WhatEverGreen Support Topic

[Tecnicaso Rico]

@telepati

Netflix on Safari doesn't works. But then I tried with Firefox and it's working...

 

[applCore]

I have a Sapphire Pulse RX 580 8GB on a Mojave 10.14.6 Hackintosh. I'm running WhateverGreen 1.3.4 and Lilu 1.3.9.

 

Currently it appears that only the DisplayPort outputs work.  I have two monitors attached and working:

• DVI to HDMI cable -> HDMI to DP adapter -> DP port on RX580

• VGA -> VGA to DP adapter -> DP port on RX580.

 

Whenever I connect other monitors to the 2 HDMI ports or 1 DVI port, they will not render video, but WILL appear in the System Preferences -> Displays -> Arrangement tab such that 3 or more monitors show up there and can be arranged, but never render any graphics.

 

It appears that there is something wrong all output ports on the RX580 except for the DisplayPort ports.

 

I'm also seeing a "tearing" effect when I move windows sometimes and small graphical anomalies such as this.

 

I need to run at least 3 monitors, but ultimately would like to use 4.  I was using 3 with High Sierra previously on this system and an Nvidia card, but "upgraded" to the RX580 so I could move to Mojave.

 

What data can I provide or details can I gather in order to resolve this issue? 

 

UPDATE:

 

I had a new development. After going back to the computer after the system was asleep, I woke it up and ALL THREE MONITORS WERE ON AND FUNCTIONAL.

 

I'm not sure what to think now at this point.  On initial boot up it does not work, but after sleep and wake all three monitors in my current configuration come on (2 DisplayPort + 1 HDMI).

 

The system has to be in sleep mode for at least 30 seconds (until all fans are off and the system is in deeper sleep) before waking up with success.

 

UPDATE 2:

 

Now all graphical anomalies ("tearing") are also now eliminated with the sleep/wake and acceleration appears to be very smooth whereas before it was tearing and slower.

Edited November 28, 2019 by applCore
new development

[CMMChris]

@Tecnicaso Rico So contrary to your claim, boot-args don't work for you as well. If the iMacPro1,1 board-id spoof would work, you would be able to play back Netflix in Safari with FairPlay DRM in 1080p.

[telepati]

6 hours ago, Tecnicaso Rico said:

@telepati

Netflix on Safari doesn't works. But then I tried with Firefox and it's working...

 

Thats mean DRM doesnt work actually.

[TheBloke]

5 hours ago, applCore said:

I have a Sapphire Pulse RX 580 8GB on a Mojave 10.14.6 Hackintosh. I'm running WhateverGreen 1.3.4 and Lilu 1.3.9.

 

Currently it appears that only the DisplayPort outputs work.  I have two monitors attached and working:

• DVI to HDMI cable -> HDMI to DP adapter -> DP port on RX580

• VGA -> VGA to DP adapter -> DP port on RX580.

 

UPDATE:

 

I had a new development. After going back to the computer after the system was asleep, I woke it up and ALL THREE MONITORS WERE ON AND FUNCTIONAL.

 

I'm not sure what to think now at this point.  On initial boot up it does not work, but after sleep and wake all three monitors in my current configuration come on (2 DisplayPort + 1 HDMI).

 

The system has to be in sleep mode for at least 30 seconds (until all fans are off and the system is in deeper sleep) before waking up with success.

 

UPDATE 2:

 

Now all graphical anomalies ("tearing") are also now eliminated with the sleep/wake and acceleration appears to be very smooth whereas before it was tearing and slower.

 

To get full help you should post full details of your system: motherboard, CPU, SMBIOS you're using, bootloader (Clover vs OpenCore) and which bootloader version.

 

If you're on a legacy boot system, then it's very likely that there is no solution to this problem, other than sleep & wake as you're already doing.  My X58 system has this problem, both with an AMD R9 280X and a Vega 64.  Sleep & wake is the only way I know of to get all monitor outputs working.  Actually on my X58 system it's even worse than you describe, especially with the Vega, where the system won't even boot properly if more than one monitor is connected.  So I boot with only one monitor connected, then sleep & wake at login screen, then reconnect all monitors.  After that it works fine, and so I only do a full reboot rarely (once every two weeks, on average).

