Author Topic: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...  (Read 32636 times)

supernova777

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #20 on: January 02, 2015, 10:06:37 AM »
so.. u cant start up with a pci graphics card and flash the agp back with its original bios rom?
something is preventing a boot while the card is connected? even when you set bios to initialize pci card graphics first?

wow.. thats bullshit!!

Offline Custos

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #21 on: January 02, 2015, 10:54:11 AM »
What if you put a AGP card that works in the AGP slot. Use a pci to agp converter (or a riser card) to flash the one that doesn't work?

http://extreme.pcgameshardware.de/attachments/576676d1346094326-projekt-agp-1-0-pci-adapter-adapter_1.jpg

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/310390611094?lpid=82
« Last Edit: January 02, 2015, 11:07:46 AM by custos »
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Offline MacTron

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #22 on: January 02, 2015, 12:35:50 PM »
so.. u cant start up with a pci graphics card and flash the agp back with its original bios rom?

Yeah. this is a big problem...

Quote
something is preventing a boot while the card is connected? even when you set bios to initialize pci card graphics first?

wow.. thats bullshit!!

I can't even access to PC Bios if the card is installed. >:(


What if you put a AGP card that works in the AGP slot. Use a pci to agp converter (or a riser card) to flash the one that doesn't work?

http://extreme.pcgameshardware.de/attachments/576676d1346094326-projekt-agp-1-0-pci-adapter-adapter_1.jpg

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/310390611094?lpid=82

There isn't need of this PCI to AGP converter/riser card, because I have screen access to the computer without a working video card, through VNC connection. Furthermore I don't know if those devices will work.
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supernova777

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #23 on: January 02, 2015, 01:03:40 PM »
the only option u have is to reprogram the flash on the card from a hardware programmer to restore the original bios rom then
which would require removing the chip + reprogramming + resoldering
max1zz could probably do it
but.. is it worth it

macStuff

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #24 on: February 11, 2018, 07:57:43 PM »
did anyone ever try the quadro fx 900?
a friend has one of these cards laying around:
https://www.ebay.com/p/NVIDIA-QUADRO-FX-900-50171-0100-000-Model-P171-Video-Dual-DVI/1426233853

has anyone ever tried to get it to work in a mac g4?

sorry - heres a better image:
https://www.amazon.com/Nvidia-P171-Quadro0-Video-Graphics/dp/B00NW28HD0

macStuff

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #25 on: February 12, 2018, 01:36:48 AM »
sorry my mistake -- i thought it had the NV25GL GPU chip inside but i think now that it does not.

the idea being that those cards might be close enough to the Geforce 4 TI series cards (which are powered by the NV25 (non-GL) GPU...

ive attached some screenshots from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Quadro#Desktop_AGP
to illustrate the cards that i mistook the above card for

keeping In Mind that MacTron had ordered a Quadro4 900 XGL card once upon a time and that his efforts did not end in success; im wondering if anyone else has explored the possibility of flashing these cards for use with mac?

does anyone have any of the original specs on the Quadro4 series?? were they PC-only? given that these cards were introduced in the beginning of 2002 i find it hard to believe that they wouldnt have made any "mac-edition" cards? or never had any drivers that supported MacOS9- which was still very much in use by most of the professional world at that point in time


maybe it is useless,
checking this link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20020203152629/http://www.nvidia.com:80/view.asp?PAGE=quadro
doesnt show any mac drivers at all for the "workstation" gpus
https://web.archive.org/web/20020204021102/http://www.nvidia.com:80/view.asp?page=drivers
looking under "other Drivers" shows nothing aswell;
https://web.archive.org/web/20020202190515/http://www.nvidia.com:80/view.asp?PAGE=pg_20010606588572
beos + os/2? but no mac .. :(

heres the mac page a bit further on in june of 2002
https://web.archive.org/web/20020604023225/http://www.nvidia.com:80/view.asp?PAGE=macintosh

« Last Edit: February 12, 2018, 01:50:43 AM by macStuff »

Offline darthnVader

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #26 on: February 13, 2018, 05:48:05 AM »
I can speak with some knowledge of the subject.

The nVidia Fcode Rom has a GPU check in the FCode, and will abort if it finds that the card has a GPU that differs from the one the FCode is checking for. Editing the Device ID is not enough, you must remove the GPU check from the Fcode or Open Firmware will not continue to execute the code and you'll never get display from the card.

The Geforce 6200 Rom has this check removed, as it was made from the OEM 6600 Rom.

