[GUIDE] Injection of AMD Vega Power and Fan Control Properties

[FauPod]

@FauPod,

You will not be able to get Sidecar working when using the MacPro1,1 SMBIOS as a real MacPro uses a Apple T2 chip to encode the video display used by Sidecar.

If you want to use SideCar then use a iMac19,X SMBIOS with the IGPU enabled and configured as Headless.

For the Vega GPU just make sure you have Lilu and WhatEverGreen installed, no other changes should be required.

Cheers
Jay

Ohhh thanks @jaymonkey!
I change SMBIOS in 19.1, i enabled the IGPU (What do you mean by "configured as Headless"?) and i change the graphic card from rx 580 to Vega 56 (Gigabyte) and all and everything works, even Sidecar !!!

I have only doubts ....
The system recognizes the Vega 56

but if I open VideoProc, the test on the HAVEC and the H264 is passed but by the integrated graphics card.

I think this is a limit .... having a Vega 56 and not being able to use it without acceleration .... I work with photos and videos and I would like to optimize the card for maximum performance!
Tips?

Thanks!

PS: With the IGPU disable in BIOS, VideoProc HEVC and H264 is disabled

 

[jaymonkey]

What do you mean by "configured as Headless"?

@FauPod,

For more info on configuring your IGPU as headless see the appropriate chapter in the Lilu + Plug-in's guide :-

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

An iDiot's Guide To Lilu and its Plug-in's Last Update: 22nd Jan 2021 (Add note about OpenCore config.plist modifications) About this Guide Note: This guide was written when Clover was the boot loader of choice as such the config.plist examples in this guide are mostley Clover specific ... if...

www.tonymacx86.com

As mentioned in the guide if you already have Lilu and WhatEverGreen installed it is quite possible that it has auto configured your IGPU as headless. You can see if this is the case by checking the defined connectors in Hackingtool (all types should be "dummy") ... this is covered in that section of the guide.

i change the graphic card from rx 580 to Vega 56 (Gigabyte) and all and everything works, even Sidecar !!!

I have only doubts .... The system recognizes the Vega 56, but if I open VideoProc, the test on the HAVEC and the H264 is passed but by the integrated graphics card.

Thats is correct and proves that the system is working as it should, when using a iMac19,X the MacOS VideoToolbox API will use the IGPU for H264/H265 encode/decode, Jpeg decompress, AirPlay, SideCar ... etc ... just like a real iMac19,X does.

Cheers
Jay

 

[FauPod]

@FauPod,

Thats is correct and proves that the system is working as it should, when using a iMac19,X the MacOS VideoToolbox API will use the IGPU for H264/H265 encode/decode, Jpeg decompress, AirPlay, SideCar ... etc ... just like a real iMac19,X does.

Cheers
Jay

Thanks for the guide!
But... what sense does it make to mount a Vega 56 if then hardware acceleration is done by the IGPU?
Shouldn't that of the Vega be better?

 

[jaymonkey]

But... what sense does it make to mount a Vega 56 if then hardware acceleration is done by the IGPU? Shouldn't that of the Vega be better?

@FauPod,

You miss understand, the IGPU is used by MacOS as a sort of GPU co-processor and is just used by for H264/H265 encode/decode, Jpeg decompress, AirPlay, SideCar ... etc using Intel Quick Sync technology.

For H264 and H265 Intel Quick Sync is both faster and will produce better results than using the a AMD dGPU, thats why Apple have done it that way for many many years.

VideoProc only reports what the macOS VideoToolbox API will use for processing video streams.

Mac's that have a T2 chip use the T2 in place of a IGPU.

All other Metal 2 and Open GL/CL processing (such as the MacOS UI, Apps and Games, 3D rendering .. etc) will use the dGPU (Vega 56 in your case).

Cheers
Jay

 

[FauPod]

@FauPod,

You miss understand, the IGPU is used by MacOS as a sort of GPU co-processor and is just used by for H264/H265 encode/decode, Jpeg decompress, AirPlay, SideCar ... etc using Intel Quick Sync technology.

@jaymonkey thanks for the explanation!
There are still so many things I don't know!!!
Now, if I understand correctly, I cannot have a 19.1 (o 19.2) system with the IGPU disabled and the H264 and HVEC active on the graphics card, or with the IGPU enabled the possibility to choose who have the encodings done (if at Vega or if at Intel). Did I understand correctly?
Changing the configuration of the SMBIOS in MacPro 1.1 and the IGPU disabled I can have the H264 and the HVEC managed by the Vega 56 (I would lose Sidecar) but at this point I did not understand if the 19.1 or 1.1 configuration is better performing.
Thanks

 

[jaymonkey]

@FauPod,

It comes down to this ..

