macOS Sierra PB: Need testers for new AMD Radeon drivers!

[Gigamaxx]

I followed the instructions and my Sapphire RX 480 8GB (reference) works. All I did was just like:



Issues: Main monitor is DP and works great. Second monitor is connected by HDMI and won't work at all. If I uncheck Inject ATI and Inject Intel, it works, but the resolution is off and very pixelated/laggy on the second monitor. Main monitor seems to work just fine under those settings, however About This Mac shows R9 xxx instead of RX 480.

Also, FCPX 10.3 crashes as soon as it opens. This was happening with my R9 280x, but it was a failing card which is why I just replaced it (I was having other issues with that card). If I remove the GPU and just use Intel integrated graphics, FCPX works just fine.

Any insight on any of this?

Also, screen shots:

The R9 XXX name is only a cosmetic issue, it gets changed by the latest clover to RX 480 but doesn't effect performance.

Something you could try, Intel fake ID 0x04128086, and ig platform 0d220003. If you do this you should be able to inject ATI to get RX 480 name corrected. If you dont inject anything Intel or ATI and use these numbers the R9 xxx name will come up but your performance may improve.
When you get to clover boot screen, before you hit enter disconnect cable to CPU graphics or Igpu. Hit enter and if you get to log in screen the RX should be fully supported and run the highest benchmark scores. It may work for fcpx as well as long as you have the igpu with metal support by adding fake ID and ig numbers.

I use these#s on my g3258 Haswell pentium rig for igpu and it works well, not sure about the 4790k, but it's a Haswell.

 

[minaight]

It's very good, have you downloaded Uningine Valley? You should be able to get a 1800-1900 score in "Extreme HD" mode. If you get that score you are in good shape.

thank you so much for the reply!! I havent downloaded unigine valley but i can do it tomorrow and i will post results here!!! the only thing is that i have black screen until the log in screen, so i cant see clover and choose partition or windows or whatever I want...is any way to fox this?? i have igfx enabled in my bios and hdmi connected to my rx 470...

 

[Gigamaxx]

thank you so much for the reply!! I havent downloaded unigine valley but i can do it tomorrow and i will post results here!!! the only thing is that i have black screen until the log in screen, so i cant see clover and choose partition or windows or whatever I want...is any way to fox this?? i have igfx enabled in my bios and hdmi connected to my rx 470...

Connect the hdmi to motherboard (igpu) clover screen comes up, make adjustments, switch cable to RX Card "then" hit return/enter. Its a pain but its the only way for now to get the best acceleration. You can also use "Startup Disk" option in System Preferences, but I think it's a one way trip. You can use that to boot into Windows but I'm not sure if you can get back into OS unless you use "Delete Key" to get bios menu and select proper Partition.

If your monitor has two cable inputs you can connect both, as long as the monitor can handle it. I'm using a AOC 24" and it has 2 HDMI ports. For browsing and normal tasks I leave both IGPU and RX card connected and boot up. If I disconnect the IGPU cable the screen goes blank for a few seconds and then I get the RX supported screen, it works well but is sharing graphics support with the IGPU so benchmarks are about 7-15% lower. IF I plan on maximum graphics for the RX I just disconnect the IGPU HDMI "before" hitting enter.

Some people memorize the location of their windows partition for example hitting the side arrow 3 times etc. and do it with the black screen. Just turn on system, wait 2 second then hit right arrow 3 times and then hit enter. Use hdmi to motherboard to view how many right clicks it takes to get to windows button, then memorize it. You may have to do left clicks? Doing it this way assures you come back to Sierra if you have auto boot/fast boot activated.

The way you're booting now is giving you the best performance for the rx card, if the igpu as primary gets solved it will be a nice change and easier for everybody.

 

[araudio]

So the "Sierra" Public Beta came out today, which includes a new set of AMD drivers: AMD9500Controller.kext and an update to AMDRadeonX4000.kext.
While it is obviously meant for the new/upcoming "Polaris" chipset (=> RX 460, 470, 480), it has already proven to accelerate the (previously unsupported) "Fiji" chipset, which is included in R9 Nano, Fury and Fury X.

Additionally, AMD9500Controller finally contains a framebuffer matching a standard PC card, which is already a very good sign!

