[MacOS] Experiences with Sapphire ATI HD 2600XT 256MB (Device ID 9588)

Abstract

After having had too much hazzle with the Gigabyte ATI x1650 (Device ID 71c6) I decided to buy a new graphics card. What made me buy that ATI (or in general an ATI card) again?

Where to obtain

German users are provided with a link to Amazon.de where they can buy exactly the graphics card I used for the following howto. But in contrast to my fellow german users the american users cannot be provided with such a link, because Amazon.com doesn’t offer that card. Search it elsewhere or just order from the german Amazon store using this link: Sapphire RADEON HD 2600 XT PCIe ). This should be most hazzle-free way for you…

How to install (_t_h_e___h_a_z_z_l_e___f_r_e_e___w_a_y_)

Ok so, after having bought this new graphic card, don’t just install it yet into your tower or desktop. Instead boot your system into OS X while having your old graphics card installed. Follow those steps:

  1. Login into OS X as root.
  2. Get the new Netkas Natit Driver (link)
  3. install it to /System/Library/Extensions/
  4. Make sure you set the right permissions to the Natit.kext : open terminal and type: chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/Natit.kext
  5. shutdown your system, unplug electricity and replace your graphics cards
  6. plug power chord and boot your system.
  7. you should be done…

Circumventing issues

If anything does not work and your screen looks garbled. I recommend having an XP or Vista installed on another drive and use MediaFour’s MacDrive 7. So you can download the driver again and copy to your OSX partition and install it manually in single user mode (provide -s at OSX boottime).

id41_w2207screen

Sapphire ATI2600 XT 256MB
with HP w2207 (click to enlarge)

Final words

We hope you had some fun and we could provide you with some help here. If you are satisfied with this solution, you may consider our sponsors. They really got the coolest offers. Thanks :-)

Addendums for the german speaking community

Falls Ihr Fragen zu der Anleitung habt, bitte in die Kommentare. Wenn sich mehr als fünf deutschsprachige Leute melden, übersetze ich den Artikel. Ansonsten: wer exakt die Karte sucht, die ich verwendet habe, kauft bitte im deutschen Amazon Shop genau diese Karte hier: Sapphire RADEON HD 2600 XT PCIe 256 MB DDR3 128 Bit, Dual DVI, TV-Out, HDMI, OpenGL, DirectX10 Retail!!!

9 thoughts on “[MacOS] Experiences with Sapphire ATI HD 2600XT 256MB (Device ID 9588)

  1. d.villalobos

    I tried to install my sapphire 2600 xt 256 mb while still having my x1600 on , but this stuff doesnt work for me…. I copy the natit driver in extensions directory, go to terminal type in the line “chown ect… “but i get many line with operation not permitted. I restart computer with my sapphire 2600 and I get the screen that looks garbled.

    What difference will it make if I copy the file from windows ?????

    PLZ help

  2. metapapa

    did you login as ROOT ? you cannot change file permissions in the extensions folder, if you are not logged in as root…

  3. radim

    type it with sudo and you don’t have to be ROOT

    sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/Natit.kext

  4. Lux

    You wrote, to use the windows drivers could be a way. Is it really possible to use drivers for Win in OSX? How to do this? Which files for the drivers are needed? (i want to try this way for Intel GMX 3100 graphics)

  5. Luxxx

    I was not sucessfull (no QE!) with this way for a MSI RX2600PRO 512MB for PCI-Express.

    BUT i have found the right patch for this (only install and go) on the iPC_OSx86_10_5_6_Universal_PPF5_Final DVD in the Folder: /System/Installation/Packages/OSx86Patches/
    Filename: RHD2600ProPCIE

    BTW: In this folder you also find a driver for 2600XT and more!

  6. Markk

    Hi
    i’ve tried the procedure very carefully but my sapphire 2600 didnt work on my 8core 2.8ghz
    Maybe because i’ve dismounted the original Ati radeon 2600 and was using the mac thru Apple remote desktop?
    Very irritating btw that on bootcamp the card worked perfectly..
    Any help?
    Thanks

    Marco

  7. Pingback: Apple ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Graphi... Reviews

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