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

[richgoga]

I successfully installed the beta of macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 by spoofing only the board product and changing only a single bit of the firmware features:

<dict>
<key>BoardProduct</key>
<string>Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94</string>
<key>FirmwareFeatures</key>
<data>A1QM4A==</data>
<key>FirmwareFeaturesMask</key>
<data>P/8f/w==</data>
</dict>

By default, the firmware features of the Mac Pro 5,1 are set to A1QMwA==. For some reason, the changed bit fixes the "Your Mac needs a firmware update in order to install to this volume..." issue. (Interestingly, this bit has been documented as the one for enabling proper UEFI bootability for Windows...)

Unfortunately, Lilu userspace patching is broken in Big Sur, so no Night Shift or DRM without more spoofing. If Lilu patching is not fixed, we'll have to seriously consider properly changing model and generating serials to regain proper functionality...

Hey @cdf,
Should I keep this bit change now that I have BS up and running? Or switch it back/delete the keys?
Thanks again for your (and others) genius work.

 

[TECK]

Not all need the AppleMCEReporterDisabler.kext, but I put that in.

That’s one of the main reasons why I’ve built the plistlib generator. I wanted an easy way to package everything the way I want it. I think @cdf plans to use it as base tool for his guide, it should help a lot of people.

 

[TECK]

Should I keep this bit change now that I have BS up and running?

Yes, keep it

 

[wickerstick]

Sounds like due to agdpmod=pikera isn't working in Big Sur yet. If adding this boot argument still can't fix your issue, change the board ID in config from Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94 to Mac-27AD2F918AE68F61 may able to fix it (as temporary solution).

Memory error most likely will pop up once you boot to desktop (this is why I choose the iMac Pro board ID, but not the 7,1 board ID), but this is cosmetic, and can be fixed by using MacPro MemoryNotificationDisabler kext

Reporting back, I ended up doing more work than was worth, rebuilt the entire system from scratch now with a extra SSD for Mojave as a fail safe. OC reconfigured with all the latest releases and instead of Catalina install I went straight to Big Sur and I had dual monitors until adding everything into the config.plist. then when back to single display. wasn't sure where I should have added agdpmod=pikera but my Device Properties look like this ATM

<key>Add</key>
        <dict>
            <key>PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x3,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
            <dict>
                <key>agdpmod</key>
                <data>
                cGlrZXJhAA==
                </data>
                <key>rebuild-device-tree</key>
                <data>
                AA==
                </data>
                <key>shikigva</key>
                <data>
                UA==
                </data>
            </dict>
        </dict>

I DID change board ID and now I have 2 display's again, Thanks for the temporary solution, I hope there is a better one moving forward. BTW, I DID NOT get any memory errors upon the first boot, Also, my bluetooth is working and airdrop(Previously did not show in sysinfo), but handoff hasn't started working yet. its a 43xx card with bluetooth 4.2. If I need to inject that adgpmod=pikera where would that happen to go? I did not see it in the OP.
Thanks,

 

[UdamanAl]

Hello I have a Mac Pro 5,1 with an un flashed Radeon RX560 with no boot screen.

How can I create a bootable OpenCore 0.6.3 USB drive with a boot picker
to be displayed whenever it is inserted and I boot my Mac?


I erased a GUID partition USB Drive with Disk Utility to be Mac OS Journaled.

I downloaded the opencore 0.6.3.zip from below:

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/opencore-0-6-3-zip.977717/

Then copied the EFI folder to the USB.
How can I get the USB to load and see the boot picker screen?
Am I missing a step here?

 

[Dewdman42]

Thanks everyone for the encouragement and help! I have Catalina up and running on my dual processor MP5,1 now using CDF's instructions, did all the hacks except for External Drive icons. I don't have any external drives and if and when I do I would rather see them as what they are.

BootROM is backed up too just in case!

Everything seems to be working fine, are there any known issues that typically come up which I should test for? Its running very smoothly now though. BT and wifi seems to work. Audio works. Netflix plays in Safari. I'm impressed and thanks to all the people that have contributed to this.

Another usage question... At this point I have pretty much exactly what CDF described in his post: Namely I have Catalina installed on drive A along with OC. Drive B has the original Mojave install, without OC. So when I want to switch back and forth between Mojave and Catalina, should I make sure to only use BootPicker to decide which to boot to, or should I use the SystemPreferences to choose a volume to boot from? My understanding is that if I boot through the latter way, then it would go to my Mojave drive EFI and specifically not use OC. Whereas if I go through BootPicker then I guess it would be using OC running Mojave. Is either way fine? Secondly, if I do use OC to run Mojave, do I need to install any hacks like I have had to do for Catalina, or will it run completely vanilla ok under OC?

