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

[MacintoshDude24]

Hi, FF800 is 17 years old and is currently running 3.41 driver which I think is the last update for the unit. Thanks for the link, I've seen quite a few posts on the RME site regarding the FF800 not being recognised but that's not the issue here. Am hesitant to start messing with Kexts as am not sure this is the problem.

 

[Gustav Holdoff]

Martin made a test version of 1.0.1, I checked it with the ocvalidate utility - his config 1.0.0 gave me one error

Kernel->Emulate->Cpuid1Data requires Cpuid1Mask to be active for replaced bits!
CheckKernel returns 1 error!
Completed validating config.plist in 2 ms. Found 1 issue requiring attention.

my cdf config 1.0.0. gave me two errors
OCS: Missing key FixupAppleEfiImages, context <Quirks>!
OCS: No schema for FixupAppleEfiImages at 12 index, context <Quirks>!
Serialisation returns 2 errors!
Completed validating config.plist in 1 ms. Found 2 issues requiring attention.


I have 2 errors because of Missing key FixupAppleEfiImages but Martin's config doesn't have these lines in "quirks" at all
I checked the config from post number 1, there is no such line in quirks
I edited my config - but there is still one error about OCS: Missing key FixupAppleEfiImages, context <Quirks>!

I haven't edited the config for a long time, I'll probably have to do it completely from the very beginning according to the procedure
At the same time, a clean config without any changes required by the advanced procedure for acceleration does not produce errors
I'll try to generate my config again this weekend. But for now I'll live with the config with the error.
I specifically checked my config with all old versions of ocvalidate - in all versions it gives the same error
but I'm sure I checked my config according to the procedure in earlier versions - 0.9.8 there were definitely no errors, but now there are
I can assume that the last update of macOS probably requires making changes to the config in the quirk lines related to FixupAppleEfiImages

 

[Bmju]

Martin made a test version of 1.0.1, I checked it with the ocvalidate utility - his config 1.0.0 gave me one error

Kernel->Emulate->Cpuid1Data requires Cpuid1Mask to be active for replaced bits!
CheckKernel returns 1 error!
Completed validating config.plist in 2 ms. Found 1 issue requiring attention.

my cdf config 1.0.0. gave me two errors
OCS: Missing key FixupAppleEfiImages, context <Quirks>!
OCS: No schema for FixupAppleEfiImages at 12 index, context <Quirks>!
Serialisation returns 2 errors!
Completed validating config.plist in 1 ms. Found 2 issues requiring attention.


I have 2 errors because of Missing key FixupAppleEfiImages but Martin's config doesn't have these lines in "quirks" at all
I checked the config from post number 1, there is no such line in quirks
I edited my config - but there is still one error about OCS: Missing key FixupAppleEfiImages, context <Quirks>!

I haven't edited the config for a long time, I'll probably have to do it completely from the very beginning according to the procedure
At the same time, a clean config without any changes required by the advanced procedure for acceleration does not produce errors
I'll try to generate my config again this weekend. But for now I'll live with the config with the error.
I specifically checked my config with all old versions of ocvalidate - in all versions it gives the same error
but I'm sure I checked my config according to the procedure in earlier versions - 0.9.8 there were definitely no errors, but now there are
I can assume that the last update of macOS probably requires making changes to the config in the quirk lines related to FixupAppleEfiImages

FixupAppleEfiImages was added in OpenCore 0.9.6. It is only required to be set to support very old versions of macOS, as described (if you search for that option) in here. Plus, it is definitely included in cdf's config.plist.

 

[Gustav Holdoff]

FixupAppleEfiImages was added in OpenCore 0.9.6. It is only required to be set to support very old versions of macOS, as described (if you search for that option) in here. Plus, it is definitely included in cdf's config.plist.

thank You,
I deleted the line in the quirks section
then I'll look for where else it left traces, because with the deleted line I still get one error (before deleting there were two errors)
I've been working in version 1.0.1 for a day now, everything seems to be fine.

 

[Bmju]

thank You,
I deleted the line in the quirks section
then I'll look for where else it left traces, because with the deleted line I still get one error (before deleting there were two errors)
I've been working in version 1.0.1 for a day now, everything seems to be fine.

Maybe you added it into the wrong Quirks section? Different parts of the settings have their own Quirks sections.

 

[Gustav Holdoff]

Maybe you added it into the wrong Quirks section? Different parts of the settings have their own Quirks sections.

