How to build your own iMac Pro [Successful Build/Extended Guide]

[tokyovigilante]

I've had issues with the recent (10.13.3 and 10.13.4) NVIDIA WebDrivers with my 1080 Ti, largely lag with Expose and Safari, which have been solved to be fair by running the 10.13.2 WebDrivers (1.7-91-378.10.10.10.25.105, https://images.nvidia.com/mac/pkg/378/WebDriver-378.10.10.10.25.105.pkg). These are nice and smooth.

It's not unreasonable to assume AMD Vega cards have better High Sierra support given the real iMac Pro is running one and no current shipping Mac has an NVIDIA GPU.

I can't imagine the Hackintosh and eGPU market is worth that much to NVIDIA, unless they're assuming a lot of people who are building their own rigs and putting high-end cards in are also Hackintoshing. Even then, dubious. I'm sure both AMD and NVIDIA cards work well when correctly configured.

 

[kgp]

I've had issues with the recent (10.13.3 and 10.13.4) NVIDIA WebDrivers with my 1080 Ti, largely lag with Expose and Safari, which have been solved to be fair by running the 10.13.2 WebDrivers (1.7-91-378.10.10.10.25.105, https://images.nvidia.com/mac/pkg/378/WebDriver-378.10.10.10.25.105.pkg). These are nice and smooth.

It's not unreasonable to assume AMD Vega cards have better High Sierra support given the real iMac Pro is running one and no current shipping Mac has an NVIDIA GPU.

I can't imagine the Hackintosh and eGPU market is worth that much to NVIDIA, unless they're assuming a lot of people who are building their own rigs and putting high-end cards in are also Hackintoshing. Even then, dubious. I'm sure both AMD and NVIDIA cards work well when correctly configured.

I fully agree. But I want to stress that Nvidia's support so far was simply outstanding and more than kind. They particularly developed the iMac Pro Web Driver on my user request and they have open ears also concerning the lagging issues. It just takes some time to improve remaining issues.

In any case, I would not complain at all about their customer support. Rather the opposite is the case.

Despite the boot screen resolution issue with 4K monitors, the Vega is a brilliant solution. That's why I also advertise this GPU along my guide and thread. However, I am against prioritising or favouring any brand. Every user has to decide which hardware solution is most adequate for his needs and requirements.

I just try to maintain fair and objective, without prioritising any product. That's all.

 

[izo1]

Yes I have the LG 38UC99-W with 3840 pix x 1600 pix, that's the problem. No other critics or complains about the Vega despite the hampered boot screen resolution. Any other issue apparently can be easily fixed by means of VegaGraphicsFixup.kext or an adequate SSDT.

Glad that you are happy with your Vega and that everything works as expected ...

With respect to it's LG 38UC99-W support I am however quite disappointed. That's all I wanted to state and say. I think it is fair not to exclusively report in favour of outstanding products but also to report about persistent flaws.

Otherwise respective users are easily mislead.. I hope you agree that this is the last thing we want, right?

All the best and nothing for bad, man..

KGP

Yes definitely

Once I get a 4k monitor I will report if I come across any Vega issues.

Oh by the way, does your 3840x1600 monitor work fine under Windows? That is if you have Windows installed...

That resolution specifically is a little odd since it's ultra-wide and not true UHD (3840x2160), so it may be a BIOS issue (that is if your issue is specifically with the stretching only)? (Even though nVidia might not have an issue with it).

As far as the boot screen goes if it's stretched....I think if CSM is enabled the stretched Apple logo problem should disappear.

I don't have a 3840x1600 monitor to test, but I assume if we reach out to AMD they may be able to fix this issue as AMD vBIOS is openly changeable if you have the right tools.

 

[izo1]

I've had issues with the recent (10.13.3 and 10.13.4) NVIDIA WebDrivers with my 1080 Ti, largely lag with Expose and Safari, which have been solved to be fair by running the 10.13.2 WebDrivers (1.7-91-378.10.10.10.25.105, https://images.nvidia.com/mac/pkg/378/WebDriver-378.10.10.10.25.105.pkg). These are nice and smooth.

It's not unreasonable to assume AMD Vega cards have better High Sierra support given the real iMac Pro is running one and no current shipping Mac has an NVIDIA GPU.

I can't imagine the Hackintosh and eGPU market is worth that much to NVIDIA, unless they're assuming a lot of people who are building their own rigs and putting high-end cards in are also Hackintoshing. Even then, dubious. I'm sure both AMD and NVIDIA cards work well when correctly configured.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208544

If you look at this latest document from Apple regarding 10.13.4 you can see that Apple spent a lot of time refining the update to work with AMD cards. There's 0 nVidia cards on this list.