 

[Dewdman42]

That’s one of the main reasons why I’ve built the plistlib generator. I wanted an easy way to package everything the way I want it. I think @cdf plans to use it as base tool for his guide, it should help a lot of people.

I'd like to check out this plist lib generator. Sounds interesting and may come in handy in the future when I try to go to BigSur.

 

[h9826790]

Hello I have a Mac Pro 5,1 with an un flashed Radeon RX560 with no boot screen.

How can I create a bootable OpenCore 0.6.3 USB drive with a boot picker
to be displayed whenever it is inserted and I boot my Mac?


I erased a GUID partition USB Drive with Disk Utility to be Mac OS Journaled.

I downloaded the opencore 0.6.3.zip from below:

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/opencore-0-6-3-zip.977717/

Then copied the EFI folder to the USB.
How can I get the USB to load and see the boot picker screen?
Am I missing a step here?

Make sure SIP is disabled.

Plug the USB thumb drive at the cMP's front USB 2.0 port.

Then, just follow the exact procedure as per this video

 

[OneyedK]

@TECK : is there a specific reason why

Hello I have a Mac Pro 5,1 with an un flashed Radeon RX560 with no boot screen.

How can I create a bootable OpenCore 0.6.3 USB drive with a boot picker
to be displayed whenever it is inserted and I boot my Mac?


I erased a GUID partition USB Drive with Disk Utility to be Mac OS Journaled.

I downloaded the opencore 0.6.3.zip from below:

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/opencore-0-6-3-zip.977717/

Then copied the EFI folder to the USB.
How can I get the USB to load and see the boot picker screen?
Am I missing a step here?

If you only have one superdrive installed, you can put an el cheapo SSD (speed or size doesn't matter) underneath and connect it to the second sata port.
Simply follow the guide on page one (omit the install Catalina part) and you're golden...

Using a USB key is as much (or more) work.
btw, an old laptop disk also works fine...

 

[Gr1f]

My fresh install is done, OpenCore with h9826790 settings (thanks for this!), installed Catalina first, went through set-up and added Apple ID, that's it, no migration or anything... then ran Big Sur via Software update.

It works but is quite sluggish/unresponsive. Any ideas on what to look for?

Cheers!

 

[DanSilov]

Managed to upgrade directly from Mojave to Big Sur with the latest pack from @h9826790. Installation did hang once, but after a reboot all went more or less okay. But...

• Every time after I restart I get an error saying that my computer didn't shutdown properly.
• RadeonBoost.kext is not working anymore. It does load, but apparently Apple has disabled forced SMU load, and my Vega64 performance is crippled.
• Have you seen Big Sur?

Good test. Back to Mojave for now.

 

[StuAff]

Hello I have a Mac Pro 5,1 with an un flashed Radeon RX560 with no boot screen.

How can I create a bootable OpenCore 0.6.3 USB drive with a boot picker
to be displayed whenever it is inserted and I boot my Mac?


I erased a GUID partition USB Drive with Disk Utility to be Mac OS Journaled.

I downloaded the opencore 0.6.3.zip from below:

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/opencore-0-6-3-zip.977717/

Then copied the EFI folder to the USB.
How can I get the USB to load and see the boot picker screen?
Am I missing a step here?

The USB needs to be bootable- any Mac OS version will do, you could use a Windows setup as well. But you don't actually boot from that USB- not unless you want to for reinstall etc. If it's set up correctly and inserted before you boot the machine, you should get the OC boot picker.
Basically:
Install your OS of choice on the USB (I put High Sierra on mine, for example).
Make sure SIP is off.
Mount the EFI with Clover Configurator.
Run the Bless OpenCore script.
If you don't get the OC boot picker you've missed one of those steps.

 

[Gr1f]

Managed to upgrade directly from Mojave to Big Sur with the latest pack from @h9826790. Installation did hang once, but after a reboot all went more or less okay. But...

• Every time after I restart I get an error saying that my computer didn't shutdown properly.
• RadeonBoost.kext is not working anymore. It does load, but apparently Apple has disabled forced SMU load, and my Vega64 performance is crippled.
• Have you seen Big Sur?

Good test. Back to Mojave for now.

Out of curiosity, how can you tell what is loaded via OC and what isn't?

