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Blurry fonts, and restart when booting up from HDD

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Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
41
Motherboard
Asus P5K Pro
CPU
X5460
Graphics
RX 560
Mac
  1. iMac
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Dear Tomymac community,

I'm kinda new to this whole thing, but I managed to get almost everything working.

Here's the only issues I believe I have:

Issue 1: The font rendering looks blurry. Especially in web browsers (both Chrome and Safari). I have a Gainward nVidia GTS450 GS, and it works with dual-monitor setup. My primary monitor works on 1920x1080 (connected with a DVI to HDMI cable - which shows crystal sharp fonts under Windows), and the secondary monitor works on 1680x1050 (connected with a simple VGA-VGA cable). OS X uses them as 1080p with overscan, and the second at 1680x1050. Everything looks great, except the fonts (same looking on both displays). I have text smoothing turned off (under System Preferences -> General). Yes, it did make it a little better, but it's still not as close to being as sharp as on Windows. (I will add a few screenshots as soon as I get home from work). It really bothers me as everything else seems to works perfect...

Issue 2: I can boot up from pen drive only, and with the following flag: npci=0x3000. I did the stuff with Multibeast, and when I try to boot from HDD, I add the same bootflag, but as it loads, when it should bring in the login screen, instead the monitor signal goes away on both displays and that's it. It restarts the machine...
I have an Asus P5K Pro motherboard.

I would be really thankful if anyone here could help me with these two issues. The first one is even more annoying than the second! I can't stand that font problem. The google results, the facebook feed, the bookmarks...it just looks wrong.

Thank you VERY MUCH in advance!

EDIT:

Here's what I'm complaining about regarding the font rendering:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html
So it's a feature? :/
 
If OS X says your main monitor is 1080P with overscan, that means it's detecting it as a TV instead of a monitor, which would account for the kind of problems you're seeing. Also, VGA is completely unsupported in El Capitain so you're lucky the secondary one works at all.

Are both monitors connected to the Nvidia card? Are you using inject nvidia = true in config.plist?

I've corrected the TV/Monitor issue with a Clover patch when connected to integrated graphics, but I'm not sure how to do it when connected to Nvidia graphics.

You might try the Nvidia Web drivers, even if your card doesn't require them, though I'm not positive that will make these problems better.
 
I solved my boot issue, now display is the next.

Yes, both monitors are connected to the same nvidia graphic card. I just installed the webdriver now, but nothing changed at all. Still works in 1080p overscan. Any more tips?

Yes, nVidia Inject is enabled the the config.plist.
 
I just noticed now, that the nvidia webdriver is not active after installing it. I choose to activate it, the system restarts, and it keeps running on the default graphics driver. Why?

Update:

Tried to boot with nvda_drv=1 but the screen just goes black at booting.
I have to boot with nvidia inject, otherwise it just doesn't boot.
What to do?
 
Tried to boot with nvda_drv=1 but the screen just goes black at booting.
I have to boot with nvidia inject, otherwise it just doesn't boot.

(nvidia inject = true or false) is a different option than (nv_disable=1 or nvda_drv=1 or neither or nvda_drv=0). I'm not sure whether nvidia inject is supposed to be true or false when using the Web drivers.

As far as the black screen with nvda_drv=1 goes, do you get an Apple logo and progress bar and midway through the monitor turns off instead of bringing up the login screen? If so, what SMBIOS system definition are you using? Some of them produce that behavior.
 
(nvidia inject = true or false) is a different option than (nv_disable=1 or nvda_drv=1 or neither or nvda_drv=0). I'm not sure whether nvidia inject is supposed to be true or false when using the Web drivers.

As far as the black screen with nvda_drv=1 goes, do you get an Apple logo and progress bar and midway through the monitor turns off instead of bringing up the login screen? If so, what SMBIOS system definition are you using? Some of them produce that behavior.

Exactly! The progress bar is around midway and then it suddenly goes black.
Where can I check the SMBIOS system definition?
 
In your config.plist in the SMBIOS section. If you don't have a SMBIOS definition in there, or you want to change it, you can use Clover Configurator. Open your config.plist, go to the SMBIOS screen, click the magic wand, select the machine type and revision you want, click both shake buttons a few times, and hit OK. (If you're not prompted to select a machine type you can hit the "v" on the bottom left to get that option.) Normally MacPro3,1 is considered a safe default, and in particular, it does not suffer from the problem you describe. Then save the updated config.plist.

If you instead want to keep the current SMBIOS, you should find the Board-ID in the SMBIOS data, and then follow the #4 procedure using that Board-ID: http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/161256-solving-nvidia-driver-install-loading-problems.html
 
It is already set to MacPro1,3 :/
And by the way...When the system is booting up, it shows the loading screen (the apple logo and loading bar) under a lower resolution, and it switches to 1080p after it comes to the midway of loading line, and then it fills up the rest of loading bar quickly. That's how it loads the OS...But I can't get it to use the nvidia web driver...it keeps using the default one when I switch it over in the top menubar.

Update:

If I have nVidia Inject disabled, and nvda_drv=1, the screen going off by midway of loading process.
I I have nVidia Inject enabled, together with nvda_drv=1, the nvda_drv=1 seems to make no difference at all (the OS loads just like before, and is using the default graphics driver).
 
With nvidia inject=true and nvda_drv=1:

In the top menubar, if you select Nvidia drivers, does it immediately tell you to reboot?

If not, then it's just reading your configuration wrong and you actually are using the Nvidia drivers.

If that's the case, I'm not sure how to fix the monitor problem. I once found instructions for recording an EDID for a monitor and configuring OS X to use it, but that seems like a lot of trouble. Maybe if you Google for "OS X detects my HDMI monitor as a TV" you'll find better suggestions.
 
Ićm having some work to do, but I'll check it out soon :)

ammulder, Thank you very much for your time and effort to help me out! It's much appreciated, whatever the outcome is going to be :)
 
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