Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
HD4000 driver hack for custom VRAM size
- Thread starter kpkp
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Try use mine already patched, it works correctly, tested by me from Mojave first GM to the latest 18D109 update, just replace yours inside /S*/L*/E*/
and after issue these Terminal commands:
sudo chmod -R 755 /S*/L*/E*
sudo chown -R 0:0 /S*/L*/E*
sudo kextcache -i /
reboot and check system profiler, now will show 2048 MB VRAM size allocated.
Thanks a lot for this!! I'm on high sierra and i had to disable some sort of root protection first, else terminal would say "Operation not allowed." After that it worked! I'm hoping it helps DaVinci Resolve's performance...
If anyone else has this problem, the following should help (do this at your own risk):
Boot into recovering mode using command-R
Start terminal from utilities menu
To see system integrity protection status, type
csrutil status
To disable System Integrity Protection, run the following command:
csrutil disable
to enable:
csrutil enable
Hope it helps someone
You should disable SIP first, then you can try this from a Mojave Terminal.
The blue value changing it will give this ram amount:
10 = 256 MB VRAM
20 = 512 MB VRAM
40 = 1024 MB VRAM
example from Terminal to set 512 MB VRAM :
cd /S*/L*/Ext*/AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.kext/C*/M*
sudo cp AppleIntelFramebufferCapri AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.backup
sudo perl -pi -e 's|\x00.{1}\x10\x07\x00\x00\x10\x07|\x00\x20\x10\x07\x00\x00\x10\x07|g' AppleIntelFramebufferCapri
sudo chmod -R 755 /S*/L*/E*
sudo chown -R 0:0 /S*/L*/E*
sudo kextcache -i /
sudo reboot
thx so much, will try it this week
This will hopefully give my server lots of ram back.. ?
My HD4000 with16GB ram is currently 1536 MB large..
Hi, what can i use to test the graphics performance of the higher vram ? Can it go higher than 2048 ?
The intel cpus and intel hd graphics are integrated in the same chip, if you read this:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005472/graphics-drivers.html
(expand What is the maximum amount of video memory my computer can use? )
this: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005539/graphics-drivers.html
and this: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000020962/graphics-drivers.html
you can notice that the maximum VRAM for almost any legacy intel HD graphics used on Mac in particular for HD3000 and HD4000 is 1,7 GB (1792 MB) .
Last edited:
Thought I ask you to know what the X.. setting is for 1792MB, found out myself, it's x70, works great on a 2012 Mac Mini.
As in
cd /S*/L*/Ext*/AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.kext/C*/M*
sudo cp AppleIntelFramebufferCapri AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.backup
sudo perl -pi -e 's|\x00.{1}\x10\x07\x00\x00\x10\x07|\x00\x70\x10\x07\x00\x00\x10\x07|g' AppleIntelFramebufferCapri
sudo chmod -R 755 /S*/L*/E*
sudo chown -R 0:0 /S*/L*/E*
sudo kextcache -i /
sudo reboot
It amazes me how smooth my Mac Mini is right now, went from the default 1536 MB to 1792, scrolling is almost buttery smooth, going from a space to the other one as well.
I, in the beginning thought it was an illusion but after a few hours of sitting behind my Mac I know for sure it made a huge difference.
Another Edit, have 2048 MB now
Last edited:
hello I have a bone to pick with you - your vram hack is nice, but also it seems to disable the intel HD4000 chip
Why is that ??? When I didn’t touch my 2012 for a couple of days the hack broke as I turned on my computer and now system profiler is showing just the nvidia chip working while the intel shows - display, Kext no loaded !!!
how do I fix this ??? How do I re- enable the kext ??? Seems the hack is useless if it breaks itself- this is why I am going with a 2015 where no hacks are allowed to the intel iris chip.
Almost surely after some recent automatic Catalina update (10.15.3 or 10.15.4 beta and later) they added the AMFI check that invalidated custom signature for patches, HD4000 GPU can't be broken in no way simply because the i5 or i7 cpu does have it embedded so what you wrote is incorrect, "kext not loaded" is nothing to be worried, just re-install Catalina or replace the kext with the stock ones, I attached here.
