Patcher tool for unsupported Macs and RX5XX

[arimanni]

So, I'm "new" to mac (last mac was in 2012 as a student) and got myself a cheep Mac Pro 3.1 that I'm planing to do some updates to.
Mainly I'm going to use it for FCPX for some 4k video - mainly family movies, some work stuff now and then and some light World of Warcraft gaming.

Beside that I´m going to update to macOS High Sierra following the guide of http://dosdude1.com/highsierra/, i did order some X5482 CPU, 32 GB ram and some SSD (regular and M.2). My question is simple;

What kind of graphic card can I use? I´ll been looking on the following;

- ASUS Radeon RX 550 2GB / 4GB Phoenix
- ASUS Radeon RX 570 4GB Expedition
- Gigabyte Radeon RX 570 4GB Aorus
- Sapphire Radeon RX 580 4GB Pulse

What card would be "out of the box" working with no need for some shady update or anything (plug-and-play). And will the use be affected by using the dosdude1´s approach on a Mac Pro 3.1?

Thanks in advance for all good answers!

PS! Sorry for the bad english, I'm from Norway

 

[Jayson A]

Best card for the Mac Pro is the Sapphire PULSE RX 580, but I'm not sure if your Mac Pro 3,1 can fit the power requirements of the card. It's a pretty power hungry card.

 

[tsialex]

Best card for the Mac Pro is the Sapphire PULSE RX 580, but I'm not sure if your Mac Pro 3,1 can fit the power requirements of the card. It's a pretty power hungry card.

If it's a MacPro3,1, no AMD cards for you. Since High Sierra, AMD GCN drivers requires SSE4.2. Mac Pro 2008 Xeons does not have that instruction.

Dosdude1 patch uses Sierra hacked drivers on High Sierra to run GCN cards, but Sierra support of RX-4xx/5xx cards is incomplete and buggier as hell. Btw, Sierra hacked driver don't work on Mojave.

It's not a power supply problem, power hungrier cards like 1080 works on 3,1. If you want to keep your Mac Pro 2008 working, go for a Nvidia card.

 

[Jayson A]

If it's a MacPro3,1, no AMD cards for you. Since High Sierra, AMD GCN drivers requires SSE4.2. Mac Pro 2008 Xeons does not have that instruction.

Dosdude1 patch uses Sierra hacked drivers on High Sierra to run GCN cards, but Sierra support of RX-4xx/5xx cards is incomplete and buggier as hell. Btw, Sierra hacked driver don't work on Mojave.

It's not a power supply problem, power hungrier cards like 1080 works on 3,1. If you want to keep your Mac Pro 2008 working, go for a Nvidia card.

Thank you for being way more knowledgeable than me in this. I have a 5,1 so I bought the RX 580. I didn’t know about the 3,1.

 

[tsialex]

Thank you for being way more knowledgeable than me in this. I have a 5,1 so I bought the RX 580. I didn’t know about the 3,1.

The problem is SSE4.2, Mac Pro 2008 Xeons only has SSE4.1.

Btw, I've tested my MP3,1 with Nvidia GTX680 for Mac on Mojave, works nicely.

 

[arimanni]

Thanks for a good replay. I might as well stay in 10.10.5 and get a HD 7970 then. Should sort out my problems with the movie rendering and from what I understand it work "out of the box" with a external psu or some hax on sata power

A big thanks for your input!

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for a good replay. I might as well stay in 10.10.5 and get a HD 7970 then. Should sort out my problems with the movie rendering and from what I understand it work "out of the box" with a external psu or some hax on sata power

A big thanks for your input!

Just to remember, HD7970 is a GCN card too, same SSE4.2/driver problem on High Sierra and Mojave when using a 2008 Mac Pro.

 

[MarkC426]

Thanks for a good replay. I might as well stay in 10.10.5 and get a HD 7970 then. Should sort out my problems with the movie rendering and from what I understand it work "out of the box" with a external psu or some hax on sata power

A big thanks for your input!

The other problem you may have....if you are getting FCPX for the first time, you can only get the latest version, which requires 10.13 to run.

 

[Synchro3]

The other problem you may have....if you are getting FCPX for the first time, you can only get the latest version, which requires 10.13 to run.

Isn't it possible to buy FCPX in the App store in macOS 10.13, and than download the latest possible version in the App store in macOS 10.12/10.11 back to 10.8?

If I remember correctly I did that before.

 

[andrew nz]

So, I'm "new" to mac (last mac was in 2012 as a student) and got myself a cheep Mac Pro 3.1 that I'm planing to do some updates to.
Mainly I'm going to use it for FCPX for some 4k video - mainly family movies, some work stuff now and then and some light World of Warcraft gaming.

