iMac Pro X299 - Live the Future now with macOS 10.14 Mojave [Successful Build/Extended Guide]

[izo1]

Rushing the cards out. Probably low yield/defective data center cards revamped for gaming.

And we keep supporting these companies because we have no other choice

 

[kgp]

And we keep supporting these companies because we have no other choice

Extactly

 

[izo1]

Extactly

I was almost going to get a 2nd Vega FE and add it to the loop since I have a 2nd waterblock from EKWB.... But it would be nice just to use 1 GPU

The other issue is this Radeon VII is basically a 2 year old GTX1080Ti for $700 USD..........Apple needs to support NVIDIA, it's getting crazy!

Even I have some friends who work in the film industry as editors, have moved to Windows because of CUDA/NVIDIA and lack of Apple support. I really hope the Pro market hurts Apple's pockets a little bit so they refocus on that market more....which will eventually help the Hackintosh community. But I'm not holding my breath.

 

[eiriasemrys]

I was almost going to get a 2nd Vega FE and add it to the loop since I have a 2nd waterblock from EKWB.... But it would be nice just to use 1 GPU

The other issue is this Radeon VII is basically a 2 year old GTX1080Ti for $700 USD..........Apple needs to support NVIDIA, it's getting crazy!

Even I have some friends who work in the film industry as editors, have moved to Windows because of CUDA/NVIDIA and lack of Apple support. I really hope the Pro market hurts Apple's pockets a little bit so they refocus on that market more....which will eventually help the Hackintosh community. But I'm not holding my breath.

It's so frustrating. Apple keeps doing these low-key appearances at local editor groups here in LA to promote the pro products and make promises/hints at the 2019 Mac Pro. Honestly I think they've done a decent job at making their laptops and iMacs able to handle pro software and performance, however aside from road-warriors and editors, I don't feel like they've addressed the truly high-end production market. Colorists, VFX studios, 3D animation studios need big boxes with great cooling and all the horsepower that you can put into a system. These kind of studios buy many stations at a time, so I'm really not sure what Apple's strategy is to recapture that clientele.

At one point, here in LA you could go in any post house and it would be all Mac Pros and some iMacs. Now its either old Mac Pros or linux boxes. We're starved for an enterprise post-production workhorse. I'm sure they are aware, I just don't get why we've had to wait so long when the obvious solution is a redux of the Cheese Grater Mac Pro with modern internals and thunderbolt. Like, FFS, just take our money and make the box! We don't need the iPhone of Mac Pros, we need the boring Linux box of Mac Pros.

 

[Alex.boss]

As commonly known, my iMacPro X299 Build and Desktop Guides are based on the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe. However, also all other X299 mainboards should be largely compatible with the actual guidelines. The same states for build and guide compatibility with all Skylake-X/299 CPUs different form the i9-7980XE (employed here).

 

[izo1]

It's so frustrating. Apple keeps doing these low-key appearances at local editor groups here in LA to promote the pro products and make promises/hints at the 2019 Mac Pro. Honestly I think they've done a decent job at making their laptops and iMacs able to handle pro software and performance, however aside from road-warriors and editors, I don't feel like they've addressed the truly high-end production market. Colorists, VFX studios, 3D animation studios need big boxes with great cooling and all the horsepower that you can put into a system. These kind of studios buy many stations at a time, so I'm really not sure what Apple's strategy is to recapture that clientele.

At one point, here in LA you could go in any post house and it would be all Mac Pros and some iMacs. Now its either old Mac Pros or linux boxes. We're starved for an enterprise post-production workhorse. I'm sure they are aware, I just don't get why we've had to wait so long when the obvious solution is a redux of the Cheese Grater Mac Pro with modern internals and thunderbolt. Like, FFS, just take our money and make the box! We don't need the iPhone of Mac Pros, we need the boring Linux box of Mac Pros.

Steve always knew that even though the bread and butter wasn't the Pro market, that market was an essential part of Apple's DNA because they are the content creators that make a dent in the world. Not people who post on Facebook.

Of course he wanted Apple to be profitable, but someone like Tim Cook does not understand this. But I could go on for days about this...me being a die hard Apple person for more than 10-15 years.

FCPX is NOT going to become the standard like FCP7 (and previous) was. It just isn't. I still know people who use 2010 Mac Pros..this industry is not that "forward thinking" in terms of "magnet timelines" or whatever the hell they call it. They just use what works and is stable. The reason for FCP7s success was that it was affordable and anyone could buy it, not that it was "innovative" (because it wasn't). People in professional environments care only for a few things: Stability, performance, longetivity and legacy.

I did also see almost all Macs in post houses, matter of fact not just post houses but everywhere...except where hardcore 3d artists work (who are mostly on Maya anyway, and Windows works better there).