Arti Itra is really the FCode Guru, and knew just about anything you would ever want to know about nVidia FCode Rom's. He made Roms for the other FX5xxx cards as well as some of the 4xxx cards.

It can be done, any Geforce or Quadro baseed on 2/3/4/5/6 can be flashed to Mac cards, if you know how to edit the ROM. Drivers for Mac OS 9 are another matter. We never really cared about OS 9 to test what works and what doesn't, people wanted to use quartz extreme and core image.


The nVstrap at 0x58 is a fickle bitch, it is  an And/Or mask of the resister positions of the card. You are mostly safe if you copy the entire string, with the checksum byte from the PC ROM into the Mac ROM you want to flash, but sometimes things go wrong and the card pulls the disappearing act and will no longer boot in a PC to be reflashed, nor will it show up in a Mac.

You have to lift the ground pin from the EEPROM, and connect a switch, or two wires to it, put it in a PC, boot up, with the ground disconnected and once booted, make the connection. Then you can flash the card back to a good rom.

Knowing how to edit the nVstrap is key, and remembering to give it a valid Checksum byte.

I found with some cards I had to set the nVstrap to ignore the position of the resisters on the graphics card that determine the amount of VRam and use the strap to override it.

You can also append the last half byte of the Device ID in the strap, but if you pick a ID that isn't really valid, then you'll likely be lifting the ground pin the the EEPOM.

Most Geforce cards can be appended to Quadro Device ID's via the nVstrap, and likewise a Quadro card can be appended to a Geforce device ID. Tho if you append the Device ID, you'll have to edit the Device ID in the Rom too, or Open Firmware will find a mismatch and never execute the Fcode ROM. That's not the same as the GPU check, the Open Firmware to PCI Bus bindings state that if an Fcode rom's Device ID( in the PCI header ) doesn't match the ID of the Card, it will not execute the Option ROM.

OS X has support for almost a Quadro cards up to the point that they quit making PPC OS X, but no Quadro features were ever enabled, other than the physical stereo 3D mini din  , so the cards will not preform any better than a Geforce Card at the same clock speed.

The Geforce 5200 was the first nVidia chip that had a TMDS in the GPU, but it had weak signal, so driving high res dispalys from the 5200's internal TMDS can be problematic. The Apple OEM Geforce 5200 Ultra used two external TMDS's to drive each display. Some reference design PC 5200 Ultra's had two external TMDS's.

With cards older than the 5200, mostly all use external TMDS so it's a safe bet that if the card has two digital outputs, they can both be made to work correctly with the Mac OS.

Other cards from the FX5xxx family may also suffer from the weak internal TMDS, so it you want to flash one, try and make sure it has two external TMDS's if you want to drive two digital display. With the 5700 Arti found the card didn't preform as it should, was very slow, so no rom was ever published.

I never had any trouble driving digital displays, even Dual Link with 6600/7800.

There is also a monitor definitions section in the FCode ROM, so if your display outputs are not the same as the card the Fcode rom was made for, you'll likely need to edit that if display don't work as expected.

 

   

macStuff

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #27 on: February 13, 2018, 04:38:09 PM »
nice post darth;
its been awhile since i visited the macelite  + strange dogs sites

http://www.cybercoment.com/macgeforce.htm
http://strangedogs.proboards.com
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/ati-flash
http://web.archive.org/web/20071018043332/http://www.themacelite.com/

the strangedogs site looks like its not even up but if u register and get in they have all the posts from the old forum archived there
i think they moved from a different forum software to this proboards thing. i was gonna check wayback machine for the old site but i forget the old url
« Last Edit: February 14, 2018, 02:59:56 PM by macStuff »

macStuff

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #28 on: February 13, 2018, 04:44:00 PM »
wait..
i dont remember seeing a rom for the 700 XGL quadro posted here last time?!!!! is this page still being updated? possibly?
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2

this proves that the XGL series CAN be made to work
i knew it!  8) 8)

mactron did you throw out the 900 XGL that you had?

Offline MacTron

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #29 on: February 14, 2018, 12:40:18 PM »
mactron did you throw out the 900 XGL that you had?
Yes, I still have it. Alongside a Grainward Ti4600 also damaged.  :(
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macStuff

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #30 on: February 14, 2018, 02:51:06 PM »
really wow..
so there is no dual-dvi PC card that works to be flashed succesfully?

Offline MacTron

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #31 on: February 23, 2018, 05:06:28 AM »
really wow..
so there is no dual-dvi PC card that works to be flashed succesfully?

