MP All Models AMD Polaris, Vega, & Navi GPU macOS Support

[mike_ranger]

so another question.... does the fan spin automatically down after the Luxmark Benchmark?

 

[Pval]

From insanelymac forums:

What I figured out so far: Most Vega cards use Min and Max Fan Speed to control their fan. MacOS on the other hand uses the Throttling RPM value as the Max Fan speed and Accoustic Limit for the Min Fan for some reason. Since both are set to a high value on most cards, fans will go full blast on macOS. The only way to control maximum fan speed is changing the Throttling RPM Value, which is a really bad thing.

I'm having a look at the settings in various BIOS files.

Fyi, you can view your Vega's bios with :

ioreg -l -n display@0 -r | grep ATY,bin_image

The SoftPowerPlayTable, controlling clocks, voltages and fans seems to start at offset 37254.

Basically by flashing your card, you are replacing the SoftPowerPlayTable and solve the issue that way.
Windows has been able to edit these settings on the fly for years, this capability came to Linux about a year ago, we can only hope for Mac...

 

[Pressure]

From insanelymac forums:


I'm having a look at the settings in various BIOS files.

Fyi, you can view your Vega's bios with :

ioreg -l -n display@0 -r | grep ATY,bin_image

The SoftPowerPlayTable, controlling clocks, voltages and fans seems to start at offset 37254.

Basically by flashing your card, you are replacing the SoftPowerPlayTable and solve the issue that way.
Windows has been able to edit these settings on the fly for years, this capability came to Linux about a year ago, we can only hope for Mac...

You can set your own SoftPowerPlayTable in the appropriate kext. In fact you can copy/paste it directly from your Windows settings.

 

[Pval]

You can set your own SoftPowerPlayTable in the appropriate kext. In fact you can copy/paste it directly from your Windows settings.

please check my other posts, I've been doing this exactly...

I can confirm that in Vega64 Liquid BIOS the Accoustic Limit (RPM) is set to 1500, which is exactly the rpm ioreg also reports for my card. Throttling (RPM) is set to 2300, I've seen it climb to that but not beyond.

Can anyone running the Nitro+ BIOS monitor their fan rpm under load? My fan rpm drops under load, by up to 33%, only raising rpm after the load has been removed. There is still a bug report open with Apple on this, I've not been told to get a Polaris card (yet).

You can use the following to grab the values every second in a terminal window:

# Grab the column headers from ioreg's output:
ioreg -l -n display@0 -r |grep \"PerformanceStatistics\" | cut -d '{' -f 2 | tr '|' ',' | tr -d '}' | tr ',' '\n'|grep 'Temp\|Fan\|%\|(W)\|Hz'|cut -d\" -f2|tr '\n' ',' && printf '\n'

# Grab the values every second:
while true
do
    ioreg -l -n display@0 -r |grep \"PerformanceStatistics\" | cut -d '{' -f 2 | tr '|' ',' | tr -d '}' | tr ',' '\n'|grep 'Temp\|Fan\|%\|(W)\|Hz'|cut -d\" -f3|tr -d '='|tr '\n' ',' && printf '\n'
    sleep 1
done

 

[mike_ranger]

yes.... this is exactly the issue I am talking about.
For some reason after load, the card spins up first which does not make any sense at all.

Eventually, it settles at the Accoustic Limit rpm defined in bios or the PowerPlayTable.
There is much more information stored in the FanControlTable of the bios, it is just that Apple seems to ignore most of those settings completely.

 

[JeDiGM]

Has anyone tried comparing the BIOS of a card with a problem to the BIOS without the problem? Maybe there's a way to isolate what the differences are and fix the problem across cards? Possible?

 

[mike_ranger]

My understanding is that all Vega cards have a fan issue in terms of what you consider "ideal" behaviour.
My Vega 56 Red Dragon as well.
Speeding up fans after LuxMark benchmark is complete.
I have not heard a single feedback from a Vega user where that is fully working.
Therefore I consider this a driver and not a bios problem.
Apple has to fix this, this is outside our control.
Regards, Mike

 

[MisterAndrew]

Just got done flashing, the sapphire nitro 64 bios worked perfectly. Fans are finally behaving properly in Mac OS.

That's great! Did you use the primary or secondary Nitro+ bios?

 

[Pval]

Has anyone tried comparing the BIOS of a card with a problem to the BIOS without the problem? Maybe there's a way to isolate what the differences are and fix the problem across cards? Possible?

I've looked at versions 016.001.001.000.000000(Vega64), 016.001.001.000.008733 (64LC my own), 016.001.001.000.008737(Vega64 Nitro+), 016.001.001.000.008774(64LC) and 016.001.001.000.009360(Vega56) from Techpowerup. But they're all the same version, the AMD libraries define 3 versions at least, 12 possibly.

Table settings vary of course and I'm looking at ways of comparing those, but that may take while, there are 18 tables defined, each filled with settings and 168 bytes left undefined, but a good portion isn't 0, so they must be doing something.

 

[JeDiGM]

I've looked at versions 016.001.001.000.000000(Vega64), 016.001.001.000.008733 (64LC my own), 016.001.001.000.008737(Vega64 Nitro+), 016.001.001.000.008774(64LC) and 016.001.001.000.009360(Vega56) from Techpowerup. But they're all the same version, the AMD libraries define 3 versions at least, 12 possibly.

