MP 1,1-5,1 Activate AMD hardware acceleration

[JM-Prod]

Fair point, but can you even make something of it without proper HW support...

AMD Radeon RX 5700, 5700 XT and 5700 XT 50th Anniversary
If you've installed macOS Catalina 10.15.1 or later, you can use these graphics cards that are based on the AMD Navi RDNA architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the AMD Radeon RX 5700, AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:

• Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W4
• Razer Core X4

Use an external graphics processor with your Mac – Apple Support (UK)

Find out how to access additional graphics performance by connecting to an external graphics processor.

support.apple.com

 

[kkinto]

HI - I am ploughing through this thread to try and find any mention but cannot so far. I see lots of references to "freeze" but they seem to be more a permanent/crash kinda freeze.

I am getting momentary freezes, most often on an open dialog box during its animation (at about the 80% size) - it freezes for quite a bit (8-10secs) but then all resumes. I am running the install/opencore from #1314 as is with no modifications of any contents other than latest lilu and whatevergreen replaced on EFI partition.

Anyone else having this or know if its fixable? Definitely a result iof installing the mods as a 'vanilla' boot doesnt ever have that issue.

Also going through original first post to analyse the HWAccel. Im not really seeing much time difference in compressing HEVC with handbrake. Haven't thoroughly tested with other apps yet though. Unfortunately I can't seem to download that same test file about the sword making anywhere at the moment.

*edit* The only acceleration I can see is with Handbrake using VideoToolbox (and its is substantially faster so it seems that something is working). Unfortunately there are no controls other than bit rate if using that encode setting. VideoProc reports that all hardware encoding is available but never seems to use it while encoding (only the CPU goes green, rest dimmed, and iStat shows pretty much zero use of GPU). Is there any information about this specifically anywhere? This thread is oriented to the technicalities of install and patch etc. but any other info more about the actual use of hardware acceleration in compression - specifically HEVC - which apps/settings...? Playback definitely uses GPU esp on 4K/120fps, but truth is HEVC 4K playback has always been fine on this machine.

mojave .6/rx580

 

[jscipione]

I have to ask, Mojave or Catalina? What GPU? I’m not seeing this issue and HEVC encode time decreases dramatically, I’m on Mojave. Make sure you’re using the h.265 (VideoToolbox) option In Handbrake otherwise it will use the CPU only. You’ll know if hardware acceleration isn’t working because if not it will fail right away with the message “Encoding finished.”

 

[h9826790]

HI - I am ploughing through this thread to try and find any mention but cannot so far. I see lots of references to "freeze" but they seem to be more a permanent/crash kinda freeze.

I am getting momentary freezes, most often on an open dialog box during its animation (at about the 80% size) - it freezes for quite a bit (8-10secs) but then all resumes. I am running the install/opencore from #1314 as is with no modifications of any contents other than latest lilu and whatevergreen replaced on EFI partition.

Anyone else having this or know if its fixable? Definitely a result iof installing the mods as a 'vanilla' boot doesnt ever have that issue.

Also going through original first post to analyse the HWAccel. Im not really seeing much time difference in compressing HEVC with handbrake. Haven't thoroughly tested with other apps yet though. Unfortunately I can't seem to download that same test file about the sword making anywhere at the moment.

You need to select the VideoToolBox option in order to use hardware encoding in Handbrake.

According to your signature, you are still with 10.14.0, please update to the latest 10.14.6

 

[kkinto]

Thanks - Never noticed the VideoToolbox setting in Handbrake codec dropdown menu and was not using it!! Seems it only activates and appears when you have the hardware.

Unfortunately that app gives no settings options except bit rate with VToolbox selected. Is there an app which gives settings options for this? VideoProc (full version) shows that HW accel is available h264 + h265 but never uses it. Always only greens the CPU tag. iStat shows this is true as GPU is pretty much zero during compress with that app.

 

[h9826790]

Thanks - Never noticed the VideoToolbox setting in Handbrake codec dropdown menu and was not using it!! Seems it only activates and appears when you have the hardware.

Unfortunately that app gives no settings options except bit rate with VToolbox selected. Is there an app which gives settings options for this? VideoProc (full version) shows that HW accel is available h264 + h265 but never uses it. Always only greens the CPU tag. iStat shows this is true as GPU is pretty much zero during compress with that app.

VideoProc can utilise HWAccel with correct settings.

This is the test from H264 to HEVC

This is the test from HEVC to H264

 

[pierrox]

Unfortunately that app gives no settings options except bit rate with VToolbox selected.

Yep HW on Handbrake is a pretty new addition so it will only offer a fixed bitrate as opposed to a constant quality - as it does with the CPU options. Maybe the team will refine it as HW becomes a more common option, or as ffmpeg evolves. Still, Handbrake is a pretty good option, and it's free!
I only use VideoProc to check if HW works, but never used it for real. Is it actually any good? Better than a free option?

