MP 6,1 GPU Passthrough : OpenCore on VMware ESXi on MacPro6,1

[Shantur Rathore]

Hi,

I am trying to passthrough FirePro D700 gpu to MacOS Catalina VM in ESXi running on MacPro6,1.

I have tried normal MacOS VM with ESXi it didn't work. After deep inspection and research I found out that ESXi doesn't provide the VBIOS to MacOS VM and hence no way of MacOS to read information about the GPUs.

After researching more I found out that with SSDT i could inject VBIOS via "ATY,bin_image" property. I extracted VBIOS with DarwinDumper and created SSDT. I installed OpenCore to add this SSDT and enabled WhateverGreen and Lilu. Now IORegistry shows that I have bios for my GPU but still there is no output on any of my ports.

I am trying to inject more properties but no luck.

I have attached my OpenCore folder below.

Has anyone ever attempted something similar? Any help or pointers how can I implement this?

PS : Just to let you know I can make this work with Proxmox as it allows an option to inject GPU vbios but need ESXi for compatibility purposes.

 

[Ludacrisvp]

while I don’t have the answer to PCIe pass through for esxi
I do have some questions ...
is ESXi booting in EFI or BIOS CSM mode?
what benefit do you get from using a VM of Catalina on the trash can vs running natively?

 

[Shantur Rathore]

ESXi is booting in EFI mode.

Booting VM enables testing with multiple configurations much easier for my development projects. I could boot any VM quickly for needed configuration.

 

[mattspace]

someone can correct me, but assuming you're doing it so a guest OS can have a separate, dedicated GPU to that used by the Host OS, the 2013 handles all its display duty from only one of its GPUs, the other is a compute accelerator, and not plumbed in to the TB / DP bus.

Perhaps that is at the root of your problem?

 

[Shantur Rathore]

In ESXi you can passthrough Boot GPU to VMs if enabled.

Passthrough of Integrated GPU (iGPU) for Apple Mac Mini 2018

After successfully enabling and persisting the passthrough of the iGPU for the latest Intel NUC 10 (Frost Canyon), I thought it was worth experimenting with the Apple Mac Mini 2018 to see if the sa…

www.virtuallyghetto.com

 

[hejiajin]

Hi,

I am trying to passthrough FirePro D700 gpu to MacOS Catalina VM in ESXi running on MacPro6,1.

I have tried normal MacOS VM with ESXi it didn't work. After deep inspection and research I found out that ESXi doesn't provide the VBIOS to MacOS VM and hence no way of MacOS to read information about the GPUs.

After researching more I found out that with SSDT i could inject VBIOS via "ATY,bin_image" property. I extracted VBIOS with DarwinDumper and created SSDT. I installed OpenCore to add this SSDT and enabled WhateverGreen and Lilu. Now IORegistry shows that I have bios for my GPU but still there is no output on any of my ports.

I am trying to inject more properties but no luck.

I have attached my OpenCore folder below.

Has anyone ever attempted something similar? Any help or pointers how can I implement this?

PS : Just to let you know I can make this work with Proxmox as it allows an option to inject GPU vbios but need ESXi for compatibility purposes.

Hi there, I recently found the answer, here. I have already solved it, use opencore to guide, and then use the vbiso to load the graphics card to drive the graphics card. hope this helps
https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/t...u-passhtrough/?do=findComment&comment=2780618