X299 Big Sur Support

[Jasoncole98]

X299 Big Sur Support

Interestingly on this board it simply won't boot past the picker if the NPCI=0x2000 argument is not present. Boot arguments are case sensitive, NPCI=0x2000 is nonsense and will have no effect. It should be npci=0x2000 (or npci=0x3000).

www.tonymacx86.com

@rustEswan
So I was able to start completely over and I tried using iMacPro1,1 and MacPro1,1 and iMac19,1 so what I've found is that I get better GPU performance with iMac19,1 with my setup when benchmarking (which is a great troubleshooting tool to see what's working properly.) ex. iMacPro1,1 34830 Metal score vs. iMac19,1 51600 Metal score. When the only thing that changed is the SMBIOS. Super odd... Granted I have a brand new RX580 8GB, even though it's older tech, if you have one in a x299 board, try it yourself and see what scores you get on iMac19,1 vs iMacPro1,1 or MacPro1,1 prove me wrong?

Now on to my #1 issue: I've used USBInjectAll.kext and set the XHCIPortLimit properly, but when viewing in Hackintool v3.5.3 to view all the ports. The issue is that I see 2 controllers, but when plugging in things 1 port at a time, most times, I insert the USB stick and it NEVER shows in Hackintool where it's located (but mounts the volume on the desktop), super frustrating to say the least... Like phantom USB ports that aren't listed...

I'm going to attach my EFI file in case someone can check or see what's wrong... Thanks in advance!
Here is the screenshot from Hackintool, FYI it used to show at the top PXSX and 4 ports listed but now nope...
The saga continues....

 

[rustEswan]

@rustEswan
So I was able to start completely over and I tried using iMacPro1,1 and MacPro1,1 and iMac19,1 so what I've found is that I get better GPU performance with iMac19,1 with my setup when benchmarking (which is a great troubleshooting tool to see what's working properly.) ex. iMacPro1,1 34830 Metal score vs. iMac19,1 51600 Metal score. When the only thing that changed is the SMBIOS. Super odd... Granted I have a brand new RX580 8GB, even though it's older tech, if you have one in a x299 board, try it yourself and see what scores you get on iMac19,1 vs iMacPro1,1 or MacPro1,1 prove me wrong?

So this is exactly why I said it was a genuine question of curiosity - rather than a "prove me wrong". It is interesting that you get higher Geekbench metal score, I would love to know the reason why.

I don't doubt it at all, but, this is one synthetic test on one piece of hardware. My concern is that we introduce other problems elsewhere...

For example (And I haven't tested any of this I'm just thinking out loud) when we export from FinalCut Pro, say using the BruceX test, a real 2019 iMac can be significantly faster than a 2017 iMac Pro (when configured with the same number of CPU cores) due to having integrated graphics chips in the CPU's that support Intel quick sync - on X299 we don't have those so are we introducing a potential application instability or additional performance hit for something that's expecting quick sync hardware due to our choice of iMac19,1? I don't know, as I said thinking out loud.

Or what about other workloads which might take advantage of AVX-512? Are we leaving a whole load of performance on the table because we won't take advantage of a CPU feature our CPU's do have which an iMac19,1 or Z370/390 system does not?

Perhaps the opposite is true for some applications/scenarios where an iMacPro1,1 definition leads an app to assume we have T2 hardware when we do not?

I don't know if app stability is affected or just performance in different areas.

I just don't think its as simple as one test - which is why I'm really interested in finding out exactly how the variable is used. In the meantime I would still think that most closely matching the platform and CPU architecture is a better starting point for overall performance and stability, although clearly, as you've proved there are cases outside the expected - all the more reason to investigate.

 

[jaspercat5]

X299 Big Sur Support

Interestingly on this board it simply won't boot past the picker if the NPCI=0x2000 argument is not present. Boot arguments are case sensitive, NPCI=0x2000 is nonsense and will have no effect. It should be npci=0x2000 (or npci=0x3000).

www.tonymacx86.com

@rustEswan
So I was able to start completely over and I tried using iMacPro1,1 and MacPro1,1 and iMac19,1 so what I've found is that I get better GPU performance with iMac19,1 with my setup when benchmarking (which is a great troubleshooting tool to see what's working properly.) ex. iMacPro1,1 34830 Metal score vs. iMac19,1 51600 Metal score. When the only thing that changed is the SMBIOS. Super odd... Granted I have a brand new RX580 8GB, even though it's older tech, if you have one in a x299 board, try it yourself and see what scores you get on iMac19,1 vs iMacPro1,1 or MacPro1,1 prove me wrong?

That is interesting. I'm pretty sure that that if you use SMBIOS 19,1 you won't get full VDA decoding meaning that you won't be able to play Amazon 4K among other DRM protected media which on my build required SMBIOS 1,1.See image. All my builds are on 1,1 now for this reason.

