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Nvidia 9600 GT (Tesla) on Big Sur

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Hi everyone. (Pardon my English in advanced).

Fact:
A friend of mine has a Mac Mini 3,1 (Early 2009), with Core2Duo P7350, GeForce 9400M 256mb, 4gb DDR3 RAM, and an SSD Kingston 240gb.
He has recently and successfully install a Big Sur with OpenCore Legacy Patcher on this MacMini with full and smooth Graphic Acceleration.

Problem:
His brother have a PC with a Big Sur Hackintosh made with OpenCore. His PC's specs: Gigabyte B85, Core i5-4460, RAM 8gb DDR3, SSD Zotac 250gb.
I've been helping him with this hackintosh, currently running it on the iGPU (Intel HD4600). He has apart a external graphic card Nvidia 9600 GT 512mb PCIe that he wants to use it on this Big Sur. I've done everything I know (even nvidia patching) and I can't achieve any GPU Acceleration with this 9600 GT on his Big Sur. He wants this because he has Windows 10 too on other HDD and he need the benefits of the 9600 GT's game compatibility.

Question:
If his brother does achieve a nice and smooth GPU Acceleration on his MacMini's 9400M 256mb, Why I can not do the same on the 9600 GT of this hackintosh if it is the same Tesla microarchitecture?
Am I missing something?
Is there anything I can do to succeed it?

Please, any solution will be welcome.
Thank you very much, and Happy New Year!!!

PS. If it is helpful I attached the MacMini's EFI folder with the OpenCore Legacy Patcher; and attached too the EFI of the 4thGen PC's OpenCore (with the nvidia 9600GT patching that doesn't fully work).
 

Attachments

  • EFI MacMini OC Legacy Patcher.zip
    17.1 MB · Views: 133
  • EFI PC Hackintosh OC.zip
    899.5 KB · Views: 131
The OpenCore Legacy Patcher adds the necessary kexts to the system to get the Nvidia card working in Big Sur on the Mac-mini. However, as the Geforce 9400 lacks Metal support I doubt your friend is getting full acceleration, QE/CI on Big Sur from the Nvidia card.

I had to upgrade the graphics card in my iMac mid-2010 to an Nvidia K1100m to get Metal support and full acceleration in Mojave and Catalina, using the OpenCore Legacy Patcher.

Your friend with the GT 9600 is in the same boat, i.e. the card he has lacks Metal Support. So he would be better off using the HD4600 IGPU for macOS, as this does support Apple's Metal processes.

He should disable the discrete Nvidia card when running macOS, using either an SSDT-DDGPU.aml or this WhateverGreen.kext boot argument '-wegnoegpu'. So the Nvidia card is still usable in Windows for gaming.
 
The OpenCore Legacy Patcher adds the necessary kexts to the system to get the Nvidia card working in Big Sur on the Mac-mini. However, as the Geforce 9400 lacks Metal support I doubt your friend is getting full acceleration, QE/CI on Big Sur from the Nvidia card.

I had to upgrade the graphics card in my iMac mid-2010 to an Nvidia K1100m to get Metal support and full acceleration in Mojave and Catalina, using the OpenCore Legacy Patcher.

Your friend with the GT 9600 is in the same boat, i.e. the card he has lacks Metal Support. So he would be better off using the HD4600 IGPU for macOS, as this does support Apple's Metal processes.

He should disable the discrete Nvidia card when running macOS, using either an SSDT-DDGPU.aml or this WhateverGreen.kext boot argument '-wegnoegpu'. So the Nvidia card is still usable in Windows for gaming.
Thanks for answer me...

Have you seen this article?...:


...there are some info about it.

On the other hand ...
...If I add -wegnoegpu boot argument to disable de 9600 on Big Sur, does he has to interchange the cable in the back of the PC everytime he enter either MacOS or Windows?
He has a HDMI/VGA Monitor, and use MacOS with HDMI cable in the iGPU, and Windows with VGA cable in the 9600.
Is there a way to leave the HDMI cable connected without making the cables interchanges and BIOS configurations? Maybe a pass through the eGPU or something else?
Thx again.
 
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I've been helping him with this hackintosh, currently running it on the iGPU (Intel HD4600). He has apart a external graphic card Nvidia 9600 GT 512mb PCIe that he wants to use it on this Big Sur. I've done everything I know (even nvidia patching) and I can't achieve any GPU Acceleration with this 9600 GT on his Big Sur.
Would be best for your friend to try and find a Nvidia Kepler card like the GT 760 or 770. Way better for gaming.
I don't know why anyone would want to use a 9600GT instead of HD4600 graphics in macOS. The latter has full native support in Big Sur. Even in Windows the 9600GT is a very poor performer. Have them use HD4600 instead if the Tesla card they can't afford a better, supported graphics card.

Screen Shot 18.jpg

If his brother does achieve a nice and smooth GPU Acceleration on his MacMini's 9400M 256mb, Why I can not do the same on the 9600 GT of this hackintosh if it is the same Tesla microarchitecture?
Am I missing something?
OC LP is designed for use with Macs that Apple makes, not hacks that already have supported graphics. IDK exactly why it won't work but I would never expect it to in that scenario.
 
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Using OCLP is quite a downgrade if you are using the HD4600 - I believe the issue with the patches were listed above.
Some other things to keep in mind:
  • When you use the root volume patches, you do not get smaller deltas anymore (~3GB). Instead, updates appear as full installers every time (12GB), even if it's just a 11.x.x/12.x.x update.
  • The opengl patches tend to have bugs and will lose some functionality with some menus
  • Force SIP to be disabled partially, as well as AMFI (Need AMFI disable boot-arg)
If you are using OCLP on a hackintosh, I'd look at this link here, which talks about Hackintoshes specifically: https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/issues/348

If you can, I'd stick with the HD4600, that is still natively supported.
 
He plays games on Windows that runs better on the 9600GT.
He doesn't game on macos, just want it for sound editing.
So, Is there a way for using the HD4600 on Big Sur and the 9600GT on Windows? I mean, without the hassle of changing cables and bios configurations every time he enters each OS?

Thanks everyone for help us on this.
 
He plays games on Windows that runs better on the 9600GT.
He doesn't game on macos, just want it for sound editing.
So, Is there a way for using the HD4600 on Big Sur and the 9600GT on Windows? I mean, without the hassle of changing cables and bios configurations every time he enters each OS?

Thanks everyone for help us on this.
The 9600GT can be disabled in macOS using device properties or the "-wegnoegpu" boot arg. That would still require the cables to be switched though.
 
If he has cables connected to both the IGPU and the GT9600 then he can simply change the input on the display to switch between the VGA for Windows and HDMI for macOS. As long as the GT9600 has been disabled when running macOS.

Not sure how Windows would treat both the IGPU and DGPU being connected, something for you to experiment with.
 
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