[GUIDE] macOS Big Sur Public Beta on board Z390 Aorus Elite

[miliuco]

Install macOS 10.16 Big Sur Public Beta on Z390 Aorus Elite motherboard with i3 9100 Coffee Lake and Radeon RX 580, using OpenCore 0.6.3 as bootloader.

macOS 10.16 Big Sur (BS onwards) will be next version of Mac’s operating system. From Apple Beta Software Program website, you can download the utility that activates public beta versions from Software Update panel in System Profile. Current public beta version is 9, build 20A5384c, and it may be the last to be released before the final version so it is read in specialized forums.

On my PC installing BS public beta on a separate SSD has been relatively easy considering the large number of internal changes regarding kernel, extensions loading, security mechanisms and other very important features as regards to the Hackintosh world. OpenCore developers (OC onwards) have released 4 versions, 0.6.0 - 0.6.1 - 0.6.2 - 0.6.3, to boot BS on compatible PCs.

I have used OC with most of the options that I use in Catalina, they are collected in this article: "[GUIDE] OpenCore and macOS Catalina in Z390 Aorus Elite"

Starting from that base, I am going to comment differences that I have found in the installation and configuration of BS compared to Catalina. What you don't see here, look for it in the other article.

Get Big Sur Public Beta

It has already been commented that Apple offers a small application on Apple Beta Software Program web. You sign in with your Apple account to download "macOS Public Beta.dmg". This application modifies Software Update panel that, from now on, will also show beta versions, not only of BS but also of Catalina. At the end you get "Install macOS Big Sur Beta.app" in Applications folder.

Create installation USB

I have created the installation USB with this Terminal command:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur\ Beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/USB /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur\ Beta.app

Remember that the USB must be GUID partition map and HFS Plus format.
The process takes much longer than in Catalina. When finished you get the installation USB but without OC in the EFI partition so you have to get version 0.6.3 (the most recent one) and copy it to the EFI folder. In this folder is where we are going to make the required settings to be able to install BS and it will also be the one we use later in the EFI folder of the disk where BS is installed.

BS installation lasts considerably longer than Catalina's. In some moments it may seem that it has stopped, wait and you will see that the process continues. Especially when macOS is sealing the system volume and in verbose mode the message "Forcing CS_RUNTIME" is displayed, here it pauses for several minutes and apparently there is no activity but after a while the process continues. The installation may stop and enter in a reboot loop at the ramrod section, this is usually due to the lack of SMC emulator, to solve it you can change to FakeSMC or add boot-args: vsmcgen=1 to force the load of VirtualSMC.

OC settings for BS

I have already commented that for the most part the OC folder matches the one I use in Catalina. ACPI - Drivers - Kexts - Resources - Tools folders are identical on both systems. Differences (few) are in config.plist file and are the ones I comment below.

Kernel / Patch

Enable TRIM for SSD (included in drop-down menu patch list).

NVRAM-Add

UUID 7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82 / boot-args:

• -v: to show text messages during boot, useful until you see that everything works fine, later it can be deleted to have a more elegant boot.
• vsmcgen = 1: forces VirtualSMC.kext to load, in theory OC 0.6.1 and newers has solved this problem and this argument would not be necessary but in my case it does not start well without it.
• igfxfw = 2: force loading Apple GuC (Graphics micro code); although I use the RX 580 card as primary, I have the iGPU enabled in BIOS and without this argument it also gives error.

Note: csr-active-config=00000000 (data) is equivalent to SIP Enable, I need this option for the installation program to work correctly and it is also necessary once BS is installed so that it offers the updates that Apple is releasing.

Platform: SMBIOS iMacPro1,1.

Rest of options are the same as in Catalina.

First impression of BS

BS works very well considering it is a beta version. It starts up quickly and can be used almost normally. The only drawbacks detected are:

• H264 video encoding and decoding seems to work fine but HEVC's not.
• some multimedia keys do not work well with Music app.
• Music app sometimes does not add songs to playlists and closes with the message "Saving Music Library" and it may be necessary to force quit the app.
• Date and Time panel does not have the option to add date in menu bar but it may be a BS feature> they are now in Dock & Menu Bar, thanks @esafeddie.

 

[scottkendall]

Install macOS 10.16 Big Sur Public Beta on Z390 Aorus Elite motherboard with i3 9100 Coffee Lake and Radeon RX 580, using OpenCore 0.6.1 as bootloader.

You know it is actually MacOS 11 even if the installer says 10.16.

 

[miliuco]

You know it is actually MacOS 11 even if the installer says 10.16.

Yes, I see that it is now 11.0 in System Profiler and in Terminal but, at the time of writing my article, Software Update offered the Public Beta as 10.16. On the Internet sites it was commented that 10.16 was for the Intel versions and 11.0 for AMR versions, but I have already seen that Apple currently uses 11.0 on most sites. It seems that this is going to be the official version number.

yo@OSX11 ~ % system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType
Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: macOS 11.0 (20A5384c)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 20.1.0

 

[phantom-101]

Thank you @miliuco.

I replaced yet my Clover bootloader with OpenCore 0.6.2. Everything is going fine and smooth.

Do you think that I'll be able to update to Big Sur directly from the App Store without doing a fresh install?

 

[miliuco]

Thank you @miliuco.

I replaced yet my Clover bootloader with OpenCore 0.6.2. Everything is going fine and smooth.

Do you think that I'll be able to update to Big Sur directly from the App Store without doing a fresh install?

I tried once updating Big Sur (downloaded app from Apple) on Catalina 10.15.6 and it worked fine. I even ran Migration Assistant and got Catalina's data to Big Sur. Remember not to erase the target volume during installation. And choose English as installation language even if it is not yours.

 

[phantom-101]

I tried once updating Big Sur (downloaded app from Apple) on Catalina 10.15.6 and it worked fine. I even ran Migration Assistant and got Catalina's data to Big Sur. Remember not to erase the target volume during installation. And choose English as installation language even if it is not yours.

Thank you. Why should I choose English as installation language?

 

[miliuco]

Thank you. Why should I choose English as installation language?

Big Sur beta 9 and 10 have a bug about this. When you are installing and reach to language selector, if you choose a language other than English it can lead to a gray screen without the possibility of moving forward.

 

[miliuco]

Modified first post to OpenCore 0.6.3. EFI folder updated.

 

[ndisain]

Hi, I manage to install. But seems CPU censor is not show up with HWmonitor. Can you advice?

 

[miliuco]

Hi, I manage to install. But seems CPU censor is not show up with HWmonitor. Can you advice?

I also have problems with HWMonitor. What I do is install Intel Power Gadget (IPG) (at the end of the installation it asks you to approve the system extension from Security in System Preferences and you have to restart).
IPG shows frequency and other data of the CPU in the app window. HWMonitor will probably do it too after installing IPG, at least there are users who say so.
Note: IPG works without VirtualSMC or FakeSMC add-on extensions.