Mac Mini G4: "Out of range" Issue on non-Apple displays. Experimental way to FIX

[Daniel]

Wow that is awesome

[whoisthisguy]

Hey, Daniel! I've followed your instructions this way: found "Merlin" in hex, changed it to "RockHopper2", then I changed the counter to 0F (15). After that I replaced Data Fork with Resedit and fixed lenght in "cfrg" section. Also I replaced ATY,Merlin with ATY,RockHopper2 in "cfrg" section too. Unfortunately no luck here for now. Maybe there is something I missed? @darthnVader, maybe you can help here? Thanks!

[whoisthisguy]

Hey, Daniel! I've followed your instructions this way: found "Merlin" in hex, changed it to "RockHopper2", then I changed the counter to 0F (15). After that I replaced Data Fork with Resedit and fixed lenght in "cfrg" section. Also I replaced ATY,Merlin with ATY,RockHopper2 in "cfrg" section too. Unfortunately no luck here for now. Maybe there is something I missed? @darthnVader, maybe you can help here? Thanks!

There is a second value "15" right after the ATY,Merlin. I've changed it to 10 with ATY,RockHopper2 (It's something like padding as you said before) but still no success here. I have no idea why   

[whoisthisguy]

Hey, Daniel! I've followed your instructions this way: found "Merlin" in hex, changed it to "RockHopper2", then I changed the counter to 0F (15). After that I replaced Data Fork with Resedit and fixed lenght in "cfrg" section. Also I replaced ATY,Merlin with ATY,RockHopper2 in "cfrg" section too. Unfortunately no luck here for now. Maybe there is something I missed? @darthnVader, maybe you can help here? Thanks!

There is a second value "15" right after the ATY,Merlin. I've changed it to 10 with ATY,RockHopper2 (It's something like padding as you said before) but still no success here. I have no idea why   

Woohoo! I finally figure this out! The whole $mtej section should be patched, not only the counters on the both sides of "ATY,Merlin", but the value here $mtej.$.ATY,RockHopper.$ It's something like a padding too. So the working Extension is in Attachement. You will also need the extensions included with V8 Mac Mini Install CD. Replace "ATI Via Driver" with "ATI RockHopper2 Driver" extension.

[darthnVader]

Hey, Daniel! I've followed your instructions this way: found "Merlin" in hex, changed it to "RockHopper2", then I changed the counter to 0F (15). After that I replaced Data Fork with Resedit and fixed lenght in "cfrg" section. Also I replaced ATY,Merlin with ATY,RockHopper2 in "cfrg" section too. Unfortunately no luck here for now. Maybe there is something I missed? @darthnVader, maybe you can help here? Thanks!

There is a second value "15" right after the ATY,Merlin. I've changed it to 10 with ATY,RockHopper2 (It's something like padding as you said before) but still no success here. I have no idea why   

Woohoo! I finally figure this out! The whole $mtej section should be patched, not only the counters on the both sides of "ATY,Merlin", but the value here $mtej.$.ATY,RockHopper.$ It's something like a padding too. So the working Extension is in Attachement. You will also need the extensions included with V8 Mac Mini Install CD. Replace "ATI Via Driver" with "ATI RockHopper2 Driver" extension.

Sometimes fixing one thing, breaks something else.....

It helps to have quite a few monitors and connectors to test with, test VGA/DVI/DVI-HDMI.

Also, you should try the 'NDRV' from 10.5.8, as that would include the last bug fixes, but we don't know how the eMac 'NDRV' may react to OS 9 on the Mini.

Good work so far, I think I tested the "ATY,Bugsy" 'NDRV' with the Mini and it was a no go, I just assumed other dual head 'NDRV's would work.

[whoisthisguy]

Sometimes fixing one thing, breaks something else.....

It helps to have quite a few monitors and connectors to test with, test VGA/DVI/DVI-HDMI.

Also, you should try the 'NDRV' from 10.5.8, as that would include the last bug fixes, but we don't know how the eMac 'NDRV' may react to OS 9 on the Mini.

Good work so far, I think I tested the "ATY,Bugsy" 'NDRV' with the Mini and it was a no go, I just assumed other dual head 'NDRV's would work.

Thanks! And for your help too. The thing with eMac's NDRV - the system thinks I'm on VGA Display: Menu bar has rounded corners and I also have 640x480 resolution in first few seconds of OS booting. I also have some resolutions like 1920x1080@72, 1920x1200@76 that displayed in Monitors Control Panel but give me out of range. Thats all. The 2D/3D works great in games and on OS level. The machine works perfectly stable on 1920x1080@60 in Millions of Colours finaly. I really can't understand what is wrong with the original RockHopper2 NDRV why it's so buggy? I also tested iBook's NDRV and get 1024x768 resolution max, but fully working system. ) Today I will try Radeon 9000, but later. The friend of mine should connect the card and check compatible property for me.
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@darthnVader, Also there is a mistery with ATI 9200 3D Accelerator Extension and ATI Displays Control Panel. I cannot find them at all. Do you have them?

[darthnVader]

Sometimes fixing one thing, breaks something else.....

It helps to have quite a few monitors and connectors to test with, test VGA/DVI/DVI-HDMI.

Also, you should try the 'NDRV' from 10.5.8, as that would include the last bug fixes, but we don't know how the eMac 'NDRV' may react to OS 9 on the Mini.

