MP 1,1-5,1 Manually Configured OpenCore on the Mac Pro

[naerct]

I have one question ...
Can I use two different OpenCore configurations on two solid-state drives each with macOS installed?
Thanks in advance!

I believe you can, but perhaps not with only two drives. From my understanding, which is quite limited, the problem is that you need each Disk A and Disk B to be on separate drives, not just seperate volumes, as I believe all volumes share the EFI partition.
I have been able to chose clones of Disk A, but I've never had multiple versions, only identical ones. I am guessing that we'll (cMP users) have to keep a copy of Mojave to get the updates for future macOS upgrades. With just 2 SSDs in the PCI bay, I can use one as Mojave, and one for the Opencore in the EFI partition, and Catalina. Then, on an external SSD, I can clone Disk A and then add the Opencore code to the EFI, during a clone with CCC, or thereafter, by copying and pasting from the original disk A.
When the boot picker comes up, it will list both A drives, and I can choose either. I believe you would likewise need a third drive for the second version of Disk A.
Hopefully, we'll get some more feedback. It also depends exactly what you meant by different versions.

 

[joevt]

PS: The text mode environment does not work on Classic MacPros when using vanilla rEFInd (as at v0.12.0) and you need RefindPlus to get this.

I am using vanilla rEFInd and text mode works for me (EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition). What doesn't work is changing the textmode from the default to 320x84 (for my 2560x1600 Apple 30" Cinema Display) using the refind.conf file. I can change the mode in the EFI Shell (I use the one from edk2-UDK2018/EdkShellBinPkg/FullShell/X64/Shell_Full.efi which appears to be the latest - comparing the help files of all the Shells than I can load on my MacPro3,1 - all the non-UEFI shells). OpenShell requires UEFI and doesn't work on my MacPro3,1 (unless I'm using it wrong? or it requires OpenCore booter?).

I recently installed a StarTech PEX2S953 which is a two port 16950 UART. I hope it will help with EFI development (for debugging, etc.). I compiled an XhciDxe.efi for the MacPro3,1 but so far it doesn't do anything useful when a USB 3.0 device is connected (I replaced a couple UEFI dependencies). It also loads on my Z170X-Gaming 7 motherboard but it doesn't seem to detect connection of a USB 3.x device. In both cases (MacPro3,1 and Gaming 7) I'm testing with an ASM1142 card.

 

[Dayo]

I am using vanilla rEFInd and text mode works for me (EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition).

Thanks for the update on that. It didn't work when tested on a 3,1 and on a 5,1 but I note both didn't have Mac Boot Screen Capable GPUs installed at the time.

OpenShell requires UEFI and doesn't work on my MacPro3,1

Makes sense but it does work from RefindPlus ... perhaps because it does some initialisation steps taken from OpenCore.

 

[Bmju]

Please take a look here:

Provide a way to run tools and custom entries in text mode · Issue #1081 · acidanthera/bugtracker

Some tools may require to be launched in text mode to be able to print any text onscreen. This is because: OpenCore implements ConsoleControl protocol, which hides any printed text in graphics mode...

github.com

Shell bugs on different systems · Issue #364 · acidanthera/bugtracker

There are multiple shell issues including, some of which have dedicated bugreports, some of which have patches upstreamed, or just nothing. This issue will be the parent issue for all separate ones...

github.com

Thanks for the info. I actually don't have a problem getting console output, I read @vit9696's post about 'the conOut problem' and found the right bits and pieces to make that work. My problem is that the efi's I write don't *return* properly (neither to to OpenCore nor to UEFI shall; but this is after they have *successfully* run, including console output). I think this might be because I'm starting my project from very old gnu-efi templates, I'm going to upgrade to EDK 2, which I kinda suspect will just work out of the box. Thanks for your help and pointers to relevant stuff!

 

[saltarob]

Reformatting shouldn't have such an outcome but what was it before out of curiosity?
Also, was the OpenCore version when it was showing up the same as it is now?

Thank you for following up. I had two partitions on it. On for a Dosdude Catalina 10.15.6 Patch and the second partition was a HFS+ data Volume.

After the initial successful testing with the EFI on the external USB drive I reformatted the whole NVMe and made two APFS volumes on it. One for the new clean Catalina (10.15.7) install with OpenCore and again the data volume but this time as an APFS.

