<< Solved >> Installing MacOS Monterey - AMD cpu compatibility?

[RyderTheOmniscient]

I'm trying to make a MacOS Monterey build with an AMD cpu. Are there any specific kexts or SSDT's I need to know about to make sure this build is successful? I'm not sure where to look, so if you could point me to a document or article where I can easily access this information, that would be fantastic. Also, are there any known issues with AMD builds that I should know about as I go into creating the hackintosh?

Thanks in advance.

 

[trs96]

Go here: https://forum.amd-osx.com/ study the AMD guides and get the basics down. We support AMD CPU users but it's not our main focus. Intel is. Many AMD CPU users here are also members of that site.

 

[trs96]

are there any known issues with AMD builds that I should know about as I go into creating the hackintosh?

If you want to use any Audio Based apps, even Logic Pro, made by Apple, You will have problems. Go with Intel instead.

Many features in macOS are outright unsupported with AMD and many others being partially broken. These include:

• Virtual Machines relying on AppleHV
  • This includes VMWare, Parallels, Docker, Android Studio, etc
  • VMware 10 and Parallels 13.1.0 do support their own hypervisor, however using such outdated VM software poses a large security threat
• Adobe Support
  • Most of Adobe's suite relies on Intel's Memfast instruction set, resulting in crashes with AMD CPUs
  • You can disable functionality like RAW support to avoid the crashing: Adobe Fixes
• 32-Bit support
  • For those still relying on 32-Bit software in Mojave and below, note that the Vanilla patches do not support 32-bit instructions
  • A work-around is to install a custom kernel however you lose iMessage support and no support is provided for these kernels
• Stability issues on many apps
  • Audio-based apps are the most prone to issues, ie. Logic Pro
  • DaVinci Resolve has been known to have sporadic issues as well

 

[RyderTheOmniscient]

Okay, that changes things. I was hoping to use this computer for LogicX and other audio-based software. I will have to upgrade my system to intel. Thanks for the info!

 

[trs96]

If you want the latest TH4 to work, it's best to go with Asus over Gigabyte. See:

Asus Z690 ProArt Creator WiFi (Thunderbolt 4) + i7-12700K + AMD RX 6800 XT

CaseySJ's Intel Alder Lake i7-12700K: Asus Z690 ProArt Creator WiFi + Intel i7-12700K + AMD RX 6800 XT Please do not quote this guide in its entirety. Post a link instead. This build guide applies to Asus Z790 ProArt Creator as well, but BIOS parameters may need to be adjusted All P-cores...

www.tonymacx86.com

Thunderbolt 4, modified firmware, Full Thunderbolt Bus tree

@CaseySJ It's very curious that AppleThunderboltHAL (NHI) doesn't attach as device-id has been modified... 3 sec on looking what's wrong ... Oops, like done on all previous SSDT-Maple-Ridge, you have missed spoofed class-code to 0x88000 (00 80 08 00) ;)

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[trs96]

The main problem is that Asus Z690 ProArt Creator prices have gone sky high. Some people here use the Z790 version instead. Still sells at a high price.

 

[trs96]

A somewhat more reasonable price is the ROG Strix board. Would require a TH4 add in card.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSP5WGKC/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

Amazon.com

 

[RyderTheOmniscient]

Thank you for these recommendations.

 

[Jamesbond007]

Many features in macOS are outright unsupported with AMD and many others being partially broken. These include:

• Virtual Machines relying on AppleHV
  • This includes VMWare, Parallels, Docker, Android Studio, etc
  • VMware 10 and Parallels 13.1.0 do support their own hypervisor, however using such outdated VM software poses a large security threat

I know that VMware Fusion 12 and 13 use Apple's hypervisor and I fully expect they won't work with AMD CPUs. However :

Do you actually mean to say that VMware Fusion 10 / 11 (which still uses its own hypervisor) should work with AMD CPUs when running a compatible version of MacOS (e.g. on Mojave / Catalina where Fusion 11.5.7 can run)? Or rather that VMware Fusion won't work anyway on AMD CPUs?

A bit irrelevant to the thread but here it goes :

I still use VMware Fusion 11.5.3 on High Sierra 10.13.6 ("such outdated VM software" on an outdated OS). But it is exactly the point because it uses VMware's hypervisor instead of Apple's.

Apple's hypervisor has serious performance problems when it comes to nested virtualization (especially on Intel CPUs that lack a hardware feature called VMCS Shadowing). It STILL has not been resolved satisfactorily as far as I know. And I do not expect Apple to do anything about it now that its focus is on Apple Silicon.

VMware actually sort of admits this problem here :

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/80785

When it says :

Starting with Fusion 12.1.0 VMCS shadowing is no longer required to use nested virtualization on macOS 11.0 however performance of nested virtualization without VMCS shadowing may be degraded.

"May be degraded" is a kind way of saying it. It is actually so slow as to be unusable. Even for those CPUs that support VMCS Shadowing (which exclude many of the CPUs Apple used in iMacs and Macbook Pros) there is still a substantial performance hit as far as I can ascertain.

As an example, it seems that my own i7 9700KF does NOT support VMCS Shadowing (in the Intel specifications it lacks "Intel vPro Eligibility", which if present apparently is Intel's way of saying it supports VMCS Shadowing). Curiously, the i7 9700K does support it. This means that if I were to run VMware Fusion 12 / 13 on Monterey / Ventura I would have run into these problems.

It is why I won't upgrade VMware Fusion any further. I will continue to use VMware Fusion 11.5.3 (and the corresponding VMware Workstation 15.5.2 on my Windows PCs) regardless of any "large security threat" (that I consider is blown way out of proportion anyway).