- Joined
- Feb 4, 2014
- Messages
- 11
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte GA-H61M-DS2H
- CPU
- i5-3330
- Graphics
- RX 480
I've been watching this thread since beginning. GTX 1070 was my primary preference to change my dGPU, but with the progress showed here, decided to get a RX 480 instead of wait for Pascal support from lazy Nvidia. This is my first decent graphics card and I am very satisfied. Finally, I retired my good old Geforce 210.
I have a XFX RX 480 RS 8Gb running on 10.12.2 with latest Clover version 3961. Just set ATI FakeID = 0x67EF1002 and Inject ATI = true to properly work. Using DVI-D cable in a LG IPS236 1080p monitor. Haven't tested HDMI, but it should work fine as usual. My iGPU HD 2500 is connected to same monitor with a HDMI cable.
My motherboard is Gigabyte GA-H61M-DS2H. On stock bios version F5, bios doesn't even load with RX 480. On F7, card is recognized only in legacy mode. Just in the latest and beta bios F8a, which improve high-end display card compatibility, it worked on UEFI VBIOS.
I did the changes proposed by Fl0r!an and Mork_vom_Ork to unlock the full potential from Polaris 10.
What worked to improve performance
- Remove CU limit, change CU number and change init from Baffin to Ellesmere. Improves Luxmark v3.0 in 27,62%! Thanks a lot!!!
Unigine has not improved. Score remains around 1240.
- Changing PP_DisablePowerContainment(AMD9500Controller.kext) to 1 improve Luxmark performance a little, but Unigine crash the system between scene 8 and 11(tested three times). The crash happened because, besides it disable the "power containment", it turns off the fan RPM control, that doesn't raise speed, keeping slow RPM as the GPU wasn't heating up. So, temperature rises rapidly(VBIOS limit is 90ºC, 194ºF), the RX 480 screen goes black, but not HD2500(which freezes after this) and the VBIOS make the fan spin at full speed. After this, the only way out is press reset button.
Mystery: If the kext file is changed, the behavior is like described above, but if patched on-the-fly with Clover, the fan control works normally, however performance is decreased(lower than normal).
Kext file changed (Unigine crash)
Clover on-the-fly patch
What doesn't work
- Injecting Intel HD Graphics 2500, we can get only CI, not QE. The only way to inject without boot to black screen(HD 2500) is deleting AppleIntelHD4000Graphics.kext, leaving just AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.kext loaded, which is needed for full resolution(in this case, can get full resolution even if it doesn't load). But injecting iGPU, even if only the framebuffer loads, it drastically reduces the performance of the RX 480 on Unigine Heaven.
- Delete AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.kext, because it gets loaded, even without HD 2500 injection. But it made no difference.
- Initialize without the HDMI cable on the HD 2500(Blind boot). Same performance on Unigine and Luxmark. I see a ghost monitor with 1600x900 resolution and if plug the cable into the monitor after the system loads, there is no video signal.
- Initialize without the two cables, DVI and HDMI, and connecting DVI to RX 480. Idem.
- Different FakeID's E0, EF and FF provides same performance(I read several pages ago that switching could improve performance).
- Same performance using legacy or UEFI VBIOS, changing the switch position on the board side.
- Patching AMDRadeonX4100.kext with hexadecimal editor or Clover kext patch method, made no difference too.
Bruce X Benchmark 5k (FCPX 10.3.1)*
Original AMDRadeonX4100.kext w/ 16 CU: 29 seconds.
Patched** AMDRadeonX4100.kext w/ 36 CU: 29 seconds too.
*MacOS Sierra is installed on a WD Blue 1TB HDD, but the master file was exported to Intel 540s 120Gb SSD.
** 36 CU and init function to Ellesmere
The DisableMonitor app, mentioned here, is good for not losing your mouse cursor in iGPU screen.
Thanks to Gigamaxx, Fl0r!an and Mork_vom_Ork!
I have a XFX RX 480 RS 8Gb running on 10.12.2 with latest Clover version 3961. Just set ATI FakeID = 0x67EF1002 and Inject ATI = true to properly work. Using DVI-D cable in a LG IPS236 1080p monitor. Haven't tested HDMI, but it should work fine as usual. My iGPU HD 2500 is connected to same monitor with a HDMI cable.
My motherboard is Gigabyte GA-H61M-DS2H. On stock bios version F5, bios doesn't even load with RX 480. On F7, card is recognized only in legacy mode. Just in the latest and beta bios F8a, which improve high-end display card compatibility, it worked on UEFI VBIOS.
I did the changes proposed by Fl0r!an and Mork_vom_Ork to unlock the full potential from Polaris 10.
What worked to improve performance
- Remove CU limit, change CU number and change init from Baffin to Ellesmere. Improves Luxmark v3.0 in 27,62%! Thanks a lot!!!
Unigine has not improved. Score remains around 1240.
- Changing PP_DisablePowerContainment(AMD9500Controller.kext) to 1 improve Luxmark performance a little, but Unigine crash the system between scene 8 and 11(tested three times). The crash happened because, besides it disable the "power containment", it turns off the fan RPM control, that doesn't raise speed, keeping slow RPM as the GPU wasn't heating up. So, temperature rises rapidly(VBIOS limit is 90ºC, 194ºF), the RX 480 screen goes black, but not HD2500(which freezes after this) and the VBIOS make the fan spin at full speed. After this, the only way out is press reset button.
Mystery: If the kext file is changed, the behavior is like described above, but if patched on-the-fly with Clover, the fan control works normally, however performance is decreased(lower than normal).
Kext file changed (Unigine crash)
Clover on-the-fly patch
What doesn't work
- Injecting Intel HD Graphics 2500, we can get only CI, not QE. The only way to inject without boot to black screen(HD 2500) is deleting AppleIntelHD4000Graphics.kext, leaving just AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.kext loaded, which is needed for full resolution(in this case, can get full resolution even if it doesn't load). But injecting iGPU, even if only the framebuffer loads, it drastically reduces the performance of the RX 480 on Unigine Heaven.
- Delete AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.kext, because it gets loaded, even without HD 2500 injection. But it made no difference.
- Initialize without the HDMI cable on the HD 2500(Blind boot). Same performance on Unigine and Luxmark. I see a ghost monitor with 1600x900 resolution and if plug the cable into the monitor after the system loads, there is no video signal.
- Initialize without the two cables, DVI and HDMI, and connecting DVI to RX 480. Idem.
- Different FakeID's E0, EF and FF provides same performance(I read several pages ago that switching could improve performance).
- Same performance using legacy or UEFI VBIOS, changing the switch position on the board side.
- Patching AMDRadeonX4100.kext with hexadecimal editor or Clover kext patch method, made no difference too.
Bruce X Benchmark 5k (FCPX 10.3.1)*
Original AMDRadeonX4100.kext w/ 16 CU: 29 seconds.
Patched** AMDRadeonX4100.kext w/ 36 CU: 29 seconds too.
*MacOS Sierra is installed on a WD Blue 1TB HDD, but the master file was exported to Intel 540s 120Gb SSD.
** 36 CU and init function to Ellesmere
The DisableMonitor app, mentioned here, is good for not losing your mouse cursor in iGPU screen.
Thanks to Gigamaxx, Fl0r!an and Mork_vom_Ork!
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