My Journey to OS-X on AMD (still traveling...)

[McMadd]

Ok, with the excellent tips of LawlessPPC and lanceomni (great to see those options summed up in one place) I started working on this again and got some nice results.

First of, I used this tutorial to get the iPC distro on a USB flash drive: How Can I burn The MAC OS X distro to USB flash memory?
This is a real time saver if you are experimenting a lot because it reduces install time to 6/7 minutes.

I also used this guide from naquaada to create a nice backup/restore system which is also great for experimenting in a safe way to get your stuff working: Guide: Creating a very safe OS X system

Chipset (nForce 430) and SATA drives:
Selecting AppleNForceATA during install made sure my installation booted but all-tough the DVD drive got recognized it fails to mount any disks.
nfoav8or mentioned somewhere that the "forcedeth AppleNForceATA-test" version (also on the install disk) might solve this but because I have 4Gb in my machine I need to use the "64Bit adapted AppleNforceATA.kext" and with this one the DVD's also do not mount.

Am I stuck with either 4Gb support or a working SATA DVD drive? Or are there other possibilities?
(I have an external DVD rewriter so it's not a big problem but feels like a waste of hardware)

Audio (ALC662 Audio Codec):
This was a no brainer, the driver is available on the install disk and worked from the start.

Ethernet (PHY Realtek RTL8211B):
LawlessPPC pointed out that Realtek provided Mac drivers but unfortunately not for this one (PHY is the key). The Realtek website tells us this:

RTL8201, RTL8201BL, RTL8201CL, RTL8201CP, RTL8201N and RTL8211B(L) are all PHYceiver. That is a driverless hardware device. Software driver are relative to Network controller ( MAC ) which is integrated into chipset in such case mostly. Please contact your mother board maker or chipset manufacturer to obtain proper driver support.

So I started searching again but was unable to find any good results.
Then I noticed in the signature of lanceomni the mention of "nForceLAN.kext". Searching for that led me to the release page on the insanelymac forums where I found out why my previous search efforts failed. That post only mentions the number of the Realtek chip "8211B" and I was searching for "RTL8211B" all the time!

Installed the nForceLAN.kext and Ethernet started working instantly.

Graphics (NVIDIA® GeForce 6150SE):
For the video it looks like I'm screwed. According to this thread on InsanelyMac there is no solution for shared memory Nvidia cards. LawlessPPC already advised to turn of shared memory but that is not possible with this card. I can turn it down to 32Mb shared memory but it needs at least that.
I tried several Geforce kext's but they all result in a non booting system.
My video needs are not that high, I'm not planning on playing games but I want to at least get rid of the artifacts I have when moving windows and of course a higher resolution.

Any tips on this? Or should I get a dedicated card? (It's a shame my board doesn't do AGP, I have several AGP cards lying around)


So, it looks like I got a fairly stable system with a few important functionalities missing but I'm happy that I got this far already.

[nfoav8or]

Originally Posted by McMadd Chipset (nForce 430) and SATA drives: Selecting AppleNForceATA during install made sure my installation booted but all-tough the DVD drive got recognized it fails to mount any disks. nfoav8or mentioned somewhere that the "forcedeth AppleNForceATA-test" version (also on the install disk) might solve this but because I have 4Gb in my machine I need to use the "64Bit adapted AppleNforceATA.kext" and with this one the DVD's also do not mount. Am I stuck with either 4Gb support or a working SATA DVD drive? Or are there other possibilities? (I have an external DVD rewriter so it's not a big problem but feels like a waste of hardware)

use the boot flag maxmem=2048 (when booting the DVD to circumvent the RAM limit) then install and reboot with the same boot flag until you install the new 64bit AppleNForceATA kext file.

OR

temporarily take out 2GB RAM so you are left with 2GB and then install normally and then install the new 64bit kext and shut down, reinsert the RAM, and reboot.

Walla! Magic.

Originally Posted by McMadd Graphics (NVIDIA® GeForce 6150SE): For the video it looks like I'm screwed. According to this thread on InsanelyMac there is no solution for shared memory Nvidia cards. LawlessPPC already advised to turn of shared memory but that is not possible with this card. I can turn it down to 32Mb shared memory but it needs at least that. I tried several Geforce kext's but they all result in a non booting system. My video needs are not that high, I'm not planning on playing games but I want to at least get rid of the artifacts I have when moving windows and of course a higher resolution. Any tips on this? Or should I get a dedicated card? (It's a shame my board doesn't do AGP, I have several AGP cards lying around)

the 6100 series doesn't support CI/QE. I've got the same built-in video on the Dell in my signature and had to get a separate PCI-e card to fill this void. I would definitely recommend a dedicated card if you want to do anything with CI/QE (which is a lot of stuff these days).

