Enabling igpu alongside RX580 for better Handbrake performance

[m0rb1u5]

Evening everyone

My Big Sur hackintosh is running very smoothly and all is good, but I am interested in utilising the onboard GPU of my i9-9900k to assist with Handbrake performance when creating x265 or x264 4k encodes of UHD untouched rips, which are 60-70GB and take a dog's age to do, even with all cores maxed out.

Having searched around on here and over at the Opencore guide, I am ready to give it a go and have a working bootable backup just in case!

What I was confused by though is the first screenshot attached (black background) shows the Device Properties panel in the opencore guide, which (if I understand it right) explains that I should have to enter 0300913E against the AAPL,ig-platform-id entry, which the setting for "for when the desktop iGPU is used only for computing tasks and not to drive a display".

Alongside that are two more properties to add as shown in the screenshot.

Now my config.plist as it stands has the settings shown in the second screengrab (white background) and I have a secondary entry that is called Block - is that something I need to configure?

If not, having ensured that the code entry and those two properties are added and that my bios is configured to enable the igpu, is there any further kext to add or other setting I need to do to get the igpu running alongside my 580 (but not to drive the display)?

Any help gratefully received.

 

[miliuco]

... What I was confused by though is the first screenshot attached (black background) shows the Device Properties panel in the opencore guide, which (if I understand it right) explains that I should have to enter 0300913E against the AAPL,ig-platform-id entry, which the setting for "for when the desktop iGPU is used only for computing tasks and not to drive a display".

Alongside that are two more properties to add as shown in the screenshot.

Now my config.plist as it stands has the settings shown in the second screengrab (white background) and I have a secondary entry that is called Block - is that something I need to configure?

If not, having ensured that the code entry and those two properties are added and that my bios is configured to enable the igpu, is there any further kext to add or other setting I need to do to get the igpu running alongside my 580 (but not to drive the display)?...

To configure the iGPU as you want, you only need the AAPL,ig-platform-id property, but it must have a value. I use 0300913E and it works well, you can try with this value or with the one proposed in Dortania 07009B3E, to see which one works better.
Of course, with recent versions of Lilu and WhateverGreen and SMBIOS of iMac19,1.

 

[oguz463]

Use headless(connectorless) Framebuffer and add this to boot args => igfxrpsc=1 igfxfw=2 you will get the best performance.

 

[miliuco]

Use headless(connectorless) Framebuffer and add this to boot args => igfxrpsc=1 igfxfw=2 you will get the best performance.

@m0rb1u5 It is possible what @oguz463 says but first try the option of AAPL,ig-platform-id + Lilu and WEG + iMac19,1 without anything else.

 

[m0rb1u5]

Many thanks for your replies. Can I ask why I need to change to SMBIOS imac19,1? When I was creating this hackintosh and decided to do it as a Big Sur rather than Catalina, it refused to install when I had the machine set as iMac19,1 (OS cannot be installed on this platform) and installed Ok when I set it to iMac18,3?
Thanks

 

[miliuco]

Many thanks for your replies. Can I ask why I need to change to SMBIOS imac19,1? When I was creating this hackintosh and decided to do it as a Big Sur rather than Catalina, it refused to install when I had the machine set as iMac19,1 (OS cannot be installed on this platform) and installed Ok when I set it to iMac18,3?
Thanks

To use the AMD card as the main card and the Intel iGPU for computing or video encoding tasks, it is convenient to choose an SMBIOS of a model that has had both graphics, iGPU and dGPU, it is better for everything to work well.
The problem is that iMac18,3 and iMac18,2 did not have iGPU, only AMD dGPU, it does not seem the most suitable models for your interests, and iMac18,1 only had iGPU, it is not suitable either.
That is why I recommended iMac19,1 which is a model with both graphics.
Anyway, if with iMac18,3 you get it to work well with the iGPU in headless mode, then go ahead.

 

[qbe]

concerning perfomance, why not use 580x in handbrake?

concerning quality igpu is dead last. cpu>amd>igpu

 

[miliuco]

concerning perfomance, why not use 580x in handbrake?...

Yes, you have the 2 options, iGPU in headless mode to help the AMD card or iGPU disabled so that the whole task is done by the dGPU which is much more powerful. But you have to choose different SMBIOS for each of the 2 options.
Not forgetting that macOS acts as if there was always an Intel iGPU to rely on to encode or decode video, so this issue is complicated.

 

[m0rb1u5]

qbe
When I did a test encode from a 70GB 4k mkv file using the X265 2160p 30 preset it took like 16 hours!!! All my cores were maxed the whole time. However when I looked at GPU history using Activity Monitor nothing was happening - it was entirely in CPU.
I tried selecting the x265 VideoToolbox option and it errored immediately so I assumed something wasn't working with that codec or instruction set.

 

[miliuco]

qbe
When I did a test encode from a 70GB 4k mkv file using the X265 2160p 30 preset it took like 16 hours!!! All my cores were maxed the whole time. However when I looked at GPU history using Activity Monitor nothing was happening - it was entirely in CPU.
I tried selecting the x265 VideoToolbox option and it errored immediately so I assumed something wasn't working with that codec or instruction set.

That time to encode that video is clearly excessive, the CPU is working as you say. But we return to before, you have to get the right SMBIOS. The ideal is:

• choose SMBIOS from a Mac model that has iGPU + dGPU and put the iGPU in headless mode
• choose SMBIOS from a Mac model that has only dGPU and disable iGPU in BIOS
• the thing to avoid is choosing SMBIOS from a Mac model that has only iGPU.

Sometimes it is difficult to get it right. Although we always say that SMBIOS has to match the CPU family (gen. 8 in your case) in reality the general behavior of the system is more important. You have to try the 2 options, SMBIOS model with both graphics and iGPU headless mode / SMBIOS model with dGPU and iGPU disabled.
Always with recent versions of Lilu and WhateverGreen, of course.