NVIDIA GeForce 5xx Graphics in Lion [TEST]

[Jordan2Delta]

As of 10.7.2 beta 11C37, OpenGL works after sleep. Slight performance increase.

There's a new GLDriver that also has OpenCL support "out of the box" for my 570. This is definitely a new driver for us to look forward to.

Thanks for the good news!

I confess I was too focused on thresholds values from MacBook 6,1 and 7,1 and called the AGPM from InsanelyMac faulty too early. I found out somebody just took original values from a NVIDIA GT120=9500? (Vendor10deDevice0640) and put them into their GTX 580.
Interestingly even the very same card differs on machine models (Threshold_Low::Threshold_High):
MacPro4,1 = 95::88
MacPro5,1 = 97::93

So I wondered why is that and why does the "faulty" AGPM indeed work. In my opinion the G-states are changing too often and it skyrockets till G-state 0 too easily. I wouldn't call this efficient, because those values were meant to be used for a much older and slower card. I think the GTX 5xx series deserve some better and just more power efficient thresholds.

I checked the behavior of the GTX 570 on Windows 7 (AERO transparent windows and visual quality all maxed out) and newest nvidia drivers.
Windows only seems to use three out of four G-states Mac OS X mentions in AGPM.
(Core::Memory::Shader)MHz
G-state 3 = 50, 67, 100
G-state 2 = 405, 162, 810
G-state 0* = 732, 950, 1464

*Looking at the power consumption I'd say it's 1, but the core, memory, shader clocks are maxed out so it should be 0. Hmhh....

The "thrilling part" was how G-states changes occurred under load and idle. Falling down one G-state took about 12~15s. Depending on the load it went up one or more G-states in less than a second.

"Skyrocketing" to G-state 0 only happened when the GPU was above 70% load!!
Comparing this to Mac OS X whereas many older cards' thresholds let the card jump to this state when GPU load is above 12% = L*

* L=I-G
(I=100% GPU Idle) (G=Threshold_High=88%) (L= % GPU Load)

Back to the drawing board for me. I am going to release a revised threshold table for power efficiency and performance soon.

+++Question for you folks+++
In TimeMachine when opening and closing images with QuickLook it lags for me even on G-state 0 (maximum performance mode of the card). No matter what I try it's never smooth!

Is it smooth for you? Maybe with an ATI/AMD card?

 

[Peter R.]

Is there any way at all someone could compile a 'how-to-make-5xx-work' post and put it up ? I've been struggling with the new box for 3 days. I now have it working in full res, but it still needs a load of stuff (I think) but I can't make heads or tails of the deluge on the subject.

Me confused :?

Use Kext helper b7 Basically, I install and NVDAGF100HalGTX570.kext.zip GeForceGLDriver.bundle.zip. In use MacPro 3.1 SMBios.plist:

http://www.iparsifal.org/OSX/

It is important

<key> Graphics Mode </ key>
<string> </ string>

Graphics Mode is worthless

here are also explained and files
http://www.kexts.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1540

Ok, so the hal.kext I can do with b7
Can I install the .bundle file the same way ?

the key and the string is a mod to com.apple.Boot.plist , right ?

Told you I was useless !

 

[jpa]

......omitted
Update:
Wow. After waking up from sleep and having no OpenGL I had a first system freeze since ages out of nowhere. I was just browsing the web and not even trying to use a 3d app.
I definitely don't recommend using sleep mode for now.

As of 10.7.2 beta 11C37, OpenGL works after sleep. Slight performance increase.

My nova bench score went up from 1776, mostly because of the framerate. Still crap Cinebench but my xbench score goes from 244 to 312 fps. There's a new GLDriver that also has OpenCL support "out of the box" for my 570. This is definitely a new driver for us to look forward to.

model card? newegg link

 

[rdurty2]

Jordan - awesome work on researching out all the G-states and how they are working in Windows.

I have been doing a lot of reading into this as well in order to tailor agpm specifically to my card. Looks like you will beat me to releasing something though as I just don't have the time right now to focus on this.

I look forward to what you come up with.

 

[TheQuestian]

Well, looks like this forum has birthed another beautiful baby OSX86 system!

Thanks so much for the help, Lorengrin, rdurty2, and especially the PM from ddorbuck. Man, you guys are brilliant! Also got some good tips from Insanely Mac. As far as I can tell, I am 100%. Well, maybe 95%.

Novabench is showing 1399 for graphics performance, my system is showing my card info, and everything feels like it is just sailing! Smoother than my Windows install!

Thanks again!

 

[dab]

Guys, can you advice me how I can install Lion with SLI GTX 570 and Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard? Is there any specific BIOS settings needed to boot Mac OS? Is this possible to install Lion without Snow Leo installation?
Thanks.

 

[rdurty2]

Guys, can you advice me how I can install Lion with SLI GTX 570 and Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard? Is there any specific BIOS settings needed to boot Mac OS? Is this possible to install Lion without Snow Leo installation?
Thanks.

No versions of OS X support SLI. You can probably get both cards recognized but they definitely will not be used together. One card will do everything will the other just always sits there idle.

 

[TheQuestian]

Guys, can you advice me how I can install Lion with SLI GTX 570 and Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard? Is there any specific BIOS settings needed to boot Mac OS? Is this possible to install Lion without Snow Leo installation?
Thanks.

No versions of OS X support SLI. You can probably get both cards recognized but they definitely will not be used together. One card will do everything will the other just always sits there idle.

Just a thought. I find it interesting that in the new Mac Pro, the highest graphics configuration is dual Radeon 5770's. So, it would seem there is support for CrossFire. Isn't it weird there's CF support, but no SLi?

 

[dab]

Guys, can you advice me how I can install Lion with SLI GTX 570 and Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard? Is there any specific BIOS settings needed to boot Mac OS? Is this possible to install Lion without Snow Leo installation?
Thanks.

No versions of OS X support SLI. You can probably get both cards recognized but they definitely will not be used together. One card will do everything will the other just always sits there idle.

Thanks for answer, no problem, I just want to work in OSX without limits of virtual machine.

 

[rdurty2]

Guys, can you advice me how I can install Lion with SLI GTX 570 and Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard? Is there any specific BIOS settings needed to boot Mac OS? Is this possible to install Lion without Snow Leo installation?
Thanks.

No versions of OS X support SLI. You can probably get both cards recognized but they definitely will not be used together. One card will do everything will the other just always sits there idle.

Just a thought. I find it interesting that in the new Mac Pro, the highest graphics configuration is dual Radeon 5770's. So, it would seem there is support for CrossFire. Isn't it weird there's CF support, but no SLi?

Not really. Apple has always favored ATI setups over Nvidia. This is just another example. Xfire and SLI must be different architectures and Apple only built in Xfire into their OS.