 

So my guess is you have a UEFI system?

 

In which case: do you have CSM disabled in your BIOS?   If not, then try that, and you may find it solves the multi-monitor problems.  It did for me on my second Hack, an H77 UEFI system: disabling CSM enabled me to get full multi-monitor support on that system with both R9 280X and Vega 64 GPUs.

 

If that doesn't help, report back with full details of your system and how it's configured.

Edited November 28, 2019 by TheBloke

[applCore]

3 hours ago, TheBloke said:

 

To get full help you should post full details of your system: motherboard, CPU, SMBIOS you're using, bootloader (Clover vs OpenCore) and which bootloader version.

 

If you're on a legacy boot system, then it's very likely that there is no solution to this problem, other than sleep & wake as you're already doing.  My X58 system has this problem, both with an AMD R9 280X and a Vega 64.  Sleep & wake is the only way I know of to get all monitor outputs working.  Actually on my X58 system it's even worse than you describe, especially with the Vega, where the system won't even boot properly if more than one monitor is connected.  So I boot with only one monitor connected, then sleep & wake at login screen, then reconnect all monitors.  After that it works fine, and so I only do a full reboot rarely (once every two weeks, on average).

 

So my guess is you have a UEFI system?

 

In which case: do you have CSM disabled in your BIOS?   If not, then try that, and you may find it solves the multi-monitor problems.  It did for me on my second Hack, an H77 UEFI system: disabling CSM enabled me to get full multi-monitor support on that system with both R9 280X and Vega 64 GPUs.

 

If that doesn't help, report back with full details of your system and how it's configured.

 

Switching to UEFI ONLY does bring up all 3 monitors reliably at boot without the sleep cycle. Now the problem is such that there is no BIOS post display and Clover has no display and of course no boot up (-v verbose) display. Flying blind as on a 2009/2010/Etc. MacPro with such an upgrade card.

 

This is on a 8300 Elite CMT, Core i7-3770, Sapphire RX580 8GB. 

 

Any thoughts? Would there be a way to force Clover UEFI graphics at least so as to get earlier video? It might be better to live with the 45 second sleep cycle so as to have boot video in this situation.

[TheBloke]

@applCore That's odd.  I'm afraid I have little experience in this area, as I only have the one UEFI desktop at present, and on that machine setting CSM to disabled worked fine, including boot messages.

 

I should note that my only UEFI machine, the H77, has a non-supported iGPU (HD 3000 I think), which is therefore not detected in macOS.  Therefore I also set the BIOS to use the PCIE GPU as primary, and effectively disabled the iGPU.

 

Have you tried that?  Maybe your iGPU is being used for boot messages, and disabling it - or at least setting the PCIE as primary - might get boot messages on your monitors connected to the AMD?

 

You didn't mention the SMBIOS you're using.   When using the Vega I am setting my SMBIOS to iMacPro 1.1.  This has the effect of disabling the iGPU, and enabling AMD HW accelerated encode/decode for H264 and H265.   So you might want to do that if you plan not to use the iGPU, eg so as to (hopefully) get BIOS and Clover boot messages back.   There are other ways to enable AMD HW acceleration without using iMacPro SMBIOS (using shikigva variables to WhateverGreen, as the last few posts have been discussing), but personally I have so far preferred to just set the SMBIOS to iMacPro 1.1.

[vit9696]

- You will not get Netflix support without a hardware FairPlay decoder. So far there are few AMD GPUs (mostly 7xxx, also saw VII once) that support it, but it is rare and inconsistent.

- TV+ also requires hardware DRM decoder, but it is not the usual FairPlay, so basically any AMD GPU starting from Polaris generation works fine. To avoid having to change Mac model when you have IGPU, use latest WEG from master with shikigva=16. This is more energy efficient.

[CMMChris]

@vit9696 As per my own and others experience 1080p Netflix in Safari works with those GPUs when they are used for video acceleration:

- All Polaris cards

- All Vega10 cards

- Radeon VII / Vega20

- All Navi10 cards

 

I will tell the guys who have issues with the board-id spoof to try shikigva=16 only. Will give feedback once I got results.