The EFI sits on this NVMe drive. I tried to move it to a SAS HD but it gave me the same results.

Both times I used OpenCore 0.6.2 and followed the wiki step by step. Therefore the OpenCore package and the config file should be identical.

I found following in the config documentation:

APFS EFI driver is bundled in all bootable APFS containers. This option performs loading of signed APFS drivers with respect to ScanPolicy.

Could it maybe be that something fails with the loading of the APFS driver for the container? Because as I made the APFS container I put two volumes on it and then I used one volume for the system install and the other volume stayed as a data volume. Maybe the container was not updated correctly so that the ScanPolicy doesn't recognise it as a container with a bootable APFS volume in it...?

 

[paalb]

Is it possible to get the boot picker and HW acceleration working on both Mojave and Catalina?

I have the OpenCore boot working on my Mac Pro 5,1 and Catalina by following the procedure here. HW acceleration works. Thanks for the excellent Installation instructions. I was never in doubt what I had to do. Is it possible to have a second disk with Mojave and easily change from one to the other while retaining HW acceleration?


MacPro 5,1 (Mid 2010)
2 x 2,66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
Asus Radeon RX 580 8 GB graphics

 

[startergo]

Is it possible to get the boot picker and HW acceleration working on both Mojave and Catalina?

I have the OpenCore boot working on my Mac Pro 5,1 and Catalina by following the procedure here. HW acceleration works. Thanks for the excellent Installation instructions. I was never in doubt what I had to do. Is it possible to have a second disk with Mojave and easily change from one to the other while retaining HW acceleration?


MacPro 5,1 (Mid 2010)
2 x 2,66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
Asus Radeon RX 580 8 GB graphics

OpenCore on the Mac Pro

I believe you can, but perhaps not with only two drives. From my understanding, which is quite limited, the problem is that you need each Disk A and Disk B to be on separate drives, not just seperate volumes, as I believe all volumes share the EFI partition. I have been able to chose clones of...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[startergo]

Can someone on cMP with Big Sur please test these 2 applications:
Hackintool.zip
And
IORegistryExplorer-2.1.dmg
These 2 apps hang with the mouse pointer like a colored ball (unresponsive app). I tested so far with all betas of Big Sur and they hang there.

 

[Dayo]

Is it possible to get the boot picker and HW acceleration working on both Mojave and Catalina?

You can boot into as many Mac OS instances as you have with your configuration as it stands.
Just select it from the bootpicker and whatever you have configured OpenCore for, such as GPU Acceleration, will be applied to the selected instance.

Do you mean you have both Catalina and Mojave installed but that you currently only see one of them in your bootpicker?

 

[startergo]

Can someone on cMP with Big Sur please test these 2 applications:
Hackintool.zip
And
IORegistryExplorer-2.1.dmg
These 2 apps hang with the mouse pointer like a colored ball (unresponsive app). I tested so far with all betas of Big Sur and they hang there.

I have tried Big Sur booting without OC. Still the same issue with those 2 Apps. It must then be the way OC installed Big Sur, as some user on unsupported Big Sur thread reported them working while it was installed through the:

GitHub - barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher: A primitive USB patcher for installing macOS Big Sur on unsupported Macs

A primitive USB patcher for installing macOS Big Sur on unsupported Macs - barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher

github.com

 

[joevt]

Thanks for the info. I actually don't have a problem getting console output, I read @vit9696's post about 'the conOut problem' and found the right bits and pieces to make that work. My problem is that the efi's I write don't *return* properly (neither to to OpenCore nor to UEFI shall; but this is after they have *successfully* run, including console output). I think this might be because I'm starting my project from very old gnu-efi templates, I'm going to upgrade to EDK 2, which I kinda suspect will just work out of the box. Thanks for your help and pointers to relevant stuff!

I use edk2 for my EFI stuff even for MacPro3,1. I can test it with a Parallels VM which has a built-in UEFI Shell but that's UEFI so after it passes test there I have to test on the MacPro3,1 EFI.

