Are SSE3 emulation testers still needed ? If so, count me in
Lack of a stable SSE3 emulator in any Snow Leopard kernel that I've tried so far seems to be the major stumbling block in trying to get a fully functional install working on an older Pentium 4 2.4GHz Northwood machine. (SSE2)
I have the catch 22 that I have an AGP GeForce 7950GT (512MB) which is not supported at all in Leopard as far as I can find out, (only 1024x768 no QE/CI) whilst in all other ways I can get a stable working 10.5.7/10.5.8 install using iATKOS v7 and the Voodoo 9.5.0 or 9.7.0 Legacy kernels.
On the other hand Snow Leopard does support the graphics card, at least partially. With 10.6.2 (Hazard Client-Server Install) along with PCIMatch entries, AGPGART.kext 2.7.1 and GraphicsEnabler=Yes in Chameleon I can get full 1680x1050 32 bit resolution support, although QE/CI is eluding me so far.
My attempts to sort out the video driver issues are being seriously hindered by general system instability which reading suggests is largely a result of SSE3 emulator bugs.
I get the negative time values, Quicklook helper consuming 100% CPU in the background, random beach balls in safari, (firefox is mostly ok) spotlight, but most annoyingly package installers often hang during "searching for additional volumes", (including kernel installer packages and software update packages) dmg images sometimes wont mount, usb removable drives mount but wont unmount, and so on.
I want to try to customize an iso image of iATKOS S3 v2 (since it's missing the ICH4 IDE driver and IOATAFamily fix my Asus P4PE-X motherboard needs to boot) but the inability to mount and unmount images and removable volumes is making that impossible. (hdiutil hangs during attach etc)
More recently I've started having problems with "Machine check" kernel panics when doing certain things, one in particular happens without fail if I open System preferences soon after booting, while if I go to the time machine icon on the menu bar and go directly to the time machine system preference and then back to the main preferences it does not crash!
Occasionally the same Machine check panic occurs at random - for example near the end of trying to update to 10.6.7. My testing of different kernels and boot images is somewhat hampered by the fact that I need support for Legacy ICH4 IDE controllers (along with the IOATAFamily fix for Snow Leopard) otherwise the machine wont boot - this rules out a lot of options including iATKOS S3 V2, and most of the iBoot images.
Under Leopard the machine is 100% stable, apart from a lack of graphics acceleration.
If there is any way I can help test SSE3 emulator fixes I'm keen. From a practical point of view I've kinda given up ever getting a stable fully working install on this machine, (unless I got an older Gfx card and went back to Leopard) but I've done so much installing, testing, hacking around with different drivers and patches, and different install images over the last couple of weeks that I've learnt a ton about the insides of Mac OS and I'm pretty determined to get to the bottom of it just for the sake of it...