AMD Firepro W4100 testing - troubleshooting

[Pineapple68]

I recently bought a AMD "Sapphire" Firepro W4100. It's not a recent gpu, but I was needing of a slim and narrow GPU, at a reasonable budget. I wanted also a native and solid mini displayport for a imac 27", and this card has 4 mdp ports, for 4 monitors.

There were only few reference on forum, and in the web about hackintoshes with this GPU, with few no go alert, but I decided to go.

Firstly, the GPU fits a compact case like the Pi case, and more, it fit in his standard position
View media item 188717Directly plugged in Pcie x16, at top. A little airflow-blocking, but solid and easy.
I will try soon some custom configuration

INSTALLATION
I reassume there the few day process, done with the aid of Florian.

1. Pluggin it, the card it's seen ad AMD 14MB. Graphic glitches and bands like a HD530 without fix.
2. I tryed the default inject ATI with multibeast. I get ATI Radeon 4330M series 14MB, with same glitches.
3. I read the ATI compatibility post, and asked. Florian suggested the following clover fakeID, that works:
   

   FakeID = 0x683D1002
   Inject/Ati = True
   FixDisplay = True
   FBName = Radeon (or any other random string)
   
   Also install Verde.kext (should be easy to find).

4. After reboot I get AMD Radeon HD 7xxx 2048 MB and finally no any glitches. Only during the loading bar, just a pair of flash.

 

[Pineapple68]

Then I started the bench, and comparing to the i7 integrated GPU, I had some surprise:
Geekbench compute Open CL: AMD HD7xxx score of 9232 // i7 SKU: 19000
Luxmark 3.1 AMD radeon hd verde engine: 590 // i7 GPU: 2385
Unigine valley: AMD score 310, FPS 7,4 // i7 GPU score 936, FPS 22,4

Novabench: AMD w4100, global 1320, graphic 65 // i7 GPU are global 1287, graphic 58
Only the novabench test gave me the expected result.

Looking at the Hierarcy GPU list the AMD W4100 as "77xx serie" should be a little step above the HD530 of i7.
Confirmed by Videobenchmark: this GPU is similar to a 7750 that get 1.007 score, or a generic Radeon 7700 serie, that get 1,295 score. Intel HD530 get 550 score.

Probably the type of test (2D or 3D, graphic, or compute) make a different result, but It seem that the 3D capacity of this GPU were not fully unlocked. The unigine result was scarce.

Numbers apart, using the GPU I get a really stable signal, without any issue: I can disconnect and connect the mdp cable, and all 4 connectors works. With the iGPU sometime I get little interferences, or lost signal if I disconnect the mdp cable (need reboot).

 

[Fl0r!an]

Strange. It might help to make a custom framebuffer personality (e.g. based on Dashimaki, which is made for HD 7770). Usually it shouldn't affect performance though.

 

[Pineapple68]

It might help to make a custom framebuffer personality

I will try some different framebuffer.
Found this post about this; there are a lot of frame buffer names.

Just few questions: that Graphics Enabler=no (or yes?) it's important, placed as boot flag is the right place?
Actually I use the AMD as "primary" in Bios and it's normally connected.
Some guide said to choose the i7 gpu as primary, and connect with AMD (needed 2 monitor to see bios). What's the right?
Other said to set no-share or deactivate...

(Succed instead with the audio over mdp: I found in this thread a simple kext that activate hdmi and mdp audio!
The build is now 99% complete! Only stop/wake (less important), and this low benchmark issue (GPU seen as 100 hmz)

 

[Fl0r!an]

GraphicsEnable doesn't exist in Clover, that's a Chameleon boot argument. There's no need to configure your iGPU as primary, HD 7000 also works fine when it's initizalized first.

 

[Pineapple68]

I give up. The other frambuffers goes in blackscreen, and tried to deactivate the igpu in case of PCIE gpu,
and the system can't boot with that preset.

I think I will give back to amazon, @100MHz this W4100 GPU doesn't add speed or compute power,
It's also noisy, and without fans get dangerously hot (72° in a narrow case)

For the moment I go with i7 igpu, I see that Adobe apps works same.

 

[Úll Mac]

Worth testing with all frame buffers for that series before custom editing, test frame buffers and port numbers .And check device id from sys profiler against the appropriate kext .If device id is not listed add it in. Can help with recognition.If you do have to add in make sure to add in exactly as per device id shown in system profiler - lowercase / uppercase etc. Oem / retail card device id's can differ so use device id from your own system profiler.
I'm using firepro w7000 , previously used firepro v5800 .
Also running a system with quadro k4000 .Workstation cards don't get enough credit.

 

[Úll Mac]

Cooling options for firepro cards are pretty rare but did come across this .....
https://www.alphacool.com/shop/graf...x-ati-firepro-w7000-m01-mit-backplate-schwarz

Not using it myself but looks a good option.

 

[zsmweb]

@Pineapple68 Could you please share your efi dir ?