Thank you.
Yes, you are right, I really put the line in the wrong quirks
so that there were no traces of old configurations, I did everything from the very beginning today, step by step making changes to the config and checking each step by ocvalidate
now the config is error-free
THANK YOU

 

[Gustav Holdoff]

tested 1.0.1 for a week
no complaints
no complaints about LILU, WhaterGreen, FeatureUnlock and AppleAlc kexts (added from martin's config to my config for sound via HDMI)
after fixing the error in my config I am generally happy with everything
I checked Martin's config too - everything is ok with my hardware
there are no updates in the first post - is cdf probably on vacation?

 

[Gustav Holdoff]

I reinstalled Windows over the weekend - a few years ago I tried to install Windows using the cdf method in post number 1 - but I couldn't do it then, for several reasons - first, I didn't have a Windows keyboard to press during installation Shift-F10, and, besides, some terminal commands didn't work for me - I don't remember exactly which ones now, so then I installed Windows in the usual way - "OpenCore - The Basic Way Part#4 "Windows", shown on YouTube.
In my case it turned out that there was no EFI partition on the windows disk, there was only a 16 MB partition reserved for windows and windows itself. But in EFI opencore a microsoft folder appeared.
It might have been more convenient to use, since my OpenCor disk was connected instead of the optical drive, and I could very easily remove the disk and edit it connected to macbook using SATA adapter.
But what was inconvenient in this case is that when I disconnected the Windows disk, the Windows boot option remained - to remove the option, I had to edit EFI opencore
But since there was not 200 MB of efi on the Windows disk to transfer Microsoft efi there, I had to reinstall Windows
This time I connected a Windows keyboard and performed the installation procedure using the method described by cdf.
During the installation process I still found several inconveniences:
rsync -r /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64/ /Volumes/USB
did not show the progress of the process - it was difficult to understand whether the command was being executed or whether the terminal was simply frozen, that's why i replaced the command with
rsync -r -P /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64/ /Volumes/USB
as it is written by Mikola
and the second command, which did not work for me (replacing the paths and index with mine)
dism /apply-image /imagefile:install.wim /index:1 /applydir:C:\ /compact /EA
I also copied from Mikola (replacing the paths and index with mine)
dism /Apply-Image /ImageFile😀:\Sources\install.wim /index:6 /ApplyDir:E:\
installation using the dism method was successful
now my windows disk has its own efi

 

[Gustav Holdoff]

Despite the fact that acidanthera has not released 1.0.2,
I am still testing the new version 1.0.2 with the new lilu, applealc (for Martin's hdmi audio options) and whatevergreen.
So far I have been working fine all day

 

[Dayo]

@Bmju ... on FixupAppleEfiImages, is it relevant to a user that is not on Duet or UEFI Secure Boot; such as a cMP user?

Was struggling to reach a conclusion on this from what I read in the docs after that last change and still am with the proposed update. Not seeing any issues without it and it seems not to be relevant to cMP but note that AUDK has been changing a fair bit.

Vit mentioned it is best that it is always active on asking him, but it strikes me that he might have been talking from the perspective of a UEFI PC.

 

[Bmju]

No, it is not relevant to a cMP user. I think saying "always turn it on" might amount to 'we've had loads of Issues which were from people not setting this when they needed it, and there is no known harm from setting it' (well possibly _very_ arcane security risks, at least it _very slightly_ increases the attack surface, but nothing else).

 

[Dayo]

No, it is not relevant to a cMP user.

Noted. Thanks.

Not sure where it might fit in, or if even appropriate (apart from cMP users being an "entitled" bunch vis-a-vis OpenCore ... particularly the MP51 lot), but perhaps a catchall statement of some sort along the lines of "This is typically not required on units such as the MacPro5,1 that do not use such secure loaders" might help although I now get it after the explanation but it remains a bit difficult to grasp as is.

As said though, can see this might not fit in.

Thanks again.

 

[Bmju]

FWIW I changed the wording to talking about 'stricter' loaders in the end, instead of 'more secure' loaders. Whether OpenCore is providing Apple Secure Boot, whether the firmware has UEFI Secure Boot and whether the firmware loader is strict ('modern', 'more secure') are all independent.

