UHD630 frequency stuck at minimum

[fjnorb]

I recently upgraded my Z370-based Hack (ASUS ROG Z370-G mobo, i7-8700K, Sapphire RX580) from Clover to OpenCore, and from Catalina to Monterey. It's perfect, except for one little thing that's got me puzzled. I do a lot of work in Final Cut Pro, and under Clover I was using iMac18,1 (because when I built it the Coffee Lake Macs were not out yet) with the iGPU set to headless and my Radeon RX580 as the primary GPU. When I moved to OpenCore I initially tried iMacPro1,1 but then remembered the iMac Pros have Xeon CPUs which don't have iGPUs; and I wasn't impressed with FCPX's performance without the iGPU backing it up for exports and proxy transcoding. IIRC 580's don't like doing hardware-accelerated encoding on MacOS for some reason, but it's a non-issue on real Macs because the iGPU is always there to do it.

So I looked at what real Mac most closely matched my hardware and it was iMac19,1. I generated new SMBIOS info for it and put it in my config.plist. But FCPX exports are slow [EDIT: EVEN IF I SEND THE JOB TO COMPRESSOR] and I notice the fans in my Hack aren't spooling up like they used to during exports and transcoding. I got poking around and when I finally loaded up Intel Power Gadget, I saw this:

This is during an export of a 4K timeline. No matter what I do, the "GFX Req" (the OS-requested clock frequency for the iGPU) never goes above "0.33" GHz, which I assume is supposed to be 350MHz, the base clock of the UHD630 on my i7-8700K. On other projects I can actually peg the "GFX Avg" right to that line and it'll never go to a higher frequency. According to Intel, the UHD630 should boost to 1.2GHz under load, and in fact the UHD630 in my 2019 MacBook Pro does boost to 1.2GHz under load exporting the same FCPX projects. Actually, isn't it supposed to dynamically change on MacBooks but just stay at 1.2GHz on desktops? I'd take that, too.

A Zip file of my current EFI folder is attached. FCPX already doesn't max out hardware like it should, annoyingly; I really need it to not have extra handicaps on this machine. Thank you to anyone who can help!

 

[Edhawk]

You need to go back to the Coffee Lake Desktop OpenCore guide and look through your OC setup, as it contains a lot of mistakes/unnecessary kexts, patches and is missing the IGPU DeviceProperties for your IGPU.

This is a screenshot of the DeviceProperties > Add section from your config.plist.
Hackintool PCI Export details added to config.plist.

I am sure it makes the System Information > PCI section report look great, but they do nothing to make your system run better.

When you get your OC setup running correctly, i.e. in line with the OC guide, then you may get the correct IGPU output in Final Cut Pro - https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/config.plist/coffee-lake.html#starting-point

I would recommend you have a read of the WhateverGreen.kext manual, specifically the General Recommendations section - https://github.com/acidanthera/WhateverGreen/blob/master/Manual/FAQ.IntelHD.en.md

 

[pastrychef]

is missing the IGPU DeviceProperties for your IGPU.

It's not needed.

 

[fjnorb]

You need to go back to the Coffee Lake Desktop OpenCore guide and look through your OC setup, as it contains a lot of mistakes/unnecessary kexts, patches and is missing the IGPU DeviceProperties for your IGPU.

Okay, so it's not that I have one value that's clearly wrong, it's that there's a combination of things that are causing MacOS to make a decision internally to set the UHD630 clock frequency to 330 or 350MHz?

Now that I look, I may have made a mistake picking iMac19,1 as the i7-8700 wasn't used in the iMac19,1 but it was used in the iMac19,2. However the OpenCore guides seem to say for Coffee Lake that only iMac19,1 or iMacPro1,1 should ever be used. Why is that?

I guess when I have some time I'll rebuild my config.plist from scratch and see what happens.

 

[pastrychef]

Okay, so it's not that I have one value that's clearly wrong, it's that there's a combination of things that are causing MacOS to make a decision internally to set the UHD630 clock frequency to 330 or 350MHz?

Now that I look, I may have made a mistake picking iMac19,1 as the i7-8700 wasn't used in the iMac19,1 but it was used in the iMac19,2. However the OpenCore guides seem to say for Coffee Lake that only iMac19,1 or iMacPro1,1 should ever be used. Why is that?

I guess when I have some time I'll rebuild my config.plist from scratch and see what happens.

I don't know what mistakes you are finding... But it doesn't really matter if you use iMac19,1 or iMac19,2. It won't make a difference.

If you decide to use iMac19,2, redo the USBPorts.kext.

 

[fjnorb]

I don't know what mistakes you are finding...

Well there's at least one mistake in there that is preventing my UHD630 from running at 1.2GHz.

I welcome any assistance you can provide but if all you're going to do is reply and say "there are no mistakes," please just let other people try to help.

 

[pastrychef]

Well there's at least one mistake in there that is preventing my UHD630 from running at 1.2GHz.

I welcome any assistance you can provide but if all you're going to do is reply and say "there are no mistakes," please just let other people try to help.

There are no mistakes.

 

[pastrychef]

Well there's at least one mistake in there that is preventing my UHD630 from running at 1.2GHz.

I welcome any assistance you can provide but if all you're going to do is reply and say "there are no mistakes," please just let other people try to help.

Assuming you have an RX 580 with reference port layout, you can try disabling WhateverGreen to see if it helps you.

 

[pastrychef]

Source:https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/solved-need-to-enable-quicksync-export-on-i8700k-rx-580-fcpx.249588/page-4#post-2127568


Additional useful info here.

 

[fjnorb]