 

[kkinto]

VideoProc can utilise HWAccel with correct settings.

Thanks, following your video settings I get everything the same, but as soon as I click "run" it only makes the CPU tag thing green (yours makes the "Intel" tag green). According to iStat the GPU is hardly used at all during the compress.

Handbrake with the VideoToolBox codec most definitely is accelerated though.

Does the fact that VideoProc lists the GPU as N/A have anything to do with it maybe?

I only use VideoProc to check if HW works, but never used it for real. Is it actually any good? Better than a free option?

No I don't use it for compressing stuff - its definitely inferior to Handbrake or ff-mpeg. Its especially bad with grain in source video which Handbrake handles very well. But in this case it the app is useful as its more explicit regarding HW Acceleration options/validity.

 

[zozomester]

Does anyone already have a solution to work on 10.15.3?
Thank!

 

[Ritsuka]

There is no constant quality based mode in Videotoolbox, so there is no way to use do a constant quality based encoded.

 

[pierrox]

There is no constant quality based mode in Videotoolbox, so there is no way to use do a constant quality based encoded.

Yep, maybe Apple will add that later.

Video Toolbox | Apple Developer Documentation

Work directly with hardware-accelerated video encoding and decoding capabilities.

developer.apple.com

HandBrake Documentation — Apple VideoToolbox

 

[pierrox]

Side question, is there any point updating Lilu and WhatEverGreen on the EFI partition since there are new versions out there?

 

[h9826790]

Unfortunately that app gives no settings options except bit rate with VToolbox selected.

Hardware encoding has most parameters fixed in the hardware, apart from bitrate, there is not much you can change, and nothing can be done in Handbrake. Either use it or not.

Thanks, following your video settings I get everything the same, but as soon as I click "run" it only makes the CPU tag thing green (yours makes the "Intel" tag green). According to iStat the GPU is hardly used at all during the compress.

Handbrake with the VideoToolBox codec most definitely is accelerated though.

Does the fact that VideoProc lists the GPU as N/A have anything to do with it maybe?



No I don't use it for compressing stuff - its definitely inferior to Handbrake or ff-mpeg. Its especially bad with grain in source video which Handbrake handles very well. But in this case it the app is useful as its more explicit regarding HW Acceleration options/validity.

1198FPS, you were not converting anything, but just remuxing them.

I bet you haven't turn OFF "Auto Copy", therefore, VideoProc just remux the file, but not re-encode them.

Here show you the speed difference between hardware encoding / software encoding / and remux.

[automerge]1585003685[/automerge]

Side question, is there any point updating Lilu and WhatEverGreen on the EFI partition since there are new versions out there?

Post #1 FAQ #20

 

[zozomester]

Works with Catalina (10.15.3) on Activate AMD hardware acceleration here for someone? Just because I'm unfortunately not going.
Thank!

 

[h9826790]

Works with Catalina (10.15.3) on Activate AMD hardware acceleration here for someone? Just because I'm unfortunately not going.
Thank!

Activate AMD hardware acceleration

Just tested both 10.14.6 (18G3020) and 10.15.3 (19D76), nothing changed for OpenCore method. All H264, HEVC, hardware encode, hardware decode, DRM streaming still work as expected. [N.B. As precaution, my config.plist in post #594 does NOT provide OS update in Catalina. You can either update...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[zozomester]

Activate AMD hardware acceleration

Just tested both 10.14.6 (18G3020) and 10.15.3 (19D76), nothing changed for OpenCore method. All H264, HEVC, hardware encode, hardware decode, DRM streaming still work as expected. [N.B. As precaution, my config.plist in post #594 does NOT provide OS update in Catalina. You can either update...

forums.macrumors.com

Thank this answer!
Unfortunately, it still not works after installing OPENcore. However, Bootscreen and auto-update are working fine. I don't know what the problem is ....

 

[kkinto]

Thanks for all the help on the h265 VideoToolbox hardware acceleration. After playing around with it for quite a while now I guess I am not that impressed other than the undeniable speed advantage. I reckon this is probably out-of-topic-bounds for this discussion but maybe will help someone else.

I have tried quite a few bitrate options since that seems to be the only quality related option but even at highest/largest file size the compression is pretty bad compared to the more tedious CPU/software route. Grain subtlety disappears in blockiness (I add grain to everything I do!), grads (especially motion graphics, animation), dark areas and subtle skies exhibit heavy banding. All in all maybe good for a quick youtube video conversion or a quick size reduction on something unimportant, but nowhere near good for anything professional.

Also I kinda unfairly dumped on VideoProc's compression quality earlier but I think that the only reason is its performance with hardware accelerated compression. I will give it another go without using the GPU, I'm sure its going to be better.

But thanks to y'all who made this even possible with all this software and patching. Apple could have done it themselves but obviously not their priority. It just sucks to know the cMP can do it, but that its hobbled intentionally. Having the boot selector is pretty cool, but other than playback I won't be using the GPU compression much. Pity. That speed is so seductive!

