New DRM enabling method for systems with AMD GPU

[groove]

@groove,

As i wrote in the main guide, shikigva=80 also does not work for me with a i7 4790K CPU and Vega 64 GPU, It does not cause the PC to freeze but DRM content fails to play and Safari reports an error, like you shikigva=16 works just fine though.

The WEG developers have clearly stated that there are some known issues with DRM playback when using a Polaris based AMD GPU and that shikigva=80 still does not work on a lot of systems. The dev team are working on it so hopefully in a future release of WEG it will be fixed.

If DRM playback in Safari is important to you then you could try the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS workaround as detailed in the main guide :-

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An iDiot's Guide To Lilu and its Plug-in's Last Update: 22nd Jan 2021 (Add note about OpenCore config.plist modifications) About this Guide Note: This guide was written when Clover was the boot loader of choice as such the config.plist examples in this guide are mostley Clover specific ... if...

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It worked for me with i7 4790K and AMD Vega GPU but i'm not sure if it will work with your AMD RX 570 GPU due to the known issues with Polaris based GPU's, the only way to know for sure is for you to try it (be sure to disable the IGPU).

The best place to get up to date info on the DRM fixes in WEG and to ask the dev team about support issues is on the official WEG support thread.

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To read up on DRM issues it s best to goto the last page and work backwards.

Cheers
Jay

thanks you for you answer... but you have right Netflix isn't so important I prefer tv for that so I prefer to keep my 15,1 system which work very well in all situation as native one

 

[uran0s]

Here with Z97 I7 4790K + Vega 56, everything worked apparently well with SMBIOS 1.1.
Sometimes, rarely, the system goes down of nowhere, or wakes up from sleep unexpectedly.

I think it is better to have a correct SMBIOS for my system, SMBIOS would be 15.1, correct?
When I try to use the 15.1, with activation of the IGPU HD4600 in headless mode, and with the shikigva = 80, netflix works on safari, it's just the use of DRM, what stopped working, was the H265 codec that worked through Vega.
Is it the same with you? Any way to fix it?

Is SMBIOS 15.1 or 14.2 better for my system? Or should I leave with 1.1?

 

[WizMeister]

Here with Z97 I7 4790K + Vega 56, everything worked apparently well with SMBIOS 1.1.
Sometimes, rarely, the system goes down of nowhere, or wakes up from sleep unexpectedly.

I think it is better to have a correct SMBIOS for my system, SMBIOS would be 15.1, correct?
When I try to use the 15.1, with activation of the IGPU HD4600 in headless mode, and with the shikigva = 80, netflix works on safari, it's just the use of DRM, what stopped working, was the H265 codec that worked through Vega.
Is it the same with you? Any way to fix it?

Is SMBIOS 15.1 or 14.2 better for my system? Or should I leave with 1.1?

iMac15,1 is the exact match for your processor. Theoretically you could use iMacPro1,1 with CPUFriend.kext and the correct CPUFriendDataProvider.kext (see Answer #52 on how to do it) but I do not know if this would solve the Sleep / Wake issues you are having with that SMBIOS as Sleep / Wake is more complicated than that.

Although I could use iMacPro1,1 as well with the aforementioned method, I have a Coffee Lake CPU and the correct SMBIOS is iMac19,1 so I use that. You can always watch NetFlix and Prime on Google Chrome, mate.

 

[uran0s]

iMac15,1 is the exact match for your processor. Theoretically you could use iMacPro1,1 with CPUFriend.kext and the correct CPUFriendDataProvider.kext (see Answer #52 on how to do it) but I do not know if this would solve the Sleep / Wake issues you are having with that SMBIOS as Sleep / Wake is more complicated than that.

Although I could use iMacPro1,1 as well with the aforementioned method, I have a Coffee Lake CPU and the correct SMBIOS is iMac19,1 so I use that. You can always watch NetFlix and Prime on Google Chrome, mate.

Thanks for the quick response.

