Radeon Compatibility Guide - ATI/AMD Graphics Cards

[Ni6htWalker]

Don't know if I have to open a new thread so ill ask here first. I recently bought an Powercolour R9 280X card witch works fine except sleep. is there any way to enable sleep functionality?

you should read the first page of this thread...

Starting with El Captian, AMD cards won't wake after sleep! Only workaround at the moment is booting with iGPU = Primary, thus losing any pre-OS graphics output. The issue persists in Sierra.

 

[cretans]

Yes I've seen it, is that means I have to connect igpu also to my monitor? Happy new year!!!!

 

[Fl0r!an]

No, it means you have to configure your iGPU as primary graphics device. No need to connect anything, but you'll lose pre-OS video output if you don't.

 

[yacob841]

I am having some issues with my Radeon 7950s. I am using Clover and as of now they are both working however just the DVI, and both minis are, the HDMI is not. When I go to graphic settings during boot up they are showing Futomaki and 5 ports where it actually has 4 and you say Hamachi. When I try to change these the computer still boots up, the HDMIs still don't work, and the next time I boot it's back to Futomaki and 5 ports. Any ideas on a fix?

 

[CaptainKernelPanic]

Well I am wondering, I did read the page(s) in this thread on AMD cards, and I still am wondering why the buyers' guide doesn't list any AMD cards? The topic page did not explain that very clearly, it just says they don't list any, and then proceeds to explain they're compatible. Is there any reason NVIDIA is preferred over AMD for the buyer's guide? All the AMD card experiences I've had have been fairly straightforward and simple to get QE/CI working on. However I am primarily an NVIDIA user, have been my whole life, just looking for a better explanation on why they're not included in the buyer's guide. I guess maybe the cons section is why the buyers' guide doesn't list them, because they're slightly less compatible than your standard NVIDIA card?

 

[Fl0r!an]

@yacob841: Your 7950's are using a slightly modified PCB layout, which isn't completely compatible with the framebuffer personalities in OS X. Either disable Inject/Ati or make a modified framebuffer personality based on your VBIOS.

@CaptainKernelPanic: It's a rather long story. The 1st gen GCN generation GPUs were perfectly supported by OS X (starting in 10.8), but at that time Chimera/Chameleon was still the most used bootloader, and it had some annoying bugs when using AMD graphics.

In 10.10 support for 2nd gen GCN was added, but it never matured as Apple never used it in any real Macs. Some of those cards can work fine, others work horrible, so we didn't recommend them either.

Chimera was replaced by Clover with the arrival of 10.11, which sadly introduced the sleep/wake issue in OS X with most AMD graphics. Even worse, it also introduced the "boot to black screen bug with" newer GPUs (3rd gen GCN at that time) which requires to configure the iGPU as primary graphics device, thus losing any pre-OS video output. This makes switching OS a pain for dual booters (which most people require).

Sierra expanded this bug to 2nd, 3rd and 4th gen GCN GPUs.

At the moment it's impossible to achieve 100% system functionality with AMD graphics without the use of any workarounds, so we don't recommend them. I'm still hopeful that we'll figure that bugs out in the future, but in the meantime this guide is more like a documentation for adventurous hackintosh users (who are willing to live with the mentioned bugs) instead of a list of recommended GPUs.

 

[mossman44]

Chimera was replaced by Clover with the arrival of 10.11, which sadly introduced the sleep/wake issue in OS X with most AMD graphics. Even worse, it also introduced the "boot to black screen bug with" newer GPUs (3rd gen GCN at that time) which requires to configure the iGPU as primary graphics device, thus losing any pre-OS video output. This makes switching OS a pain for dual booters (which most people require).

Sierra expanded this bug to 2nd, 3rd and 4th gen GCN GPUs.

If I understand this correctly, 1st gen GCN GPUs like the 7970 & 280X are not affected by the "boot to black screen bug" and a system with a 1st gen card can be booted with pre-OS video output without setting iGPU to primary? Is the reason for setting iGPU to primary for these cards just to avoid the sleep/wake issue?

The reason I'm asking is because I'm looking at repurposing a system as a hackintosh that has a Xeon E3-1231v3 (Haswell) processor without an iGPU. In this scenario, would it possible to use a 1st gen GCN card with this processor and be able to boot into a functional Sierra system, with the catch being the gpu won't wake from sleep?

 

[Fl0r!an]

The reason I'm asking is because I'm looking at repurposing a system as a hackintosh that has a Xeon E3-1231v3 (Haswell) processor without an iGPU. In this scenario, would it possible to use a 1st gen GCN card with this processor and be able to boot into a functional Sierra system, with the catch being the gpu won't wake from sleep?

Exactly.

 

[chickeneaterguy]

Looks fine to me. And yes, iGPIU=Primary is just an UEFI setting.

I'll investigate my FakeID idea later on my system when I find the time, never had to do that before, but I don't see why it shouldn't work.

Another idea would be fixing the framebuffer data for your iGPU, as your ghost monitor most likely comes from this. This could be enough: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...grated-graphics-working-as-of-10-11-4.188891/

I hacked my way around this using http://superuser.com/questions/229773/run-command-on-startup-login-mac-os-x and https://github.com/Eun/DisableMonitor to just disable the fake monitor on startup. Thank you for all of your help.

 

[yacob841]

Ok, so I turned off InjectAti and it fixed the HDMI issue but now I'm having another issue. It's not a big one but I was told each 7950 can handle 3 screens but now whenever there is 3 attached to a single card the third doesn't work. I tried with Mini,HDMI,DVI and with DVI,Mini,Mini. But when I have two no matter which I plug them into they work. As of now it's not a big deal since I have 4 screens but if I get just one more it will start causing issues. Oh and it took a couple boots to even get the computer to boot while having 3 in 1. Twice is shutoff immediately after powering on (before clover), then twice it gave panics after clover, so maybe it's a power issue. Any ideas?

Also, unrelated but your really good so I figured I would ask. Since Sierra the auto boot stopped working. It's still set in clover but won't work. I found somewhere that said instead of "Macintosh HD" to put the UUID of the hard drive (found by pressing space bar on the drive in clover). That worked but only for 1 boot. Any ideas on this?