Problems with flashed Radeons
  • Moderator
    Miky060
    Posts: 694 from 2003/2/24
    From: ITALY
    Personally I do not have such problem (I use a flashed 9800XT 256MB on the MDD), but after MorphOS 3.0 release I read about many users with a flashed Radeon card that have graphic issues. Now that MOS 3.1 has been released it seems that these issues are still them. I'm a bit confused, am I wrong or one of the goals of this update was to fix this problem appeared with the 3.0? If not, why un update has been released so soon?

    I asked this on the IRC channel but got not a clear answer neither if is there intention to fix this problem at some point or not. If not, users should know this so that they can open their wallets and buy a Mac version of their Radeons instead continue to wait..

    Who still has problems with a flashed Radeon here on Morphzone?

    PegasosII "Elite" Machine --> PowerMac MDD "popular" Machine --> MacMini 1.5 "still more popular" Machine
  • »09.07.12 - 18:11
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  • Caterpillar
    Caterpillar
    marmotta
    Posts: 32 from 2012/6/11
    Sorry for my poor english... I have a powermac sawtooth with radeon 9800pro flashed for mac use. Is perfect with osx,linux and mos 2.7 but with mos3.0/3.1 is completely unusable! Is slow, very very slow. Why?
  • »09.07.12 - 18:35
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  • Paladin of the Pegasos
    Paladin of the Pegasos
    redrumloa
    Posts: 1424 from 2003/4/13
    Miky060,

    What sort of GFX problems are we talking about?
  • »09.07.12 - 19:12
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12403 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > What sort of GFX problems are we talking about?

    I guess those described by marmotta just above.
  • »09.07.12 - 20:33
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  • Moderator
    guruman
    Posts: 461 from 2003/7/21
    I have no PowerMac myself, but I noticed that a big share of the italian PowerMac users have a lot of problems with their flashed Radeons. Sadly, most of them are either too shy or do not speak/write english fluently enough, so complaints (a lot of them, to be honest) are confined to "obscure" Italian sites and fora.
    My personal guess is that they all have flashed their Radeons with some particular problematic BIOS version that was linked in said Italian Amiga fora, so, if you want to help the team to nail down the issue, please post your configuration and a link to the BIOS you used to flash your gfx card. There might be more than one, and maybe the fix could be just to reflash the gfx card or to make possible for the MorphOS team to reproduce the bug by flashing their own cards...
    If there is no bug report in English, it's quite likely that there won't be any fix any time soon..

    Kind regards,
    Andrea
  • »09.07.12 - 22:10
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  • Paladin of the Pegasos
    Paladin of the Pegasos
    redrumloa
    Posts: 1424 from 2003/4/13
    Andreas_Wolf,
    Quote:

    I guess those described by marmotta just above.


    That's it? Only a flashed Radeon 9800Pro?
  • »10.07.12 - 00:02
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  • Caterpillar
    Caterpillar
    marmotta
    Posts: 32 from 2012/6/11
    I have Radeon 9800pro 128mb (bga), i have downloaded the flash rom from this site: MacElite Downloads
  • »10.07.12 - 03:42
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  • MorphOS Developer
    cyfm
    Posts: 544 from 2003/4/11
    From: Germany
    And which of this flash files did you actually use ? I see at least 7 original rom files related to 9800 and a lot more modified ones there ....
  • »10.07.12 - 05:19
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  • Caterpillar
    Caterpillar
    marmotta
    Posts: 32 from 2012/6/11
    Reduced rom "sprinter"
  • »10.07.12 - 08:47
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Divinity
    Posts: 498 from 2009/9/8
    pega-1,
    Quote:

    And which of this flash files did you actually use ? I see at least 7 original rom files related to 9800 and a lot more modified ones there ....


