I had to bite the bullet and update to Snow Leopard today. While the HD5770 can run in Leopard as a 2D card with no acceleration and only the native resolution of the connected monitor available, it needs 10.6.4
plus the SL Graphics Update to fully function.
Thankfully the Si3132 driver works well. Yay external backup.
SL is snappy on an SSD. Contextual menu plugins are dead (thanks Apple, that was a nice kick in the nuts), but thankfully I found FinderPop te replace the QuickAccess CM that was a real godsend. Now if I could just get shitlight turned off again.
Oh, and I utterly
hate, loathe, and despise the dock's submenu crap. WTB old single menu for right click in dock.
A warning about the 5770 (which is in stock at local bay Area Fry's (ALL of them!) in case you don't want to wait for Apple's 2-3 week ship time): The DVI port is
not HDCP compliant. Games like WoW will enter interlaced mode if you try to use 1080p or higher on the DVI port. I have a MD->HDMI adapter on the way which I hope will not only solve that, but give me full audio out via HDMI.
All I need to do now is shell out for the upgrade to USB Overdrive and I'm set for now.
GG 3 SSDs, one for for my boot drive (Intel 80 GB 2nd Gen), one for my music/games (OWC SF1200 40 GB), and World of Warcraft (OCZ Summit 60 GB). Now I can pretty much take my HD and move it to the external HD dock and eliminate the blasted vibration caused by the Mac Pro's poorly insulated media shelf (which btw is still a problem even with the 2010 Mac Pro).
I may try to make an SATA backplane to eSATA bracket adapter by using an IcyDock w/ its door left off and an SATA cable connected to its internal connector going to an eSATA bracket, which would give me bootable access to the HD dock instead of just clone capability after the fact.
Here's hoping 10.6.5 comes out soon - Blizzard silently forced the WoW client to require 10.6.5 instead od 10.6.4 to use the Ultra settings.