Good work so far, I think I tested the "ATY,Bugsy" 'NDRV' with the Mini and it was a no go, I just assumed other dual head 'NDRV's would work.

Thanks! And for your help too. The thing with eMac's NDRV - the system thinks I'm on VGA Display: Menu bar has rounded corners and I also have 640x480 resolution in first few seconds of OS booting. I also have some resolutions like 1920x1080@72, 1920x1200@76 that displayed in Monitors Control Panel but give me out of range. Thats all. The 2D/3D works great in games and on OS level. The machine works perfectly stable on 1920x1080@60 in Millions of Colours finaly. I really can't understand what is wrong with the original RockHopper2 NDRV why it's so buggy? I also tested iBook's NDRV and get 1024x768 resolution max, but fully working system. ) Today I will try Radeon 9000, but later. The friend of mine should connect the card and check compatible property for me.
----
@darthnVader, Also there is a mistery with ATI 9200 3D Accelerator Extension and ATI Displays Control Panel. I cannot find them at all. Do you have them?

The R9200 uses the ATI 8500 3D Accelerator, same basic GPU, and no version of ATI Displays supports the R9200 under OS 9.

I did some work trying to hack it, but all it would do even fully working would be to show the vram in use for 2D/3D.

It doesn't support 3D overrides or hog PCI bandwidth under OS 9, only OS X.

[whoisthisguy]

The R9200 uses the ATI 8500 3D Accelerator, same basic GPU, and no version of ATI Displays supports the R9200 under OS 9.

I did some work trying to hack it, but all it would do even fully working would be to show the vram in use for 2D/3D.

It doesn't support 3D overrides or hog PCI bandwidth under OS 9, only OS X.

Can you share the CP and Extension if you have them please?

[whoisthisguy]

Hey all! I've made some cosmetic updates in the driver and created separate downloading thread here http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,5009.0.html If someone can help with pinning that thread it will be great. Thanks!

[Jubadub]

Wow. Just wanted to stop by and say this was a really awesome effort. Thank you for doing this!

[whoisthisguy]

Wow. Just wanted to stop by and say this was a really awesome effort. Thank you for doing this!

You're welcome! I hope i will fix the sound issues too. Stay tuned to the forum.

[ELN]

I am hoping to see a comprehensive archive of all the video card NDRVs that anyone can find. A wealth of data, in my experience, makes all these problems seems shallow.

Done, by looking though Mac OS X installers and updaters: https://github.com/elliotnunn/x-ndrv

(Thanks to whoisthisguy for the eMac-specific 10.3.9 RockHopper2 driver)

[IIO]

i was about to say - you probably find all of the required data in OSX 10.9+ or windows 8+.

and while it is great that you found a hack solution which will find its way into the next mini OS - from a user perspective it still seems easier to use a monitor which just works out of the box instead of hacking the OS.

[mmtuk]

I stumbled upon this old thread and was amazed at the determination to solve the issue. Before reading a single word of this thread I had already solved the problem but don’t know if my method counts or has any validity here.

Having got numerous adaptors lying around, I merely inserted a dvi to analog (vga) adaptor and then a standard vga lead to the monitor and it worked at full HD (1920 x 1084), no issues.

Does this solution not count as it circumvents the problem rather than solving it?

[IIO]

or maybe there was never a problem.

because my mac minis run dell monitors with 1920*1200 just fine.

they seem to ruthlessly ignore the problem described in the starting post.

[SDG]

I don't think the problem is bogus. I have two old LCD tvs. One one, the G4 displays albeit at the wrong resolution. On the other, I get the out of range error.

[whoisthisguy]

Try this driver http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,5009.msg37457.html#msg37457 and don't forget to uninstall the old one.

[whoisthisguy]

I don't think the problem is bogus. I have two old LCD tvs. One one, the G4 displays albeit at the wrong resolution. On the other, I get the out of range error.

The reason why this fix is working is because of simplified NDRV of VGA Display of RockHopper GPU. The same GPU as in MacMini G4 or one found in iBook G4 (which also works but 1024x768) It not trying to automatically detect your GPU's range of supported frequencies and resolutions but gives you eMac's G4 supported ones.

[IIO]

I don't think the problem is bogus

yes of course, i know there are a lot of reports in the same direction. i am just saying that the original statement "third party screens dont work in 1900" is only half the truth, because some do.

however, it is interesting that the issue still appears with the mini OS9 v9, i.e. after the usb-vs-ati fix. our GPU gurus can interpret that better than me.

until there is an automatic solution my first advice remains "try another monitor" before anything else.

[teroyk]

Have to say something general about "Out of range"-issues.
Some monitors give miss information when detecting from DVI with adapters and some monitors even with VGA connector.
And opposite some monitors don't want show some resolutions even they can on HP shows "Out of range" and it shows picture as it should in back ground of that text.
One LG LCD TV/monitor let use different resolutions depending do you use Scart, HDMI or VGA connector (tested with computers that possible feed PAL/NTSC signal to VGA).
Raspberry Pi with one monitor (I don't remember name) has to force to use different hz than it detect from connector to get work.

Some older monitors are better because they calculate from VGA-signal how to show picture instead use predefined resolutions. And after that you can adjust calculation if it's not correct.
It would be nice that on Mac side you can choose every possible resolution, not that recommended for that monitor.

Old CRT-monitors are nice, they show something from signal even, when they cannot show whole picture.

EDIT: I fixed one typo