Contribute
Register

Suggestions for enabling encoding acceleration

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Oct 30, 2018
Messages
321
Motherboard
GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS ELITE
CPU
i7-10700K
Graphics
RX 5700XT
Mac
  1. iMac
  2. MacBook Pro
  3. Mac mini
  4. Mac Pro
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
I just installed a Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX5700 XT in my MasterZee build as I intend to move forward with doing some video work with the system. It seemed everything was working perfectly. Cinebench gives an OpenGL result of 123fps which, is modest-but-acceptable as my RX580 pushed 115 on the same tests.

VideoProc however, informs me that H264 and HEVC acceleration hardware is "unavailable". That can't be good.

Searching through threads on the topic reveal some discussions as old as 2011 which do not seem to apply to Catalina configurations using the RX 5700 XT GPU.

iGPU is disabled on the system and, I have no problem switching SMB definitions if need-be. I am currently using iMac 18,3 with the VERY latest WeG and Lilu.

Not doing anything about it until someone with some knowledge can point me in the right direction... uncharted territory for me.

Thanks.
 
@HackinMax,

You have two options,

1. Enable the IGPU and configure it as Headless which should enable IQS for encode/decode :-


2. Use the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS with the IGPU disabled and no shikigva=XXX boot argument.
That SMBIOS forces the dGPU to do everything, with the added bonus of native DRM working 100% :-


Cheers
Jay
 
Last edited:
@HackinMax,

You have two options,

1. Enable the IGPU and configure it as Headless which should enable IQS for encode/decode :-

2. Use the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS with the IGPU disabled and no shikigva=XXX boot argument.
That SMBIOS forces the dGPU to do everything, with the added bonus of native DRM working 100% :-

Cheers
Jay

I had no luck whatsoever with enabling the iGPU with the RX5700 XT... Black screens all around. Seems such a waste to pull it out after everything required to get it working.

So, I will try changing over to the iMacPro1,1 option tonight.(It's using iMac18,1 ATM) I believe I need to uninstall Adobe whilst changing profiles - to avoid triggering their (PitA) security measures. So, that will take a 'minute' to sort.

Thanks for the info!
 
I had no luck whatsoever with enabling the iGPU with the RX5700 XT... Black screens all around. Seems such a waste to pull it out after everything required to get it working.


@HackinMax,

As stated in the guide, using the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS is a good option for those users who experienced issues when enabling and configuring the IGPU as headless. On most systems the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS works very well and in most cases allows the best use of the dGPU.

I know what you mean about Adobe apps ... ;) have been through that pain myself more than once in the past.

Cheers
Jay
 
@HackinMax,

As stated in the guide, using the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS is a good option for those users who experienced issues when enabling and configuring the IGPU as headless. On most systems the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS works very well and in most cases allows the best use of the dGPU.

I know what you mean about Adobe apps ... ;) have been through that pain myself more than once in the past.

Cheers
Jay

iMacPro 1,1 Worked like a charm with iGPU disabled. H264 and HEVC hardware acceleration is now enabled. As a bonus to the change, I even received a bit of an uptick in Cinebench which, is always welcome.

Also in the guide was an interesting section on AppleALC. I think I will make those changes as well since it seems to be the wave of the future.

Thank you for taking the time to help.

[EDIT] Out of curiosity, I tried enableing iGPU on this system config. MasterZee still works perfectly with the intel graphics active.

Screen Shot 2019-12-20 at 11.32.07 PM.jpg
Screen Shot 2019-12-20 at 11.43.21 PM.jpg
 
Last edited:
Same issue here, can't enable internal graphics along with an RX5700XT as it results in a memory allocation boot error.
Would love to get the iMac 19,1 SMBIOS working with a headless IGPU as it most closely matches the hardware/
 
iMacPro 1,1 Worked like a charm with iGPU disabled. H264 and HEVC hardware acceleration is now enabled. As a bonus to the change, I even received a bit of an uptick in Cinebench which, is always welcome.


@HackinMax,

Happy to help and that it worked for you ...

The old Cinebench OpenGL test is very bad benchmark as it is somewhat CPU bound and in fact has been completely removed from the latest version of Cinebench (currently at R20) which now only measures pure CPU performance.

OpenGL is pretty much dead now on MacOS, the best benchmark for GPU Compute is to run LuxMark which will use 100% of the GPU. If you really need to benchmark OpenGL then the Unigine Valley benchmark is about the best test.

Cheers
Jay
 
Last edited:
Same issue here, can't enable internal graphics along with an RX5700XT as it results in a memory allocation boot error.


@rankrotten,

You are not the first user to report having issues when trying to enable the IGPU as headless with a RX 5700 GPU as the primary display adapter. Headless IGPU usually works fine with all other AMD GPU's.

One possibility is that it is related to the still relatively early RX 5700 drivers in MacOS, if so then the drivers should mature with the next few releases of MacOS Catalina. The same was true for the Radeon VII and the Vega 56/64 before that. It seems to always take a few MacOS updates before Apple get a new GPU support nailed and stable.

Anther possibility is that it could be something to do with the ACPI device name and/or how the AMD GPU driver binds to the IGPU driver (which it should in a headless configuration), if this is the issue then the WhatEverGreen devs should be able to resolve it in a future update to WEG. My understanding is that some people cant use the current version of WEG with a RX 5700 and some can.

Unfortunately I dont have RX 5700 GPU so can't do any testing or investigations myself. For now you could use the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS as I suggested to @HackinMax in post #2.

Cheers
Jay
 
Last edited:
@HackinMax,

Happy to help and that it worked for you ...

The old Cinebench OpenGL test is very bad benchmark as it is somewhat CPU bound and in fact has been completely removed from the latest version of Cinebench (currently at R20) which now only measures pure CPU performance.

OpenGL is pretty much dead now on MacOS, the best benchmark for GPU Compute is to run LuxMark which will use 100% of the GPU. If you really need to benchmark OpenGL then the Unigine Valley benchmark is about the best test.

Cheers
Jay

Thanks again. Will try those and learn some optimization techniques. I've never been a gamer. So, before I started working with video production... as long as a GPU 'worked', I was good. Now... Performance suddenly matters.
 
I have same issue after set up macOS 10.15.2 and everything looks fine.

In Videoproc, both HEVC/H264 looks enabled but In actual any 4k video play and process, GPU(Both UHD630 & 5700) almost never used, only CPU is fully used.

I have tried every thing I could think and re-install 10 times including Macpro7,1 iMac Pro 1,1 iMac18,1 and 19,1, but still same as no use GPU for 4K video process.

Any idea how should I active GPU usage with high rate?
Both iGPU and dGPU no working at all.
 

Attachments

  • Snipaste_2020-01-08_13-50-06.png
    Snipaste_2020-01-08_13-50-06.png
    11.6 MB · Views: 119
  • Snipaste_2020-01-08_23-53-16.png
    Snipaste_2020-01-08_23-53-16.png
    11.6 MB · Views: 104
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top