I am hopeful that since eGPU is now officially supported by Apple, nVidia/Apple will step their game up and maybe somehow refine the drivers and MAYBE if we're lucky Apple can just include these drivers in the system so we don't have to fiddle with WebDrivers

I think eGPU is a possible step to open nVidia/AMD graphical capabilities for all macOS users. macOS has always lagged behind in terms of graphics, so this is good for everyone.

nVidia just wants to sell cards and it would cost them pennies in a bigger picture if they spend more money on refining the WebDrivers and making sure everything is "officially" supported instead of "unofficial."

 

[kgp]

Yes definitely

Once I get a 4k monitor I will report if I come across any Vega issues.

Oh by the way, does your 3840x1600 monitor work fine under Windows? That is if you have Windows installed...

That resolution specifically is a little odd since it's ultra-wide and not true UHD (3840x2160), so it may be a BIOS issue (that is if your issue is specifically with the stretching only)? (Even though nVidia might not have an issue with it).

As far as the boot screen goes if it's stretched....I think if CSM is enabled the stretched Apple logo problem should disappear.

I don't have a 3840x1600 monitor to test, but I assume if we reach out to AMD they may be able to fix this issue as AMD vBIOS is openly changeable if you have the right tools.

The screen resolution is fine under both Windows 10 and macOS High Sierra and is only at odd during boot. DSM2 reported similar issues with his true 4K x 4K display and with both ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe and Gigabyte Designare EX, thus it is not due to the fact that the LG 38 inch is a ultra-wide (3840x1600) and not a true UHD (3840x2160) monitor or due to some issue with the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe firmware. It is definitely a Vega firmware problem in combination with 4K displays, as the problem does not appear with my Nvidia GPU and the problem also does not only affect the ASUS Splash Screen but also spread over the entire boot process until the login screen is reached (Windows and macOS).

The Apple logo and verbose boot messages are not stretched but rather have VGA resolution. I never tried and I don't want to enable CSM to probably solve this issue.

Any fix of the AMD vBIOS would be highly appreciated.

Believe me, it is really disappointing to witness such issue with a 1000$ GPU...

 

[kgp]

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208544

If you look at this latest document from Apple regarding 10.13.4 you can see that Apple spent a lot of time refining the update to work with AMD cards. There's 0 nVidia cards on this list.

I am hopeful that since eGPU is now officially supported by Apple, nVidia/Apple will step their game up and maybe somehow refine the drivers and MAYBE if we're lucky Apple can just include these drivers in the system so we don't have to fiddle with WebDrivers

I think eGPU is a possible step to open nVidia/AMD graphical capabilities for all macOS users. macOS has always lagged behind in terms of graphics, so this is good for everyone.

nVidia just wants to sell cards and it would cost them pennies in a bigger picture if they spend more money on refining the WebDrivers and making sure everything is "officially" supported instead of "unofficial."

yup.. that would be desired by all Nvidia users. It would be awesome if the never ending dispute between Apple and Nvidia would find it's end. Given the tremendous and kind support of Nvidia along the iMac Pro Hackintosh development, I assume that the latter dispute is rather caused by Apple than by Nvidia.

 

[rushstrike]

FYI 10.13.4 AMD vega works with dual monitor now without lilu & amdvega fix up kext

 

[izo1]

FYI 10.13.4 AMD vega works with dual monitor now without lilu & amdvega fix up kext

I have to use vegafixup for dual monitors but removed whatevergreen.

Are you doing anything else?

 

[kgp]

That's all you need, or you can use 1 HDMI and 1 DP. I lprefer the 2 DP and vegafixup.
@kgp have you tried putting the native screen resolution in clover.
View attachment 322127

Sure.. does not have any effect.. I think it is not a problem related to clover.

The entire boot process is affected. Splash screen, Apple logo + progress bar and boot message in verbose boot. Everything with strongly reduced VGA like screen resolution.

As soon I reach login screen of Windows 10 and MacOS everything gets properly set.

No issues with Nvidia GPU with identical clover boot menu settings.

 

[izo1]

That's all you need, or you can use 1 HDMI and 1 DP. I prefer the 2 DP and vegafixup.
View attachment 322127

I did not need to do anything before the 10.13.4 update.

I don't use HDMI, so 2 DP and vegafixup kext.

Vega FE is "officially" supported by Apple in 10.13.4 from the documentations.