Try this EFI version of gfxutil (it's a work in progress - it uses the DevicePathToTextLib - I want to add a compare to built-in DevicePathToText Protocol which uses a different format in edk and might have differences from Apple for my MacMini 2018 which has paths that cause even the built-in DevicePathToText protocol to crash so I need to add an option to skip paths that might be bad).

 

[paalb]

You can boot into as many Mac OS instances as you have with your configuration as it stands.
Just select it from the bootpicker and whatever you have configured OpenCore for, such as GPU Acceleration, will be applied to the selected instance.

Do you mean you have both Catalina and Mojave installed but that you currently only see one of them in your bootpicker?

Do I understand you right? There is no difference betweenn OpenCore settings for Catalina and Mojave to enable HW acceleration?

I tried Mojave, just skipping the part where you install Catalina, and it did not work. So I started with a default settings file and got it to work with Catalina. Guess I did something wrong in the settings when I tried with Mojave. The bootpicker has worked in both. I will have to check later today or tomorrow.

 

[Dayo]

Do I understand you right? There is no difference in OpenCore settings for Catalina and Mojave to enable HW acceleration?

Yes

 

[paalb]

Yes

Nice! Both working here now.

 

[205Maxi]

Can someone on cMP with Big Sur please test these 2 applications:
Hackintool.zip
And
IORegistryExplorer-2.1.dmg
These 2 apps hang with the mouse pointer like a colored ball (unresponsive app). I tested so far with all betas of Big Sur and they hang there.

Hello,
Well not here with my system. Running latest Beta macOS Big Sur.

 

[startergo]

Hello,
Well not here with my system. Running latest Beta macOS Big Sur.

So they run well on your system? Interesting and you are spoofing MP7,1? Can you please attach your config file for testing?

 

[Stefano85]

Can someone on cMP with Big Sur please test these 2 applications:
Hackintool.zip
And
IORegistryExplorer-2.1.dmg
These 2 apps hang with the mouse pointer like a colored ball (unresponsive app). I tested so far with all betas of Big Sur and they hang there.

Hi, on my cmp 5,1 with latest beta 10 of Big Sur they works just fine.
I'm here if you need additional info.
attached my actual config

best regards

 

[Dayo]

I had two partitions on it. On for a Dosdude Catalina 10.15.6 Patch and the second partition was a HFS+ data Volume.

After the initial successful testing with the EFI on the external USB drive I reformatted the whole NVMe and made two APFS volumes on it.

Might be a bug but difficult to tell unless there are additional reports and investigation. Most seem to just use ScanPolicy 0 which bypasses this but this also shows EFI partitions ETC.

You could raise a bug report and outline things clearly.
Worst case is that you get an explanation.

 

[paalb]

I am just starting on a second MacPro I would like to have HW acceleration and bootpicker on with only Mojave just now. I am getting to know Catalina on the first I installed.

MacPro 5,1 (Mid 2010)
2 x 2,66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
Asus Radeon RX 580 8 GB graphics

HighPoint SSD7101A-1 with two Samsung 970 Pro
One Samsung 970 Pro as startup and one as cache.

I have one question to the WikiPost. What is the reason for “Making External Drives Internal”? Since I have the HighPoint SSD7101A-1 that the OS treats as external, I wonder if this is something I should do?

 

[saltarob]

Might be a bug but difficult to tell unless there are additional reports and investigation. Most seem to just use ScanPolicy 0 which bypasses this but this also shows EFI partitions ETC.

You could raise a bug report and outline things clearly.
Worst case is that you get an explanation.

Thank you for your help

 

[Gerardo Flores]

Installed Big Sur beta 10 (20A5395g) on an empty SSD from Catalina 10.15.7 with full installer offered from the update assistant.
View attachment 968298
These are the SMBIOS settings:

