[Success] AMD RX6000 Series working in macOS

[ARES777]

Have the Gigabyte 6800Xt from 24th December 2020. Now keep it in the same system with Xfx 570Rx 8gb RS Edition to have full acceleration while working in MOS. I think the drivers will come after 1st April. Serious. Switching 6800Xt as first device in Bios when I use WOS and gaming

 

[imsuperimposed]

Have the Gigabyte 6800Xt from 24th December 2020. Now keep it in the same system with Xfx 570Rx 8gb RS Edition to have full acceleration while working in MOS. I think the drivers will come after 1st April. Serious. Switching 6800Xt as first device in Bios when I use WOS and gaming

This is good to know, I asume I can do the same with my 5700XT (provided I can fit them both in the case) I have my 6800XT arriving tomorrow. I guess i'll give it a go....

 

[TheBloke]

Just received my 6800.... I updated to the latest beta... And well, at least I can boot in Mac OS. It is sluggish as you said, but it is not as bad as I thought. But I can only use one monitor. But it is ok for now.
Now waiting for the 11.3 beta.....

You also won't be able to put the system to sleep.

Personally I found it too slow to be usable. What I do, like ARES mentioned, is install two GPUs. Assuming you have the room in your case, of course.

Install both the 6800 and your old GPU that's supported in macOS (in my case that's a Vega 64.) Then disable the 6800 using an SSDT; instructions are available here: https://dortania.github.io/Getting-Started-With-ACPI/Desktops/desktop-disable.html

With this config I can boot Windows and use my 6900XT for gaming or whatever else, then reboot into macOS and have a fully accelerated, usable OS via my Vega 64.

Note that with this setup, sleep will likely still be broken. That's because the 6000-series GPUs have an onboard USB-C port. At least, the reference AMD cards do. Some AIB cards remove this and replace it with a DisplayPort. If your card does have a USB-C port on the back, then sleep will be broken until this port is mapped or disabled. There's instructions on USB mapping here: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-Install/usb/intel-mapping/intel.html

You can use USBMapper to disable the USB hub on the GPU (look for one with Vendor ID = 1002, which is AMD), and then sleep should work. USB mapping is a good thing to do anyway, if you haven't already.

 

[Higgie]

You also won't be able to put the system to sleep.

Personally I found it too slow to be usable. What I do, like ARES mentioned, is install two GPUs. Assuming you have the room in your case, of course.

Install both the 6800 and your old GPU that's supported in macOS (in my case that's a Vega 64.) Then disable the 6800 using an SSDT; instructions are available here: https://dortania.github.io/Getting-Started-With-ACPI/Desktops/desktop-disable.html

With this config I can boot Windows and use my 6900XT for gaming or whatever else, then reboot into macOS and have a fully accelerated, usable OS via my Vega 64.

Note that with this setup, sleep will likely still be broken. That's because the 6000-series GPUs have an onboard USB-C port. At least, the reference AMD cards do. Some AIB cards remove this and replace it with a DisplayPort. If your card does have a USB-C port on the back, then sleep will be broken until this port is mapped or disabled. There's instructions on USB mapping here: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-Install/usb/intel-mapping/intel.html

You can use USBMapper to disable the USB hub on the GPU (look for one with Vendor ID = 1002, which is AMD), and then sleep should work. USB mapping is a good thing to do anyway, if you haven't already.

I’ve attempted this myself but for some reason when I have both cards installed, macOS runs perfectly, but Windows will crash just after login. I get about 30 seconds of use, then everything freezes and I have to restart via the power button. Prior to that, everything runs fine and there doesn’t appear to be a problem. If I unplug either GPU, no more crash.

I tried it with both a reference 6800, and the new Sapphire Nitro+ 6800 I just received in slot 1, and my old RX580 in slot 2. I thought it may have been a power supply issue so I upgraded my RM650 to an RM850, and attached power to the PEG input on the motherboard, but still no luck. I tried disabling the 580 from Device Manager, but it made no difference. Any ideas?

 

[TheBloke]

I’ve attempted this myself but for some reason when I have both cards installed, macOS runs perfectly, but Windows will crash just after login. I get about 30 seconds of use, then everything freezes and I have to restart via the power button. Prior to that, everything runs fine and there doesn’t appear to be a problem. If I unplug either GPU, no more crash.

I tried it with both a reference 6800, and the new Sapphire Nitro+ 6800 I just received in slot 1, and my old RX580 in slot 2. I thought it may have been a power supply issue so I upgraded my RM650 to an RM850, and attached power to the PEG input on the motherboard, but still no luck. I tried disabling the 580 from Device Manager, but it made no difference. Any ideas?

Oh that sucks. Power would have been my first guess, but 850 watts sounds fine to run one active and one idle GPU.

I guess the first thing I'd test is booting Windows with just the RX580 in slot 1, then again with it in slot 2. To confirm that both slots are working fine. Or you could do that test with the 6800, doesn't matter. Just confirm both slots work fine in isolation.

If that tests OK, you could then try booting with both cards installed into a Linux distribution from USB stick - one that's been updated recently enough to have the required 6000-series drivers. Then do some basic stability tests there, like opening a few Firefox tabs with videos playing, and find some WebGL demos that will stress the card. If you have two monitors, plug one into each card and have at least one Firefox window per monitor, which will hopefully put some load on both cards.

