Radeon Compatibility Guide - ATI/AMD Graphics Cards

[izo1]

No speed increase with Vega 64?
Swapped out my RX580 for new Sapphire Vega 64. Did nothing but swap cards. Boots OK, but getting exactly the same results in Valley, FCPX, Geekbench, cinebench etc with the Vega as I did with the 580. No speed increase at all; no detectable difference

did a bit of snooping in my nvram.plist (emulation required by the mobo) and found
nvda_drv. 3100
<data>
MQA=
</data>
was surprised to see ref to nvidia at all. should that change for Radeon Vega?

Would love to get full value from my new Vega whatever it takes!

Any suggestions?
(Running Mojave 10.14.5)

Don't need to inject anything for Vega, it's supported natively.

Just add WhateverGreen/Lilu for additional port support and things like Shiki, etc.

You should see significant speed increase from Polaris to Vega in FCPX, etc.

 

[kentval]

Thank you. That's what I thought.

Now I'm seriously confused then as to why the Vega is performing exactly like the RX580. Further, I went into my NVRAM.plist and -deleted- this entry:

<key>nvda_drv</key>
<data>
MQA=
</data>

Rebooted, and the entry has been -added back- into the nvram.plist.

That means nvda_drv has a non-zero value, so perhaps the OS is trying to load some default Nvidia driver?

Why is this entry there, and added back if I delete it? Could there be something in my config.plist doing this? Some driver that should not be loaded?

This is weird. Any suggestions on where to start looking or debugging this?

 

[izo1]

Thank you. That's what I thought.

Now I'm seriously confused then as to why the Vega is performing exactly like the RX580. Further, I went into my NVRAM.plist and -deleted- this entry:

<key>nvda_drv</key>
<data>
MQA=
</data>

Rebooted, and the entry has been -added back- into the nvram.plist.

That means nvda_drv has a non-zero value, so perhaps the OS is trying to load some default Nvidia driver?

Why is this entry there, and added back if I delete it? Could there be something in my config.plist doing this? Some driver that should not be loaded?

This is weird. Any suggestions on where to start looking or debugging this?

Did you have WebDrivers installed prior? Try to see if you can delete all your previous NVIDIA remnants from the system.

I don't have access to your EFI folder so I don't know exactly how you have configured it, but I would also suggest deleting the NVRAM cache (it seems like you're emulating NVRAM via EmuVariableUefi-64.efi?)...for your board, from a quick search, it seems to support NVRAM natively so no need to emulate it. You will only need AptioMemoryFix-64.efi.

 

[Gigamaxx]

Thank you. That's what I thought.

Now I'm seriously confused then as to why the Vega is performing exactly like the RX580. Further, I went into my NVRAM.plist and -deleted- this entry:

<key>nvda_drv</key>
<data>
MQA=
</data>

Rebooted, and the entry has been -added back- into the nvram.plist.

That means nvda_drv has a non-zero value, so perhaps the OS is trying to load some default Nvidia driver?

Why is this entry there, and added back if I delete it? Could there be something in my config.plist doing this? Some driver that should not be loaded?

This is weird. Any suggestions on where to start looking or debugging this?

Check your Library/Extensions folder for Nvidia web drivers.

 

[kentval]

Thanks once again.

First, I already checked Library/Extensions: there are no video drivers in there at all.

Next, I checked my System/library/extensions, and I found webdriver versions of of some standard Apple/Mojave GeForce files.

(I say 'standard' because these are installed on my MacBook Pro too:

GeForce.kext
GeForceAIRPlugin.bundle
GeForceGLDriver.bundle
GeForceMTLDriver.bundle
GeForceTeslaGAWeb.bundle
GeForceVADriver.bundle

However, my Z390 -also- has:

GeForceAIRPluginWeb.bundle
GeForceGLDriverWeb.bundle
GeForceMTLDriverWeb.bundle
GeForceTeslaGLDriverWeb.bundle
GeForceTeslaVADriverWeb.bundle
GeForceVADriverWeb.bundle

Installed at a different time. I'd assume I can delete those Web.bundles, although I'm reluctant to muck about with the System library folder....

I'd be happy to zip up my EFI for you. Not sure where the NVRAM cache is. I'll happily delete it as that sounds like a great idea. (Didn't realize there even was a cache for it.) Yes, I'm emulating NVRAM because, as I was building this (Stork, I think it was) said that Clover doesn't support hardware NVRAM on this board. (The board has it, but Clover won't work with it.)

my drivers are:
ApfsDriverLoader-64.efi
AudioDxe-64.efi
DataHubDxe-64.efi
EmuVariableUefi-64.efi
FSInject-64.efi
OsxAptioFix3Drv-64.efi
PartitionDxe-64.efi
SMCHelper-64.efi
VBoxHfs-64.efi

(FWIW, I changed the nvram.plist nvda_drv entry to 00, but it too was overwritten...)

Where will I find the NVRAM cache?

i -DO- greatly appreciate your time with me on this. Thanks.

 

[pastrychef]

Thank you. That's what I thought.

Now I'm seriously confused then as to why the Vega is performing exactly like the RX580. Further, I went into my NVRAM.plist and -deleted- this entry:

<key>nvda_drv</key>
<data>
MQA=
</data>

Rebooted, and the entry has been -added back- into the nvram.plist.

That means nvda_drv has a non-zero value, so perhaps the OS is trying to load some default Nvidia driver?

Why is this entry there, and added back if I delete it? Could there be something in my config.plist doing this? Some driver that should not be loaded?

This is weird. Any suggestions on where to start looking or debugging this?

That setting will do nothing if you don't have an Nvidia card.

 

[kentval]

Thanks again. (Can't get rid of me, eh? )
Still plagued by the Vega having the same speed as the RX580. My board ought to support screamingly fast rendering and frame rates. Most folks with a similar setup see FCPX render times of 6 seconds with the test project: mine takes 20 seconds, just as it did with the 580. Framerates are 120-ish, but others are getting 160+. OpenGL score in GeekBench is 150,000-ish - just as it was with the 580.

I've toggled the Vega Bios switch to no avail. I'm running out of ideas. This is a -computer- for crying out loud: SOMETHING is causing this weirdness...

If you have any debugging suggestions, I'd be more than receptive...

 

[izo1]

@kentval please make a new thread about your issue in the graphics section and we'll help.

Something else is going on, you should be seeing a big jump from RX580 to Vega 64 (I've had all these cards myself).

Please post your EFI folder there too.

Any NVIDIA switches and other things in the config file should not interfere with the performance of a GPU.

 

[kentval]

As requested, I have moved this to an appropriate existing thread, which is discussing this very problem, here.

 

[baddles]

XFX RX 460-560 have incompatible vbios. TechPowerup site has info to reflash the vbios to a Sapphire model.

Before updating to 10.14.6 db2, I was on 10.14.5, and I was able to boot it up just fine with a Gigabyte vBios. I also tried your suggestion to use Sapphire model and it didn't work unfortunately.