Updating El Capitan -> Catalina with RX570

[eklipse]

I have been running my current setup for years now with no issues but the time has come to update the OS to a newer version and I decided to jump to Catalina. I am amazed an how much you people know here and I would like to get a little help and advice to get through this process.

My Current System:

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H​

i7-3770K 3.5Ghz​

16GB 1600Mhz DDR3​

GTX 650 Ti​

El Capitan 10.11.6​

For this upgrade, I am replacing the video card with a XFX RX570 8GB. And will be cloning the current 240GB SSD to a 500GB SSD with CCC to then do the update. I have tried running through this process myself over the last several days with much help from the forums, but can't get Catalina to boot properly and recognize the RX570 properly (dual monitors).

I am starting back at beginning to make sure I am doing the necessary steps and not missing something small but important along the way. Thank you for your patience and any help on a walk through.

First off, at what point should I replace the video card and is there drivers or something that need to be installed somewhere?
Next with cloning the SSD: Is there anything special I need to do or look for when cloning - or anything I need to check/edit or add to the cloned drive?
After I can successfully boot with the new SSD, what are the next steps to upgrading to Catalina?

I will start there and see where that gets me.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I have been running my current setup for years now with no issues but the time has come to update the OS to a newer version and I decided to jump to Catalina. I am amazed an how much you people know here and I would like to get a little help and advice to get through this process.

My Current System:

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H​

i7-3770K 3.5Ghz​

16GB 1600Mhz DDR3​

GTX 650 Ti​

El Capitan 10.11.6​

For this upgrade, I am replacing the video card with a XFX RX570 8GB. And will be cloning the current 240GB SSD to a 500GB SSD with CCC to then do the update. I have tried running through this process myself over the last several days with much help from the forums, but can't get Catalina to boot properly and recognize the RX570 properly (dual monitors).

I am starting back at beginning to make sure I am doing the necessary steps and not missing something small but important along the way. Thank you for your patience and any help on a walk through.

First off, at what point should I replace the video card and is there drivers or something that need to be installed somewhere?
Next with cloning the SSD: Is there anything special I need to do or look for when cloning - or anything I need to check/edit or add to the cloned drive?
After I can successfully boot with the new SSD, what are the next steps to upgrading to Catalina?

I will start there and see where that gets me.

Hi there.

In theory your XFX RX570 should work as Video BIOS problems are apparently a thing of the past, but Search is always your friend:

XFX Radeon RX570 8GB Black Screen (HDMI and DVI) in Catalina 10.5.5

Hi, I've upgrade to Catalina 10.5.5 and purchased the suggested XFX Radeon RX570 8GB from the Buyers Guide. I can boot with my old Radeon 6670 (albeit at basic 1280x1024 res as this card doesn't have a driver). I've tried first without WhateverGreen from MultiBeast 12.3.0 Edition and with and...

www.tonymacx86.com

XFX RX570

I had a question regarding the ultimate buyers guide, on the current listing under AMD cards, it has a link to a XFX RX 570 Black Edition (1328mhz). There is a XFX RX 570 XXX Edition (1286mhz) at a lower price, and I was just wondering if that will work to. From what I can tell, the only real...

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[eklipse]

Thanks for the tip. I have been scouring the forums for info to help me, with not much success.
Should I replace the video card before cloning and updating or wait til I get Catalina running before swapping out the card?
There is also references to lilu and Whatevergreen kexts that I am unfamiliar with, I am kind of noobish with hackintoshs and don't know what to do or if I need to do anything...before/during/after.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Thanks for the tip. I have been scouring the forums for info to help me, with not much success.
Should I replace the video card before cloning and updating or wait til I get Catalina running before swapping out the card?
There is also references to lilu and Whatevergreen kexts that I am unfamiliar with, I am kind of noobish with hackintoshs and don't know what to do or if I need to do anything...before/during/after.

That's the problem. You may not get Catalina running with the XFX card. At this point that's unknown, we might be doing it a disservice. I'd be tempted to use the GTX650 which should be a native GPU, to get your system up and running. Neither GPU needs any specific external drivers. Except the help of ...

As for Lilu and Whatevergreen. If you use the latest releases they should work their magic on their own, without intervention.

 

[eklipse]

I am also wondering if I need to make any changes in the MB BIOS or update from version f14, which is the last official, stable release.

I have downloaded the Lilu and Whatevergreen kexts but I am wondering if I should drop the folder(s) into EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other or the individual Lilu.kext and WhateverGreen.kext files or all the files that come in the package. I'm not sure what each is for or what exactly they do. I am just reading post that say install them but not how specifically. Manually? Clover Bootloader? Hackintool? OpenCore Configurator? Clover Configurator? I was also wondering about FakeSMC.kext and if I need that. Its all a bit confusing for me if you could help. Thanks.

 

[eklipse]

So for now, I was able to clone the SSD over to the new 500GB SSD and successfully boot into my El Capitan 10.11.6.
What would be the next steps to upgrade to Catalina? This is where I ran into problems before.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I am also wondering if I need to make any changes in the MB BIOS or update from version f14, which is the last official, stable release.

I have downloaded the Lilu and Whatevergreen kexts but I am wondering if I should drop the folder(s) into EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other or the individual Lilu.kext and WhateverGreen.kext files or all the files that come in the package. I'm not sure what each is for or what exactly they do. I am just reading post that say install them but not how specifically. Manually? Clover Bootloader? Hackintool? OpenCore Configurator? Clover Configurator? I was also wondering about FakeSMC.kext and if I need that. Its all a bit confusing for me if you could help. Thanks.

Just download the "Release" zip file and only copy the lilu.kext and whatevergreen.kext files into EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other folder. Nothing else.

FakeSMC.kext or VirtualSMC.kext are the only two must-have kexts for a hackintosh build, so the theory goes. VirtualSMC is the newer and recommended going forward, but FakeSMC works with older macOSs. Either (not both) will do.

As for your latest post:

Personally, I didn't go the whole hog in one step. I upgraded to High Sierra first, then Catalina. It can be a rocky road and you need to do a lot of backups so you can get back to important waypoints if necessary.

 

[eklipse]

I upgraded to High Sierra first, then Catalina. It can be a rocky road and you need to do a lot of backups so you can get back to important waypoints if necessary.

So I decided to go the more cautious approach you mentioned and upgrade to HS first.
I have a concern before doing so...I noticed in one of the 'upgrade directly to Mac OSX High Sierra' guides that there is a reference to "Copy apfs.efi to /EFI/CLOVER/drivers64UEFI/. " My concern is that I don't have that folder. Should I create one and copy the file there? My structure is EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI/.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

So I decided to go the more cautious approach you mentioned and upgrade to HS first.
I have a concern before doing so...I noticed in one of the 'upgrade directly to Mac OSX High Sierra' guides that there is a reference to "Copy apfs.efi to /EFI/CLOVER/drivers64UEFI/. " My concern is that I don't have that folder. Should I create one and copy the file there? My structure is EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI/.

No, the second path you quote is the one used by later, 5**** series Clover releases. So put any necessary *.efi file in the /UEFI/ folder

 

[eklipse]

No, the second path you quote is the one used by later, 5**** series Clover releases. So put any necessary *.efi file in the /UEFI/ folder

I am using the latest Clover release I believe ( Clover UEFI Boot Mode with Emulated NVRAM v2.5k r5102 )
Would I still need to add the apfs.efi file before upgrading?
According to https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/update-directly-to-macos-high-sierra.232707/

I also saw something about removing the SMCHelper.efi - Would I need to address that?
Any BIOS Changes needed too?

Thanks