MP 1,1-5,1 GFX upgrade on a Mac Pro 5,1 with a need for triple boot {suggestions?}

[StormLord]

I have an 5,1 with a flashed HD7970 that I'm using it with Ventura via OCLP, plain Mojave for my 32bit needs and some devices with no support in later Mac OSes and Win10 {bootcamp} that I need for my Eprom and other micro-controllers programmers for my work.

I was thinking of a RX580 that I will exchange the EFI chip with a Mac programmed EFI so I can have boot screen selector to be able to easy start either my vanilla Mojave or my win10 bootcamp, I would prefer a more recent card like an 5600XT, 5700XT or even newer if its possible, but how can I resolve the thing with bootscreen selector?
I thing I've heard of an open core extension that can inject somehow an Mac EFI to be able to show boot selector {not the Open core boot picker that works only with UEFI installations}
Can anyone point me to the right direction to do it {if its possible}?
Or any suggestions about it?

 

[tsialex]

If you really need to run Mojave, Mojave GPU driver support limits you to VEGA and VII as the most recent AMD GPUs that you can install to your Mac Pro, if you upgrade to a RX 5700XT, Catalina is the earliest macOS release that you have drivers.

This is the thread for EnableGop pre-boot configuration support:

Pre-OpenCore GOP support for EFI-era iMacs and Mac Pros

You wait ten years for a driver to enable pre-boot graphics on unsupported GPUs in EFI era Macs, and then two come along at once... This post is to announce a firmware driver to enable the native Apple boot picker and early macOS boot progress bar (plus other parts of the firmware UI: target...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[StormLord]

If you really need to run Mojave, Mojave GPU driver support limits you to VEGA and VII as the most recent AMD GPUs that you can install to your Mac Pro, if you upgrade to a RX 5700XT, Catalina is the earliest macOS release that you have drivers.

This is the thread for EnableGop pre-boot configuration support:

Pre-OpenCore GOP support for EFI-era iMacs and Mac Pros

You wait ten years for a driver to enable pre-boot graphics on unsupported GPUs in EFI era Macs, and then two come along at once... This post is to announce a firmware driver to enable the native Apple boot picker and early macOS boot progress bar (plus other parts of the firmware UI: target...

forums.macrumors.com

Thank you very much for the info!
My current card is a DUAL bios HD7970 that I have flashed the first bios with Mac EFI and I have left the second bios original.
If I inject my Mac Pro firmware with EnableGop will I have bootpicker displayed in both bios? So I can test it before buying a new GFX card...

Unfortunately, I need Mojave for drivers like my old Samsung color laser printer, and arduinos (that I've found a newer driver but never managed to make it work) and 32bit inkscape for my laser engraver plugin. So It will be a long time since I will be able to be free from Mojave. I'm thinking for a RX580-590 because Vegas are more expensive and slower than 5700xt that I was thinking about.
Thanks again!

 

[tsialex]

My current card is a DUAL bios HD7970 that I have flashed the first bios with Mac EFI and I have left the second bios original.
If I inject my Mac Pro firmware with EnableGop will I have bootpicker displayed in both bios? So I can test it before buying a new GFX card...

Only GPUs made after UEFI 2.3.1d was ratified in April 2013 are UEFI compatible, Radeon HD 7970 is a December 2011 GPU and does not have UEFI support - can be added, but it's not an easy task.

Said that, if you inject EnableGop to the Mac Pro BootROM, GPUs flashed with Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition firmware still work, but several/most MacVidCards flashed GPUs does not work.

A Radeon RX 580/590 with the original factory firmware works perfectly with EnableGop, but mining firmwares or any firmware mods invalidate the UEFI GOP signing and then the GOP GPU module doesn't work.

If you have further doubts about EnableGop pre-boot configuration support, take a look at the first post of the EnableGop thread.

Pre-OpenCore GOP support for EFI-era iMacs and Mac Pros

You wait ten years for a driver to enable pre-boot graphics on unsupported GPUs in EFI era Macs, and then two come along at once... This post is to announce a firmware driver to enable the native Apple boot picker and early macOS boot progress bar (plus other parts of the firmware UI: target...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[StormLord]

Only GPUs made after UEFI 2.3.1d was ratified in April 2013 are UEFI compatible, Radeon HD 7970 is a December 2011 GPU and does not have UEFI support - can be added, but it's not an easy task.

