of the higher end cards have 4 or more MiniDP and you should use Enabler ATI_Uakari instead of ATI_Vervet.

immapc:

Thanks for the input. As this is my first Hack, I have to confess that I didn't do as much research on the video card component of this set up as I probably should have, although it sounds like this card is a reasonable choice for achieving dual display. I saw some other references to it and I figured it would be less problematic getting set up since Apple was offering 5770s in their current Mac Pros. I also didn't want to consume real estate with a double slot card (although this 5770 pretty much negates the ability to use the adjacent PCIe slot, as does the Gigabyte board PCIe distribution anyway).

The XFX 5770 will be connected to two DVI-based ACDs. I'm confused about the Enablers you mention, though. Any references I've seen regarding ATI_Uakari and ATI_Vervet point to Advanced Options of Multibeast, correct? I'm sure I downloaded the latest version from the Resources page and I don't see that section. The only specific Enabler I see is for nVidia. I'm probably overlooking something obvious... What am I missing? Thx
 
Sorry,

let me tell you that I use a P6T Deluxe v1 and it has caused me a lot of headache when I needed to reinstall. The only way I got it working in the end was by means of this guide:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. ... pic=208724

Mind you I also had to reinstall my previous video card in the machine (a GTX285) to get it to work with that specific motherboard.

It seems the P6T Deluxe v1 I have seems to be not so Hackintosh friendly when using it with the iBoot.

FYI after the DSTD from the guide it was easy to switch over to the 5770 card and install the Multibeast options using iBoot as my boot disk.

I hope this helps although it was a lot of headache since I decided to also switch cases and disks during my reinstall as well as my DVD drive failing in the process (now been replaced by a propper Sony one as used in all the Hackintosh build referenced here on Tonymac's buyers guides).

Just shout if you need to pick my brain some more and I will see what else I can drag out of the dark corners.

Lesson I learned for my next Hackintosh: buy purpose build, aka, investigate every detail of the build. OSX is stable due to the limited HW support but that makes making a hackintosh just a little different from a Windows or Linux machine.
 
MeqTrader said:
let me tell you that I use a P6T Deluxe v1 and it has caused me a lot of headache when I needed to reinstall.

...not so Hackintosh friendly when using it with the iBoot.

FYI after the DSTD from the guide it was easy to switch over to the 5770 card and install the Multibeast options using iBoot as my boot disk.

...as well as my DVD drive failing in the process (now been replaced by a propper Sony one as used in all the Hackintosh build referenced here on Tonymac's buyers guides).

Just shout if you need to pick my brain some more and I will see what else I can drag out of the dark corners.

Thanks for feedback.

I think my addendum about the P6T may have confused things a bit. It's my Win7 PC. Have one at home and a couple in the office. Not pivotal to me here. I wasn't concerned about its fitness for use in a Hackintosh. Just used it in my initial test for proof-of-concept, to see OS X running on PC hardware for the first time, since this all was a new area for me. I then did some research and opted for the GB X58A-UD3R as the basis of the actual build based on references here and a couple of other sites (and a certain comfort level with the X58 chipset). I think I had the same issue with the latest iBoot and went back to an older version which got it working.

But back to the issue at hand (I'm taking you up on your offer for a follow-up question or two)...

I used the the proper pre-configged DSDT for the UD3R from the database...I've got the same brand/model graphics card as you...I followed the install guide carefully... And the only other thing YOU did to get yours working was include the boot option in Multibeast? No addition of an Enabler as "immapc" mentioned? Again, selecting the boot option advanced me forward to the Apple startup screen, but no further.

BTW, I'm just using a basic Sony Optiarc DVD burner in the config. It hasn't seemed to cause any issues so far, though it was interesting to note that it appeared as a specific entry in the boot device list in the BIOS, along with the usual generic DVD-ROM entry. thx
 
MeqTrader:

Apologies... I've been looking at so many posts I've gotten different configs confused (and I guess I'm not paying close enough attention). Got you confused with someone else who had the Gigabyte board. But I'm definitely interested in all minutae regarding success with the XFX HD 5770 if there's anything else that comes to mind. thx
 
Update: Happy to report things have progressed. Am booting directly into OS X. Having followed Tony's guide and used the preconfigured DSDT seems all I was really missing in Multibeast was

- Drivers & Bootloaders/Bootloaders/chameleon 2.0 RC5 - ATI Experimental

A post clued me in but just now discovered it was also noted in the ATI basic setup featured in Tony's post from yesterday ("How To Get iBoot Functionality From MultiBeast").

Was also able to grab an unused 20" ACD so I've verified dual display with individual recognitiion of each monitor and multiple resolutions (not a pretty set up with one ACD next to an NEC beige CRT, but the sight of the desktop across two displays is a beautiful thing nevertheless).

Okay, I'm noticing System Profiler-Graphics/Displays doesn't display info quite the same as an actual 'factory card' install in a Mac (i.e. entries under each display for "Core Image" and "Quartz Extreme"). Again I'm new to this and so I guess the info I'm seeing is a reflection of the work that was done in preparing the custom DSDT? I ran a little app I had that confirmed each display was "Accelerated." There was a cool app in the XTools of the Leopard install disc I used before that actually displayed frame rate in the form of a speedometer. Can't find anything comparable in the Snow Leopard XTools.

