[GUIDE] Atari VCS (2020) Console

[Middleman]

Is macOS ok with integrated Ryzen graphics?.

Not really, but it does somehow work with the VCS.

 

[craighazan]

Not really, but it does somehow work with the VCS.

Interesting. I just purchased this board, after reading somewhere else that someone had successfully installed macOS Monterey on it, I downloaded the EFI they used. I've read before somewhere that Ryzen iGPU's don't really work, but this board still has an impressive support list, as long as you use 65W TDP.

 

[Feartech]

Interesting. I just purchased this board, after reading somewhere else that someone had successfully installed macOS Monterey on it, I downloaded the EFI they used. I've read before somewhere that Ryzen iGPU's don't really work, but this board still has an impressive support list if you're planning on keeping TDP to 65W.

View attachment 535425

correct the graphics will not have full hardware acceleration

 

[craighazan]

the Prime A320I-K does have a x16 slot fortunately.

 

[Middleman]

With the recent AMD gpu update fiasco of Monterey 12.3, and reading about the issues have made me look at and have a rethink of some of our current AMD-based gpu system builds, such as the VCS. I am beginning to think we may be closer to a solution for some of the under-supported Vega series cards than we think.

Take a look at this thread here. While the guide discusses the downvolting of a Radeon VII card, it describes the use of a PowerPlayTable injection for macOS (which is used to fully enable a GPU's features). > https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-to-downvolt-a-radeon-vii.2194899/

Since the VCS' Picasso/Vega card works under HD output and is currently only missing hardware acceleration, this could well be the key to enabling it fully, so I will be looking into this at some point soon.

 

[Middleman]

Okay folks, it looks like I've gotten a little bit closer of an answer as to why there is no acceleration for the AMD Picasso on macOS despite being present since Catalina 10.15.4 beta.

One thing that I did not realise, is that the Picasso card also has the same PCIID value as Vega 11 series.

Here is a screenshot of the Vega 11's device properties for Windows I found online, whose device id matches the Picasso:

When we look at the AMDRadeonX5000 kext from Monterey we find that it has builds for Vega 10, Vega 12 and Vega 20 but nothing for Vega 11.



So now that we have this info, what does it all mean? It means the Picasso IOKitPersonality ID was never included in the final macOS kext builds after the beta version and that technically we should be able to inject our very own Vega11 IOKitPersonality into the Info.plist to include this info to allow for acceleration. So I will be testing this soon!

 

[Middleman]

Okay guys I've updated the VCS EFI to OC 0.8.1. You can now run Monterey 12.4.

 

[Feartech]

View attachment 550035
Okay guys I've updated the VCS EFI to OC 0.8.1. You can now run Monterey 12.4.

Well done on this

shame about the graphics though....

 

[c-o-pr]

Cool project!

Re benchmarks, can you say more about why you are reporting GB4 measures?

GB5 re-normalized the baseline score to a lower number 3 years ago. So, publishing GB4 is a hazard. Inexperienced readers who are just learning to compare scores will get the wrong idea that this Atari is an outstanding performance leader. At the same time, it's uncommon for other current reports to use the GB4 scoring, so even the experienced readers must apply a scaling factor to make sense of it.

But maybe I'm not aware of some history that keeps GB4 alive?

 

[craighazan]

Cool project!

Re benchmarks, can you say more about why you are reporting GB4 measures?

GB5 re-normalized the baseline score to a lower number 3 years ago. So, publishing GB4 is a hazard. Inexperienced readers who are just learning to compare scores will get the wrong idea that this Atari is an outstanding performance leader. At the same time, it's uncommon for other current reports to use the GB4 scoring, so even the experienced readers must apply a scaling factor to make sense of it.

But maybe I'm not aware of some history that keeps GB4 alive?

Higher numbers were better, I remember how disappointed I felt when I started using 5!.