    <key>PlatformInfo</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Automatic</key>
        <false/>
        <key>SMBIOS</key>
        <dict>
            <key>BIOSReleaseDate</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>BIOSVendor</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>BIOSVersion</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>BoardAssetTag</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>BoardLocationInChassis</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>BoardManufacturer</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>BoardProduct</key>
            <string>Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94</string>
            <key>BoardSerialNumber</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>BoardType</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>BoardVersion</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>ChassisAssetTag</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>ChassisManufacturer</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>ChassisSerialNumber</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>ChassisType</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>ChassisVersion</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>FirmwareFeatures</key>
            <data>N+EP6AAAAAA=</data>
            <key>FirmwareFeaturesMask</key>
            <data>P/8f/wAAAAA=</data>
            <key>MemoryFormFactor</key>
            <integer>9</integer>
            <key>PlatformFeature</key>
            <integer>65535</integer>
            <key>ProcessorType</key>
            <integer>1281</integer>
            <key>SmcVersion</key>
            <data></data>
            <key>SystemFamily</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>SystemManufacturer</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>SystemProductName</key>
            <string>iMacPro</string>
            <key>SystemSKUNumber</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>SystemSerialNumber</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>SystemUUID</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>SystemVersion</key>
            <string></string>
        </dict>
        <key>UpdateDataHub</key>
        <false/>
        <key>UpdateNVRAM</key>
        <false/>
        <key>UpdateSMBIOS</key>
        <true/>
        <key>UpdateSMBIOSMode</key>
        <string>Create</string>

csrutil status
System Integrity Protection status: unknown (Custom Configuration).

Configuration:
    Apple Internal: disabled
    Kext Signing: disabled
    Filesystem Protections: disabled
    Debugging Restrictions: disabled
    DTrace Restrictions: disabled
    NVRAM Protections: disabled
    BaseSystem Verification: enabled

This is an unsupported configuration, likely to break in the future and leave your machine in an unknown state.

nvram 7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82:csr-active-config
7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82:csr-active-config    w%08%00%00

View attachment 968280

8K VP9 video playback in Safari:
View attachment 968284

hi, as i understand with your post, I think finally understand the following: I must simulate a iMac Pro to get working Big Sur? this is right? thanks in advance

 

[startergo]

hi, as i understand with your post, I think finally understand the following: I must simulate a iMac Pro to get working Big Sur? this is right? thanks in advance

That is what gave me the update yes. Another way to install it is here:

GitHub - startergo/bigmac: SPX BigMac includes Patches to run Big Sur on 2008 Mac Pro 3,1. Mac Pro 2009, 2010, 2012 should also work

SPX BigMac includes Patches to run Big Sur on 2008 Mac Pro 3,1. Mac Pro 2009, 2010, 2012 should also work - GitHub - startergo/bigmac: SPX BigMac includes Patches to run Big Sur on 2008 Mac Pro 3,1...

github.com

That is without spoofing.

 

[Gerardo Flores]

That is what have me the update yes. Another way to install it is here:

GitHub - startergo/bigmac: SPX BigMac includes Patches to run Big Sur on 2008 Mac Pro 3,1. Mac Pro 2009, 2010, 2012 should also work

SPX BigMac includes Patches to run Big Sur on 2008 Mac Pro 3,1. Mac Pro 2009, 2010, 2012 should also work - GitHub - startergo/bigmac: SPX BigMac includes Patches to run Big Sur on 2008 Mac Pro 3,1...

github.com

That is without spoofing.

Thanks!, I will going to try with the spoofing way

 

[Daveiggy]

Well I asked a few pages back why my install wont show a boot screen on an old studio display via dvi but will on my tv via hdmi and why does my cpu now show as ??? and nobody could be bothered to help. So I can see why a facebook page would be a good idea I mean if its a simple fix and im a moron for not being able to work it out I thought someone would take great delight in showing me how thick I am and tell me the settings to change in the config file. Posts here just seem to get lost, Ive given up now and will do without a boot screen as I'm sick of the hassle of swapping boot drives to remove opencore everytime it fails to boot after I change something.

 

[cdf]

Well I asked a few pages back why my install wont show a boot screen on an old studio display via dvi but will on my tv via hdmi and why does my cpu now show as ??? and nobody could be bothered to help.

There are probably not many people using DVI, which explains the lack of response.

So I'm getting mixed results using open core 0.61, no boot picker from DVI on an old apple studio display (sapphire pulse 580 8gb)
But I can see the bootpicker via hdmi on the TV

and unknown processor (mac pro 2009 flashed to 2012 model running 3.33 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon

Anyways, if you're still interested in solving this issue, I recommend that you install the DEBUG version of OpenCore and check the log for what video modes are detected. The settings to enable the log are described here:

OpenCore on the Mac Pro

forums.macrumors.com