Before you get too excited: Most GPUs are not OOB (yet?), and very little has been tested so far. And here we need you!
I'm especially interested in tests of formerly unsupported GPUs (Fiji, Polaris), but all other AMD tests are welcome as well.
I'll provide a short guide on what to do/test with which GPU:

General things to consider:
Since El Capitan we've seen some annoying bugs affecting AMD Radeon GPUs:

1. Sleep/wake is broken on all recent (HD 6000+) GPUs, unless you configure your iGPU as primary graphics device (BIOS)
2. Tonga-based GPUs will boot to black screen unless you configure your iGPU as primary graphics device (BIOS)

I'd like to find out if both bugs persist in Sierra, so please test with both iGPU = Primary & Secondary.
Besides that, I'd like you to test all ports (especially in multi-monitor setups) and, obviously, the performance.
Personally, I prefer the Unigine Valley benchmark with "Extreme HD" preset, since this puts a lot of load on your GPU.

"Polaris": RX 480, RX 470, RX 460
I guess that's what most people are interested in at the moment:
From what I can tell, AMD9500Controller contains all relevant device IDs, so any Polaris GPU should cause AMD9500Controller to load. Polaris 11 (RX 460) also has it's device IDs in AMDRadeonX4000.kext, so it should provide full acceleration OOB!

Polaris 10 (RX 480, RX 470) however is missing, so you won't see acceleration. Try spoofing your device ID to any Polaris 11 ID (one of those: 0x67E01002 0x67FF1002 0x67EF1002). Details on how to achieve this can be found in our comprehensive Radeon Guide.

Try using both the generic RadeonFramebuffer and the newly added Dayman framebuffer.

"Fiji": R9 Nano, R9 Fury, R9 Fury X
As above, try spoofing your device ID to match any Polaris 11 ID. If this doesn't work, do as described here.
There's no matching framebuffer, so only "RadeonFramebuffer" for now, unless you want to make your own.

If you're booting to a black screen...
... try setting iGPU = Primary in your BIOS. In case your CPU doesn't have integrated graphics, a 2nd dGPU might also do the trick.


Thanks in advance & have fun!


Results:
It seems the situation of previously supported GPUs didn't change notably compared to El Capitan so far:

1. Sleep/wake issues are still present
2. Tonga based GPUs can't boot without iGPU = Primary
3. GCN 1.1 GPUs (Hawaii & Bonaire) are still hit-and-miss

Apparently Apple has changed the structure of all framebuffer personalities from 16 bytes per connector to 24 bytes per connector, so if you were using a modified framebuffer in the past, you'll have to rewrite the patch. Have a look at wildwillow's R9 380 connectors patch as an example.
Good news: Apple has introduced some new framebuffer personalities, one of which is a 100% match for reference Tonga GPUs.

We didn't have reports on "Fiji" or "Polaris" yet. From the MacPro side we already know that the newly introduced drivers can pick up & accelerate the RX 480, but won't run stable yet. I'm still interested in more reports though, maybe my proposed method (spoofing the device ID) will make a difference.

Update September 23rd, 2016:
Not too much has changed in Sierra final: Sleep/wake is still an issue and Fiji & Polaris are still not 100% there. Many Polaris 10 cards (RX 470/480) can be enabled by spoofing the device ID or adding the device ID to X4000.kext/Info.plist. RX 470 seems to be a lot more stable & suitable for everyday use than RX 480. RX 460 has it's dev ID in the drivers, so it doesn't need any hacks.
All of those new cards will need iGPU = Primary, otherwise you'll boot to black screen! This means your boot screen / UEFI menu / Clover will only be displayed on your iGPU, the discrete GPU stays black until OS X has fully loaded.

The first beta of 10.12.1 has introduced a new accelerator kext: AMDRadeonX4100.kext. It contains the "Baffin" section which was formerly located in X4000. Additionally, it seems to be fully stable now, even with the full-size Polaris 10 chip (RX 480)!

Please be aware that Polaris & Fiji support is still experimental. Apple can break or drop it anytime, since the drivers are not used in any real Macs. Additionally, the need for iGPU = Primary can become quite annoying.

 

[jerryy2345]

..., if the igpu as primary gets solved it will be a nice change and easier for everybody.

A little salt in the wound ...