If anyone has any further advice on additional steps to bring the videocard to its optimal setting I would much appreciate hearing it. Many thanks (and thx for reading through this)
 
Good to see it all working out for you so far. My UD3R has been flawless ever since I got the new ASUS DVD. It is a great choice for Stability! And Fast... Stomps all over most iMacs out there.

If you use the ATI Experimental you won't need to select any other Graphics Kexts like I had stated earlier. Again that is an experimental Graphics Enabler for ATI and I believe 64Bit also. If you want Stability like I have had for over 4 months of Rendering and Editing with Final Cut Pro then let me know and I can walk you through Multibeast. I run 32Bit but other applications that are 64Bit still run fine and list as 64Bit.

The Video cards can only really go so fast because of QE/CI, and I am not sure if CUDA cores have made it worth getting NVidia 4xx series. The single slot is all you need if you just want dual DVI as there is no Crossfire SLI support for OSX anyways and the single slot won't have the artifacts on boot up and shut down like the SLI cards do.
 
immapc said:
My UD3R has been flawless ever since I got the new ASUS DVD. It is a great choice for Stability!

If you use the ATI Experimental you won't need to select any other Graphics Kexts like I had stated earlier. Again that is an experimental Graphics Enabler for ATI and I believe 64Bit also. If you want Stability like I have had for over 4 months of Rendering and Editing with Final Cut Pro then let me know and I can walk you through Multibeast. I run 32Bit but other applications that are 64Bit still run fine and list as 64Bit.

The Video cards can only really go so fast because of QE/CI, and I am not sure if CUDA cores have made it worth getting NVidia 4xx series. The single slot is all you need if you just want dual DVI as there is no Crossfire SLI support for OSX anyways and the single slot won't have the artifacts on boot up and shut down like the SLI cards do.

Thanks again for your tips. I'm finding this is kind of like many other DIY processes. You come into it with a some previous experience/knowledge and so you sort of 'start in the middle' and work your way outward.

It's amazing how a component as seemingly 'simple' as a burner/ROM drive can cause so many problems, but apparently a number of people have experienced your woes. Glad you got yours stable. I know I had a vexing stability issue once on a Windows machine and it turned out to be a burner (like it was sending out jibberish or stray voltages on the cable or something). Once it was out the system was happy. I have an ASUS DVD on a Win 7 machine that works fine as well. In the current build, the $18 OEM Sony Optiarc seems to be okay, but I'll keep an eye on it.

This first HacPro of mine will be used for design work. I'm going to be building another for myself for video editing, AE, etc. Actually, I've heard great things about the Mercury Engine in CS5 in conjunction with Cuda on the nVidia cards. I have to put together a list of stuff for a new Mac Pro we'll be buying at work for our main edit room. But since I myself really can't afford that right now I'm going to take the DIY route at home, especially now that I see what's possible. (I might take you up on your offer for tweaking that system when I get to it.) The new Premiere and AE apps seem pretty compelling, but now that there's all this buzz about the new FC it will be interesting to see what Apple will offer in terms of utilizing the GPU.

It's good to know that my choice of videocards, although not as 'educated' as it probably could have been, has turned out okay. Even though that adjacent PCIe slot isn't really usable, I just couldn't see putting in some honkin' dual slot card in this machine. Glad I decided not to.

Can't work on it today, but I still have to put in the remaining drivers for audio and other drive controllers. Are you able to actually use the 6Gbps SATA ports, or just the Gigabyte 3Gbps ports? I'm contemplating making a Scratch disk (for Adobe design apps) using one or two Raptors, and if I can actually use the 6Gb ports I'll get the newer Raptor to take advantage of that.

Since the eSATA ports aren't hot swappable (and I need to use them), I will probably put in a Sonnet card I have. They make good controllers for Macs so the drivers should go in nicely.

I gotta say one of the great kicks of this process goes by quick but it's still worth a chuckle...and that's when the OS X install finishes and it says "Enjoy your new Apple computer." I'm sure others have commented on this.
 
I use the eSATA ports they are the JMicron Kexts. It says link speed 3Gbit. I use the eSATA here and there and it is plenty fast. Access times may be more important for caching so yeah either SSD or Raptors. Again SSD may not be fully optimized like it is in Windows and may be slower for writing but reading latency will be the best.

I find myself using USB-3 mostly. When rendering you won't even be able to push the drive and that is ok because I multitask it. I can Render in Final Cut to the drive I am working on in DVD Studio Pro Create the IMG file Mux and then on top of that Burn a DVD simultaneously with no problems, all from the same drive. It really has sped up my production.

I attempted a build with CUDA and used SUDO NANO on the txt config file for CS5. I had the GTX 480 and everything worked normally and Adobe's GPU Sniffer found the hardware but CS5 just refused to see the CUDA cores. It was a Fermi Framework hack but there may be better stuff out there now and I may get back into it just to make Premiere Supercharged.

But I did test out a 980X and I have to tell you that this alone made playback with Mercury very very smooth and Magic Bullet Effects played back realtime HD 1080P Canon 5D footage H.264 with very little jitter. Render times were phenomenal. So my money would have stayed with the 980X but I thought the CUDA cores would be better so I returned the 980X and got the GTX 480. Took the GTX back after it failed and now I don't have either. I didn't realize the difference would be so huge, (CineBench says 4.6 so around 5 for 950 and 8.3 for 980X) comparing i7 950 to 980X and am stuck with the 950 for now.
 

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