Zitat von Lost_N_BIOS im Beitrag #15

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MSI is such a pain! I hoped M-Flash would clear NVRAM and only use what the now new defaults were, but I guess not.

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Zitat von Lost_N_BIOS im Beitrag #15

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This has previous changes + Main NVRAM edited + internal NVRAM above AMITSE, these are only ones that do not carry risk of causing issue like you ran into on first NVRAM edit we did.
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fil...879892503123866

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Ahh!!! No good! Did you miss this? >> "flash using M-Flash only (DO NOT FPT flash this)"
As I mentioned at post #13 ONLY flash those BIOS with M-Flash, why did you not stop there and tell me again??? At least you didn't use FPT, so there's that

Please explain, why M-Flash isn't working, do you mean you can't even use M-Flash with stock BIOS on USB?
If not, then something in your process is flawed probably. USB should be MBR initialized, FAT32 formatted, and BIOS should be named as stock and on root of USB (not in any folders).
Also, smaller USB the better, and should probably be only 2.0 too, but not sure if there is issues with 3.0 USB w/ M-Flash or not

Thanks for test result though, this means one of those NVRAM edits is the culprit of this issue (or a conflict with the others we didn't edit this time), I'll go back and recheck those and see if I can find any issue.
Here, one more similar to test, since your not using M-Flash, this is previous setup/Amitse/Setupdata edit + full stock NVRAM in both areas (edited) instead of your dumped NVRAM
If this fails with PCI resource error too, then one of those others must also need edited (but possibly not all, not worth more time trying to test to find out one by one, will just put time toward BIOS edit that I know will work instead)
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fil...742392664147821

See if you can get the boot to grub going, if you can then you can likely change there. If not, and above BIOS fails too, then wait and I will wrap up that proper BIOS menu edit I mentioned.

* Edit - Sorry, I forgot to ask, where did you get this AMI Firmware Update tool 2.38? Is this AFU, and 2.38? If yes, that is VERY VERY old version and should not be used at all for flashing BIOS on modern motherboards.
I assume it can't be that, I don't think AFU 2.x would work on BIOS like this. Current AFU would be 5.x

** Edit 2 - @eurodomenii - You know what, I just thought of something! Maybe the choice of setting value we used here is the issue (all along and recently #15 BIOS too) and first edit methods I gave you with all those NVRAM edits is actually OK edit just that we can't use 2048MB?
Maybe we need to use 1024MB only? I guess we'll find out once I make you BIOS with full menu access for that section. If that is the case, then hopefully 1024MB will work for you still.

Watching this thread with interest, I have a Asus prime z370-a II that has the same limitation that I'd like to get past for the same reason. (GVT-g).

The 1024MB limit might be real, from this thread discussing citrix using GVT-g virtual GPUs:
https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/382...-graphics-p580/

"Setting the Aperture size higher than 1024MB is not supported and it does not increase the number of VMs which can be started on a host."

Not sure how accurate that is but its apparently written in the citrix docs. I know the other memory setting (DVMT) for the iGPU on my motherboard only goes up to 1024MB.

@BroccoliCheddar - I can make you unlocked BIOS easy, please make a thread and I will get an unlocked BIOS menu made for you. Or, can you already see the setting, just not choose amount you want? I see yours offers up to 4096MB
** And!! I see this note in you BIOS help string file for that setting >> Note : Above 4GB MMIO BIOS assignment is automatically enabled when selecting 2048MB aperture. To use this feature, please disable CSM Support.
So, maybe to use 2048, MMIO need changed too, on this board? At least now we know it's related - I checked, and it's disabled by default on this MSI board.
And for your board, if you can see and adjust it already, try again with CSM disabled and 2048 or 4096 selected.

I checked your BIOS and I can do menu unlock for you and just give you full access to the hidden advanced, then you can set directly and test

Thank you very much for the 1024MB notes, I do wonder if that is it! I think we shall soon find out, either if he's able to change it with above info, or when I give him menu mod BIOS
DVMT I see sometimes is artificially limited by BIOS supression, but I do think too sometimes CPU can be deciding factor as well but I'm not 100% certain on that because majority of people I run into never use onboard GFX

I found this mod BIOS thread for a H170 board, once unlocked so user could choose 2048MB, it auto-reset back to 1024MB.
He also couldn't even set 1024 or 512 and get into system, but I doubt that is limits on Z390, but we'll never know until we know the actual cause of the limitation and can look it up (@ Intel CPU or chipset I assume)
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-R...D-Aperture-Size

Seems like Here at second reply on Intel forum, this may also be tied to amount of system memory installed
https://forums.intel.com/s/question/0D50...?language=en_US

That wouldn't be possible with the way we're locking in 2048MB, so I can see how if this is a limitation due to CPU, chipset or whatever that it would fail and cause error when locked above the limit.
So this may indeed be the real issue from the jump on our first edits that showed the PCI resource error in BIOS.

