Radeon Compatibility Guide - ATI/AMD Graphics Cards

[Stork]

Having browsed through this enormous thread - does any card work OOB with El Capitan or is patching always necessary?

Additionally, the Nvidia GTX 680, 760 and 770 cards work OOB. But, the newer crop of Nvidia Maxwell chipset cards need the nVidia web and, optionally, the CUDA drivers to work in Yosemite and El Capitan. There is a sticky thread here that provides you a link to get the latest Nvidia web drivers.

As an example, I'm running GTX 760 OOB using Apple's build in drivers (since 10.8.5). I'm using the GTX 750 Ti and 950 with the Nvidia web drivers OOB.

The only drawback for using the newer Nvidia graphics cards are you need the Nvidia web drivers. So, when Apple updates its OS X, you need to wait for a couple of days until Nividia releases its updated drivers.

But, the use of Nvidia cards is off topic in this thread. So, if you have questions about Nvidia graphics card, please open a new thread to ask your questions or state your problem(s). TIA.

Check out the tonymacx86 Buyer's Guide for our recommended graphics cards.

 

[interpolgp]

Hi Florian,

Just like to thank you for the great guide.

I was able to get my Sapphire Radeon HD6850 working in 10.10.5 with the following settings.

FixDisplay = YES
Framebuffer = Duckweed
InjectATI = YES
ATIController = 6000

And then I patched the guide from post one. I did not have to inject my device id as it is listed in the info.plist for AMD6000Contoller.kext All the ports work and surprisingly my HDMI audio worked OOB.

I only have one question, how do you figure out if you have full 3d graphics acceleration? Looking in IOReg I don't see any mention of 3d and it seems as if my GPU is unavailable to programs like photoshop. Any ideas?

 

[Fl0r!an]

When X3000 has loaded (which is responsible for 2D/3D acceleration on HD 5000/6000) you should have full acceleration.
You could run a benchmark to be sure.

 

[davehavers]

About a dummy R9 390X card .

If I have a R9 280X, with 2 4K DELL monitors in both MINI DP port, plus an HDMI TV on other port, then I add an R9 390X with no monitor, just to use OpenCL Power from this card, it will work ?

The performance will be .... well .... good ?

Something close to Mac Pro "dump box" ??

Can I put a second R9 390X to double the OpenCL Power, a total of 3 Cards ?


Fábio Rabelo

The question is a little bit older, but perhaps someones interested in using a 390x with multiple monitors.

I had a working build with a 280x running and added a 390x. As expected, the my hack didn't boot properly.

So i tried the following:

First, I changed the PCIE Slots. The 390x runs on PCIE 1 and the 280x on PCIE 2. Then, I connected my Dell 4k monitor to the 390x's Display Port and the other two monitors via HDMI and DVI to the 280x.

With these changes my hackintosh runs all three monitors and works fine. I'm still experiencing some minimal flickering now and then on the 4k display connected to the 390x and the 280x isn't showing any load while rendering in FCPX, but the performance is nearly 30% better now than rendering was with dual 280x setup in the past.

 

[secret-sounds]

Hi Fl0rian, thanks for the excellent write-up! This definitely answered some basic questions I wondered about!

I just wanted to report my findings and see what others have to say:
I'm using a HP ZBook 17 with Intel HD 4600 graphics and recently added a AMD FirePro M6100 (my ZBook originally came with a NVIDIA card). The M6100 apparently is one of those Bonaire cards and is being detected with device ID 6646 = Radeon R9 M280X.
Surprisingly, the card works OOB with Clover and El Capitan --with a few caveats that is. I'm testing it with dual monitor setup (LVDS + DP):
Hybrid Graphics disabled (AMD only):
-wake from sleep doesn't work (I can tell that this seems to be a known issue in El Capitan)
-internal display (LVDS) shows some artifacts (like bad JPG) even though QE/CI is working. External DP monitor seems fine
-laptop just turns off when GPU is under heavy load. Tested with StarCraft2 and laptop will simply shut down(!) after a few seconds of the game running
Hybrid Graphics enabled (Intel HD + AMD):
-internal display works fine (no artifacts) but external DP monitor is flickering heavily -which makes it basically unusable.

It seems, no matter what I inject in Clover I always get device ID 6646 with the Radeon Framebuffer. Is there anything else I can try to make either setup (Hybrid Graphics on/off) work better? I'm mostly concerned about the LVDS artifacts (AMD only) or the DP screen flickering (Hybrid Graphics). Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Fl0r!an]

Now that's an exotic setup...

Might be difficult to improve anything since GCN 1.1 cards are still badly supported (additionally to the general Radeon sleep/wake issue...). Patching a framebuffer to match your card might be worth a try. Have a look for the Hawaii related posts from @justr. It's a different card, but the same architecture, same drivers and similar issues.

 

[funkthew0rld]

I have an HIS Radeon 7700 (as reported by windows, confused as to the actual designation of the card) card with the ID 0x683D. I can confirm the "black screen issue" but its not only that. Sometimes its got weird artifacts and sometimes it has a cursor and grey screen.

It can all be fixed in el Capitan with editing the values of the amdradeonx4000.kext, or loading a fixer like popular verde.kext

Another strange thing though, is clover reports my card as to being the futomaki FB, and in the chart above its listed as Dashimaki. Is there anyway to check which one is actually loaded within os x? after the fixes I am impressed of the performance of this card, so I just wonder which one is loaded after all.

 

[fminus]

Fl0rian: I understand the R9 380 is not supported in 10.11 (Black screen). Would the following solution work:

• HDMI input from IGP to monitor. Boot via clover
• Once at login screen, switch monitor input to R9 380 on display port.

If so, would I still have full hardware acceleration? I am assuming I would still have sleep issues.

 

[secret-sounds]

Now that's an exotic setup...

Might be difficult to improve anything since GCN 1.1 cards are still badly supported (additionally to the general Radeon sleep/wake issue...). Patching a framebuffer to match your card might be worth a try. Have a look for the Hawaii related posts from @justr. It's a different card, but the same architecture, same drivers and similar issues.

Thanks for the quick response!
Hm I've tried follow what justr wrote and modify my vbios. It's a little difficult since Hawaii editor doesn't work for my card so it needs to be done in a hex editor. So far no luck on that.
Very basic question: Can I even patch a framebuffer when I always get the standard AMD Radeon FB, no matter what I inject in Clover? FB injection and even Fake ID doesn't seem to have any effect. The card is always detected as AMD Radeon HD 8xxx.

 

[ricky7]

Has anyone found a workaround for the sleep issues?