Beside that I´m going to update to macOS High Sierra following the guide of http://dosdude1.com/highsierra/, i did order some X5482 CPU, 32 GB ram and some SSD (regular and M.2). My question is simple;

What kind of graphic card can I use? I´ll been looking on the following;

- ASUS Radeon RX 550 2GB / 4GB Phoenix
- ASUS Radeon RX 570 4GB Expedition
- Gigabyte Radeon RX 570 4GB Aorus
- Sapphire Radeon RX 580 4GB Pulse

What card would be "out of the box" working with no need for some shady update or anything (plug-and-play). And will the use be affected by using the dosdude1´s approach on a Mac Pro 3.1?

Thanks in advance for all good answers!

PS! Sorry for the bad english, I'm from Norway

This is a cross post which i made from "using a 2008 mac pro as a gaming computer"


I am in a similar situation.
I have been playing warcraft without issue until blizzard made the hardware requirements beyond my current system.
They seem to routinely purge their subscriber base with silly requirements.

what would the minimum Mac Pro system to run warcraft assuming what blizzard say as min specs are actually accurate?



The min Mac os seems to be 10.11.x but the graphic requirements seem hefty because radeon 79x cards are not supported.
My Mac Pro 1.1 will run el capitan but does not support later graphics cards than the radeon 79xx/r9.
I had been playing warcraft under 10.10.5 and radeon 5770.
And playing the game well without issues.

--
See below minimum spec and preferred spec by blizzard:

macOS® 10.12 (latest version) macOS® 10.13 (latest version)

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i5-760 or better Intel® Core™ i7-4770 or better

VIDEO NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 750M or better
AMD Radeon™ R9 M290 or better
Intel® HD 530 (macOS 10.13 or higher, 45W)
2GB VRAM
Metal capable GPU

--

What can you advise about Mac Pro. Wold I need Mac Pro 3.1 or later?
The idea is to keep my 1.1 for daily duties because it has been specced well and try to find a gaming option with later Mac Pro and then eventually migrate ....

i think I could get away with 10.11.x el capitan which is the unofficial minimum.
What can you advise about the graphic card? yes is needs to be metal capable and R9/79xx will support metal.

advice appreciated. Cross post this if you need.

 

[Rico]

The problem is SSE4.2, Mac Pro 2008 Xeons only has SSE4.1.

Btw, I've tested my MP3,1 with Nvidia GTX680 for Mac on Mojave, works nicely. View attachment 771201

Sorry to revive an old thread, but is there a version of the GTX 680 that can support three (3) 4K displays (at 3008x1692 @60Hz) via DisplayPort or HDMI, and a fourth display at 1440p @60Hz (DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort).

I currently have an nVidia GTX 960 4GB in my 3,1, running four displays at the aforementioned settings, and I'm quite satisfied with the performance (it will run four displays at full 4K 60hz if I want), but I'm anxious to get to Mojave for compatibility and development purposes.

Also, is the 680 a "step down" from the 960? Performance comparison sites give wildly different benchmarks.

 

[tsialex]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but is there a version of the GTX 680 that can support three (3) 4K displays (at 3008x1692 @60Hz) via DisplayPort or HDMI, and a fourth display at 1440p @60Hz (DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort).

I currently have an nVidia GTX 960 4GB in my 3,1, running four displays at the aforementioned settings, and I'm quite satisfied with the performance (it will run four displays at full 4K 60hz if I want), but I'm anxious to get to Mojave for compatibility and development purposes.

Also, is the 680 a "step down" from the 960? Performance comparison sites give wildly different benchmarks.

No GTX 680 supports 4K60.

See the specs for the best eVGA GTX 680 https://www.evga.com/products/specs/gpu.aspx?pn=E847A80B-4508-46FC-8154-60FE2F163569

Best you can get is 4K30 via HDMI and DisplayPort.

 

[Rico]

Best you can get is 4K30 via HDMI.

Thanks for the rapid reply; much appreciated.

While I think your answer was implicit, can you confirm that there is no path to Mojave for a 3,1 that would support the above display configuration? I also have a GT120 OEM supporting two additional 1440p@60Hz (Mini DP $ DVI) for a total of six displays, and while Mojave is desirable, I can't work at 30Hz on any display, nor am I inclined to reduce my total display count (though I would consider losing just one). My three LG 4K only have HDMI and DP; the AOC 1440p have DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort (and VGA, but it will not support my desired refresh/resolutions).

Cheers

F

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for the rapid reply; much appreciated.