 

[roobarb!]

Have you seen Big Sur?

Haha! Sadly, yes. Yes I have. 🤪

Here's a thing. This is Energy Saver in Catalina on my 5,1:


This is Energy Saver on Big Sur on my 5,1:


So, am I just being daft here or is something wrong? How is one to disable sleep these days? 😁

 

[TECK]

How is one to disable sleep these days?

Sleep is already disabled, read the text on first ticked box.

 

[roobarb!]

Sleep is already disabled, read the first ticked box.

Ha, well certainly some element of daft in there from me. However, in that case, it didn't work.

I came back into the room to find the machine attempting to sleep (which fails, because I have a Titan Ridge card in there). No big deal, I'll keep an eye on it when I switch back for testing things. For now, back to Catalina!

 

[Dewdman42]

That’s one of the main reasons why I’ve built the plistlib generator. I wanted an easy way to package everything the way I want it. I think @cdf plans to use it as base tool for his guide, it should help a lot of people.

I guess this could also be handled with the freely available PlistBuddy also, which is built into OSX. Type `man PlistBuddy` to find out more. Its not in your PATH by default.

Does anyone here use PlistEditorPro or anything like that?

I'm also interested to write a script that I can use to mount the EFI, change the VMM state and unmount EFI and reboot... in order to easily manage Apple updates. Though...with BigSur..I bet we won't see another Catalina update anyway...but I digress...

 

[startergo]

Does anyone here use PlistEditorPro

I do why?

 

[Dewdman42]

Just wondering if it works for config.plist without problems.

 

[kkinto]

I clean installed Big Sur on an NVMe (from Catalina/OC 0.63) and all seemed to go rather well and seems to be working just fine. I restarted at some point to Catalina to try and sort out my huge email library which I would like to continue but dont seem able to (another issue) but then noticed I have a new drive icon named "Update" on the desktop - in Disk Utility on the APFS 'Container disk 3' I see three partitions: 'disk3s6' (unmounted), 'BigSur - Data' (mounted) and 'Update' (mounted). Is this normal or has something gone awry?

 

[paalb]

Ha, well certainly some element of daft in there from how. However, in that case, it didn't work.

I came back into the room to find the machine attempting to sleep (which fails, because I have a Titan Ridge card in there). No big deal, I'll keep an eye on it when I switch back for testing things. For now, back to Catalina!

I have not installed Big Sur yet, but wonder if this works for you:
sudo /usr/sbin/systemsetup -getsleep
sudo /usr/sbin/systemsetup -setcomputersleep Never

 

[DanSilov]

Out of curiosity, how can you tell what is loaded via OC and what isn't?

RadeonBoost.kext shows a special test string in System Information when it's loaded.

 

[Dewdman42]

Have any of you been able to get rid of the annoying reminder in red from Apple that I am supposed to upgrade to BigSur from Catalina?

I tried the trick that normally should work:

softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Big Sur"

but it doesn't work, it complains that I need to have a qualified machine:

Ignored updates:
(
)

Software Update can only ignore updates that are eligible for installation.
If the label provided to ignore is not in the above list, it is not eligible
to be ignored.
Ignoring software updates is deprecated.
The ability to ignore individual updates will be removed in a future release of macOS.

I have already tried to turn on VMM, but still get the same message, so the check must be happening at a higher level somewhere. Is there any other way to get rid of the notification about BigSur under Catalina?

 

[h9826790]

Have any of you been able to get rid of the annoying reminder in red from Apple that I am supposed to upgrade to BigSur from Catalina?

I tried the trick that normally should work:

softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Big Sur"

but it doesn't work, it complains that I need to have a qualified machine:

Ignored updates:
(
)

Software Update can only ignore updates that are eligible for installation.
If the label provided to ignore is not in the above list, it is not eligible
to be ignored.
Ignoring software updates is deprecated.
The ability to ignore individual updates will be removed in a future release of macOS.

I have already tried to turn on VMM, but still get the same message, so the check must be happening at a higher level somewhere. Is there any other way to get rid of the notification about BigSur under Catalina?

If you are with 0.6.3, remove the firmware feature mask, and turn OFF VMM, then macOS shouldn't allow you to update to Big Sur (even you want to), and should be no associated notification for you.

 

[Dewdman42]

I'll have to read up about the firmware feature mask. I usually have VMM off already, i'm not sure what that other firmware feature mask is you're talking about, but I'll read the OC manual and see if I can find it.