If you need Sidecar working then your only option is to use iMac19,X SMBIOS with IGPU enabled and configured as headless.

If you need DRM fully working including using Safari for Netflix and Amazon Prime then use the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS with the IGPU disabled

Other things to consider :-

H264 & H265 Encoding and Decoding will always be faster and give better results when using the IGPU with the iMac19,X SMBIOS .. AMD's video encoder/decoder engine is not as well optimised as Intel Quick Sync.

CPU Power management can be an issue when using the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS as it is optimised for a workstation class CPU (Xeon) where as iMac19,X SMBIOS uses standard desktop class CPU, one possible solution to this is to use CPUFriend :-

GitHub - acidanthera/CPUFriend: Dynamic macOS CPU power management data injection

Dynamic macOS CPU power management data injection. Contribute to acidanthera/CPUFriend development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

It is possible to get partial DRM working for Apple TV+ and Apple Music when using the iMac19,X SMBIOS by booting with the shikigva=16 boot argument, however using Safari for Netflix and Amazon Prime will not work, see the DRM section of the guide for more info :-

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

An iDiot's Guide To Lilu and its Plug-in's Last Update: 22nd Jan 2021 (Add note about OpenCore config.plist modifications) About this Guide Note: This guide was written when Clover was the boot loader of choice as such the config.plist examples in this guide are mostley Clover specific ... if...

www.tonymacx86.com

Cheers
jay

 

[FauPod]

@FauPod,

It comes down to this ..
CPU Power management can be an issue when using the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS as it is optimised for a workstation class CPU (Xeon) where as iMac19,X SMBIOS uses standard desktop class CPU, one possible solution to this is to use CPUFriend :-

GitHub - acidanthera/CPUFriend: Dynamic macOS CPU power management data injection

Dynamic macOS CPU power management data injection. Contribute to acidanthera/CPUFriend development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Cheers
jay

@jaymonkey thanks!
I did tests with 19.2 and 1.1. I worked on a video in Premiere and then I exported it with H264 encoding first with version 19.2 (IGPU enabled) and then with version 1.1.
The result was that with 19.2 it took more than 7 minutes to process and save the file. With 1.1, just over 5 minutes.
I have decided that I will stay with 1.1.
Unfortunately, sometimes I get system crashes. I would like to optimize my HMac.
Could you please tell me how I should use the files at the link you indicated to me (CPUFriend)??
Thanks

 

[jaymonkey]

Unfortunately, sometimes I get system crashes. I would like to optimize my HMac. Could you please tell me how I should use the files at the link you indicated to me (CPUFriend)??

@FauPod,

There are some instructions within the github project :-

CPUFriend/Instructions.md at master · acidanthera/CPUFriend

Dynamic macOS CPU power management data injection. Contribute to acidanthera/CPUFriend development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

I have not used CPUFriend myself as i use a iMac 15,1 SMBIOS and don't have any CPU power management issues, however I have read that many users who are using the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS have reported good success when using CPUFriend.

Cheers
Jay

 

[darthsian]

Thank you very much.
I did the test with ImacPro 1.1 (with CPUFriend and no SHIKIGVA) and it is curious to get more Score in the metal geekbench5, 53000 VS 50000 in Imac15,1 + IGPU.
On the other hand the GPU on the Imac 15.1 in idle is 500MHZ (memory), cooler and using less Watts.
In ImacPro 1.1 just open a video and then in idle it is always 920MHZ, which spends another 20 Watts.

Did that happen to you in ImacPro 1.1 too? After opening a video the memory is stuck at maximum Mhz?

Hello, I have the opposite behavior. With iMacPro1,1 after boot i have 800MHz and when i play video on the You Tube it drops to 500MHz. After video was closed, it jumps back to 800MHz. It starts acting like that from Catalina 10.15.3. Weird.

 

[uran0s]

Hello, I have the opposite behavior. With iMacPro1,1 after boot i have 800MHz and when i play video on the You Tube it drops to 500MHz. After video was closed, it jumps back to 800MHz. It starts acting like that from Catalina 10.15.3. Weird.

It's very similar around here. When the mac starts up everything is fine, after opening a video it is the same as yours. Idle at 920mhz and when I open a video it goes down to 500mhz.


I thought that it could be some bad configuration, but I already tried to format and it remains the same. I no longer remember whether before version 10.15.4 I did the same, but I believe you.


I still did a lot of research, and I never saw anyone complain about it.