While I think your answer was implicit, can you confirm that there is no path to Mojave for a 3,1 that would support the above display configuration? I also have a GT120 OEM supporting two additional 1440p@60Hz (Mini DP $ DVI) for a total of six displays, and while Mojave is desirable, I can't work at 30Hz on any display, nor am I inclined to reduce my total display count (though I would consider losing just one). My three LG 4K only have HDMI and DP; the AOC 1440p have DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort (and VGA, but it will not support my desired refresh/resolutions).

Cheers

F

That I know of, only Kepler TITAN, Kepler TITAN Black and GTX 780Ti 6GB will work the way you want, but this cards costs more than a MP5,1. Time to think about a MP4,1 on the cheap, this much money spent on high end GPUs for a MP3,1 is not wise or worth.

 

[Rico]

That I know of, only Kepler TITAN and GTX 780Ti 6GB will work the way you want, but this cards costs more than a MP5,1.

LOL! Yeah, I've been wanting to move to a 5,1 for a long time now, but the ever-looming new Mac Pro from Apple, should it ever arrive, is going to guide my decisions; and while I would love more power and faster renders, the truth is I don't strictly *need* that much horsepower for my work anymore. But if the new MP I super compelling, and Apple's definitions of 'expandable' and 'modular' meet with my own, and not in the stratospheric $10K-$15K-$20K range I expect to replicate the jam-packed HDD/SSD/RAID and peripheral-heavy setup I have now, I may buy one more new Pro before I die.

I've been served with 11+ years of faithful service from this $4.5K investment; I wouldn't mind throwing another couple hundred at it for another year or more use with the current macOS.

 

[tsialex]

LOL! Yeah, I've been wanting to move to a 5,1 for a long time now, but the ever-looming new Mac Pro from Apple, should it ever arrive, is going to guide my decisions; and while I would love more power and faster renders, the truth is I don't strictly *need* that much horsepower for my work anymore. But if the new MP I super compelling, and Apple's definitions of 'expandable' and 'modular' meet with my own, and not in the stratospheric $10K-$15K-$20K range I expect to replicate the jam-packed HDD/SSD/RAID and peripheral-heavy setup I have now, I may buy one more new Pro before I die.

I've been served with 11+ years of faithful service from this $4.5K investment; I wouldn't mind throwing another couple hundred at it for another year or more use with the current macOS.

It's not a couple of hundred, it's $500~$600 for these cards flashed, people hunt them since they are the last high end GPUs from NVIDIA that work with Mojave.

Sometimes eBay have non flashed Titan 6GB for around $200, I saw one recently, but you will have to search for some time. Forget that, Titan is not 4K60.

 

[Rico]

Understood; sorry I wasn't more clear in that I meant I would be willing to spend up to $250 or so on *any* card that meets my needs and gets me to Mojave; I see the RX 680s for that and far less; I see GTX 680s go for well under that frequently enough, but I wasn't sure about ports/supported display settings possibly available from the myriad of clone vendors.

I really appreciate all the information, and all the super useful posts I see you make all over this forum.

Best Regards

 

[tsialex]

Understood; sorry I wasn't more clear in that I meant I would be willing to spend up to $250 or so on *any* card that meets my needs and gets me to Mojave; I see the RX 680s for that and far less; I see GTX 680s go for well under that frequently enough, but I wasn't sure about ports/supported display settings possibly available from the myriad of clone vendors.

I really appreciate all the information, and all the super useful posts I see you make all over this forum.

Best Regards

NVIDIA Kepler first generation don't support 4K60, only 4K30 and only over HDMI1.4/DP1.2. I corrected my post above. You have to buy the 700 series to have 4K60.

Another problem, GTX 680 usually have two DualLink DVI + one HDMI + one DP.

 

[Rico]

Time to think about a MP4,1 on the cheap, this much money spent on high end GPUs for a MP3,1 is not wise or worth.

I also thought that perhaps any money I spent on a card now might either travel to GPU expansion box, maybe just maybe work in the new Mac Pro (if it has available PCIe slots), or almost certainly migrate up to a 4,1 (flashed) or 5,1, which, while a bit pricey now, I expect will flood the market once the new Pro ships.

If I do settle for a 5,1, I want the fastest 3.46GHz Dual CPU and minimum 64GB RAM (preferably 128GB), which for the last several months I've not seen go for under (the equivalent of) ~$1400. Even if I buy a lesser-equipped 5,1 or a 4,1, at a seemingly low steal of a deal, by the time I upgrade it, I'm at that figure or close. This is before I factor in a 4K/Mojave-compatible card.

The cost to buy external thunderbolt boxes now to host my current internal 12x SSD RAID and 4x HDD, and replace lost I/O options on an iMac Pro alone is an insane expense to buy a computer I don't want; I'm giving million to one odds that I can equal what I have now in terms of features/options/screens with the new Mac Pro for under $15K.

