An iDiot's Guide To Lilu and its Plug-ins

[stlouisz]

I really appreciated this well written guide. In a headless system, which I have set up, is there any benefit to increasing the vram to 2048? I assume it is only for monitors connected to the igpu.

Hackintool shows everything as expected. Videoproc shows the expected settings and WhatEverGreen has correctly renamed the HECI device (see images)

My original setup seems to have changed and I don’t know why. I am now getting error with iMovie (wonder if it is related). Two years ago, I set up headless operation using platform-id = 0x3E920003. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. The system seems to be using platform-id = 0x3E9B0007

I don't know why or the significance of it. As a note, my SMBios is set to iMac 18,3. At least 2 years ago, it seemed to be the prevailing one used for my setup.

First image shows clover window for changing the platform-Id.
Second image from hackintool (2 years ago) reflected the correct platform-id at the time.
Third image - hackintool currently showing the platform-id = 0x3E9B0007
Fourth image - IOREG showing the platform-id = 0x3E9B0007 (this is also different from 2 years ago)

Did something get corrupted?
Again, I don't know how or why this happened. But it seems, my config.plist is not assigning the platform-id as expected.

This has gotten me very confused. Any thoughts on what I should do? And if this explains the Imovie issue?

 

[stlouisz]

My original setup seems to have changed and I don’t know why. I am now getting error with iMovie (wonder if it is related). Two years ago, I set up headless operation using platform-id = 0x3E920003. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. The system seems to be using platform-id = 0x3E9B0007

I don't know why or the significance of it. As a note, my SMBios is set to iMac 18,3. At least 2 years ago, it seemed to be the prevailing one used for my setup.

First image shows clover window for changing the platform-Id.
Second image from hackintool (2 years ago) reflected the correct platform-id at the time.
Third image - hackintool currently showing the platform-id = 0x3E9B0007
Fourth image - IOREG showing the platform-id = 0x3E9B0007 (this is also different from 2 years ago)

Did something get corrupted?
Again, I don't know how or why this happened. But it seems, my config.plist is not assigning the platform-id as expected.

This has gotten me very confused. Any thoughts on what I should do? And if this explains the Imovie issue?

Update:
It seems that "inject intel" was selected in clover configurator. Unselecting that fixed several problems including the failure of Imovie.

It seems my system is functioning properly in headless mode, however some tests to confirm this are confusing. I updated latest Lilu (1.5.0) and whatevergreen (1.4.5) kexts and latest Hackintool (3.4.9)

I tried setting platform-id = 0x3E920003 by Clover configurator method as well as copy and pasting from the patch code created by Hackintool.


System information correctly doesn't show the igpu.
Hackintool now doesn't recognize the intel generation and gives me a platform ID= 3E910003. It does state VDA Decoder is supported though.

Ioreg curiously shows platform ID= 3E910003 as well.


Otherwise, things seem to work ok. I just wonder if I still have something set up incorrectly.

 

[dacord3234]

For some reason Hackintool tells me I have QE/CI/VDA enabled, my menubar/dock is translucent, but my widgets show no ripple effect and some apps do crash when I try to enable window transparency in options, so I guess something is off.

I have used Hackintool to generate the config.plist patch with the correct platform ID for my CPU (Kaby Lake i3-7100 = 0x59120000) and the tool shows no empty framebuffers" (0 connectors), but by HD 630 still doesn't show on system info dialog under graphics card. I was under the impression this should be the case only for headless.

I'm using 2 displays, both connected to my dGPU, HighSierra (correctly selected on Hackintool before patch), DVMT is set to 192/MAX, initial display set to dGPU.

I have no patchs, Lilu/Whatevergreen installed on /L/E/, Nvidia webdriver installed for the correct OSX version, Clover basically have "Inject system ID", "NvidiaWeb" and Devices>Properties with the specs for the iGPU. Am using SMBIOS 18,1. About this mac shows the correct dGPU info.

ioReg shows me IGPU as hda-gfx "onboard-1" and GFX0@0 as "onboard-2", both with correct model names. But on Clover, I have set the ig-platform-id and another setting under it with the key hda-gfx as "onboard-2" for the IGPU, so apparently Whatevergreen is renaming things on the fly and I'm not sure where to go from here as everything seems to be working except for the app crashes and no ripples on dashboard.

 

[Superbogey]

I have used Hackintool to generate the config.plist patch with the correct platform ID for my CPU (Kaby Lake i3-7100 = 0x59120000) and the tool shows no empty framebuffers" (0 connectors), but by HD 630 still doesn't show on system info dialog under graphics card. I was under the impression this should be the case only for headless.