To install the kext open a Catalina Terminal and copy/paste one line at once:
sudo mount -uw / ; killall Finder
open /System/Library/Extensions/
from Finder Replace all the IntelHD4000 kext with the stock Catalina ones I posted
return to Catalina Terminal and copy paste:
sudo chown -R 0:0 /System/Library/Extensions/
sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/
sudo kextcache -i /
(this will take a while to complete)
sudo reboot
Last edited:
No, because from apple OS X only Intel HD3000 and HD4000 drivers allow a custom dynamic VRAM allocation.
But as I stated in system profiler under graphics it says - display no kext loaded. Will try this tonight thanks
So, now that my 2012 is gone and replaced with a 2015 MacBook Pro, I may not need to worry at this moment about hacking OS X and vram.
Hi guys. I replaced the value with 99 and it worked.
Does anyone know how to increase even more. I want my 4GB VRAM to try to run some games.
Does anyone know how to increase even more. I want my 4GB VRAM to try to run some games.
Considering that using hex values:
10 = 256MB of RAM
18 = 384MB of RAM
20 = 512MB of RAM
30 = 768MB of RAM
40 = 1024MB of RAM
80 = 2048MB of RAM
then
FF ≈ 4 GB of RAM
sudo perl -pi -e 's|\x00.{1}\x10\x07\x00\x00\x10\x07|\x00\xFF\x10\x07\x00\x00\x10\x07|g' AppleIntelFramebufferCapri
Before doing this you need at least 8 GB RAM, open a terminal and copy/paste:
Code:
cd /System/Library/Extensions/AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.kext/Contents/MacOS
sudo perl -pi -e 's|\x00.{1}\x10\x07\x00\x00\x10\x07|\x00\xFF\x10\x07\x00\x00\x10\x07|g' AppleIntelFramebufferCapri
sudo chmod -R 755 /S*/L*/E* && sudo chown -R 0:0 /S*/L*/E*
sudo kextcache -i /
sudo rebootAfter reboot you should have 4 GB VideoRAM.
Attachments
great thx, I hope these commands also works for MacOS Mojave/Catalina.. ?
It does work also on Mojave and Catalina, just before applying the perl script type:
I can't assign 4096 MB with decimal 256 because the hex is FF + 01 = 100 (do not confuse with decimal 100 that is 64 in hex, from the table I written = 40 + 20 + 04) , but to keep a valid binary structure where a byte is represented with two hex digits, I used 4080 MB .
The IntelHD4000 VRAM size is also customizable for example to get 144 MB VRAM = 01 + 08 = 09
The minimum VRAM value that allows to boot Catalina is 128 MB .
sudo mount -uw /, I explain how I patched to allow 4 GB VRAM on IntelHD4000, considering that the binary file has hex values, converted in decimal they are:| HEX | DEC | VideoRAM (MB) |
| 01 | 1 | 16 |
| 02 | 2 | 32 |
| 04 | 4 | 64 |
| 08 | 8 | 128 |
| 10 | 16 | 256 |
| 20 | 32 | 512 |
| 40 | 64 | 1024 |
| 80 | 128 | 2048 |
| FF | 255 | 4080 |
I can't assign 4096 MB with decimal 256 because the hex is FF + 01 = 100 (do not confuse with decimal 100 that is 64 in hex, from the table I written = 40 + 20 + 04) , but to keep a valid binary structure where a byte is represented with two hex digits, I used 4080 MB .
The IntelHD4000 VRAM size is also customizable for example to get 144 MB VRAM = 01 + 08 = 09
The minimum VRAM value that allows to boot Catalina is 128 MB .
Attachments
Last edited:
ok great thx, I am going to give my HD4000 minimum ammount of 256MB.
my 2.6Ghz Core i7 2012 MacMini Server, can use more ram this way, and I dont need much vram at all..
will try it soon, will post result here.
thx so far !
Isn’t this unstable ? I never tried 4GB video hack on my 2012. Might try it.
[automerge]1587345845[/automerge]
This may lead to system instability - I think 2048 or 2GB is the real max.