Discrete Video in OSX Sierra

[DoeBoye]

Hello All,

 

I've been playing with OSX Sierra in a VM (Thanks GridRunner for the great videos!!). I was having a bit of a struggle with getting my discrete video to work. I tried a Radeon HD 7770, an Nvidia GTX 950, and finally a Gigabyte RX 460 4GB. So good news on the Gigabyte Radeon RX 460 4GB video card. As I expected (based on various hackintosh forum posts), the card works perfectly in my OSX Sierra VM (And I would assume El Capitan would be the same) without needing to modify Kexts, inject drivers, or mess with extra vbios. Note: Card manufacturer is important. It seems like Gigabyte is the one you want to get.

 

Only caveat, is that OSX seems to expect an IGPU to be installed as well. Because of this, if you boot with the RX 460 as your primary card, it will fail. You need to set your IGPU as your primary GPU, but plug your monitors in the RX 460. You'll get a black screen until the OSX boot prompt, and then the discrete video card will take over.

 

Now unfortunately, I have a Xeon without an IGPU, so I need to unplug the hdmi cable from my card, wait a minute or two for the VM to boot to login screen, then plug it back in. A bit irritating, but hopefully someone will come up with a solution.

 

In the meantime, I'm going to try installing an extra video card from an early bare metal Hackintosh build, set it to primary, but not plug any monitors into it, and see if I can leave my HDMI connected to the RX 460 without the VM hanging... Doubtful it'll work, but I figured it's worth a shot...

 

Also, it seems one user needed to have the RX 460 in the first PCI-e slot for it to work for him. Hopefully he's an isolated case because I'll need to use the last slot on my board because my video card covers my extra PCI-e slot if it's in any of the other ones.

 

Credit to Gigamaxx @ insanelymac.com for the info on the rx 460.

[SpaceInvaderOne]

I have heard of this problem before. If I remember correctly it's because the card is out putting by hdmi. I am sure I read that connecting to the monitor with display port or dvi is a solution but I can't remember were I saw that to check.

But what you could do as a work around is to use both vnc graphics (for primary) and the graphics card (as secondary). That way it should turn on once booted. Maybe worth a try?

[DoeBoye]

I have heard of this problem before. If I remember correctly it's because the card is out putting by hdmi. I am sure I read that connecting to the monitor with display port or dvi is a solution but I can't remember were I saw that to check.

But what you could do as a work around is to use both vnc graphics (for primary) and the graphics card as secondary. That way it should turn on once booted. Maybe worth a try? 5

 

I've tried from displayport without success (Though I convert the DP to HDMI with an adapter, as my 50' cable is HDMI...). Never tried the DVI output though... I'll try tonight.

 

I feel I tried VNC already and was not successful, but I think it was with one of the other cards, so maybe it'll work with the 460. Certainly a quick and dirty solution over putting in another card! I'll try that tonight as well. That would actually be the best option, as I could see the boot process if required, and circumvent the issue....

 

 

[SpaceInvaderOne]

I have heard of this problem before. If I remember correctly it's because the card is out putting by hdmi. I am sure I read that connecting to the monitor with display port or dvi is a solution but I can't remember were I saw that to check.

But what you could do as a work around is to use both vnc graphics (for primary) and the graphics card as secondary. That way it should turn on once booted. Maybe worth a try? 5

 

I've tried from displayport without success (Though I convert the DP to HDMI with an adapter, as my 50' cable is HDMI...). Never tried the DVI output though... I'll try tonight.

 

I feel I tried VNC already and was not successful, but I think it was with one of the other cards, so maybe it'll work with the 460. Certainly a quick and dirty solution over putting in another card! I'll try that tonight as well. That would actually be the best option, as I could see the boot process if required, and circumvent the issue....

 

I would try with different vnc graphics types aswell if one doesnt work. Try vmvga, cirrus and qxl

[DoeBoye]

I would try with different vnc graphics types aswell if one doesnt work. Try vmvga, cirrus and qxl

 

Good tip! Will do !

[methanoid]

Any results??

 

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

 

 

[DoeBoye]

Any results??

 

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

 

I actually gave up on the RX460 and MacOS, because sadly, I couldn't get it to work in my Windows 10 VM (I had initially planned on sharing the one video card between 2 VMs). Every time I tried to install the drivers in Windows, it would crash and bring down the VM, and even the freeze up the whole server at times. I ended up going with a GT 710 that works 100% in MacOS without any trickery with unplugging cables etc etc. Of course, it is nowhere near the same class as the RX460, but the MacOS VM is not for gaming, so it should be perfect.

 

Now, that said, as I type this, I've reinstalled the RX460 and I'm trying again to get it to work with Windows 10. I have the HD7770 working perfectly as my Win10 video card, and I had planned on returning the RX460, but alas, I didn't read the fine print, and apparently it is non-returnable at newegg... grrrr.

[DoeBoye]

Any results??

 

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

 

I actually gave up on the RX460 and MacOS, because sadly, I couldn't get it to work in my Windows 10 VM (I had initially planned on sharing the one video card between 2 VMs). Every time I tried to install the drivers in Windows, it would crash and bring down the VM, and even the freeze up the whole server at times. I ended up going with a GT 710 that works 100% in MacOS without any trickery with unplugging cables etc etc. Of course, it is nowhere near the same class as the RX460, but the MacOS VM is not for gaming, so it should be perfect.

 

Now, that said, as I type this, I've reinstalled the rx460 and I'm trying again to get it to work with Windows 10. I have the HD7770 working perfectly as my Win10 video card, and I had planned on returning the RX460, but alas, I didn't read the fine print, and apparently it is non-returnable at newegg... grrrr.

 

So, I have the RX460 working without a hitch in Win10Pro. Only difference I can see is that I'm using i440fx and SeaBios rather than OVMF. Driver took a *long* time to install (Must have been at least 5 minutes, maybe more for the install process. I was sure it had stalled/frozen a few times, but it kept chugging along extremely slowly).

 

Wish I could be more help on the MacOS side of things... The RX460 was working fine, just needed to boot the VM with the cable unplugged... A bit onerous for sure, but doable.