Radeon Compatibility Guide - ATI/AMD Graphics Cards

[pastrychef]

Interesting. I'm wondering why I'm not facing the fan issue myself. My fans barely ramp up unless under heavy load (benchmarking, etc.) and are idle most of the time. I also noticed that sleep doesn't work reliably without Whatevergreen.kext. I think most of the issues will be solved with 10.13.4.

Are there any negative side-effects to using Whatevergreen?

Performance wise, this kicks the sh** out of the GTX 1070 it replaced. I really think AMD should be the default recommendation. Had I known earlier, I wouldn't have spent money on Nvidia and sold the card at a loss.

My only guess is that, since your Vega 56 is not a reference design and has 3 fans, the firmware is different enough that it's unaffected by the fan bug.

Yes, I also believe these little bugs will be ironed out by 10.13.4.

I have not read about anyone having issues with WhateverGreen.kext.

I have also found that macOS feels much better with the Vega card. Assuming that 10.13.4 will have all the Vega issues fixed, I agree that it should be recommended over Nvidia cards. On paper, my old GTX 1080 was the perfect card for me, unfortunately, Nvidia's drivers just didn't live up to expectations.

The crypto currency miners have really driven prices to insane levels. Even after selling my GTX 1080, I had to add an additional $250 out of my pocket. But macOS performs so much better with the Vega, that I still feel it was worthwhile.

 

[GideonBlack]

My only guess is that, since your Vega 56 is not a reference design and has 3 fans, the firmware is different enough that it's unaffected by the fan bug.

Yes, I also believe these little bugs will be ironed out by 10.13.4.

I have not read about anyone having issues with WhateverGreen.kext.

I have also found that macOS feels much better with the Vega card. Assuming that 10.13.4 will have all the Vega issues fixed, I agree that it should be recommended over Nvidia cards. On paper, my old GTX 1080 was the perfect card for me, unfortunately, Nvidia's drivers just didn't live up to expectations.

The crypto currency miners have really driven prices to insane levels. Even after selling my GTX 1080, I had to add an additional $250 out of my pocket. But macOS performs so much better with the Vega, that I still feel it was worthwhile.

I suffered a similar loss. In my country the dynamics of pricing are even more complex due to taxes and import duties, so changing GPUs is an even more difficult decision. But given the shift in performance — even with basic UI elements — I feel it's justified. Even better, now I won't be at the mercy of Nvidia and their clearly incompetent/indifferent devs.

Personally, I don't think this website should even wait for native support to begin recommending AMD. The whole point of Nvidia being the default recommendation is the assumption of working drivers, which is clearly no longer the case.

 

[zipb]

My RX480(bought second hand for a reasonable price from a miner) has been working fine in High Sierra from day 1, thanks to whatevergreen. I must admit that I only notice a big difference in FCP, all the other software I use on a regular basis works OK with the iGPU(HD530) and/or my old AMD6870(not on 4K though). It took some work to get hardware decoding work, and there are still some minor problems(eg 10-bit HEVC decoding), but all in all I'm happy. I have a 4k 60Hz 43-inch display connected via displayport. It is recognized as a TV, so I've installed f.lux for nighshift.

 

[pastrychef]

I suffered a similar loss. In my country the dynamics of pricing are even more complex due to taxes and import duties, so changing GPUs is an even more difficult decision. But given the shift in performance — even with basic UI elements — I feel it's justified. Even better, now I won't be at the mercy of Nvidia and their clearly incompetent/indifferent devs.

Personally, I don't think this website should even wait for native support to begin recommending AMD. The whole point of Nvidia being the default recommendation is the assumption of working drivers, which is clearly no longer the case.

I spotted some differences between using RadeonDeInit in config.plist vs WhateverGreen.kext:

Using RadeonDeInit:
About this Mac shows "Radeon RX XXX"
Allows for 10-bit color

Using WhateverGreen.kext:
About this Mac shows "Radeon RX Vega"
Only allows for 8-bit color

 

[GideonBlack]

I spotted some differences between using RadeonDeInit in config.plist vs WhateverGreen.kext:

Using RadeonDeInit:
About this Mac shows "Radeon RX XXX"
Allows for 10-bit color

Using WhateverGreen.kext:
About this Mac shows "Radeon RX Vega"
Only allows for 8-bit color

Good catch. Luckily, my monitors are only 8bit + AFRC.

I will probably continue to test alternate configurations until 10.13.4. But honestly things have been running fairly flawlessly with Whatevergreen.

This post suggests an alternate method for getting Vega cards properly recognized without Whatevergreen. I haven't really understood the specifics as the instructions are lacking.

 

[pastrychef]

Good catch. Luckily, my monitors are only 8bit + AFRC.

I will probably continue to test alternate configurations until 10.13.4. But honestly things have been running fairly flawlessly with Whatevergreen.

This post suggests an alternate method for getting Vega cards properly recognized without Whatevergreen. I haven't really understood the specifics as the instructions are lacking.

Yes, I'm also anxiously awaiting 10.13.4.

I don't think I want to bother going through the method in that thread. My system is running so well without a DSDT, I don't want to mess with it. I'm confident that 10.13.4 will get it all right.

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Yes, I'm also anxiously awaiting 10.13.4.

I don't think I want to bother going through the method in that thread. My system is running so well without a DSDT, I don't want to mess with it. I'm confident that 10.13.4 will get it all right.

+1

I'm anxiously awaiting 10.13.4 too. I do wish they would hurry along with it!

 

[izo1]

I’m just hoping Apple doesn’t make a big graphical change in 10.14

High Sierra has so many under the hood changes it’s crazy.

My Wacom tablet was out of service for months because Apple all of a sudden changed how the HID devices function and didn’t tell Wacom.

Now Apple changed everything to Metal 2 so nvidia hasn’t updated their drivers for that hence why it’s laggy for everyone.

Otherwise I moved to AMD and sold my nvidia cards. I will miss CUDA but that was buggy too under macos anyway.

Vega FE runs really hot under Windows in full load though.

 

[thenephilim]

I spotted some differences between using RadeonDeInit in config.plist vs WhateverGreen.kext:

Using RadeonDeInit:
About this Mac shows "Radeon RX XXX"
Allows for 10-bit color

Using WhateverGreen.kext:
About this Mac shows "Radeon RX Vega"
Only allows for 8-bit color

It defaults to 8bit but I just manually set them to 10bit with ResXtreme and it works fine...

scaled 4k60 displays

 

[mattystonnie]

I see 1080p?