Yes, I also had this idea, that it was better to have the correct SMBIOS, that's why I wanted to change.
My problem is not with DRM, because in fact I don't even use it, but with the fact that maybe in the initial version 10.5, there was H264 + H265 through IGPU + VEGA 56.
Currently, I lost H265, only working with SMBIOS 1.1.

Any solution?

 

[WizMeister]

Thanks for the quick response.

Yes, I also had this idea, that it was better to have the correct SMBIOS, that's why I wanted to change.
My problem is not with DRM, because in fact I don't even use it, but with the fact that maybe in the initial version 10.5, there was H264 + H265 through IGPU + VEGA 56.
Currently, I lost H265, only working with SMBIOS 1.1.

Any solution?

I do not share the same CPU as you so I am not sure but you can try to Update Lilu + WEG to the latest versions. Also make sure your Integrated graphics are set as headless.

 

[jaymonkey]

I think it is better to have a correct SMBIOS for my system, SMBIOS would be 15.1, correct?

@uran0s,

I use the iMac15,1 SMBIOS on my White Knight Z97 system (see my sig for build details) and the system has been super stable for many years. As i detailed in my guide i did try using the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS which did resolve all DRM issues but there was a notable performance drop so i went back to iMac15,1 as i don't actually need DRM on that system.

I think the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS works best on Skylake and later CPU's.

My problem is not with DRM, because in fact I don't even use it, but with the fact that maybe in the initial version 10.5, there was H264 + H265 through IGPU + VEGA 56.

I7 4790K / HD 4600 IGPU does not support H265/HEVC encode/decode only H264.

Cheers
Jay

 

[CyCLoBoT]

@uran0s,

I use the iMac15,1 SMBIOS on my White Knight Z97 system (see my sig for build details) and the system has been super stable for many years. As i detailed in my guide i did try using the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS which did resolve all DRM issues but there was a notable performance drop so i went back to iMac15,1 as i don't actually need DRM on that system.

I think the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS works best on Skylake and later CPU's.

I7 4790K / HD 4600 IGPU does not support H265/HEVC encode/decode only H264.

Cheers
Jay

@jaymonkey, what did you check for to see if there were performance issues with the iMacPro1,1 profile?

 

[jaymonkey]

@jaymonkey, what did you check for to see if there were performance issues with the iMacPro1,1 profile?

@CyCLoBoT,

I noticed it mostly in export times in FCPX but also with some benchmarks such as geekbench and luxmark.

My desktop system (i7 4790K CPU) seems to run best with the iMac15,1 SMBIOS and the HD 4600 IGPU configured as headless which is the best match for MacOS based Haswell systems IMO.

I think the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS works best with newer CPU's (Sky Lake, Kaby Lake, Coffee lake) as a real iMacPro uses a Skylake based Xeon CPU.

Cheers
Jay

 

[WizMeister]

So with my hardware configuration:

• iMac19,1 SMBIOS
• i9-9900K - iGPU Disabled
• RX 580 8GB Pulse
• Catalina 10.15.4 beta 1
• Bootflag shikigva=80

I do have AppleTV, Netflix and Prime Video working fine. But VideoProc reports no H264 or HEVC hardware acceleration.
Is there any way I can enable hardware acceleration on the AMD RX 580 card without changing SMBIOS ?

 

[jaymonkey]

I do have AppleTV, Netflix and Prime Video working fine. But VideoProc reports no H264 or HEVC hardware acceleration.Is there any way I can enable hardware acceleration on the AMD RX 580 card without changing SMBIOS ?

@WizMeister,

The iMac19,X SMBIOS expects the IGPU to be enabled and configured as headless in order for the VideoToolBox API to use IQS (needed for H264 + H265 encode/decode, JPEG decode, Airplay, SideCar ..etc ).

Your other option is to use the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS and remove the shikigva= boot arguments, which will force the VideoToolBox API and all other MacOS features to only use a AMD dGPU.

Cheers
Jay