Now on to my #1 issue: I've used USBInjectAll.kext and set the XHCIPortLimit properly, but when viewing in Hackintool v3.5.3 to view all the ports. The issue is that I see 2 controllers, but when plugging in things 1 port at a time, most times, I insert the USB stick and it NEVER shows in Hackintool where it's located (but mounts the volume on the desktop), super frustrating to say the least... Like phantom USB ports that aren't listed...

Not sure of the nature of your problem. I attach a screenshot of my USB ports after the port mapping - those not highlighted in green are all live. Take, for example USB port SS05/HS13 - see the schematic. Plug a USB3 in and SS05 lights up green in Hackintool. Replace the USB3 with a USB 2 device and SS05 turns back to white and HS11 lights up green.

I'm going to attach my EFI file in case someone can check or see what's wrong... Thanks in advance!
Here is the screenshot from Hackintool, FYI it used to show at the top PXSX and 4 ports listed but now nope...
The saga continues....
View attachment 506133

 

[djlild7hina]

Big Sur 11.2 RC2 (20D62) update was painless. Just couple reboots like normal.

 

[kubusikan]

That ASRock X299E-ITX/ac you have is something that I've been looking at to replace the AS Rock H370 I-Gaming I have in my 'Mac-mini'
Can you confirm that the Nvram works and also if the WiFi slot supports non-cNVI wi fi cards (like the Apple 4360 for example?

This particular mainboard is indeed a very special piece of compressed tech. But i think it has been discontinued since some time.
Nvram is not working with OpenCore on this board.

I am using an Apple BCM94360CS2 WiFi card. But to fit it in the slot of the ASRock supplied WiFi i had to use this kind of adapter. -> Link

Also you have to disassemble the metal casing of the supplied card to make some room as the adapter and Apple WiFi card are slightly taller than the original.

In this post you can see how the card sticks out:

iMacPro AsRock X299 e + i9 9940x = MiniMonsterBuild

Hi would you be willing to share the efi files you used so I can try this on my system? Hi, i can upload my efi folder on the weekend as i have no access to my system at the moment.

www.tonymacx86.com

As i am getting stutters from time to time with my bluetooth connected Apple Magic Trackpad i disabled the WiFi to fix this. Yes, that somewhat defeats the purpose of a WiFi card.
I am not sure if the partially open metal housing is letting interference in or it is software-related.
I might also be the case that the card itself is at fault as it is a used part ripped out of some MacBook or similar of some unknown age and origin.

(...) it possibly relates to something in the EVGA BIOS. Just not sure what.

This might be the case - haven't seen (m)any EVGA boards here.
Indeed it is a strange behaviour, as your IPG shows the other parameters just fine.

 

[Loloflatsix]

@Jasoncole98
@jaspercat5
And for other owners :

I explained here my fully functional approach fort USB X299.kext : #396

And especially for Big Sur, you need to make some adjustments for ASMEDIA USB ports on rear IO

(Otherwise, ASMEDIA USB ports do not work , you can use ASMedia.kext but a full USB.kext is better for sleep/wake and more pro. )

First take a look on your IOReg and adopt your own SSDT-XHC to load your ASMEDIA USB ports then it looks like :
- for Asus X299 Prime Deluxe on RP05 and RP07 :

Then when you have defined your own USB.kext bound to the post, you need to make changes according to ASMedia.kext:

Take your time and enjoy

 

[Loloflatsix]

As suggested we could verify the values in the kext to see if we manage to work without the SSDT-USBX :

             {
                "kUSBSleepPortCurrentLimit",
                0x0834,
                "kUSBSleepPowerSupply",
                0x13EC,
                "kUSBWakePortCurrentLimit",
                0x0834,
                "kUSBWakePowerSupply",
                0x13EC
            })

Thanks @djlild7hina for pointing that out.

In addition to my previous post:

if you do not want to add SSDT-XHC to rename the devices you can add/change in the kext some lines on respective devices with your ACPI path according to your IOReg for example on my Asus X299 Rampage VI:

- 1
name : PXSX
for
name : XHC2
acpi_path :
IOACPIPlane:/_SB/PC00@0/RP01@1c0000/PXSX@0
for
IOACPIPlane:/_SB/PC00@0/RP01@1c0000/XHC2@0
ioservice_path :
IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PC00@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP01@1C/IOPP/PXSX@0/PXSX@02000000
for
IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PC00@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP01@1C/IOPP/XHC2@0/XHC2@02000000