Said that, if you inject EnableGop to the Mac Pro BootROM, GPUs flashed with Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition firmware still work, but several/most MacVidCards flashed GPUs does not work.

A Radeon RX 580/590 with the original factory firmware works perfectly with EnableGop, but mining firmwares or any firmware mods invalidate the UEFI GOP signing and then the GOP GPU module doesn't work.

If you have further doubts about EnableGop pre-boot configuration support, take a look at the first post of the EnableGop thread.

Pre-OpenCore GOP support for EFI-era iMacs and Mac Pros

You wait ten years for a driver to enable pre-boot graphics on unsupported GPUs in EFI era Macs, and then two come along at once... This post is to announce a firmware driver to enable the native Apple boot picker and early macOS boot progress bar (plus other parts of the firmware UI: target...

forums.macrumors.com

I just injected EnableGop into MacPro firmware and my VTX7970 Ghz Edition works perfectly and have boot screens with both macEFI(modified 7950 Mac Edition firmware) and original Vbios! So, I'm now in a search for a new (for me) card either RX580/590 or Vega56!
Btw, Ventura identifies my card as a HD7950 with Mac firmware and as HD7990 with original Vbios, all other info, core/mem speed etc are both the same.
Thank you very much Alex for the infos! Appreciated!

 

[StormLord]

Now I'm thinking if there is any way to force the GFX pcie link work at 5GT/s as with the NVME instead of 2.5GT/s that shows...

 

[tsialex]

All Mac Pro EFI firmware since 140.0.0.0.0 have 5GT/s support for third party PCIe cards.

 

[StormLord]

All Mac Pro EFI firmware since 140.0.0.0.0 have 5GT/s support for third party PCIe cards.

Hmmm, so, why on system profile show my NVME as 5GT/s but my HD7970 as 2.5GT/s (on both vanilla Mojave, and OCLP Ventura)?

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

I personally use a 580 8GB on mine.

 

[tsialex]

Hmmm, so, why on system profile show my NVME as 5GT/s but my HD7970 as 2.5GT/s (on both vanilla Mojave, and OCLP Ventura)?

Only NVIDIA GPUs have PCIe throughput changes on-demand (power saving feature), so, if a HD 7970 is running at 2,5GT/s, something is wrong.

You can start diagnosing reseting SMC/NVRAM and moving the GPU from slot 1 to slot 2 (or vice-versa) and checking SysInfo running native Mojave.

 

[StormLord]

Only NVIDIA GPUs have PCIe throughput changes on-demand (power saving feature), so, if a HD 7970 is running at 2,5GT/s, something is wrong.

You can start diagnosing reseting SMC/NVRAM and moving the GPU from slot 1 to slot 2 (or vice-versa) and checking SysInfo running native Mojave.

With that you got me into thinking, so I though to test it, when HD7970 is idle, System info shows 2.5GT/s , I started a game (dying light) that I know it stresses this card quite a bit and I refreshed the system info pci tab and voila 5GT/s!!!
Quiting the game it returns to 2.5GT/s
So, I think Radeons does also have pcie speed changes for power saving

 

[StormLord]

I just bought a Vega 56 card and on testing it I had a "cold shower" ...
Unfortunately, even-though OCLP 0.6.7 claims it supports Vega series on Ventura, it doesn't.
By searching a bit more, I've found out that vegas are working at max on Ventura 13.2 with OCLP no later than 0.6.1
And I have already promised to a client of mine to give him my HD7970.

Does anyone knows if there is a planned fix for the patch for vegas?

 

[sfalatko]

I just bought a Vega 56 card and on testing it I had a "cold shower" ...
Unfortunately, even-though OCLP 0.6.7 claims it supports Vega series on Ventura, it doesn't.
By searching a bit more, I've found out that vegas are working at max on Ventura 13.2 with OCLP no later than 0.6.1
And I have already promised to a client of mine to give him my HD7970.

Does anyone knows if there is a planned fix for the patch for vegas?

I recommend you check out the OCLP Discord - the developers are there and that is where OCLP support happens

 

[StormLord]

I recommend you check out the OCLP Discord - the developers are there and that is where OCLP support happens

Yeah, I've tried there, there are a few more asking about this problem but no one have answered anything and I thought to ask here if there anyone knows something.
Thanks anyway