@eurodomenii - I have mod BIOS ready, but would prefer you M-Flash the BIOS,, otherwise I will walk you through making a FPT BIOS region dump and send me that, then I edit it instead and send it back for you to FPT flash.
Can you please try again using M-Flash as I mentioned above with stock BIOS, until you figure it out

Meantime, since you've already been flashing this kind of edit in a way you are familiar with, here is that same BIOS from #15, but with edits changed to 1024MB instead of 2048MB
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fil...308615130454335

@eurodomenii - Since this is all time sensitive stuff due to try-before-you-buy, here, in case you don't want to mess with all I mentioned above. I'd prefer this get flashed via M-Flash, but it's your board (trial)
This has full chipset menu now at top of OC section, so you can now set Aperture directly - https://ufile.io/ha6mpjrl

Sorry for the delayed answer. I’ve managed to work with M-Flash. The 1024MB-Test.7z from #19 worked like a charm. All other previous mods with 2048M failed with the same error: “ ERROR: Insufficient PCI Resources Detected”. So, indeed, 2048 was the culprit ( nice catch @Lost_N_BIOS) I’ll be back with further details.
Update: The latest mod from #20, with configurable aperture size, works also. But, when trying to select from BIOS 2048, falls back in that very interface, to 1024.

@eurodomenii - It's OK, and it's good to hear back from you! Nice that you got M-Flash sorted out too, that is best way to flash when you can. I thought maybe it was the forced 2048 after that info from @BroccoliCheddar (Thanks man )
Also, very nice to see the unlock menu BIOS works for you, and you can set 1024MB there at least! So, now we know, very first BIOS edits worked OK, we just forced an impossible setting for this setup/BIOS/Chipset/CPU (whatever is causing the limit)

Can you test, CSM disabled, 2048 and manually change 4GB MMIO BIOS assignment to Enabled, it's at Chipset >> System Agent (SA) Configuration (Root)? This way we're sure it's being set correctly to be using 2048 if at all possible.
Other than this, I am not sure what would limit some BIOS, chipset, CPU etc to have some boards/BIOS allow 4GB while others limited to 1GB? More research on your desired usage/reasoning may turn up answers.
Does 1024MB work for what you needed to do? What is the reason for needing this raised, are you forced to using onboard graphics, and if yes, can you link me to some discussions about this in your usages area so maybe I can find why some systems might be limited and others aren't
Maybe then I could sort it out? If not, you may need to ask MSI Directly for a BIOS that would allow it (If they gave you, it would be hidden, but I could unhide again for you)

Once again, you’ve got a very good intuition. Before your message, I’ve already seen an warning message: “Select the Aperture Size Note: Above 4GB MMIO BIOS assignment is automatically enabled when selecting 2048MB aperture. To use this feature, please disable CSM Support.”


But, I couldn't find how to disable CSM Support. In Settings/ Boot I’ve already had Boot mode select UEFI. This was confusing. Fortunately, this post https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=269698.0 has enlightened me: “ CSM = Asus
Windows 8.1/10 WHQL Support = MSI” , which is very counterintuitive, it might be as well Linux.

Afterwards, finally, it’s possible to setup aperture size to 2048 ( Above 4GB MMIO BIOS becomes hidden and enabled) . Congrats for your tenacity, intuition and great work!

lspci -v | less

00:02.0 Display controller: Intel Corporation Device 3e98 (rev 02)
Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] Device 7c00
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 135
Memory at 6013000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at 4000000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=2G]



ls /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:02.0/mdev_supported_types
i915-GVTg_V5_1 i915-GVTg_V5_2 i915-GVTg_V5_4 i915-GVTg_V5_8

2GB aperture size is very relevant for creating more Intel GVT virtual machines ( see https://github.com/intel/gvt-linux/issue...mment-353817255 )
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BTW, somehow off topic ( or actually, this was the initial name of this topic ), how can I determine, from the latest BIOS, if the motherboard has the aperture size configurable from interface, or hidden?