 

[tsialex]

I also thought that perhaps any money I spent on a card now might either travel to GPU expansion box, maybe just maybe work in the new Mac Pro (if it has available PCIe slots), or almost certainly migrate up to a 4,1 (flashed) or 5,1, which, while a bit pricey now, I expect will flood the market once the new Pro ships.

If I do settle for a 5,1, I want the fastest 3.46GHz Dual CPU and minimum 64GB RAM (preferably 128GB), which for the last several months I've not seen go for under (the equivalent of) ~$1400. Even if I buy a lesser-equipped 5,1 or a 4,1, at a seemingly low steal of a deal, by the time I upgrade it, I'm at that figure or close. This is before I factor in a 4K/Mojave-compatible card.

The cost to buy external thunderbolt boxes now to host my current internal 12x SSD RAID and 4x HDD, and replace lost I/O options on an iMac Pro alone is an insane expense to buy a computer I don't want; I'm giving million to one odds that I can equal what I have now in terms of features/options/screens with the new Mac Pro for under $15K.

USA prices for a nice entry level mid-2010 dual CPU is ~$600, $250 for the 2 X5690 ($100 for 2 X5680), ~$200 for a new Sapphire Pulse RX580 and ~$200 for 128 GB of 1333 ECC RAM.

I bet that with some searching and buying an used RX 580 you can get this around for $1000 or less. If you get 2 X5680 instead of the 2 X5690 that are only 3% faster, I bet that you can find an used Vega 56 and keep everything for $1000.

 

[Rico]

Boy, ECC RAM sure has come down since I last priced it in December/January; that was a huge factor at the time. What brand/quality/warranty is offering lifetime ECC RAM at that price? Not even Kingston or the off-brands on Amazon even touch that; OWC wants $450, Kingston $400, etc.

I also couldn't win any auctions for even a bottom end dual-CPU 5,1 with RAM I'd have to toss for under $850 over the course three months of aggressive eBay-ing, and I wasn't seeing *matched* CPU kits for under ~$290. I also looked at countless single CPU, with an eye on just swapping in a dual tray, but could never make that math work, either.

That doesn't even count how many of those would also need a BT/Airport upgrade/adapter, as well (many had it already, but never at a low price).

I guess the ever-nearing and hoped-for WWDC announcement is already driving prices down.

If only the RX580 would work in my 3,1; the dual 3.2GHz and 64GB RAM is still enough for me for who knows how long, but for wanting/needing Mojave.

 

[tsialex]

Boy, ECC RAM sure has come down since I last priced it in December/January; that was a huge factor at the time. What brand/quality/warranty is offering lifetime ECC RAM at that price? Not even Kingston or the off-brands on Amazon even touch that; OWC wants $450, Kingston $400, etc.

I also couldn't win any auctions for even a bottom end dual-CPU 5,1 with RAM I'd have to toss for under $850 over the course three months of aggressive eBay-ing, and I wasn't seeing *matched* CPU kits for under ~$290. I also looked at countless single CPU, with an eye on just swapping in a dual tray, but could never make that math work, either.

That doesn't even count how many of those would also need a BT/Airport upgrade/adapter, as well (many had it already, but never at a low price).

I guess the ever-nearing and hoped-for WWDC announcement is already driving prices down.

If only the RX580 would work in my 3,1; the dual 3.2GHz and 64GB RAM is still enough for me for who knows how long, but for wanting/needing Mojave.

Buy Micron/Samsung server pulls on eBay. I always buy server pulls and never got a bad RAM for a MP5,1.

Buy the emptiest MP5,1 dual CPU that you can get, you gonna upgrade everything.

Forget BT/AirPort for now.

Forget OWC for upgrades.

 

[Rico]

Forget BT/AirPort for now.

I rely heavily on Handoff/Continuity in my workflow, but your point is taken. Thanks for the RAM tip.

 

[Synchro3]

No GTX 680 supports 4K60.

See the specs for the best eVGA GTX 680 https://www.evga.com/products/specs/gpu.aspx?pn=E847A80B-4508-46FC-8154-60FE2F163569

Best you can get is 4K30 via HDMI and DisplayPort.

GTX 680 supports 4K 60 Hz via DisplayPort 1.2: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...pgrade-for-a-5-1.2014364/page-2#post-23969728

and https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...pgrade-for-a-5-1.2014364/page-3#post-23972308

 

[tsialex]

GTX 680 supports 4K 60 Hz via DisplayPort 1.2: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...pgrade-for-a-5-1.2014364/page-2#post-23969728

and https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...pgrade-for-a-5-1.2014364/page-3#post-23972308

Thx for the correction. So you can make ONE 4K60 work. HDMI port is 1.4 and the two other ports are DVI.