If Linux checks out fine, then that points to some Windows issue. At which point you could try using a utility to remove all existing drivers. There's an AMD CleanUp Utility and also the Guru3D Display Driver Uninstaller. I've heard people talk about using the latter so I think that's the most common/recommended method.

With all drivers uninstalled from Windows, reboot and let Windows install its default drivers. See if that works fine. If it does, try re-installing the latest AMD drivers. If it fails at that stage, that would point to some driver-related issue.

Another option for confirming if Windows has issues would be to do a fresh Windows 10 install on a separate SSD. Boot from that and see how things go. If it works fine, that again points to some issue on your current install.

If however a new install of Windows - and/or a Linux boot - fails in the same way, then that points back to hardware. Meaning you'd likely have the same problem in macOS if you were able to boot with both GPUs active and accelerated.

 

[Higgie]

Oh that sucks. Power would have been my first guess, but 850 watts sounds fine to run one active and one idle GPU.

I guess the first thing I'd test is booting Windows with just the RX580 in slot 1, then again with it in slot 2. To confirm that both slots are working fine. Or you could do that test with the 6800, doesn't matter. Just confirm both slots work fine in isolation.

Both slots work fine - I have just been removing power from either card depending on what OS I want to boot. Both cards are still in the system, RX6800 in slot 1 and RX580 in slot 2. Just a pain having to open up the case and swap the power over every time I want to do some gaming!

If that tests OK, you could then try booting with both cards installed into a Linux distribution from USB stick - one that's been updated recently enough to have the required 6000-series drivers. Then do some basic stability tests there, like opening a few Firefox tabs with videos playing, and find some WebGL demos that will stress the card. If you have two monitors, plug one into each card and have at least one Firefox window per monitor, which will hopefully put some load on both cards.

Thanks for this - Any particular Linux distribution you would recommend? I've never used Linux at all!

If Linux checks out fine, then that points to some Windows issue. At which point you could try using a utility to remove all existing drivers. There's an AMD CleanUp Utility and also the Guru3D Display Driver Uninstaller. I've heard people talk about using the latter so I think that's the most common/recommended method.

With all drivers uninstalled from Windows, reboot and let Windows install its default drivers. See if that works fine. If it does, try re-installing the latest AMD drivers. If it fails at that stage, that would point to some driver-related issue.

I did think it could possibly be a driver related issue. I will make this my first port of call I think, before messing with Linux etc.

Another option for confirming if Windows has issues would be to do a fresh Windows 10 install on a separate SSD. Boot from that and see how things go. If it works fine, that again points to some issue on your current install.

If however a new install of Windows - and/or a Linux boot - fails in the same way, then that points back to hardware. Meaning you'd likely have the same problem in macOS if you were able to boot with both GPUs active and accelerated.

Good idea regarding a fresh install - I don't have any spare SSDs laying around though. I really don't think it's a hardware issue, as I have tried two different RX6800 cards, and a different power supply and had the same result every time. Yet, I only have the problem in Windows - Whether I am plugged in to the RX580 or RX6800, or the onboard graphics, the result is the same. But I can boot up into macOS and it runs perfectly with both cards installed. It's so strange as it even makes it into Windows, with no indication of a pending crash, it just all of a sudden freezes. Up until that point it runs perfectly fine!

 

[Ploddles]

If you use DDU then run it whilst in Safe Mode, remove all display drivers - AMD, Nvidia (even if you haven't installed any Nvidia cards in the past) and Intel. It is the only way to make sure everything is gone.

 

[dehjomz]

Go into device manager and Disable the older Radeon in windows.

Your FPS counter will thank you later.

 

[Higgie]

Go into device manager and Disable the older Radeon in windows.

Your FPS counter will thank you later.

I did that. But nothing to be thankful for as I can't even get into a game!

If you use DDU then run it whilst in Safe Mode, remove all display drivers - AMD, Nvidia (even if you haven't installed any Nvidia cards in the past) and Intel. It is the only way to make sure everything is gone.

Ok, I did that. Went into Safe Mode, uninstalled all the drivers (AMD/NVidia/Intel) and then restarted. It still crashed even without re-installing any of the drivers again. That does sound like a hardware problem then doesn't it? If so it can only be the motherboard I guess. Which would be annoying as this is the second Vision D I'm on, after having to RMA the first one because it wouldn't run just one GPU at full lane width in the top PCIE slot!

 

[ARES777]

I did that. But nothing to be thankful for as I can't even get into a game!



Ok, I did that. Went into Safe Mode, uninstalled all the drivers (AMD/NVidia/Intel) and then restarted. It still crashed even without re-installing any of the drivers again. That does sound like a hardware problem then doesn't it? If so it can only be the motherboard I guess. Which would be annoying as this is the second Vision D I'm on, after having to RMA the first one because it wouldn't run just one GPU at full lane width in the top PCIE

What works for me is to change in Bios every time the primary PCI gpu before booting OS. In my build the 6800xt is in the third slot, and 570 in first slot, near CPU.
If I don't change this every time, I have same kind of errors you mention. So when I go with WOS, the second card is set primary in BIOS. Have 2 27" Wqhd 1440p (2k) monitors both linked on DP for WOS, or one in DP and the other in HDMI for MOS.