    Hi Frank,

    MorphOS 3.0 and 3.1 problems:

    -1) Pegasos 2 G4@1000 with Radeon 9250 256Mb vram: 2d OK, 3d OK

    -2) Pegasos 2 G4@1000 with Radeon 9800 SE 128Mb vram: 2d OK
    (you and Mark have fixed the old Smart Firmware bootstrap problem ;-) ,log sent time ago to Mark via IRC, thanks)

    -3) PowerBook 17" 5.9 G4@1670 with Radeon 9700 m. 128Mb vram: 2d OK

    -4) PowerMac FW800 dual G4@1420 with Radeon 9250 256Mb vram: 2d OK, 3d NOT ok with tinygl.library 52.0 in MorphOS 3.0 and 3.1 (It' s OK with tinygl.library 51.1 taken from MorphOS 2.7)
    here the ROM flash used http://themacelite.wikidot.com/local--files/wikidownloads2/R9250_127_reduced.rom.zip
    here the log with details http://www.logicabs.it/amiga/9250_log.txt

    -5) PowerMac FW800 dual G4@1420 with Radeon 9800 256Mb vram: 2d OK but only 128Mb vram (in OSX and Linux 256Mb vram usable)
    here the log with details http://www.logicabs.it/amiga/9800_log.txt

    here in Italy many users are using these two cards at the moment in MorphOS, OSX and Linux ( -4) and -5) )

    thanks
    regards
    @divina


    [ Edited by Divinity 10.07.2012 - 12:16 ]
  • »10.07.12 - 10:10
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  • Butterfly
    Butterfly
    Get27
    Posts: 90 from 2004/8/23
    From: Vinzelles, France
    Hello,

    same problem here with Radeon 9800 Pro and Radeon 9800 reduced rom. (tested with 2 Radeon 9800 Pro)
    I tried with flashed Radeon 9700 Pro (128k rom) and flashed Radeon 9500 Pro (128k rom) and it's ok.

    Problem with Radeon 9800 64k rom: display is slowwwwww:
    PID 1150 - Name LayerInfoTask - Pri 25 - between 50 and 90% CPU usage with Enhanced Display only.
    Without Enhanced Display, Radeon 9800 works well.
    All works well under MorphOS 2.7, even with Enhanced Display
    All works well under MacOS X 10.4

    Thank you :-)

    [ Edité par Get27 10.07.2012 - 17:29 ]
    PowerMac 3.5, G4 1.0GHz DP, 1GB ram, 80GB HD + NAS, Radeon 9600 128MB Mac, 1680x1050
    PowerMac 7.3, G5 2.3GHz DP, 4GB ram, 160GB HD + NAS, Radeon 9800 128MB PC, 1680x1050
    Amiga 500+, Vampire 500v2+, HxC Floppy
  • »10.07.12 - 13:35
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  • Caterpillar
    Caterpillar
    peg4a
    Posts: 26 from 2003/4/15
    Hi !
    Same problem here :(
    I have a powermac with an ATI 9250 flashed with a reduced rom.
    I have to change the tinygl.library if I want 3D applications to work, either I have a black screen or colored polygones.... with mos 3.0 or 3.1
    So perhaps the problem is with the reduced rom... But most of the cards have small bios chip... and why no problems with osx and morphos worked well before morphos 3.0 ?? :p
    Peg4A

    [ Edited by peg4a 10.07.2012 - 18:20 ]
    Powermac G5
    2,3 giga mono processor. HDD : 750 Go sata ATI 9800 XT 256 mo.
    Morphos 3.4 ;)
  • »10.07.12 - 15:03
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  • MorphOS Developer
    cyfm
    Posts: 544 from 2003/4/11
    From: Germany
    It probably works with 2.7 because the 2.x driver didn't use all the advanced features that the 3.x driver uses.
    The MorphOS driver relies on a proper setup of various registers via the OpenFirmware driver. If there is only one register that isn't initialized properly and not reset later on by the MorphOS driver, it's likely to fail with some random effects.
    The reduced ROM most likely only initializes certain modules of the hardware and relies on some 2nd level driver later on doing the rest of the work.
    We will look into this for the next MorphOS update. We never recommended to use reflashed cards with MorphOS/PowerMacs and never claimed that it's working without issues, btw. In the end, people just have been lucky that it worked with the "reduced" ROM files and 2.x
    Regarding some initial comments in this thread blaming us for releasing this update "too soon", here is my opinion about it as well: If we would always wait to release updates until everything is fixed that some people report "non-working but works in OS X", I can give you a likely release date for updates: never ....
  • »10.07.12 - 17:46
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  • Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Simon
    Posts: 809 from 2008/7/6
    From: Antwerp, Belgium
    That said I am very happy that I invested in an original Radeon 9000 128Mb. I find it rather hilarious that people hack a gfxcard and when it doesn't work anymore as it should they blame the OS for it.
    Proud member of the Belgian Amiga Club since 2003