 

[startergo]

Apple could have done it themselves but obviously not their priority.

Most probably it is purposely disabled. There are many reasons and one of them is a marketing decision in favor of the 7,1 Mac Pro.

 

[h9826790]

Thanks for all the help on the h265 VideoToolbox hardware acceleration. After playing around with it for quite a while now I guess I am not that impressed other than the undeniable speed advantage. I reckon this is probably out-of-topic-bounds for this discussion but maybe will help someone else.

I have tried quite a few bitrate options since that seems to be the only quality related option but even at highest/largest file size the compression is pretty bad compared to the more tedious CPU/software route. Grain subtlety disappears in blockiness (I add grain to everything I do!), grads (especially motion graphics, animation), dark areas and subtle skies exhibit heavy banding. All in all maybe good for a quick youtube video conversion or a quick size reduction on something unimportant, but nowhere near good for anything professional.

Also I kinda unfairly dumped on VideoProc's compression quality earlier but I think that the only reason is its performance with hardware accelerated compression. I will give it another go without using the GPU, I'm sure its going to be better.

But thanks to y'all who made this even possible with all this software and patching. Apple could have done it themselves but obviously not their priority. It just sucks to know the cMP can do it, but that its hobbled intentionally. Having the boot selector is pretty cool, but other than playback I won't be using the GPU compression much. Pity. That speed is so seductive!

Yeah, the quality isn’t that good. This is why I prefer NVENC much more. At a reasonable high bit rate, NVENC produce much better image quality than AMD VCE. However, this is the only HWAccel we can have on cMP (in MacOS).

For high quality stuff, that won’t work. But for some simple Youtube video, that works very well, and can speed up the process a lot.

I quite like the combination of DV and HEVC hardware encoding indeed. It allows me to do some simple editing easily, and then export reasonable quality HEVC video (good enough for uploading to Youtube) at high speed.

 

[h9826790]

HWAccel work as expected in the latest 10.14.6 (18G4032) and 10.15.4.

 

[KevinClark]

what it brings for a RX580 Mac video card flashed in a macpro 2010 12 cores when using cubase pro 10.5 and plugs

 

[pierrox]

I'd say... nothing? If it's flashed you already have boot screen (if you even need it?). And Cubase doesn't use GPU really.

 

[hknatm]

Use this guide:

sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "</path/to/file>.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/disk#

Where /dev/disk# is the disk number where you will be installing Windows revealed by diskutil list. First, make sure the drive is connected and unmounted. Make sure Vbox machine is in UEFI mode:
View attachment 901686
Otherwise you will be installing it in MBR mode. Next, start virtualbox with sudo:

sudo VirtualBox

Attach the drive as explained in the article. Attach Windows.iso image downloaded from Microsoft.
Start installing Windows from the Virtualbox, but during first reboot power down the virtual machine from the virtual box as soon as you see some text on the screen. Do not let it reboot completely from there. Continue installing Windows once you reboot the cMP through the OC where you will select the Windows option. Do not boot Windows without OC. Later you can replace bootX64.efi file in the Windows EFI folder with the OC bootX64.efi and point to bootmgfw.efi (you need to find the location of this file in the Windows EFI folder either in the debug log or with devtree > devtree.txt, map -r > map.txt from UEFI shell)

that is what I need as well, making thumb drive isn't working, it gives media driver missing error all the time :/

but the link you gave is not opening I think their server is down. any other link to help?

thank you soo much!!

 

[startergo]

but the link you gave is not opening I think their server is down. any other link to help?

In essence this is their guide:

For Mac OS X:

sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "</path/to/file>.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/disk#

This VMDK will be a very small file that simply points to your physical drive. Now you can attach the VMDK to your VM. First, make sure the drive is connected and unmounted. Make sure Vbox machine is in UEFI mode. Open the VirtualBox GUI with sudo, select the desired VM, click Settings, click Storage, click Add Hard Disk button, select Choose existing drive, and then select the VMDK file you just created.

You can now run the VM that will boot from the physical drive you defined when creating the VMDK file.

 

[Mar.Co.68]

Hi, everyone. I applied OpenCore 0.5.6 as described in Post #1314 on my MacPro 4.1 => 5.1, single X5690, Radeon RX 570 Sapphire Pulse, two CINEMA Displays 23" and everything works as expected. System upgraded from 10.15.3 to 10.15.4, SIP enabled, bootpicker present.
A first trial processing in VideoProc from H264 to HEVC of my 4K holidays movie run at 32 fps (3fps disabling HW accel in VideoProc options) but only the green light on INTEL (CPU, GPU and AMD still grey, i hope is only a cosmetic issue). The CPU usage is under 3% and GPU don't climb over 10% according to iStat. Overall..sounds good for this eleven years old Mac 😁

Thank you so much for your efforts! Amazing work!

Marco