- 2
name : PXSX
for
name : XHC3
acpi_path :
IOACPIPlane:/_SB/PC00@0/RP05@1c0004/PXSX@0
for
IOACPIPlane:/_SB/PC00@0/RP05@1c0004/XHC3@0
ioservice_path :
IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PC00@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP05@1C,4/IOPP/PXSX@0/PXSX@01000000
for
IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PC00@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP05@1C,4/IOPP/XHC3@0/XHC3@01000000

- 3
name : PXSX
for
name : XHC4
acpi_path :
IOACPIPlane:/_SB/PC03@0/BR3A@0/PXSX@0
for
IOACPIPlane:/_SB/PC03@0/BR3A@0/XHC4@0
ioservice_path :
IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PC03@0/AppleACPIPCI/BR3A@0/IOPP/PXSX@0/PXSX@00000000
for
IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PC03@0/AppleACPIPCI/BR3A@0/IOPP/XHC4@0/XHC4@00000000

See on USB.plist bellow with remame :

 

[jaspercat5]

This particular mainboard is indeed a very special piece of compressed tech. But i think it has been discontinued since some time.
Nvram is not working with OpenCore on this board.

I am using an Apple BCM94360CS2 WiFi card. But to fit it in the slot of the ASRock supplied WiFi i had to use this kind of adapter. -> Link

Also you have to disassemble the metal casing of the supplied card to make some room as the adapter and Apple WiFi card are slightly taller than the original.

In this post you can see how the card sticks out:

iMacPro AsRock X299 e + i9 9940x = MiniMonsterBuild

Hi would you be willing to share the efi files you used so I can try this on my system? Hi, i can upload my efi folder on the weekend as i have no access to my system at the moment.

www.tonymacx86.com

As i am getting stutters from time to time with my bluetooth connected Apple Magic Trackpad i disabled the WiFi to fix this. Yes, that somewhat defeats the purpose of a WiFi card.
I am not sure if the partially open metal housing is letting interference in or it is software-related.
I might also be the case that the card itself is at fault as it is a used part ripped out of some MacBook or similar of some unknown age and origin.

This might be the case - haven't seen (m)any EVGA boards here.
Indeed it is a strange behaviour, as your IPG shows the other parameters just fine.

Thanks very much for the information on this board, very useful indeed. I've just bought one at what I thought was a reasonable price. The NVRAM absence doesn't bother me but would have been nice to have.Delivery time is two weeks as it's coming from China so will get cracking on the build as soon as I get it.

The wifi card issue is one that I have experienced in the Rog Strix H370 and in that case I removed the housing permanently to allow access to the M2 slot. It does work well now but I did initially have stuttering on the bluetooth due to the fiddly U.FL connectors not being seated right. I don't 'need' wifi as I have an ethernet cable available but it would be nice to have. I have the adapter you linked already and also a ribbon M.2 to Apple adapter which could allow the housing to remain in place.

 

[djlild7hina]

Thanks very much for the information on this board, very useful indeed. I've just bought one at what I thought was a reasonable price. The NVRAM absence doesn't bother me but would have been nice to have.Delivery time is two weeks as it's coming from China so will get cracking on the build as soon as I get it.

The wifi card issue is one that I have experienced in the Rog Strix H370 and in that case I removed the housing permanently to allow access to the M2 slot. It does work well now but I did initially have stuttering on the bluetooth due to the fiddly U.FL connectors not being seated right. I don't 'need' wifi as I have an ethernet cable available but it would be nice to have. I have the adapter you linked already and also a ribbon M.2 to Apple adapter which could allow the housing to remain in place.

Does the X299 Dark have onboard Wifi? You could also use the BCM94360NG without a m.2 adapter
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083YXS7VF/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

 

[Jasoncole98]

X299 Big Sur Support

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/x299-big-sur-support.302143/post-2219842 @rustEswan So I was able to start completely over and I tried using iMacPro1,1 and MacPro1,1 and iMac19,1 so what I've found is that I get better GPU performance with iMac19,1 with my setup when benchmarking (which is a...

www.tonymacx86.com

@Loloflatsix

I totally appreciate what you are trying to teach me with the previous posts, but I'm having some issues with some basic parts of it.

1. Where do I get the ASMedia.kext & USB.kext?
2. I'm reading on the Dortania website on how to make one, but it's hard to wrap my head around.
3. I can see both controllers in IOREG but what's odd is that the ASMedia controller used to show 4 ports, but now they are ghosts, and I can't see any (I'll post a pict when I get home from work) I may unplug all USB and try that too.
4. Mapping manually is nearly impossible since nothing shows where I plug it in, although the volume mounts in the Finder.
5. We haven't even touch on the part where I plug in USB-C to the Thunderbolt ports.

I have no problem editing the file in post 1,377, it's just a lot of typing.

Thank You very much,
Jason