I think that Apple has taken advantage of it's loyal user base, especially the Pro video related people. Logic/Music people are fine as the MacBook Pro line is doing ok and so is iMac.

I have seriously had contemplated to move to Windows, but I am a designer and I cannot look at Windows let alone use it full time. Over the years I must have went through 10-15 Macs and everywhere I worked it was all Macs.

This year, perhaps, Tim will finally cater to Pros more because their iPhones aren't doing well in China and they aren't breaking any new markets. Let's hope. It's just sad that it feels like every day might be the last day on macOS.

Anyway, don't want to flood this thread with hate or stuff that we already knew

Radeon VII looks fine, hopefully it's fully supported in PB2 of 10.14.4. Seems like UEFI is a non-issue now.

 

[Alex.boss]

As commonly known, my iMacPro X299 Build and Desktop Guides are based on the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe. However, also all other X299 mainboards should be largely compatible with the actual guidelines. The same states for build and guide compatibility with all Skylake-X/299 CPUs different form the i9-7980XE (employed here).

Before starting with all detailed instructions, please find a Table of Content that provides an overview of the individual topics addressed within this guide:

 

[gamingaccess]

First steps with a Sapphire Radeon VII under macOS 10.14.3 (18D42) and 10.14.3 SU (18D109)

View attachment 386575

Today, I encountered a unique opportunity to perform some dirty first steps and tests with a Sapphire Radeon VII under macOS 10.14.3 (18D42) and macOS 10.14.3 SU (18D109) on a friend's system here in Berlin.

View attachment 385897

1.) The first disappointing discovery independent from macOS was that this GPU for now apparently seems not compatible with UEFI. The BIOS enforced "CSM" by default otherwise the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe system would not have booted at all.

2.) Once under macOS 10.14.3, the Radeon VII was rather recognised by macOS like a Vega Frontier at first place, with only one DP1.4 port actually natively working.

View attachment 385879

3.) After applying just some cosmetics to SSDT-X299-Vega64.aml and implementing the latter in line with Whatevergreen.kext, the Radeon VII appeared under "About this Mac" such:

View attachment 385880
Thanks to SSDT-X299-Radeon-VII.aml (which is basically SSDT-X299-Vega64.aml), Radeon VII and Radeon VII HD-Audio PCI drivers also correctly popped-up in Section "PCI" of Apple's system Report as properly implemented and fully loaded:

View attachment 385885


View attachment 385886

In combination with Whatevergreen.kext, the three DP1.4 ports and the single HDMI port of the Sapphire Radeon VII also have been properly implemented in form of just four Radeon frame buffers + the respective HDAU device.

View attachment 385887

All four ports were fully functional, including display HotPlug and multi-monitor support. Also sleep/wake worked absolutely flawless.

The UI worked fluid without an issues or lag and also video playback fully worked as expected.

Now the bad news at least for macOS 10.14.3 (18D42) and macOS 10.14.3 SU (18D109):

All benchmark tools available, i.e. Cinebench OpenGL, Geekbench OpenGL and Metal, LuXMark OpenGL or Heaven and Valley were not able to find any GPU supporting OpenGL or Metal.

Thus, unfortunately under the above mentioned macOS versions, the Radeon VII seems yet not to support OpenGL or Metal so far.

Thought that this recent findings also might be interesting for others ..


View attachment 385888

In your opinion, from 1 to 100, how close is this card ready for 3D acceleration on Mojave?

 

[RuleBreaker01]

Hi.

For owner of the LG HDR 5K2K screen (34WK95U-W), connected via DisplayPort.
In the folder
/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-1e6d

Add a file named DisplayProductID-7720
containing:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>DisplayPixelDimensions</key>
    <data>
    AAAUAAAACHA=
    </data>
    <key>DisplayProductID</key>
    <integer>30496</integer>
    <key>DisplayProductName</key>
    <string>LG HDR 5K</string>
    <key>DisplayVendorID</key>
    <integer>7789</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

Save and reboot.

Now go into the System Preferences -> Display
and you have access to the real scaled resolutions.

 

[kgp]

Hi.

For owner of the LG HDR 5K2K screen (34WK95U-W), connected via DisplayPort.
In the folder
/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-1e6d

Add a file named DisplayProductID-7720
containing:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>DisplayPixelDimensions</key>
    <data>
    AAAUAAAACHA=
    </data>
    <key>DisplayProductID</key>
    <integer>30496</integer>
    <key>DisplayProductName</key>
    <string>LG HDR 5K</string>
    <key>DisplayVendorID</key>
    <integer>7789</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

Save and reboot.

Now go into the System Preferences -> Display
and you have access to the real scaled resolutions.

View attachment 386654

That's absolutely gorgeous, man! removes all resolution issues and makes SwitchResX basically obsolete..

Your most important contribution by far