Edit: First feedback from real cMP users is that shikigva=16 doesn't work either. VideoProc shows red light for both H.264 and H.265. Netflix playback not working.
Still waiting for Hackintosh users feedback but I guess it won't be any different.

Edited November 29, 2019 by CMMChris

[vit9696]

@CMMChris, I am afraid this is not correct, it does not work with any polaris cards at the very least. It might be that the display matters, but at least in general it does not work.

[CMMChris]

You are wrong there. 1080p Netflix playback in Safari works with Polaris. I helped setting up a bunch of machines with Polaris cards (both RX5xx and RX4xx cards) and they all used to be able to play back 1080p Netflix in Safari with no issues on iMacPro1,1. Just with Catalina it started causing crashes. Bug reports are open regarding this and Apple claims they are working on it.

[CMMChris]

Regarding the shiki issues: I just had another guy try it who uses an OpenCore Hackintosh running as iMac14,2 with a Radeon RX5700. Lilu and WEG on latest builds (manually compiled).

As it is to be expected, with disabled IGPU no Netflix playback and red light in VideoProc.

 

So now let's try using Shiki's magic.

Try 1: shikigva=16 as suggested by @vit9696

As you can see VideoProc remains red for both H.264 and H.265. Netflix 1080p playback in Safari also didn't work.

 

Try 2: shikigva=160 and shiki-id=Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94

As you can see H.265 remains red, H.264 switched to green. Netflix 1080p playback in Safari still not working. And yes, WEG renamed the GPU to GFX0, so that's not the reason why HEVC is dead.

 

Try 3: The old way that used to work in the past - shikigva=32 and shiki-id=Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94

Same result as Try 2. H.264 green. H.265 red. No Netflix 1080p playback in Safari.

 

Try 4: Native SMBIOS switch to iMacPro1,1

Boom! Everything works. H.264 green, H.265 green, Netflix 1080p in Safari plays like a charm.

 

So there you go. Same results as for everyone else who tested it for me, same results as the quick test I did myself recently. Shiki is broken, period. Don't have a Mojave install anymore to check if its the same there as well.

Edited November 29, 2019 by CMMChris

[Andrey1970]

2 hours ago, CMMChris said:

So now let's try using Shiki's magic.

Try 1: shikigva=16 as suggested by @vit9696

You shall enable IGPU for IQSV if use shikigva=16

[CMMChris]

We don't want to use Quick Sync but the Radeon. Jeesh, I am so close to going nuts...

[CMMChris]

Just got feedback from a Mojave user. All variants posted by me above work on Mojave. So the issue clearly is Catalina where those boot-args don't show any effect. WEG developers definitely need to look into this!

[Andrey1970]

5 minutes ago, CMMChris said:

We don't want to use Quick Sync but the Radeon. Jeesh, I am so close to going nuts...

 

Then don't show the experiments with shikigva=16

shikigva=16 only for Radeon+IQSV

[CMMChris]

I just showed it because it was suggested by vit9696 here as a response to the issue I am trying to point out for numerous days now.

The issue is that shiki board-id spoofing doesn't work under Catalina, which now is increasingly important for people who want to use Sidecar and for this reason can not use the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS anymore.

[lisai9093]

24 minutes ago, CMMChris said:

I just showed it because it was suggested by vit9696 here as a response to the issue I am trying to point out for numerous days now.

The issue is that shiki board-id spoofing doesn't work under Catalina, which now is increasingly important for people who want to use Sidecar and for this reason can not use the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS anymore.

I'm using iMac18,3 smbios and shikigva=16 boot-arg only. Sidecar and apple tv+ are both working now.

[vit9696]

@CMMChris

 

— I did not test Netflix in Mojave wtih Polaris, only Catalina. It is possible that it might have worked in older operating systems, but at least currently it does not work in 10.15.2. Be that iMacPro1,1 or not. It would have been easier if you said that it broke in Catalina rather than confused me and other people.

