Sunday, 14 February 2010

Creating EFI String for Asus 8400GS Silent

There are a number of ways of getting your graphics card working within OS X (in order of difficulty) : -
  • Adding "GraphicsEnabler=Yes" to Chameleon /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist
  • Adding EFI string to Chameleon /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist
  • Using an injector such as NVInject or NVEnabler
  • Patching your DSDT file
The first one didn't work for my Asus Silent EN8400GS, so here's how I generated and added an EFI string.

First, install "gfxutil"
Next, get the location of your graphics card by entering the following: -
gfxutil -f display
You should get something back like this: -
DevicePath = PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)
Next, create a file called "graphics.plist" which is the following (but put your settings in): -
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>PciRoot(0x1)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
<dict>
<key>@0,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,NVMac</string>
<key>@0,device_type</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>@0,name</key>
<string>NVDA,Display-A</string>
<key>@1,compatible</key>
<string>NVDA,NVMac</string>
<key>@1,device_type</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>@1,name</key>
<string>NVDA,Display-B</string>
<key>NVCAP</key>
<data>BAAAAAAAAwAEAAAAAAAABwAAAAA=</data>
<key>NVPM</key>
<data>AQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==</data>
<key>VRAM,totalsize</key>
<string>0x20000000</string>
<key>device_type</key>
<string>NVDA,Parent</string>
<key>model</key>
<string>nVidia Geforce 8400GS</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>display</string>
<key>rom-revision</key>
<string>nVidia Geforce 8400GS OpenGL Engine</string>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>
view raw graphics.plist hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Next you need to generate a hex string to be inserted - run the following command: - 
gfxutil -i xml -o hex graphics.plist graphics.hex
This will create a "graphics.hex" file in the current directory.
Lastly, copy and paste this string into your /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist file in the following format: -
<key>device-properties</key>

<string>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</string>
Reboot and voila! You should have Quartz Extreme (QI) and Core Image (CI) enabled - open up Front Row, if it works then you're done!
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13 comments:

  1. geekanddestroy22 March 2010 at 13:13

    Hey Finster,

    I finally took the plunge and built myself a Hackintosh based on your guide. So, firstly I just wanted to say thanks for the posts - I found the really useful.

    However, I haven't managed to get the audio to work as yet. I've tried a few things on the infinitemacthread, but none of them seem to work. Do you have any words of wisdom?

    G&D

    ReplyDelete
  2. finster22 March 2010 at 20:26

    Hey G&D,

    Glad you found it useful. My audio works fine.

    Have you copied "LegacyALC883.kext" to /Extra/Extensions?

    You also need to go to system prefs -> sound and choose internal speakers/built-in speakers in both sound effects & output.

    Think that's right - I'm copying from my notes rather than looking at the machine.

    ReplyDelete
  3. geekanddestroy24 March 2010 at 16:23

    Hey Finster,

    Hope you're good. I finally got the sound working last night, however the graphics card isn't working properly!

    I used one of the DSDT file on the InfiniteMac guide because I had trouble compiling my own. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind posting your DSDT fixed file one your site somewhere?

    G&D

    ReplyDelete
  4. finster24 March 2010 at 21:07

    G&D,

    I've not gotten around to creating a DSDT file for mine yet, I'm just using the EFI string in /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist posted above.

    Have you got the same card?

    ReplyDelete
  5. geekanddestroy29 March 2010 at 14:47

    Hiya,

    All up and running now. :-) Did a complete reinstall from scratch and upgraded to 10.6.2 relatively painlessly. I built my entire system based on your guide, so thanks for that. And the Geekbench score I got for it is almost twice that of my similarly speced MacBook.

    G&D

    ReplyDelete
  6. tanmaniac19 April 2010 at 03:57

    Okay, I'm a complete newbie at this and I desperately need help. I've gotten the device path:

    DevicePath = PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x3,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Pci(0x8,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

    but now what do I do? When it says to replace all of the information in the graphics.plist file, what information do I need to put?

    These are my system specs:
    Core i7 920 @ 3.2 GHz
    6GB OCZ XMP DDR3 1600 MHz RAM, triple channel
    MSI X58 Pro mobo
    Sapphire Radeon HD 4850X2 2GB
    Running Windows 7 x64 and Mac OS X 10.6.3 now, but Quartz Extreme doesn't work at all, so I'm installing to a new HDD.

    ReplyDelete
  7. finster19 April 2010 at 08:12

    Sorry tanmaniac, if you're not using the same graphics card that I am, you won't be able to use the graphics.plist file that I listed above.

    ReplyDelete
  8. tanmaniac19 April 2010 at 15:46

    Yeah, I know. But it is possible to create a graphics.plist file for ATI, right? If so, how would you go about writing one?
    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  9. LSP15 February 2011 at 16:44

    Thks I now appear to have acceleration and I can open Photo Booth but I have only 1024x768 in System Preferences so I am unable to change resolution
    Mac OSX 10.6.6
    Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L
    Asus 8400GS Silent
    Intel Core Duo 3.0 GHz
    Barracuda 500GB
    Corsair 2 Gig DDR2 800

    Any ideas on how get full resolution?
    Also cannot get sound working on this board using Realtek 888b

    ReplyDelete
  10. finster15 February 2011 at 22:00

    Is this using VGA or DVI? I had problems with the VGA connector, so bought a DVI-VGA adapter and used the DVI port instead. Hope that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  11. burtonium25 March 2011 at 12:12

    I did all this, created my EFI string and enabling it in com.apple......plist in /Extra. I have asus en8400gs 1gb. I had to change the ram part. I've putted 4 instead of 2 after 0x. In hw properties, now i see 1024mb of video ram, before it was only 32mb. Also i see my castom name for graphics card, but unfortunately when i run Front Row i still got blank screen.
    read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver GLCompositor returns The domain/default pair of (com.apple.windowserver, GLCompositor) does not exist. Does anyone have any clue how to force my GPU to do qe/ci/opengl???

    ReplyDelete
  12. burtonium26 March 2011 at 23:37

    @LSP add this line to you com.apple.Boot.plist in /Extra

    Graphics Mode
    1280x1024x32@75

    This is for 1280x1024 but you can add your own resolution. I don't know if you can add more than one resolution ;)
    I hope it helps.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Sal20 November 2011 at 18:54

    Didn't work, here's what I got: invalid property list xml inputfile 'graphics.plist'!

    ReplyDelete

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