 

[Dewdman42]

Welp, the home-brew crew just kinda screwed up my machine...did a 'brew upgrade' and it proceeded to complain about not being compatible with Monterey anymore and then proceeded to install a bunch of stuff anyway, completely overwriting everything. I have no idea what all has been broken by this, but this basically just makes me realize its time to move on from Monterey finally. I depend on numerous tools in home-brew.

thinking about using this manual OC guide to move to Windows 11, am I to assume the instructions in post #1 are based in native windows boot (as opposed to bootcamp)?? If so, does anyone have any suggestions for how I can setup my drives and EFI to be kind of safeguard against it accidentally booting Windows11 without OC? Maybe I should put a small Mojave partition on there in leading position or something that is worst case happens, it will default to booting that partition and not windows11? Obviously I want to boot through OC most of the time, so just trying to figure out best way to manage it so that accidental boot from windows11 will never happen. I don't plan to dual boot the machine other then Mojave for purposes of managing OC in the future.. it will become purely windows machine for me for its remaining life at this point if there is any left at all.

also does anyone have any info about win11 vs win10...do I have to worry about AVX or anything like that with Win11? will this hardware truly work with Win11 without any problems, or if so what are the known problems?

 

[Macschrauber]

Welp, the home-brew crew just kinda screwed up my machine...did a 'brew upgrade' and it proceeded to complain about not being compatible with Monterey anymore and then proceeded to install a bunch of stuff anyway, completely overwriting everything. I have no idea what all has been broken by this, but this basically just makes me realize its time to move on from Monterey finally. I depend on numerous tools in home-brew.

thinking about using this manual OC guide to move to Windows 11, am I to assume the instructions in post #1 are based in native windows boot (as opposed to bootcamp)?? If so, does anyone have any suggestions for how I can setup my drives and EFI to be kind of safeguard against it accidentally booting Windows11 without OC? Maybe I should put a small Mojave partition on there in leading position or something that is worst case happens, it will default to booting that partition and not windows11? Obviously I want to boot through OC most of the time, so just trying to figure out best way to manage it so that accidental boot from windows11 will never happen. I don't plan to dual boot the machine other then Mojave for purposes of managing OC in the future.. it will become purely windows machine for me for its remaining life at this point if there is any left at all.

also does anyone have any info about win11 vs win10...do I have to worry about AVX or anything like that with Win11? will this hardware truly work with Win11 without any problems, or if so what are the known problems?

why not kick homebrew. I did, and am satisfied with even old OS, like Mojave. MacPorts is an alternative what works better with old OS.

 

[Dewdman42]

I use many things that are easily installable with homebrew. Sorry I mentioned it as that is a tangent from this topic and my question.

going to Mojave makes less sense for me, I am definitely moving on from Monterey at this time, homebrew is not that only reason, but that was just a big red flag giving me green light to finally turn this 5,1 into a windows box and I will be buying an Apple Silicon mac finally as my primary desktop machine.

 

[Macschrauber]

I use many things that are easily installable with homebrew. Sorry I mentioned it as that is a tangent from this topic and my question.

going to Mojave makes less sense for me, I am definitely moving on from Monterey at this time, homebrew is not that only reason, but that was just a big red flag giving me green light to finally turn this 5,1 into a windows box and I will be buying an Apple Silicon mac finally as my primary desktop machine.

I dont meant to use Mojave, that was an example. MacPorts works up to ancient MacOs versions.

Holding on, on old things, I used El Capitan for a long time. When Homebrew stopped supporting it, I went to Mojave. But when Homebrew stopped supporting Mojave, I replaced it with MacPorts. I need some 32 bit apps on my workhorses, so I keep on using Mojave.

OpenCore is for supporting my customers and testing my projects with all MacOs versions available…

 

[reddrag0n]

with my retired 5,1, i had dual boot with win11 and mojave. opencore was on a measly 128gb sata and windows was on a sata ssd. mojave was on an nvme and it worked no issues. only reason why i retired the mac was that certain games and using a vr headset would not work properly without the cpu AVX instruction set. sure it had a dp x5690 with 128gb ram and a radeon vii but without the avx, certain games would not load properly and my rift s (yes yes, i have heard the comments before) would not load with the latest software for it. so now i took all the good bits and swapped them into a new am5 build and the 27" modded imac i have is doing any of the mac gruntwork that i need

 

[Dewdman42]

with my retired 5,1, i had dual boot with win11 and mojave. opencore was on a measly 128gb sata and windows was on a sata ssd. mojave was on an nvme and it worked no issues. only reason why i retired the mac was that certain games and using a vr headset would not work properly without the cpu AVX instruction set. sure it had a dp x5690 with 128gb ram and a radeon vii but without the avx, certain games would not load properly and my rift s (yes yes, i have heard the comments before) would not load with the latest software for it. so now i took all the good bits and swapped them into a new am5 build and the 27" modded imac i have is doing any of the mac gruntwork that i need