Table settings vary of course and I'm looking at ways of comparing those, but that may take while, there are 18 tables defined, each filled with settings and 168 bytes left undefined, but a good portion isn't 0, so they must be doing something.

Thanks Pval. Hopefully Apple chimes in and comes up with a solution for us. I submitted a bug report too.

 

[psaintemarie]

I have submitted a bug report a while ago and they just told me they were not going to fix this (and closed the report).

Also I'm running 10.14.1 now on my cMP with Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX VEGA 64 8G Gaming (+ kext mod) and I've had several "freezes" while doing basic stuff (browsing twitter from Tweetbot or just in Messages.app). The UI becomes non-usable but I can still ssh to the Mac even if a "sudo reboot" or "sudo halt" does not do anything.

I've submitted a but report about that after getting the sysdiagnose report but my bug is still open and I have not heard from them.

As anyone experienced these freeze when modifying the kext in 10.14.x ?

 

[orph]

just saw a review of the WX 8200 on compute work and amazed to see the RX 580 score so high in almost all benchmarks, it's super close most the time to the top of the middle of the stack!! amazing

and it looks like it's a slow model from the lux mark scores to most of us have better scores than 10,118 for lux ball and 2,949 for hotel

i get 18,326 luxball and 3,212 hotel for both not shore how that translates over the rest of the tests but still not bad

 

[namethisfile]

Did you guys see this?

<strike>That's lower than what I got my Sapphire RX 580 for</strike>. But, the "performance" benefit of a beefier card is still in the gray area with Macs with the official/unofficiality of it in the case of cMP's. Going from RX 460 to RX 580 didn't make my life faster. So, I am not beating myself up too much. Especially since a PSU-mod is probably necessary to accommodate a Vega56 in a cMP5,1....

UPDATE: Sorry, I had a brain fart. This wasn't lower than what I got my RX 580 for.

 

[orph]

i think 56 (with close to factory clocks) works and past that needs mod or second PSU
still amazing deal

 

[namethisfile]

i think 56 (with close to factory clocks) works and past that needs mod or second PSU
still amazing deal

Oh, ok. What about the length of that card? Might be too long?

 

[orph]

im on the RX 580 so it's from memory of old posts tho my memory is not always the best

still one amazing deal good post, got to ask but what country is it in?
i assume one of - USA/Australia/Canada

in the UK the cheapest from a quick look is
56 is about £390 ($500 American)
64 is about £450 ($585 American)

and that power color is £530 !! ($690 good god UK costs a tad more most the time but wow)

 

[namethisfile]

im on the RX 580 so it's from memory of old posts tho my memory is not always the best

still one amazing deal good post, got to ask but what country is it in?
i assume one of - USA/Australia/Canada

in the UK the cheapest from a quick look is
56 is about £390 ($500 American)
64 is about £450 ($585 American)

Yeh, America.

It's one of the November deals leading up to Black Friday. I received it because I subscribe to Newegg having been a customer there. Not sure if it's only available to US customers tho since Newegg is an Internet store....

 

[orph]

my god $330 is only £250, is that with TAX?

wow in the UK we do get to pay more for "fun"

 

[namethisfile]

my god $330 is only £250, is that with TAX?

wow in the UK we do get to pay more for "fun"

No. But its eligible for free shipping (in the US only, probably)....

You guys don't have Newegg or Black Friday hysteria sales?

FYI, I don't work for Newegg. But, wanted to share since it's nearly half off which is as shocking of a deal as I have seen in recent memory in regards to brand new graphics cards....

 

[startergo]

Did you guys see this?

View attachment 801226

That's lower than what I got my Sapphire RX 580 for. But, the "performance" benefit of a beefier card is still in the gray area with Macs with the official/unofficiality of it in the case of cMP's. Going from RX 460 to RX 580 didn't make my life faster. So, I am not beating myself up too much. Especially since a PSU-mod is probably necessary to accommodate a Vega56 in a cMP5,1....

Isn`t this a 3 slot card?

 

[orph]

yes i see newegg costs something like £50 postage then 20% import tax + long shipping and no warranty

we have no idea if it fits just amazed it's that cheep may be price cuts coming

im going to be on the Rx 580 for a long time, dont need more
[doublepost=1541361760][/doublepost]lol that cards already sold out?

looks like postage is free to the uk but still 20% tax on import and no warranty

 

[namethisfile]

Isn`t this a 3 slot card?

Doesn't look like it. Just a long and wide card. Not taller from what I could tell.

 

[startergo]

Doesn't look like it. Just a long and wide card. Not taller from what I could tell.

oh yea the 3 slot card was the red devil

 

[orph]

the powercolor VEGA 56 NANO may be a good option, small, down clocked but until tested no one will know how well it works
only $440 freedom bucks and £530 UK VAT killer

 

[MisterAndrew]

the powercolor VEGA 56 NANO may be a good option, small, down clocked but until tested no one will know how well it works
only $440 freedom bucks and £530 UK VAT killer

The fan spins very high on that one. I tested the bios. You could flash it though with the Red Dragon or Pulse bios.