LG UltraFine 5K Build

[joevt]

So... still now way to use the Ultrafine 5K at actually 5k?

Nvidia's dual stream 5K support sucks but can work for 5K monitors that use two DisplayPort inputs like the Dell UP2715K - it just requires disconnecting and reconnecting the DisplayPort cables. No one has showed evidence that Nvidia + GC ALPINE RIDGE + LG 5K will work at 5K even with disconnecting and reconnecting the DisplayPort cables.

So maybe the solution is Intel or AMD? My 2015 MacBook Pro with AMD graphics can do 5K to my Dell UP2715K without any problem. It's plug and play. No connecting/reconnecting required. I wonder if it's possible for the GC ALPINE RIDGE card to take DisplayPort input from a different computer like my MacBook Pro, and create a 5K stream to the LG 5K that way?

 

[tonyarnold]

For anyone achieving 5K with one DP cable, make sure that the image is sharp enough. It might be the case that image is rendered in 5K, scaled down to 4K by OS, transmitted and finally scaled up to 5K by monitor.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's not quite as clear as when the display is connected to my 2016 MBP, so something like what you've described is happening with my setup. I'd be interested to hear if the same thing happens to AMD Radeons passing through an Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 card.

To be honest, I've given up - I only have an LG 5K display, so that makes the Hackintosh pretty much unusable for day-to-day use. I've put it up for sale as a gaming PC, and I'll just purchase an iMac Pro when they're out in December.

 

[dnetcrawler]

Here are the results with AMD Radeon VEGA Frontier Edition and GC-Alpine Ridge. Please note this card requires no iGPU.

 

[dnetcrawler]

Things just keep getting better

I have installed 2 x GC-Alpine Ridge. They are both connected to a single AMD VEGA. One of them has 2 DP inputs and the other only 1. I have 2 LG Ultrafine 5k displays running. One is at full 5k, and the other is scaled. Both are running off a single thunderbolt cable. Given that my MB only has one TB header, only one has audio, video, and controls. I'll be picking up a second AMD VEGA with the hopes of having both displays running at 5k.

 

[LostVector]

Things just keep getting better

I have installed 2 x GC-Alpine Ridge. They are both connected to a single AMD VEGA. One of them has 2 DP inputs and the other only 1. I have 2 LG Ultrafine 5k displays running. One is at full 5k, and the other is scaled. Both are running off a single thunderbolt cable. Given that my MB only has one TB header, only one has audio, video, and controls. I'll be picking up a second AMD VEGA with the hopes of having both displays running at 5k.

View attachment 267058

You may have trouble with this ... in my experiments, macOS is not yet designed to attach AGDC to more than one physical card ... and AGDC is what implements Multi Stream Transport for 5K support. In addition, multiple physical cards seems to cause some micro stutter ... smooth pans when playing back video stutter once per second. Could be hackintosh related, might be a way around it, all the usual caveats apply.

There's always the possibility something works better with the Vega cards now, so keep us posted!

 

[joevt]

I have installed 2 x GC-Alpine Ridge. They are both connected to a single AMD VEGA. One of them has 2 DP inputs and the other only 1. I have 2 LG Ultrafine 5k displays running. One is at full 5k, and the other is scaled. Both are running off a single thunderbolt cable. Given that my MB only has one TB header, only one has audio, video, and controls. I'll be picking up a second AMD VEGA with the hopes of having both displays running at 5k.
View attachment 267058

How does a Thunderbolt card work without a header? Weird. Does anyone know what the header is for anyway? You've determined that both graphics cards support graphics. Do both cards support the USB ports on the LG displays (e.g. PCIe)? Do both cards support USB devices directly?

It's too bad the graphics card has an HDMI connector instead of a DisplayPort connector. You could then connect two 5K displays to the same card. I would prefer a DisplayPort connector, because you can get a DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 adapter, but you can't get a HDMI 2.0 to DisplayPort adapter yet. An HDMI 1.4 to DisplayPort adapter is not good enough for 2560x2880@60Hz.

Next year, Intel will open up the Thunderbolt spec. Imagine if AMD or Nvidia made their own Thunderbolt chip then, they could add up to 8 Thunderbolt 3 ports using the tiny USB-C connector.

Apple currently doesn't seem to care about Nvidia driver problems (5K issues, cursor drawing issue) so maybe it's time to switch to AMD. Maybe things will change when Apple releases a new Mac Pro.

 

[joevt]

Given that my MB only has one TB header, only one has audio, video, and controls.

You say only one has audio, video, and controls but you say that the 2nd LG display works, so do you mean that only the 1st LG display has audio and audio/video controls?

What happens if you disconnect both Thunderbolt headers?

Actually, I don't think anyone in this post has posted IORegistry information for LG 5K display yet. Also, a USB Prober report from USB Prober.app or ControllerMate.app would be useful. IORegistry would describe the PCIe devices of the LG display (USB controller, etc.) and USB Prober would describe the USB devices and audio/video controls like brightness, etc.

 

[dnetcrawler]

You say only one has audio, video, and controls but you say that the 2nd LG display works, so do you mean that only the 1st LG display has audio and audio/video controls?

What happens if you disconnect both Thunderbolt headers?

Actually, I don't think anyone in this post has posted IORegistry information for LG 5K display yet. Also, a USB Prober report from USB Prober.app or ControllerMate.app would be useful. IORegistry would describe the PCIe devices of the LG display (USB controller, etc.) and USB Prober would describe the USB devices and audio/video controls like brightness, etc.

I was running 5k on one display with a single GC-Alpine Ridge card, but I had no audio, camera (video), and brightness. I was going to troubleshoot the MB bios configuration, when I noticed TB was actually disabled...

I was puzzled that the 5k was actually working with out TB been enabled, but excited at the same time. I decided to install the second GC-Alpine Ridge and try it out, and it actually worked. No TB header is actually needed for 5k resolution (at least on my setup).

 

[dnetcrawler]

So just wanted to share a few more findings, which have me completely confused.

In trying to get the brightness to 100% on the second display, I discovered that the GPIO cable on the thunderbolt header, was still connected to the secondary GC-Alpine Ridge card powering the second display...

The main display, running GC-Alpine Ridge on the MB assigned thunderbolt PCI-E slot, did not have the GPIO header at all, yet I had full audio, camera (video), and brightness!

To get audio, camera (video), and brightness on my secondary display, I went into the BIOS and changed the PCI-E card on the TB configurations and selected the secondary GC-Alpine Ridge. I had to unplug the computer from the power, but when I booted, I had full controls on the secondary display. I changed the brightness under this configuration for the secondary display.

To get back to the original configuration, I simply reverted the configuration on the MB BIOS, and unplugged the power. Once I booted back up, I had full controls back in the original display, and the brightness on the secondary was now at 100% as well.

 

[didierM4E]

Is the AMD Radeon VEGA Frontier Edition recognized natively?