— shikigva=16 only enables spoofing for TV.app, QuickTime.app, and Music.app, leaving IGPU to all other apps. So yes, Netflix will not work with it as stated above. Obviously, this option is not meant to be used with IQSV disabled, this goes without saying and should be clear from the docs.

— If you want to use Radeon-only configuration, then you simply use iMacPro1,1 (or MacPro6,1) SMBIOS. This is most expected and adequate. WhateverGreen does not and will not try to invent wheels and make a generic iMac with IGPU behave like a discrete-only setup. This produces performance issues when applied on the whole system, and thus is a bad idea.

 

Also, it will be nice of you if you did not insult me and my colleagues and read the material carefully. Thank you!

[Pavo]

@vit9696 Anyway to use WEG without patching anything and only use it for auto connector port mapping?

[startergo]

2 hours ago, vit9696 said:

— If you want to use Radeon-only configuration, then you simply use iMacPro1,1 (or MacPro6,1) SMBIOS. This is most expected and adequate.

Hi Vitalii. The problem with the real MacPro5,1 is that spoofing the smbios in OC breaks the SMC and all the sensors and fans now are matching the spoofed bios. Also CPU power management breaks, not to mention the fact that imessage now breaks too. So if it is a good option for a PC it is not as desirable for a real Mac.

[CMMChris]

@vit9696 Allright.

And just saying:

- I was the one who clearly told what the issue is and in what regard

- You were the one who came up with the shikigva=16 suggestion

- I knew it doesn't make sense, I just tested it for the sake of it since you suggested it

- I already clearly stated that the board-id spoof stopped working in Catalina, this is not a new info

- No, spoofing the board ID for AppleGVA inside any SMBIOS does not cause performance issues of any kind

- Regarding the Polaris cards and DRM support you claimed it is a fact it doesn't work and then you said you never tried on your own? Ha ha ha...

Edited November 29, 2019 by CMMChris

[Tecnicaso Rico]

When I first test the shikigva=16 boot argument it didn't work. That's why I was using shikigva=160 shiki-id=Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94

Now after reading the last post reports about shikigva=16, I decided to try again but this time I rebuild KextCache and repair permissions (which I didn't before, I miss that part) and now it's working. I want to thank the WhateverGreen team for improving their kext and I hope it keeps getting even better. Still waiting for a Netflix fix on Safari without switching to another SMBIOS...

[vit9696]

57 minutes ago, startergo said:

Hi Vitalii. The problem with the real MacPro5,1 is that spoofing the smbios in OC breaks the SMC and all the sensors and fans now are matching the spoofed bios. Also CPU power management breaks, not to mention the fact that imessage now breaks too. So if it is a good option for a PC it is not as desirable for a real Mac.

No good, I guess… In this case you can try, but it is hard to say what will the results be. Basically you need shikigva=160, and in addition to that you also need to get other parts patched, not just the AppleGVA decoder. At least that would include AppleGVACore, AppleVPA, but most likely something else. The potential candidates for patching can be found by grepping board-id in Frameworks, PrivateFrameworks, /usr.

The patch you need is here: https://github.com/acidanthera/WhateverGreen/blob/10bea0d/Resources/Patches.plist#L242, just rework Patches.plist and rebuild with Clean (Cleaning before Build is important, as Xcode 11 broke dependency solving).

 

On the other side, your power management is broken because of /System/Library/Extensions/IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext. It does not have a plist file in Resources for iMacPro1,1. For this you can use our https://github.com/acidanthera/CPUFriend.

[CMMChris]

16 minutes ago, vit9696 said:

At least that would include AppleGVACore, AppleVPA, but most likely something else

AppleVPA patching already has ben added a couple releases back.

Everything used to work fine in Mojave with shikigva=32 and shiki-id=7BA5B2D9E42DDD94. This applied to both real cMPs as well as any Hackintosh where the owner didn't want to use the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS for whatever reason. Apparently it still does work on Mojave with the latest build and both shikigva=32 as well as shikigva=160.

 

Starting with Catalina ist stopped working - again for both real cMPs and Hackintoshes.