  • »10.07.12 - 18:17
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  • Caterpillar
    Caterpillar
    marmotta
    Posts: 32 from 2012/6/11
    The question is: Osx work, Linux work, Mos2.7 work.... Mos3.0/3.1 don't work? For me the problem is the Os!
  • »10.07.12 - 18:44
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  • Moderator
    Miky060
    Posts: 694 from 2003/2/24
    From: ITALY
    pega-1,
    Quote:

    Regarding some initial comments in this thread blaming us for releasing this update "too soon", here is my opinion about it as well: If we would always wait to release updates until everything is fixed that some people report "non-working but works in OS X", I can give you a likely release date for updates: never ....


    I don't want to be polemical, believe me.
    I was SURE that you MorphOS developers knew about these issues because there has been a lot of speaking about this problem on forums (also some here on MorphZone), so I believed (MY FAULT) that one of the first purposes in releasing so soon a new MOS release was to fix these problems with the flashed Radeons. Basing on these (WRONG) hypothesis when I discovered that with 3.1 nothing has changed by this point of view, I felt confused and asked myself: "how is this possible!?" "If they did not fixed it so why do they release a new version so soon!?" The only bug I read about a lot was not fixed, while other bugs has been fixed (it's always good to hear this) about problems I have never heard about, neither exprimented on my system.

    In addition to this when I asked infos on IRC, I did not receive a clear answer and someone has also been sarcastic with me, forgetting that english is not my first language and even if it's the same for someone else I can't speak/understand english so good as someone other. So I hoped that asking here would have produced a more clear explanation.


    I hope everything is more clear now and that you all be available to fix what is in your possibilities and that you can hear users bug reports even if often they are not reported in the most correct way.
    Good work.


    [ Edited by Miky060 10.07.2012 - 22:19 ]

    PegasosII "Elite" Machine --> PowerMac MDD "popular" Machine --> MacMini 1.5 "still more popular" Machine
  • »10.07.12 - 19:11
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Divinity
    Posts: 498 from 2009/9/8
    pega-1,
    Quote:

    It probably works with 2.7 because the 2.x driver didn't use all the advanced features that the 3.x driver uses.
    The MorphOS driver relies on a proper setup of various registers via the OpenFirmware driver. If there is only one register that isn't initialized properly and not reset later on by the MorphOS driver, it's likely to fail with some random effects.
    The reduced ROM most likely only initializes certain modules of the hardware and relies on some 2nd level driver later on doing the rest of the work.
    We will look into this for the next MorphOS update. We never recommended to use reflashed cards with MorphOS/PowerMacs and never claimed that it's working without issues, btw. In the end, people just have been lucky that it worked with the "reduced" ROM files and 2.x
    Regarding some initial comments in this thread blaming us for releasing this update "too soon", here is my opinion about it as well: If we would always wait to release updates until everything is fixed that some people report "non-working but works in OS X", I can give you a likely release date for updates: never ....


    Hi Mark,

    thanks; about the 9250 AGP card 3D problems in MorphOS 3.0 and 3.1, other infos:

    this is the card model http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=4&sgid=322&pid=32&psn=&lid=4&leg=1

    I have tried now with other flash ROMS and the only working/usable are:
    http://themacelite.wikidot.com/local--files/wikidownloads2/R9250_127_reduced.rom.zip
    http://campahunta.free.fr/Downloads/ROMs/ati_hack_red_9250_124_pciagp_64k.zip

    note the same as card http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=4&sgid=322&pid=32&psn=&lid=4&leg=1 (not flashed) It's working also in 3D in the Pegasos 2 G4

    The card 9250 It's OK in 2d and 3d in MorphOS 2.6, 2.7, OSX 10.3.x, 10.4.x, 10.5.x and Linux distro; It's OK in MorphOS 3.0 and 3.1 in 2D, but problems in 3D (tinygl.library 52.0), no problems using tinygl.library 51.1 in MorphOS 3.0/3.1.

    if you need other infos tell me, also via IRC (we need your help to solve this problem)

    thanks
    regards
    @divina
  • »10.07.12 - 20:06
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  • Paladin of the Pegasos
    Paladin of the Pegasos
    Jupp3
    Posts: 1193 from 2003/2/24
    From: Helsinki, Finland
    Miky060,
    Quote:

    so I believed (MY FAULT) that one of the first purposes in releasing so soon a new MOS release was to fix these problems with the flashed Radeons.

