EVE Spectrum 4K (or other 4K >60Hz monitors)

[stillmoms]

So I finally received, almost a year+ after promised delivery, the EVE Spectrum 4K crowdfunded monitor. Overall I’m reasonably happy with it, it’s a nice 27” 4K IPS screen that is perfectly usable with a scaled 5K display mode for day to day use (I’m not doing anything that requires pixel perfection). However, although I can get it to run in 4K > 60Hz (variable refresh rate, in fact) when driven by my M1 Max 14” MacBook Pro over a Thunderbolt 4 cable, I cannot drive it above 60Hz using my Hackintosh.

For several years now I’ve been running a Radeon RX580 8GB in this machine which I moved to from an NVIDIA GTX 1080 so I could upgrade past High Sierra. However, I realized after I received the monitor that perhaps the issue was that DisplayPort 1.4 and/or Display Stream Compression was required to drive the screen at higher than 60Hz refresh rates, neither of which the RX580 supports. Against perhaps what would be my usual better judgment I sprung for a Radeon RX 6600XT, since I was planning to resell the RX580 to recoup some of the absurdly inflated cost, knowing that RDNA2-based GPUs definitely support both DP1.4 and Display Stream Compression—and figuring that, since GPUs of this generation are present on the 2019 Mac Pro line of machines and are used to drive the DSC-requiring Pro Display XDR, that might unlock the full potential of this monitor.

However, it seems my hopes were misplaced. AGDCDiagnose still reports the connection between the GPU and monitor to be DP1.2 only (tested with two different cables, one just bought and advertised as DP1.4 compliant and 8K capable), and no refresh rates higher than 60Hz have appeared in System Preferences. Has anyone else tried driving a high frame rate 4K+ screen with an RDNA2 GPU on a Hackintosh? Do I have to start going down more esoteric avenues like putting a Thunderbolt controller in my machine? Is it even possible to put a Titan Ridge Thunderbolt controller in a Z370/Coffee Lake-era build?

I’ve got questions. Does anyone have answers?

 

[Edhawk]

Your Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 5 has a Thunderbolt header, so you could definitely add a Thunderbolt 3 Gigabyte Titan Ridge card to your system.


Internal connectors from your motherboard, Thunderbolt connector third from bottom.

Connecting your RX 6600 XT to the Titan Ridge card and the new display to the TB card should offer what you want.

Out of curiosity, can you confirm if when you hold down the 'Option' key ('Alt' key on a windows keyboard) and select the 'Scaled' option in System Preferences > Displays, does it offer the option to change the Refresh rate, alongside changing the resolution?

 

[stillmoms]

Yes, holding down Option when selecting “Scaled” shows the refresh rate menu (although the refresh rate menu is actually always shown), it just doesn’t offer any options above 60Hz.

Well, time to investigate the Thunderbolt route I suppose.

 

[Edhawk]

I would check the DisplayPort cable you are using. I know you said you replaced the DP 1.2 cable, but are you sure the replacement cable is capable of DP 1.4a as sold/advertised?

As the screen and dGPU can both provide higher refresh rates, the bit between the two devices might still be the issue. Does your Spectrum display support 144Hz or 240Hz frequency range?

Have you tried using a HDMI 2.0 or 2.1 cable?

 

[stillmoms]

Yes. I verified the display chain by installing Windows 11 to an external SSD and booting that on my Hack. With the exact same hardware, same DP cable, same display, I immediately got 2160p@144Hz (verified both from the Windows side and via the display’s OSD).

I tried an HDMI cable (also verified as high bandwidth-capable) but no dice there either.

 

[Edhawk]

There was a work around for this issue some time ago, not sure if it still works.

The work around was to unplug the DP cable and plug it back in a few seconds later. This was supposed to fix the refresh rate box and make the higher refresh rates selectable.

For some once the higher refresh rate had been selected they didn't have to do this again. Others had to do this every time they booted in to macOS.

Give it a try and see what happens on your system.

 

[stillmoms]

Yeah, tried that one too (probably found the same blog post). Unplugging and re-plugging the display adds no extra options to the refresh rate menu.

 

[cyl19910101]

I'm facing a similar refresh rate issue as well. DELL G3223Q (4K144), 6900 XT.

• When connecting with a DP cable, it can only refresh at 60HZ -- with the same connection in windows I got 144HZ
• When connecting with an HDMI cable, it can refresh at 119.*HZ (let's say it's 120) -- with the same connection in windows I got 144HZ

More relevant testing:

• Using the same DP cable to connect with AW2521H(1080P360) I got 360HZ
• Using the same DP cable to connect with my eGPU Vega 64 and 2019 16 inch MBP then I got 119.*HZ
• Using thunderbolt to DP cable to connect with M1 Pro 14 inch MBP then I got 144HZ

So is there something I need to do or I can do (ACPI/DSDT/config) to make the 6900 XT's DP ports work properly on the macOS?

I'm running at 12.3.1, and the DRM works.
CPU 12700KF
MB TUF Z690 Wifi

EFI is copied from CaseySJ's article, only rename the CPU as my model and generated SMBIOS (Macpro7,1) and do my own USBMapping. (will try to provide the link in a new reply below -- my post got deleted when links are used not sure why. Just post separately in case it happens again)

 

[cyl19910101]

OC 0.7.9, and the build article is Asus Z690 ProArt Creator WiFi (Thunderbolt 4) + i7-12700K + AMD RX 6800 XT