What about AMD's R9 Series (280x, 290x) on our Hackintoshes?. Further explanation.

[Westsurf]

Yes you are correct, I misread your comment as using a different system. My apologies.

The EFI boot setup was trivial from what I read and dis. What part of your copy is failing? Oddly enough I'm more familiar with this element as I'm a UNIX hacker really

Now I couldn't even tell you that. It seems that the bootloader has been removed from my OSX disk. Further, I can't even seem to get it to boot from any of my Hackintosh USB install sticks. The bios doesn't show them?

When I direct to boot off the OS X install disk it says insert media, with the Windows disk attached it boots Windows.

So so it seems I've gone from bad to worse FFS. Sorry for slow responses but I'm now on an iPad.

Edit - well found my USB again. Dell monitors attached USB hubs overpopulated the bios boot choice so the wouldn't display the install USB.

Error occus at Type: fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk0

MBR not found if memory serves.

As you can see sometimes I'm not to clever. It's late I'm tired ... start again tomorrow.

 

[rwillett]

fdisk plays about with the partition table.

I've never had that MBR error but what it sounds like to me is

1. Either you haven't formatted the old EFI partition correctly from the previous statements

2. You've corrupted your USB stick and so the information on it is no longer valid.

You can certainly keep on playing about with the EFI partition. the problem comes if your install USB disk is corrupt OR when you copied over /Extra files to you new EFI partition and have now lost them.

One of the issues with the instructions is that they use UNIX command line commands that one letter wrong will still appear to work BUT actually screw things up, the r in the /dev/ lines indicate a raw disk as opposed to a partition.

I would suggest you look to see if you still have the /Extra partition on your main volume, if so you have a fighting chance. You then need to check the contents of /Volumes/USB/usr/standalone/i386 to see what files are there. If you have boot, boot0 and boot1h you're getting there. If you still have /Extra you could be OK.

 

[michaelcly]

Hello,


Currently I am running one screen of the on board graphics and the other off of my PCI graphics as it the only way I can get it to boot. I really just want to run both off the 280 card as it dual boots to windows 8.1 for gaming.

Any help would be appreciated as I currently feel that I am just going around in circles.

I do have a Sapphire 270X OC Tri 4Gb card in another W8 only machine. Would swapping and using that graphics card easier to get working?

I have A Saphire 270x GPU w/z77n-wifi mobo. I don't think your 270x will be any easier. Both require booting to the EFI partition.

To get both my monitors working on the 270x, I have to set the bios to use the internal graphics and not auto. Unfortunately, I can't see anything, including the boot screen until it finishes booting into OSX. Then both monitors work. Or, I can put my second monitor on the internal GPU (i3770k) and my main monitor on the 270x. At least I get the boot screen on the second monitor doing it like this.

 

[rwillett]

I think the 270x and the 280x are just as difficult as each other.

My experience was pretty easy. I installed the 280X from the beginning. I booted off the internal graphics to get to the BIOS, disabled the internal graphics card, switched the monitor to the 280X (DVI) and then worked completely from there. I installed using the 280x and went straight into the EFI partition at the end of the main install.

I have had zero issues (and I actually mean that) with the 280X. Its been as easy as using the internal graphics card. I have at least two monitors working on the 280X and they were the first two I choice, DVI and displayport. HDMI may work but I need to get extra cables in.

 

[Westsurf]

fdisk plays about with the partition table.

I've never had that MBR error but what it sounds like to me is

1. Either you haven't formatted the old EFI partition correctly from the previous statements

2. You've corrupted your USB stick and so the information on it is no longer valid.

You can certainly keep on playing about with the EFI partition. the problem comes if your install USB disk is corrupt OR when you copied over /Extra files to you new EFI partition and have now lost them.

One of the issues with the instructions is that they use UNIX command line commands that one letter wrong will still appear to work BUT actually screw things up, the r in the /dev/ lines indicate a raw disk as opposed to a partition.

I would suggest you look to see if you still have the /Extra partition on your main volume, if so you have a fighting chance. You then need to check the contents of /Volumes/USB/usr/standalone/i386 to see what files are there. If you have boot, boot0 and boot1h you're getting there. If you still have /Extra you could be OK.