    Well 3.1 fixed installation on PowerBooks with broken optical drive, TinyGL on non-altivec systems and cairo (when used from more than one program simultaneously)

    Sure, they dont affect everyone either, but Id consider them quite critical anyway. And at least TinyGL problem (maybe cairo too) probably wasnt known before the release of 3.0.

    Fixing this gfx card issue would have likely delayed the release of these OTHER fixes, which were already ready (at the time 3.1 was released)

    Regarding that particular bug, I can see the following issues:
    -Did anyone actually REPORT the issue with "Report a bug" functionality in MorphOS? NOTE: Saying "There are issues with my gfx card" in a middle of a random thread doesnt count.
    -Probably none of the team can reproduce the issue (otherwise it would have been known already before the release)
    -It might be just some "bad image" - MorphOS cannot be expected to work properly with all the different (and some wrong) firmware images you can flash on your card!

    And regarding the last issue, I have always been againist this "special pricing with different software preinstalled" business model. I dont think it should be required (supported, of course), as no new PowerPC mac cards are manufactured anymore... But the fact is, the official models are easier to support, as there is less variance in firmware.
  • »10.07.12 - 20:50
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  • Butterfly
    Butterfly
    Mabo
    Posts: 67 from 2010/5/3
    first line: ________________
    second line: _____________
  • »14.07.12 - 16:50
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Divinity
    Posts: 498 from 2009/9/8
    @pega-1

    Hi Frank,

    good news especially for the 9250 flashed Mac cards in 3d ?
  • »15.07.12 - 08:03
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  • MorphOS Developer
    cyfm
    Posts: 544 from 2003/4/11
    From: Germany
    Quote:


    The card 9250 It's OK in 2d and 3d in MorphOS 2.6, 2.7, OSX 10.3.x, 10.4.x, 10.5.x and Linux distro; It's OK in MorphOS 3.0 and 3.1 in 2D, but problems in 3D (tinygl.library 52.0).



    What problems are we actually talking about ? Slow 3D, broken 3D graphics, no graphics at all ?

    Quote:


    good news especially for the 9250 flashed Mac cards in 3d ?



    First of all, I need to get hold of a correct Radeon card and then I need to flash/modify it, accordingly. It's not that I stack all kind of hardware in my office just waiting for it to be tested ....
  • »15.07.12 - 15:36
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Divinity
    Posts: 498 from 2009/9/8
    pega-1,
    Quote:

    Quote:


    The card 9250 It's OK in 2d and 3d in MorphOS 2.6, 2.7, OSX 10.3.x, 10.4.x, 10.5.x and Linux distro; It's OK in MorphOS 3.0 and 3.1 in 2D, but problems in 3D (tinygl.library 52.0).



    What problems are we actually talking about ? Slow 3D, broken 3D graphics, no graphics at all ?

    Quote:


    good news especially for the 9250 flashed Mac cards in 3d ?



    First of all, I need to get hold of a correct Radeon card and then I need to flash/modify it, accordingly. It's not that I stack all kind of hardware in my office just waiting for it to be tested ....


    Hi Frank,

    full broken 3D graphics or completely black output video in 3D (no graphics at all)

    sure; if you need I can also send you a 9250 one
    tell me also if I need to test something

    thanks
    regards

    [ Edited by Divinity 15.07.2012 - 20:58 ]
  • »15.07.12 - 18:57
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Divinity
    Posts: 498 from 2009/9/8
    @pega-1

    read now your message :)
  • »03.08.12 - 20:18
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  • MorphOS Developer
    cyfm
    Posts: 544 from 2003/4/11
    From: Germany
    yea, try to read your PM more often :)
  • »04.08.12 - 08:55
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Divinity
    Posts: 498 from 2009/9/8
    sure :)
  • »04.08.12 - 09:15
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