Analyzing https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-Z390M-MORTAR latest bios, obtained with extractor, I see that aperture size belongs to Form: Graphics Configuration, FormId: 0x274A {01 86 4A 27 14 0B}.

I was trying to follow the markup Suppress If {0A 82}/ End If {29 02}, but Aperture size seems to be in the visible part.

0x590AE One Of: Aperture Size, VarStoreInfo (VarOffset/VarName): 0x968, VarStore: 0x1, QuestionId: 0x2746, Size: 1, Min: 0x0, Max 0xF, Step: 0x0 {05 91 BF 0B C0 0B 46 27 01 00 68 09 14 10 00 0F 00}
0x590BF One Of Option: 128MB, Value (8 bit): 0x0 {09 07 C1 0B 00 00 00}
0x590C6 One Of Option: 256MB, Value (8 bit): 0x1 {09 07 C2 0B 00 00 01}
0x590CD One Of Option: 512MB, Value (8 bit): 0x3 {09 07 C3 0B 00 00 03}
0x590D4 One Of Option: 1024MB, Value (8 bit): 0x7 {09 07 C4 0B 00 00 07}
0x590DB One Of Option: 2048MB, Value (8 bit): 0xF (default) {09 07 C5 0B 30 00 0F}
0x590E2 End One Of {29 02}


Yet, you needed to modify the BIOS, in order to expose this setting. There’s a catch I’am missing!

BTW, the latest BIOS from https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/ROG-ST.../HelpDesk_BIOS/ (the motherboard that I’m planning to buy ) has the aperture size option hidden or visible?

@eurodomenii - Good you found CSM, yes, some BIOS just roll that all up into a Win8-10 or not type setting, while others have CSM and Windows type setting separately or only one or the others.

So, sweet, you got it enabled now to 2048MB, correct?? Sorry, I can't tell, not familiar with Linux so the readout above looks alien to me (no 2048MB shown either, so makes me really lost )

On your second post (I'll merge with first after typing this out). Do you mean can we tell if Aperture is a visible BIOS setting in other board BIOS, just by looking at BIOS?
If that is what you mean, no, I usually can't tell, you'd have to look for board reviews and check the BIOS images and see. Luckily, most board review sites show plenty of BIOS images, but sadly sometimes not all is shown so would be hard to know for sure on ones where you don't see it shown.
Maybe hunt down board owners on this forum, or others and ask them in a private message.

For your BIOS mod, the Aperture setting was not hidden, but the entire root menu it was inside of was hidden (Chipset). So you could tell in that way when looking at other BIOS, if you only see it within the root of a known missing from BIOS images section of the BIOS (such as chipset, which is often hidden)
Other times though it may only be in Advanced, and there is often a hidden advanced too, you can tell them apart by hidden one usually has many more submenus than the visible one.
On the Asus Strix Z390-E, I looked at BIOS and could not be sure. Location >> Advanced >> System Agent >> Graphics Config.
There is only one Advanced, and in those cases it's usually visible but with some submenus hidden, so I had to check reviews for BIOS images
Here we see System Agent is visible - https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploa...iew-UEFI-14.jpg

But, no reviews I found show inside System Agent. Anyway, if hidden I can modify this BIOS easily for you, much less hassle with Asus BIOS than MSI BIOS
I checked setup, it's not suppressed, and due to that, if it's not visible then it only takes one byte change to Access Level setting to make it visible.

Zitat von Lost_N_BIOS im Beitrag #24

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So, sweet, you got it enabled now to 2048MB, correct?? Sorry, I can't tell, not familiar with Linux so the readout above looks alien to me (no 2048MB shown either, so makes me really lost )

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Zitat von Lost_N_BIOS im Beitrag #24

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I checked setup, it's not suppressed, and due to that, if it's not visible then it only takes one byte change to Access Level setting to make it visible.

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@eurodomenii - Ahhh! You ended up sending this MSI board back? If so, at least we still have a known tested and working BIOS mod from it's use in this thread for others now

For Aperture visibility in Asus Strix Z390-E Gaming BIOS 0805, with UEFITool 51-56, extract AMITSE/SetupData (BODY), then byte change is as shown below
Ignore "Default" info, it can be default show yes, and not suppressed, and still be hidden from user (due to however they program the "Default" itself)


This assumes you can already see >> Advanced >> System Agent (SA) Configuration >> Graphics Configuration submenu, if not then that submenu will also need unsuppressed via "Setup PE32" (As-IS) edit as shown below
*Edit - @eurodomenii << See edit below, I missed some earlier!