That seems to be the point nowadays ...  :'(
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Offline MacTron

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #32 on: February 23, 2018, 05:13:01 AM »
The PC Grainward Ti4600 seems to be the most similar to the Mac Ti4600, This is what we have under the heatsink:

I have flashed it with the Mac Ti4600 ROM and now the card is dead.
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Offline darthnVader

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #33 on: February 23, 2018, 05:51:52 AM »
The PC Grainward Ti4600 seems to be the most similar to the Mac Ti4600, This is what we have under the heatsink:

I have flashed it with the Mac Ti4600 ROM and now the card is dead.

Your cards likely are not dead, you need to lift the ground pin and connect a wire to the pad, and one to the pin.

Put the card in a PC with another video card for display. Boot the PC with the two wire circuit you have made open. Once the PC has booted, make the circuit, connect the wires.

Erase the EEPROM with nvflash.

Reboot the PC( don't skip this step ).

Flash the card back with the original Bios, or another known good Bios.

Test the card, if all goes well, reconnect the ground pin.

Post you PC VGA Bios here, and I'll look at it.

Offline darthnVader

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #34 on: February 23, 2018, 06:31:05 AM »
About the nVstrap:

Code: [Select]
Softsraps (introduced I believe with FX series) are in addition to hard straps (or those resistors), so AND mask determines if the hardstrap gets preserved or not the OR mask if the strap gets added.
Other way to look at it is AND mask allows you to set that bit to "0" OR mask to "1". If you do neither (AND mask 1, OR mask 0) original strapping (be it 0 or 1) stays.

For example, if you want to get rid of all the hardstaps and write your own, you'll set the AND mask to all "0"s and the OR mask to whatever strapping you desire.

3F C0 00 7E (AND mask)
80 20 C0 80 (OR mask)
00 00 00 00 (AND mask, we don't know what these are)
10 00 00 80 (OR mask)
22 00 A5 (Should this not be 4 bytes??? The last one being the CheckSum)

Also, the tvmode has me confused, how can it = 3(Disabled) when it's only 2 bits?

PCI DID how is this calculated?

What are these?
FP_IFACE
BR_

Would you give an example of calcutation of the CheckSum?

22 00 A5 (Should this not be 4 bytes??? The last one being the CheckSum)

The 4th byte is the checksum, i.e. the one after A5.

PCI DID how is this calculated?

It doesn't. It's interpretation depends on the GPU.

What are these?
FP_IFACE
BR_

Flatpanel interface width and the other one I don't know.

Would you give an example of calcutation of the CheckSum?

Lets take 80 20 C0 80, add them together = 1E0, discardd anything above 8 bits = E0. -E0 = 20. The checksum is 20.

Got it, so the CheckSum for 3F C0 00 7E 80 20 C0 80 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 80
22 00 A5 = 4C

How can I use this to change the DID?

You have to experiment. It probably makes it easier if you AND mask out the existing strap and then see what all of those 4 values give you.

BTW if you want to write the new strapping for the ROMs you may want to use the same approach. "0" it out via AND mask and set it with OR mask.
You could get the correct strapping from your OEM card, but that means erasing the ROM and I have no idea how you can get the ROM back as you'd need a PC with AGP Pro slot.

18 BR_ENABLED /BR_DISABLED

Don't fool with this one, I think I made my card pull the no show in a PC and Mac with this one.

Now I'll have to find the Sub_Vendor pin to flash it back, unless you know how to lift one of the pin on an 8-pin serial eprom.


macStuff

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #35 on: February 23, 2018, 06:33:34 AM »
we need a master list of all different Geforce 4 TI cards/manufacturers

Quote
ABIT Siluro GeForce4 Ti 4400
ASUS V8440/TD GeForce4 Ti 4400
MSI G4Ti 4400-VTD (MS-8871)
Visiontek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti 4400
Chaintech GeForce4 Ti 4600
eVGA e-GeForce4 Ti 4600
Gainward GeForce4 Ultra/750XP
MSI G4Ti 4600-VTD (MS-8872)
Visiontek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti 4600

macStuff

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Re: quadro vs geforce ... pro digital content creation vs gaming ...
« Reply #36 on: February 23, 2018, 06:35:16 AM »
i had a card that i flashed that i thought was DEAD! and it turned out i was able to flash it again after some time.. im not sure why.. maybe because i used a different motherboard to actually flash the card.. that was my thought at the time because i couldnt explain how the card wouldnt even allow the machine to start in one machine and then later on i was able to put in a different board + Reflash

this is a vague memory from a few years ago (2015?)