Well persistence seems to have paid off. I'm just about to reboot after finally having success and no errors on the EFI to rdisk0s1.

Just doing a quick disk copy for backup.

Fingers crossed.

Success!

Rebooted ... Enter BIOS turned Init Display to PCI, Disabled Internal graphics.

So Gigabyte R280 3 GB working with EFI on two Dell 24" 1080x1200 one on DVI one HDMI to DVI. Will ensure I update the R9 list of compatible cards. Card is for reference Gigabyte AMD Radeon R9 280 Rev 1 being GV-R928WF3OC-3GD code.

Seen as in system report:

AMD Radeon HD 7xxx:

Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 7xxx
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 3072 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x679a
Revision ID: 0x0000

I'll now have to plug in all my older drives and see if W8 is operating properly.

A big thanks for the support rwillett ... this is a great site and has been instrumental in my change to OSX hackintosh.

A last question would be best way to ensure that graphics card is working to it's optimum?

Thanks.

 

[rwillett]

Great, pleased its worked.

To be honest I have no idea how to check that your card is 'optimum' behind the fact:

1. It works

2. There are no screen artefacts such as tearing of stuff on the screen.

3. Its reported correctly in the system report.

4. Its quiet (for some notion of quiet).

5. You gave a translucent menu bar at the bottom (drop Safari behind the bar to see what I mean).

If you have access to Final Cut Pro X you can do a render using the Bruce X benchmark. Thats a pretty stiff check for the speed of your GPU, yours should do it in around 30-40 secs depending on the rest of the your kit. Dual 280x's massively speed it up into the 22-24 secs.

My view is that if you can't find anything wrong its working.

My system reports the 280X as

AMD Radeon HD 7xxx:


Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 7xxx
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x8
VRAM (Total): 3072 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x6798
Revision ID: 0x0000

I have two 280x's so I lose some of the PCIe bandwidth from 16x down to 8x. Which is a bit annoying but it makes little real difference.

Rob

 

[destrekor]

Will a R9 295X2 work, in any capacity, under Yosemite?

I've been trying to find a full answer to this, but mostly just see a lot of discussion about Crossfire and no it doesn't work.

I don't know if everyone has been saying that the dual-GPU solution doesn't work, as in, you can't use Crossfire, or if it is being said that the entire card simply does not work, period, no video acceleration out of even a single GPU on the board.

I understand Crossfire (dual-card or internal-bridge dual-GPU) and SLI are not functional under Mac, but cards configured as such are still recognized and one card is still fully addressed and utilized.

I want a good GPU solution for gaming under Windows, but will fully accept one a single GPU working under Mac, but I'd want the full GPU acceleration potential of one GPU for accelerated work in Photoshop and other general hardware acceleration benefits.

 

[rwillett]

Can't comment on the 295X2 at all.

I can state that my dual 280x cards are in Crossfire mode all the time.

The Hack recognises and uses them both as GPU's as two monitors are connected to one card and one monitor to the other card.

They are also recognised as dual GPU's by Final Cut Pro X which is the reason for them.

So the Mac has no issues with dual graphics cards and the fact they are in Crossfire mode. It simply ignores the Crossfire element and uses the full cards.

For the avoidance of doubt, I know that Crossfire is not recognised by the Mac, I just leave them with the connector on for playing games in Windows.

 

[michaelcly]

Will a R9 295X2 work, in any capacity, under Yosemite?

I want a good GPU solution for gaming under Windows, but will fully accept one a single GPU working under Mac, but I'd want the full GPU acceleration potential of one GPU for accelerated work in Photoshop and other general hardware acceleration benefits.

Just wanted to point out Photoshop doesn't use the GPU for its heavy work, it uses your CPU.

 

[destrekor]

Just wanted to point out Photoshop doesn't use the GPU for its heavy work, it uses your CPU.

Well, for the big work, yes. But a lot of individual tools utilize the Mercury Graphics Engine, which utilizes GPU acceleration when available.

https://forums.adobe.com/message/4289204
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq1.html#GPU-enhanced features added in Photoshop CC 2014

Not life breaking for it not to work, but very helpful at times when it is available.
But also acceleration for standard video content and browser use it very nice. And perhaps some basic games of some sort.