Thanks for that info, so you're saying that mostly win11 itself didn't require AVX anywhere, but some apps, in your case some games, did...which obviously doesn't work on our 5,1. similar situation I guess of Monterey except I think maybe the OS might use AVX for some Siri stuff or something I don't use. Ventura is where the OS started using it more and more and basically we can't do it reasonably.

so one question I have to solve is whether I should run win10 or win11. The main server app I will be running recommends win11, but only for the default answer that win10 is near so called end of life so updates will not continue from Microsoft in the future, otherwise it will run on Win10 no problem...but I guess the only reason to be potentially afraid of win11 is if MS starts including some AVX calls in the actual OS operations like Apple did. I don't mind if there are a few apps I can't run on it.

did you do bootcamp install or native boot? Did you use this guide to do it manually or OCLP? Anything you can recommend about how I could potentially setup my partitions so that it will be very very difficult to accidentally boot into win11 without OC?

 

[reddrag0n]

Thanks for that info, so you're saying that mostly win11 itself didn't require AVX anywhere, but some apps, in your case some games, did...which obviously doesn't work on our 5,1. similar situation I guess of Monterey except I think maybe the OS might use AVX for some Siri stuff or something I don't use. Ventura is where the OS started using it more and more and basically we can't do it reasonably.

so one question I have to solve is whether I should run win10 or win11. The main server app I will be running recommends win11, but only for the default answer that win10 is near so called end of life so updates will not continue from Microsoft in the future, otherwise it will run on Win10 no problem...but I guess the only reason to be potentially afraid of win11 is if MS starts including some AVX calls in the actual OS operations like Apple did. I don't mind if there are a few apps I can't run on it.

did you do bootcamp install or native boot? Did you use this guide to do it manually or OCLP? Anything you can recommend about how I could potentially setup my partitions so that it will be very very difficult to accidentally boot into win11 without OC?

for me it was cyberpunk 2077 that needed avx and the latest meta software to run the rift s that i knew for sure needed avx. if you arent running virtual reality, then im sure avx shouldn't be an issue for you. and if your not trying to run the latest and greatest games, then ditto. as for opencore, i used the installer help files on this site to make it so that i could run mojave on nvme. as for windows, i would say, with a few tweaks with the dvd installer, windows 11 will instal and update just fine. aka the tpm bypass and the M$ account creation. other than that, just install win11 like you would on any old bios type of pc with a dvd drive. opencore you can configure on the mac side, makes it easier in my opinion. i also flashed my mac rom to make it so any pc video card could logo boot on the mac without opencore, but the picture was psychedelic. opencore just made the boot option easier to see. if it were up to me, i would have saved a few more pennies and upgraded to a 19 mac pro and 3/4 of my issues wouldn't be present. but $2K+ CAD is still a little too steep for me

 

[Dewdman42]

anyone have any suggestions for preventative measures to keep the machine from EVER accidentally booting directly into win11 without OC? I don't want to reset my NVRAM or whatever...have the OC configuration knackered or something and then by default the machine attempts to boot from the win11 partition. What are some good thoughts about organization my partitions and oc configuration to avoid that from really ever happening?

 

[Dewdman42]

Holding on, on old things, I used El Capitan for a long time. When Homebrew stopped supporting it, I went to Mojave. But when Homebrew stopped supporting Mojave, I replaced it with MacPorts.

(see below)

 

[Dewdman42]

I dont meant to use Mojave, that was an example. MacPorts works up to ancient MacOs versions.

you may have talked me into MacPorts. Looks like it has just about everything I was previously installing with Homebrew. If they are more committed to backwards compatibility, I'm definitely on that.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent...

 

[mattspace]

Welp, the home-brew crew just kinda screwed up my machine...did a 'brew upgrade' and it proceeded to complain about not being compatible with Monterey anymore and then proceeded to install a bunch of stuff anyway, completely overwriting everything.

And this is why when any application or tool mentions "brew" I Nope-yeet it out the window, and look for an alternative that uses a normal Mac-specific installer. If the tool's creators can't familiarise themselves with the system's native installation paradigms, I'm not going to trust that they're competent with any other aspect of the system.

 

[Stez]

Hey folks, would @cdf consider adding a Linux section to the Opencore guide? I'm sure the configuration isn't too complex but I'd be afraid of messing something up by trying it myself first 😅

Full disclosure: I'm thinking of running something like Fedora or Bazzite on my Mac Pro primarily (as a gaming machine) and using OpenCore to boot into it. I did successfully get AtlasOS (Windows) running on it before which was neat, but I'd like to try Linux for a number of reasons.

Kind regards!