yeah, dont get the x1900

[Alan Okey]

[Winston A. Cely] “I want to hack the BIOS so I can run whatever card I want. How do I do it, where do I go to get information, etc…. Am I p*ssing up the wrong tree?”

You’re pissing up the wrong tree. The Mac Pro doesn’t have a BIOS, it has the Extensible Firmware Interface. That’s the real reason that so few cards are working on the Mac Pro at the moment, not because Apple is evil and trying to make an extra buck. Besides, Intel created EFI, not Apple. Apple is just being bleeding edge by adopting it, much like they did with USB and Firewire. For a detailed explanation of the difference between BIOS and EFI and how it relates to Macs, follow these links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface

From Roughly Drafted:

“Imaging MacBooks: Understanding MBR, APM, & GPT”

https://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/0E960A5B-E16E-40A6-B4FD-E4C28F77A366.html

“How Apple’s Firmware Leapfrogs BIOS PCs”

https://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/7CC25766-EF64-4D85-AD37-BCC39FBD2A4F.html

As more graphics cards begin to support EFI, the situation should improve substantially.

[Steven Andrus]

wrong wrong wrong wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong, you’re wrong!

In fact, there are people that are flashing the bios (on the video card not the motherboard) of PC cards and getting them to work. There is also a couple of 7800s people are able to get working because it has the same chipset as the old quadros apple is price gouging. There is nothing “bleeding edge” about selling video cards from 2 years ago for $400.