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[Success] AMD RX6000 Series working in macOS

There is still remnants of AMDRadeonX6000_AmdRadeonControllerNavi21 in the new binary of X6000Framebuffer.kext, but it looks like they have refactored a ton and moved all the Navi 10, 12 and 14 code to go off a new Controller named AMDRadeonX6000_AmdRadeonControllerNavi instead. Maybe next beta I guess.
 
My findings on 11.3 are similar in that with the 6800XT, the WindowServer fails to load, unlike 11.2 But this can be a bug. Seems that there's some conflict with PerfPowerService and Radeon6000FrameBuffer and the WindowServer...

What I've found is that Apple has not removed Navi 6000 support. In fact, Big Navi Support has advanced. Apple has added Radeon 6000 hardware IDs to the AMDRadeonx6000Framebuffer.kext, which now loads in 11.3. If I recall correctly, this kext did not load in 11.2.

Still some work to do, but seems that it's being done.
 
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What I've found is that Apple has not removed Navi 6000 support. In fact, Big Navi Support has advanced. Apple has added Radeon 6000 hardware IDs to the AMDRadeonx6000Framebuffer.kext, which now loads in 11.3. If I recall correctly, this kext did not load in 11.2.
It did load. That's why the Navi21, Navi22 and Navi23 framebuffers were defined in AMDRadeonX6000Framebuffer.kext's info.plist. If that kext hadn't have loaded, we'd not have been able to load the GUI in 11.1 and 11.2.

But yes, the fact that the kext still loads and that there's still mention of Navi21 in the binary does mean support is not gone completely. Based on Pavo's findings of them refactoring Navi10 to a new controller it seems likely they're in the middle of refactoring the code to separate out RDNA1 and RDNA2 hardware. It always seemed slightly odd to me that they'd add RDNA2 to the same controller as RDNA1, and maybe that was just a quick temporary measure to provide the basic non-accelerated output that they put in 11.1.

I'm still not quite sure why they bothered adding the device IDs so early if they had no intention of providing the full drivers for a while longer. Perhaps they were using their telemetry data to log how many users were trying Big Sur with 6000-series cards so as to decide how important it was to support them quickly..
 
Given everything written here, what’s your probability % that RDNA 2 GPUs will be supported? I’m still confused if I should buy. MacOS is my primary OS.
 
Given everything written here, what’s your probability % that RDNA 2 GPUs will be supported? I’m still confused if I should buy. MacOS is my primary OS.
At this time I see no incentive for Apple to rush to support these cards other than to offer MacPro 7,1 upgrades.

Given they are clearly working hard on the AS rollout, and the time it usually takes for them to integrate new GPU tech, I would argue stable macOS driver support is way off, months.

I'd wait before you buy one, the prices are insane right now and stock is slim. But if you are happy to cough up and sit on one, go for it. These will be supported eventually, I am 99.9% sure of that simply because MacPro users will want upgrades.
 
Given everything written here, what’s your probability % that RDNA 2 GPUs will be supported? I’m still confused if I should buy. MacOS is my primary OS.

The only safe bet is what you are already using as these are fully supported ATM. We could all say that we are 99.999999% certain that Apple will eventually support the RX6000 series but only Apple know 100%, and they aren't saying.
 
The only safe bet is what you are already using as these are fully supported ATM. We could all say that we are 99.999999% certain that Apple will eventually support the RX6000 series but only Apple know 100%, and they aren't saying.
Agreed. Back in the high Sierra days, people were similarly 99.999 percent sure nvidia web drivers would similarly support the then-upcoming Mojave OS. Then months went by, and it never happened.

So anyone buying Big Navi has to consciously be aware of the risk that you’re possibly purchasing a card that Apple may never support. Especially given that Big Navi is basically sold out world wide at MSRP prices, and the only way to reliably get it at the moment is to pay a markup. The card is not marketed as Macintosh compatible, and while the presence of Big Navi hardware IDs in the framebuffer kexts should give us hope, nothing is guaranteed.
 
I mean they did have support for the Radeon VII when they implemented support for 5000 series. And as far as I can tell, Apple didn't sell macs with that particular card inside.

@dehjomz,

Apple manufactures and sells a range of Radeon Pro Vega II MPX cards for the 2019 Mac Pro ...
All those cards use the same 7Nm Vega II GPU die that is used on the AMD Radeon VII.

Apple has always been traditionally very slow when it comes to supporting a new GPU architecture, for instance when Apple added support for Vega II (as used in Radeon VII cards) it took well over 8+ months before the drivers could be considered usable and stable, the same was true for 5000 series Navi.

It is rumoured/expected that Apple will refresh the 2019 Mac Pro later this year, as part of that refresh I would expect Apple to announce new MPX modules for the 2019 Mac Pro based on AMD 6000 series GPU's at which point I think we will start to see working drivers for 6000 series GPU's being introduced into MacOS.

I would not expect that to happen until maybe Big Sur 11.5 ... even then, there will most likely be teething issues which traditionally have not been fully resolved until the next major release of MacOS.

This is the way its been for many years and is just the way the Apple rolls ....

Cheers
Jay
 
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@dehjomz,

Apple manufactures and sells a range of Radeon Pro Vega II MPX cards for the 2019 Mac Pro ...
All those cards use the same GPU die that is used on the AMD Radeon VII.

Apple has always been traditionally very slow when it comes to supporting a new GPU architecture, for instance when Apple added support for Vega II (as used in Radeon VII cards) it took well over 8+ months before the drivers could be considered usable, the same was true for 5000 series Navi.

It is expected that Apple will refresh the 2019 Mac Pro later this year, as part of that refresh I would expect Apple to announce new MPX modules for the 2019 Mac Pro based on AMD 6000 series GPU's at which point we can expect to start to see fully working drivers for 6000 series GPU's being introduced into MacOS.

Personally i would not expect that to happen to maybe Big Sur 11.5 ... even then there will most likely be teething issues which traditionally have not been fully resolved until the next release of MacOS.

This is the way its been for many years and is just the way the Apple rolls ....

Cheers
Jay
Fair point.

Given the presence of big navi hardware Ids in the kexts, that signals Apple is at least considering supporting Big Navi.
 
Given the presence of big navi hardware Ids in the kexts, that signals Apple is at least considering supporting Big Navi.

@dehjomz,

Agreed ...

it was the same with Vega, Vega II and 1st Gen Navi in that we started to see hardware device id's for those products in MacOS well before we got full support for them.

I'm pretty sure that Apple are already tinkering with 6000 series GPU's in their development labs.
We just have to hang in there and wait .....

Cheers
Jay
 
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