Help with Atom-15 and HD4870

[burn_654]

Hello there, I'm a big fan of GroovyMame and crtemudriver. So far after researching and setting things up it's been pretty smooth! Really made this project come to life. Thanks Calamity!

So I tried Atom-15 to allow 15khz boot screens on my Radeon HD4870 card and while I was able to back up the card bios with winflash, Atom-15 states "Hook not possible. Not enough blank space below 0xFFFF." when I try to patch it

Any ideas?

[arcadepcnut]

im going to tell you what you probably already know. looks like its not compatible with that cards bios. if it is ...it modifies it with no feedback and you simply flash it back to the card. i have two cards it worked on one was a mobility and the other not. I can tell you brands if that will help you. you might can flash a ATI reference bios thats compatible with the card. then modify that with atom-15. What i did is on your usb flashdrive that boots dos or whatever create a batch file in the root. called fix.bat that runs atiflash -p oldoriginal.bios file so if you do flash a BAD firmware you can boot blind and type blind and "fix" the issue blindly.

[Calamity]

As the error message says, ATOM-15 needs some free space at the end of the bios to place its code. This space is not guaranteed to exist! It usually exists however, because we just need a few bytes. As arcadepcnut pointed, you can try flashing a different bios that is compatible with your card, check that it actually works before applying ATOM-15. Chances are a different bios will have enough space for ATOM-15.

[burn_654]

Good tips!

I tried some stock, but alternative bios files from alternative manufacturers (started with ATI brand bios, no dice) but couldn't get them to take on this card.

I didn't think patching the bios would be a problem initially (especially given the great success with groovymame/crtemudriver) but there is a distinct difference with my card I forgot to mention - it's actually a Mac model card! (it was a 'here you go' gift, merely used it with this project because crtemu supports HD4870.)

Conceivably the extra EFI data in the video card bios is taking up that needed space. As well, the board must be revised just enough that a 'stock' bios isn't 1:1 compatible. Good call on the blind .bat file, arcadepcnut. That saved my day after a couple of bad flashes. The card is fine and back to stock Mac bios.

As opposed to spending more time mucking about with yet more bios files for an obscure card I opted to just buy a normal pc variant of the card on ebay. HIS brand, and ATOM-15 seems to patch an HIS 4870 bios I downloaded just fine. I'll post the results when it gets in!

[burn_654]

And I'm back, on the HIS HD4870 512MB card. Patched in seconds and worked just perfectly! 

My boot.bmp logo for Windows XP is a little off-center to the left, but the Mobo boot screen and bios all look great - so it's not worth fighting over. (I'll probably just make my new bmp logo account for it.) Being able to get into bios setup on the arcade monitor is VERY useful and the look of the boot process for guests is a lot more professional.

Thanks again Calamity! Next paycheck I'll see if I can donate to your awesome projects. 

[Calamity]

Hi burn_654,

Thanks for reporting back. It's interesting because some time ago I got an email from an user that had the same error (hook not possible), and it turned out his card came originally from a Mac. So it looks like Macs use a customized bios with for their cards, that incidentally doesn't have the blank space that ATOM-15 expects to find in stock cards.

I highly doubt there are hardware changes in the board itself. Probably there is a mismatch in the memory type and size from the bios you tried to flash, or something similar. The flash tooks allow you to tweak some of these things before flashing.

Anyway I'm happy the new card worked flawlessly.

[Dr.Venom]

Calamity,

Quick question. When a card is patched with ATOM does the card then still output 31khz on the HDMI/DVI-D/DisplayPort Ports (i.e. digital ports)?

[Calamity]

Calamity,

Quick question. When a card is patched with ATOM does the card then still output 31khz on the HDMI/DVI-D/DisplayPort Ports (i.e. digital ports)?

I'd say it won't, but that only affects the boot process, so you can have whatever khz once in Windows.

[Dr.Venom]

I'd say it won't, but that only affects the boot process, so you can have whatever khz once in Windows.

OK. I was asking in the context of possibly having both a CRT and an LCD attached to the primary card. But I understand that it would then put a 15Khz signal on the LCD during boot. Good to know.