Best of luck.

[McMadd]

Thanks for the quick reply...

Originally Posted by nfoav8or use the boot flag maxmem=2048 (when booting the DVD to circumvent the RAM limit) then install and reboot with the same boot flag until you install the new 64bit AppleNForceATA kext file.

I might have formulated it wrong. I am using the 64bit AppleNForceATA kext right now with full 4Gb support. Only this kext doesn't seem to support my SATA DVD rewriter. It doesn't mount any discs.
Of course I rather have 4Gb then a working DVD drive but I'd love to have both

Originally Posted by nfoav8or the 6100 series doesn't support CI/QE. I've got the same built-in video on the Dell in my signature and had to get a separate PCI-e card to fill this void. I would definitely recommend a dedicated card if you want to do anything with CI/QE (which is a lot of stuff these days).

Does no CI/QE also mean low res and artifacts? I can live with low performance (Eg. no 3d acceleration and such) but a 1024x768 resolution is unacceptable.

I will buy a dedicated card when my wallet allows me to. Now I need to decide if I go for a cheapo solution or get a real fancy one .

Cheers!

[lanceomni]

4GB Issue

I might have formulated it wrong. I am using the 64bit AppleNForceATA kext right now with full 4Gb support. Only this kext doesn't seem to support my SATA DVD rewriter. It doesn't mount any discs. Of course I rather have 4Gb then a working DVD drive but I'd love to have both

I read somewhere that there are more than one version of this modified file. Ill have to do some research. I would stick with what gets your DVD drive working and put the maxmem=2048 in your com.apple.boot.plist so that it automatically happens on startup. Before I found the fix I limited to 3.5 GB (maxmem=3584) and had a stable system. I really think that at this point the DVD drive is more important than the extra gig of memory. By not supported are you talking about writing also? I think it was Nfoav8or that mentioned that there isnt support for writing on Sata DVD drives.

Graphics

Does no CI/QE also mean low res and artifacts? I can live with low performance (Eg. no 3d acceleration and such) but a 1024x768 resolution is unacceptable. I will buy a dedicated card when my wallet allows me to. Now I need to decide if I go for a cheapo solution or get a real fancy one

You can't compare it to upgrading your video card to play a certain game because the on-board graphics are not powerful enough. A great deal of software will not even install without QE enabled. Some will install but will crash immediately after you run them. It really is an important component.

If you surf around you can find a pretty good PCI Express card for under $50 and some I have seen for less than $20. It is definitely worth any extra change you have laying around. The deals are out there.

Of course you can go all the way. I looked on Newegg.com and found this guy though Im not sure if its supported. This blows my mind. I looked at the specs. I bet you could get OSX running on the graphics card itself
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814103068
Anyway there are good cards out there at discount prices.

[natewill18]

Im trying to boot from the dvd i burned and it wont booot lol
i have a amd phenom 9600
ideneb 10.5.5 ppf 3 (burned to dvd) wont boot
790g SB700


I changed the boot sequence to boot from my dvd first and it wont even recognize the dvd and goes to the second boot option

[lanceomni]

Its not booting at all as in the blinking underscore or does it display a msg? Or are you getting a grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel?

[natewill18]

blinkin underscore

Somethin I noticed: After adding PPF2 and 3 (w/ PPf o Matic (the program)) I went to burn the new image with Magic ISO and it said Non botable right above the drop down list ov all files in the iso

[lanceomni]

PC I assume? Give this a try and remember to burn at a slow speed (makes a difference) http://www.imgburn.com/

[natewill18]

ill give it a try right now with the XxX 10.5.5 Leopard Beta1 PPF1 (with PPf2 &PPF3) image.
thnx

While it's burning I might as well put up my specs in my sig, so anyone else here checkin can see my specs

Do I need to inject a workin Kext for my SB700 chipset before i insert the dvd ?

[natewill18]

Same blinkin underscore.

I burned at 2x and verified it.
I burned it o a DVD + R
Im sin a Pioneer DVR - 111D optical drive in slave ide mode