Out of curiosity, I installed the current Ubuntu Studio onto a flash drive and after letting it settle in, I changed the igpu setting to pcie and booted. You may have guessed where this is going ... it booted just fine without the Intel igpu. I have not messed with it a lot, but it supports multiple monitors, though sound seems to be limited to only the hdmi port. i used the lspci command and it reports that it is using the standard amdgpu driver -- not the amdgpu-pro that AMD lists on their web-site. It boots fast too.

So it is possible to use these cards on these machines without the igpu, but getting macOS and Clover to do that remains to be done. But still a lot of progress has been done.

 

[fkpwolf]

Good news guys, my HIS RX 470 suddenly works
I couldn't remember what i changed in BIOS, but here is my current settings:

• Clover v3949
• Add 0x67DF1002 to /System/Library/Extensions/AMDRadeonX4100.kext/Contents/Info.plist (remember to fix permission and clear cache after saving, I use Kext Utility)
• config.plist: Inject ATI = true, and yes, that's it, that's the only config you need to change, no FBName or FakeID
• My BIOS setup: Primary Display = CPU Graphics (of course), DVMT Pre-Allocated = 256MB (see attachment for more details)

View attachment 222822

DP works, Heaven benchmark is on par with Windows 10 (it's a RX 470, not 480), I'm super happy with this, even though I've almost given up on it and ordered some other parts for my new CustoMini project.

View attachment 222821

UPDATE: I've have said that I also left Inject Intel = true

cool! I also use RX470 but didn't get it worked. I have tried all different options but still stuck before login screen.
Did you encounter the case I showed in macOS Sierra PB: Need testers for new AMD Radeon drivers!?

 

[Gigamaxx]

A little salt in the wound ...

Out of curiosity, I installed the current Ubuntu Studio onto a flash drive and after letting it settle in, I changed the igpu setting to pcie and booted. You may have guessed where this is going ... it booted just fine without the Intel igpu. I have not messed with it a lot, but it supports multiple monitors, though sound seems to be limited to only the hdmi port. i used the lspci command and it reports that it is using the standard amdgpu driver -- not the amdgpu-pro that AMD lists on their web-site. It boots fast too.

So it is possible to use these cards on these machines without the igpu, but getting macOS and Clover to do that remains to be done. But still a lot of progress has been done.

Cool! I hope it gets figured out before Vega 10 launches.

I can't wait for the Vega 10 cards to come out.

This is the Beta 4 12.2 9500controllerkext in iHex. It has the same pattern and volume or size as the polaris10 and Baffin support. I gotta start saving for one of these on launch day, hopefully its not over $800.

Vega-Mac Pro?
Polaris 10-iMac?
Polaris 11 Baffin-MacBook Pro=yes

 

[Gazzayeatman]

If I say that I can boot to Sierra with my RX460 set as primary, although it doesn't have acceleration. Is that progress?

 

[minaight]

The R9 XXX name is only a cosmetic issue, it gets changed by the latest clover to RX 480 but doesn't effect performance.

Something you could try, Intel fake ID 0x04128086, and ig platform 0d220003. If you do this you should be able to inject ATI to get RX 480 name corrected. If you dont inject anything Intel or ATI and use these numbers the R9 xxx name will come up but your performance may improve.
When you get to clover boot screen, before you hit enter disconnect cable to CPU graphics or Igpu. Hit enter and if you get to log in screen the RX should be fully supported and run the highest benchmark scores. It may work for fcpx as well as long as you have the igpu with metal support by adding fake ID and ig numbers.

I use these#s on my g3258 Haswell pentium rig for igpu and it works well, not sure about the 4790k, but it's a Haswell.

i have changed it with the app called iHex and now is showing the correct name of my card...

 

[minaight]

The R9 XXX name is only a cosmetic issue, it gets changed by the latest clover to RX 480 but doesn't effect performance.

Something you could try, Intel fake ID 0x04128086, and ig platform 0d220003. If you do this you should be able to inject ATI to get RX 480 name corrected. If you dont inject anything Intel or ATI and use these numbers the R9 xxx name will come up but your performance may improve.
When you get to clover boot screen, before you hit enter disconnect cable to CPU graphics or Igpu. Hit enter and if you get to log in screen the RX should be fully supported and run the highest benchmark scores. It may work for fcpx as well as long as you have the igpu with metal support by adding fake ID and ig numbers.

I use these#s on my g3258 Haswell pentium rig for igpu and it works well, not sure about the 4790k, but it's a Haswell.

I've changed the name to my original card's name with the app iHex!