Apple didn't offer an I3 Kaby Lake iMac in 2017 so you might want to try an SMBIOS other than iMac 18,1. I've been running an I5-7600k and use SMBIOS 18,3 with platform ID 0x59120003 for headless mode (Lilu, Whatevergreen, and a number of the other, usual kexts) with very few issues since building my system back when Kaby Lake was new. I'm also assuming you're still running High Sierra for specific reason/reasons so won't offer the usual spiel of how you should upgrade to OC and Big Sur, yada-yada-yada.

 

[dacord3234]

Apple didn't offer an I3 Kaby Lake iMac in 2017 so you might want to try an SMBIOS other than iMac 18,1. I've been running an I5-7600k and use SMBIOS 18,3 with platform ID 0x59120003 for headless mode (Lilu, Whatevergreen, and a number of the other, usual kexts) with very few issues since building my system back when Kaby Lake was new. I'm also assuming you're still running High Sierra for specific reason/reasons so won't offer the usual spiel of how you should upgrade to OC and Big Sur, yada-yada-yada.

Yeap, good idea on the SMBIOS. AFAIK I'm stuck w High Sierra as my dGPU isn't compatible with anything past 10.14+ or something. Don't really remember why, let me know if your spiel paints me obsolete.

 

[Superbogey]

Yeap, good idea on the SMBIOS. AFAIK I'm stuck w High Sierra as my dGPU isn't compatible with anything past 10.14+ or something. Don't really remember why, let me know if your spiel paints me obsolete.

Nope, not going to call you obsolete. As long as you have a productive/useful rig, you aren't obsolete. Unless you have the need to run THE newest and most advanced hardware for something like cryptocurrency or CAD or CGI, etc, then trying to chase the tail of the latest in technology is a lost cause... and an expensive one at that. So, if you're fine with what you currently have in front of you then keeping it running as well as possible shouldn't be looked down upon.

 

[Nodarkthings]

Hi! Is there anyway to use Whatevergreen BUT preventing it from performing the PEGP to GFX0 rename?

Long story: my main GC is still the EVGA GT210 and I'm trying to use the IGPU as headless. There's a very weird side effect of using Whatevergreen in such a situation: the image kinda stutters when I move objects, and generally everything is slowing down, even typing at the login screen... If I attach a second monitor, all comes back to normal! But when I disconnect it, it comes back to stutterland.
It behaves a lot better with OpenCore than with Clover: perfect in 10.11 and 10.14, but stutters in 10.9.
In any case, if I don't use Whatevergreen and I perform the GFX0 to IGPU rename manually (i.e. through Clover or OpenCore), all seems ok and Hackintool says "VDA Decoder : Fully Supported".

I don't know if Whatevergreen brings something more in my case or if the GFX0 to IGPU rename is enough? (of course, I have the IMEI SSDT and needed devices properties — smbios is iMac 13,2)

 

[jaymonkey]

@Nodarkthings,

For a GT 210 I doubt WEG will be doing much, probably just ACPI renames as you have found out. WEG tends to be needed more with AMD GPU's where it will ensure all the ports are active and the correct AMD framebuffer is injected (usually a generic one) in addition to ACPI renames and patches.

So in your situation I think not using WEG wont be detrimental.

Having said that I haven't used Nvidia GPU's in hacks for a few years now, I jumped to team RED once Nvidia stoped releasing updated web drivers for Mojave so you might want to check with someone like @Gigamaxx who knows a bit more about the current state of supported Nvidia GPU's in MacOS.

Cheers
Jay

 

[Nodarkthings]

@Nodarkthings,

For a GT 210 I doubt WEG will be doing much, probably just ACPI renames as you have found out. WEG tends to be needed more with AMD GPU's where it will ensure all the ports are active and the correct AMD framebuffer is injected (usually a generic one) in addition to ACPI renames and patches.

So in your situation I think not using WEG wont be detrimental.

Having said that I haven't used Nvidia GPU's in hacks for a few years now, I jumped to team RED once Nvidia stoped releasing updated web drivers for Mojave so you might want to check with someone like @Gigamaxx who knows a bit more about the current state of supported Nvidia GPU's in MacOS.

Cheers
Jay

Thanks a lot! In fact I was not worrying about the GT210 but rather the headless IGPU part of the issue: when Hackintool says "VDA Decoder : Fully Supported", can I be sure it really works? — I haven't found a proper way to test it... Some say Intel Power Gadget.app, but mine (3.7.0) shows a green line for "GFX AVG" that never moves from 0.35 GHz (that is when performing the GFX0 to IGPU rename without Whatevergreen).

 

[jaymonkey]

@Nodarkthings,

WEG does help out quite a bit with IGPU configuration, however Intel QuickSync on a Ivy Bridge CPU like yours is pretty much limited to H264 and MPEG compressed images so don't expect any assistance from the IGPU when encoding/decoding more recent codecs.

See this WiKi for a table that shows what Intel Quciksync supports on each CPU generation :-

Intel Quick Sync Video - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Cheers
Jay