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Atari VCS on macOS
- Thread starter Middleman-77
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This should be in the "Alternatives to Mac Hardware" forum.
title should be "macOS on Atari VCS"
And "an Atari VCS to boot natively on macOS Mojave 10.14.6" should be "macOS to boot natively on an Atari VCS".
Are you using OpenCore? Is the method similar to other Ryzentosh installs?
Is the 1920x1080 mode a HiDPI mode?
There's no acceleration for the GPU, how's the performance (scrolling, video, ...)?
Is there any PCIe connection (mPCIe, M.2, etc.) that could be used for an eGPU?
title should be "macOS on Atari VCS"
And "an Atari VCS to boot natively on macOS Mojave 10.14.6" should be "macOS to boot natively on an Atari VCS".
Are you using OpenCore? Is the method similar to other Ryzentosh installs?
Is the 1920x1080 mode a HiDPI mode?
There's no acceleration for the GPU, how's the performance (scrolling, video, ...)?
Is there any PCIe connection (mPCIe, M.2, etc.) that could be used for an eGPU?
Umm...that's not your decision (nor mine). Decision to place it in this section was by the moderators.
I am indeed using Opencore - v.0.6.3 to be precise, and yes it is (quite close to other Ryzentosh installs). I've created an installation guide for it on the Atariage site (under Atari VCS).
For the display mode, no that was in 4K not 1920x1080. But I believe it is HiDPI.
Yes I'm aware of it, but it reports okay and boots fine (as VESA mode). I was quite surprised this actually occurred. Video playback is no problem and very smooth, but sound is not available (as expected, because it doesn't have any AMD codecs available). So I use a 3rd party USB DAC from Cyberdrive instead which works pretty well. For the AMD GPU I currently have 31MB VRAM available on the system.
For performance this is what I got from Geekbench:
Yes the system has two M.2 slots, one for the included WiFi card and the other for a M.2 SATA SSD (empty). Yes it can be used for eGPU. In fact someone already tested this with a Nvidia GTX1060 plugged in using an eGPU adapter, and it worked great!
I guess they didn't understand that you were running macOS on not Mac hardware. Or maybe the "Alternatives to Mac Hardware" is about PCs and not about running macOS on PCs - which then means there's no Hackintosh forum.
Yes, I understand you were showing the 4K mode.
My question was, is the 1920x1080 mode actually a 4K mode with the x2 scaling (for HiDPI) which means that it is only supporting one timing - the 4K timing - which is the default from EFI in this case. Then if you wanted to use a different timing, then you would override the EDID or something so that it boots to the desired timing before macOS starts.
Does the audio use the Intel HDA standard? If so then AppleALC.kext should work with some additions or modifications but maybe the exact additions or modifications are unknown for perfect audio? In that case, some research and experimentation would be required.
I suppose either slot is limited to PCIe 3.0 x1 (8 Gbps) but that can be faster than Thunderbolt 3 eGPUs (22 Gbps) because Thunderbolt has more latency.
Yeah, I see what you mean. Well I tried to post it into what I felt was the relevant section.
As far as I am aware it should be - the Ryzen chip is x86 based after all. Unfortunately I am struggling to activate it, presumably because I don't have any dedicated drivers running it. I have tried to extract and add the codec details to AppleALC but haven't been able to get the full details yet. The chip is recognised under DPCI Manager as AMD Raven/Raven2/Fenguang HDMI/DP Audio Controller and Raven/Raven2/Firelight under Opencore, and HDMI audio output is the only port available. There is a device ID and vendor ID but no CodecID reported.
As far as I know, it was booting into the 4K mode natively - I didn't use any EDID settings but did install a Vega56.aml SSDT. The CPU&GPU is capable of supporting up to 3x 4K displays, so to answer your question - yes it likely to be the case (default from EFI using 4K timing). It is a pretty powerful graphics card, I was really surprised. Even with only 31MB VRAM available and no 3D GPU I am getting some decent performance. The option to display it at 1920x1080 was already available when I finished installing Mojave (which is decent). Only problem left now other than onboard audio is the SATA-USB drive connection and WiFi. The USB works with some SATA drive combos and not others (for some reason) and the Open Intel Wireless drivers aren't seem to be working on this setup. I'm currently testing SATA-unsupported.kext to see if it works.
Yes indeed if it can get that far. It would be interesting to see how it handles a much more powerful GPU like a 5700XT or RTX3070/3080.
I have Mojave running on a maxed VCS (32GB RAM, m.2 drive), but still on an external USB drive.
Performance is quite ok, but in addition to the known lack of audio, framebuffer and acceleration, I cannot get ethernet networking up and running.
Will try with Catalina again...
Looks very promising so far, a good start after the bios pwd has been extracted a few days ago.
Performance is quite ok, but in addition to the known lack of audio, framebuffer and acceleration, I cannot get ethernet networking up and running.
Will try with Catalina again...
Looks very promising so far, a good start after the bios pwd has been extracted a few days ago.
For the audio, framebuffer and acceleration, of course there are limits - because the VCS doesn't have the necessary AMD GPU drivers despite Ridge Raven chipset being supported in 10.14.6. But the audio can work if you use a third party USB DAC plugged into the ports, along with video playback.
Mind saying that, I'm still testing (and looking for) the necessary GPU drivers, in particular using Vega ID injection in the kexts.
For the Ethernet you'll need to get hold of a recent RealtekRTL8111.kext and put it into your EFI/OC/Kexts folder.
Thanks for the ethernet solution. Will try that later today!
Would the hack using voodoo audio be a temporary way to get audio (I know, it´s a crap, I used it on various hackintoshes in the past and have always been happy to replace it with some patched Apple kext finally)?
About the Voodoo audio I really don't know (I haven't tried it yet) although my best guess is, as it is coming off from the new AMD Picasso/Vega APU it's likely currently unsupported. The VCS' Picasso GPU device ID is 15D81002. There are folks I know who are currently testing the Vega and Raven Ridge chipsets (and injecting their IDs) to try to enable hardware acceleration on Mojave & Big Sur, so we may get audio also at some point once it is fully enabled.
Also forgot to mention, but it is now also able to boot into Big Sur. 
No changes needed in EFI files.
No changes needed in EFI files.
One hint for the folks working to get Vega-3 recognized (under Mojave and Catalina) would also be to check if Metal capabilities can´t be injected then if at least OpenGL acceleration could be patched like @dosdude1 and others managed for old Nvidia and AMD GPUs. That currently excludes Big Sur, but would be better than nothing.
Tried Realtek8111.kext (v 2.3.0) in the /OC/kexts folder, without any effect.
Which version did you use, @Middleman-77 and after copying is there any special file treatment needed? (Ownership stuff etc.). Also: Any existing kexts in /S/L/E/ that need to be deleted? Any BIOS mods?
Hints very welcome!
Which version did you use, @Middleman-77 and after copying is there any special file treatment needed? (Ownership stuff etc.). Also: Any existing kexts in /S/L/E/ that need to be deleted? Any BIOS mods?
Hints very welcome!
Does the matching parameters in the info.plist of the Realtek8111.kext match the ioreg info of the Ethernet controller?
This is exactly the pinpoint of Hackintosh, is that you need make sure .plist is correct. And each time, you need to modified things, for example adding a kext, you need edit .plist.
What I usually do is just backup current EFI folder, using OC Gen X to create new EFI folder, edit .plist according to OpenCore Guide. This is to make sure everything is working accordingly.
BTW, I dumped the previous (december) BIOS before updating. It had the access password removed and could be of value in the future, now that Atari seems to have changed not only the password but also the structure/mechanism.