Solution for MacPro 3.1 2008 NVIDIA GTX470 and Possibly Other Cards Also

[alxklv]

I was also trying also to connect two PC Nvidia GTX470 cards in my Mac Pro and I was having the same problems reported here and elsewhere regarding Kernel Panics and ATY_INIT.

Although what Rominator here and in other forums says is correct and works perfectly for him (he has noted that he has a MacPro 1.1 and a 4.1 and not a 3.1) it doesn't work for the MacPro 3.1.

On the 3.1 the helper card GT120 or GT8800 needs to be not on slot 3 but on slot 2 otherwise there is a Kernel Panic whenever ATY_INIT is loaded with PC NVIDIA cards connected.

I do not know if this is due to ATY_INIT or there is something specific to the MacPro 3.1

I haven't run any test to see how fast the cards are but they are working full resolution, full QE appearing correctly in System Profile (Except for the memory which shows as 512MB instead of 1.2GB).

I will post later more info when I run full tests...

To Rominator: is it normal that the memory is reported as 512 instead of 1280, is it just cosmetic or the rest of the memory is disabled for some reason?

Hope this helps everybody. Tests run on Lion 10.7 with latest ATY_INIT posted 22 July

Alex

[Rominator]

This sounds like behavior if 1,1 isn't set to have 4 lanes in slot 3.

Can "Expansion SLot Utility" run in a 3,1? If not, this might be only answer.

The RAM value is cosmetic. You can either change the "20" to correct value in info plist, or just run OpenGL View, it will show you actual RAM available, as will CUDA-Z.

[macest]

I have my GTX 480 in slot 2 and my GT120 in slot 1 and get kernel panics. The GTX 480 won't fit properly in slot one due to spacers on the board.