Problems with ATI Sapphire 6870

[TijuanaKez]

I am sure we can get it working. Just to be clear you have the sapphire HD 6870 and want to use the two DVI ports? As far as I know, one port is dual link and the other is single link. Any reason why you don't want DP or HDMI? Quality of the video is far superior.

My LCD monitors have DVI/VGA only.

Regarding the setting of frame buffers, you don't actually need anything in ur boot plist. So no AtiConfig. Chimera will auto select Duckweed when this card is detected. The only thing relating to graphics in my boot plist is GE=yes, and also setting my graphics mode of my boot screen to 1920x1200x32.

Yes but I was thinking that, using your method, I might find another frame buffer that enables the other DVI port and splice it into the second DP line as you had done with the Lotus frame buffer. Strangely enough, if enter AtiConfig=Vervet, I get 2 screens but for some reason my USB ports and Wifi are disabled (which is very weird) so I can't check if QE is working etc.

How do you connect 2 DVI's to the dual DVI port?

 

[TijuanaKez]

Ok I get this from ati-personality.pl

Personality: Duckweed
ConnectorInfo count in decimal: 4
Disk offset in decimal 523688
0000000 00 04 00 00 04 03 00 00 00 01 00 00 12 04 04 01
0000010 00 04 00 00 04 03 00 00 00 01 00 00 22 05 05 02
0000020 00 08 00 00 04 02 00 00 00 01 00 00 11 02 03 04
0000030 00 02 00 00 14 02 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 06 05
0000040

And this from IORegistryExplorer with GE=no (both DVIs working)

I'm unclear as to how you matched the ports to the frame buffer entries or how you changed one of the DPs to a DVI.

None of the ATI6000 framebuffers seemed to enable the other DVI port for me.

 

[TijuanaKez]

Calling out to pgodw4 and other people was superior intellect to myself, I can see there is a possibility here to get this working properly (I mean properly, not some half assed 'just buy a new monitor with HDMI' psuedo fix) but I need some help. It seems very close and if we can get these ports assigned properly for this card condifuration it would proabaly [SOLVE] the other 4 or so Sapphire 6870 no-workies threads out there.

I gather it's the same issue as pgodw4 has outlined it that there are 2 Display ports and 1 DVI in the duckweed port table so we need to change the phantom display port entry to DVI. I can't find a frame buffer that inits the other DVI but they both work in GE=no mode so is there a way to find the data from there somehow?

 

[Arod3611]

So what did I do here. I stole the HDMI line from Lotus, where hdmi turned on properly, and stuck it in the duckweed frame buffer. Now that I look back, it really is not rocket science. But it did take me weeks of reading to isolate the problem, and then go about fixing it.

I cannot give enough credit to Bcc9 on the insanelymac forum for his informative post regarding personalities in frame buffers and his beast perl script.

EDIT: for those not wanting to do it for scared/lazy/can't be bothered reasons, here it is:
ATI6000Controller.kext.zip


hey man do you know if this kext you made would work on a XFX radeon hd 6870?
or is it only for sapphire 6870

 

[ar13]

I have a XFX 6870 black 1 gig, and a Saphire 6670 , the XFX6870 works OOB no frame buffers, dual monitors and DVD, Geekbench works as it should, but the 6670....man i think i will sell that card... don't know yet.. with one monitor DVI [ pithecia ] works excellent , or with [ Ipomoea] HDMI works excellent, but i can't get it to work without the DVD crash with the 2 monitors at the same time.... is it possible to have in ''.plist'' 2 frame buffers working together?? .... the trick ''atiports=3'' didn't worked.....

 

[TijuanaKez]

So what did I do here. I stole the HDMI line from Lotus, where hdmi turned on properly, and stuck it in the duckweed frame buffer. Now that I look back, it really is not rocket science. But it did take me weeks of reading to isolate the problem, and then go about fixing it.

That works for HDMI but what about 2 x DVI? The method involves finding FB that enables the port you need to work but none of the 6000 series FBs seem to enable to second DVI port on the sapphire. I was really hoping someone might be able to think of a way to get the data some other way, maybe fetching some data when both ports are enabled (GE=no) or even windows.

I guess the other option is to do the HDMI fix and use an adapter.

I can live without DVD player but not ableton which also crashes without correct FB.

 

[anibalin]

@pgodw4 I have an asus6850 and edited ATI6000Controller to have duckweed loaded. Only one issue. One of my displays never goes to sleep. Do you happen to know the reason?
Thanks in advance.

 

[TijuanaKez]

Considering there are 2 x display port in the duckweed port table I ordered one of these as a workaround.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DP-DisplayPo ... 415d9d09da

Let you know how it goes.

Well that works a treat.
It's a shame there isn't a more elegant solution though.
Seems that it could be worked out using the info here

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. ... 52061&st=0

but I had no luck. Hopefully someone will create an automatic injector for the frame buffer connector info in the future .

 

[ecurb]

So what did I do here. I stole the HDMI line from Lotus, where hdmi turned on properly, and stuck it in the duckweed frame buffer. Now that I look back, it really is not rocket science. But it did take me weeks of reading to isolate the problem, and then go about fixing it.

That works for HDMI but what about 2 x DVI? The method involves finding FB that enables the port you need to work but none of the 6000 series FBs seem to enable to second DVI port on the sapphire. I was really hoping someone might be able to think of a way to get the data some other way, maybe fetching some data when both ports are enabled (GE=no) or even windows.

I guess the other option is to do the HDMI fix and use an adapter.

I can live without DVD player but not ableton which also crashes without correct FB.

Hi

I don't have two monitors so don't know about dual monitors at the same time, but my sapphire 6870 works with the monitor on both DVI ports. I originally was not able to get the bottom DVI port working but made a small change to frame buffer duckweed in my boot.plist. Changed <string>Duckweed</string> to <string>Duckweed=0</string>

Don't know if thats helpful

Cheer Bruce

 

[ricksta]

So what did I do here. I stole the HDMI line from Lotus, where hdmi turned on properly, and stuck it in the duckweed frame buffer. Now that I look back, it really is not rocket science. But it did take me weeks of reading to isolate the problem, and then go about fixing it.

That works for HDMI but what about 2 x DVI? The method involves finding FB that enables the port you need to work but none of the 6000 series FBs seem to enable to second DVI port on the sapphire. I was really hoping someone might be able to think of a way to get the data some other way, maybe fetching some data when both ports are enabled (GE=no) or even windows.

I guess the other option is to do the HDMI fix and use an adapter.

I can live without DVD player but not ableton which also crashes without correct FB.

Hi

I don't have two monitors so don't know about dual monitors at the same time, but my sapphire 6870 works with the monitor on both DVI ports. I originally was not able to get the bottom DVI port working but made a small change to frame buffer duckweed in my boot.plist. Changed <string>Duckweed</string> to <string>Duckweed=0</string>

Don't know if thats helpful

Cheer Bruce

Hi Bruce,

you are talking about the org.chameleon.Boot.plist?

I don't have a key called Duckweed in there, when I added it, it doesn't do anything.