Dual GPU problem : trying to disable Intel integrated to use Mobility Radeon

[chessperso]

Hi everyone !

 

I am currently experiencing a weird problem. My laptop has a dual graphic card. The integrated one is Intel HD 4500 (GM45) and the discrete one is ATI Radeon Mobility 4330.

I am running a working installation of MacOS X El Capitan with the latest Clover (I installed EFI, which works great, because the UEFI wasn't supported by my relatively old motherboard)

I only had to edit the info.plist from AMD4600Controller.kext in S/L/E and add my device ID (0x95521002), and use the inject ATI option in Clover to get my Radeon recognized by MacOS in System Report. I was amazed that it directly recognized it as 4330 and not as 4600 without me renaming anything, thanks to the injection (without it, the kext is loaded but not as Radeon Mobility)

This is what I get (sorry, it's in French !) :

 

 

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 :

 

  Jeu de composants : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330

  Type : Processeur graphique (GPU)

  Bus : PCIe

  Logement : PCI Slot 0

  Longueur de la voie PCIe : x16

  Fournisseur : ATI (0x1002)

  Identifiant du périphérique : 0x9552

  Identifiant de révision : 0x0000

  Version du gestionnaire EFI : 01.00.3180

 

The problem is MacOS won't use it since it only boots on the integrated Intel GPU which is not supported as I understood (I have correct resolution with PatchVBIOS in Clover, but I get weird artifacts, very slow, etc...). This is what the graphics card looks like in System Reports:

 

 

Moniteur :

 

  Type : Processeur graphique (GPU)

  Bus : Intégré

  VRAM (totale) : 3 Mo

  VRAM (dynamique, max.) :

  Fournisseur : Intel (0x8086)

  Identifiant du périphérique : 0x2a42

  Identifiant de révision : 0x0007

  Informations sur l’extension du noyau : Aucune kext n’est chargée (means No kext loaded)

  Moniteurs :

Moniteur :

Résolution : 1024 x 768

Profondeur de pixels : Couleurs 32 bits (ARGB8888)

Moniteur principal : Oui

Miroir : Désactivé

Connecté : Oui

 

What I tried that didn't work :

 

- Use gfxCardSatus to force MacOS into using my ATI, but it won't start (Unsupported material error message) no matter the SMBios (even configurations supposed to have the dual GPU)

 

- I have no switching or energy saving option in Power Management

 

- I thought about disabling the internal GPU via DSDT, but I read somewhere that it might be more complicated than to disable the discrete GPU (I saw somewhere it can be done with _OFF() in the INIT() method) because we need to redirect the outputs to the discrete card... But they were talking about Nvidia optimus specific system. Maybe it's not necessary in my case. If it is feasible I am interested.

 

- I obviously tried to change from switch to discrete in the relevant BIOS option, but then I get an other very annoying problem: I can't seem to get passed the "PCI configuration begin" phase during initialization, no matter how many bootflags I use. I tried npci=0x2000, npci=0x3000, GraphicsEnabler=Yes / No (even though I think it is useless with Clover), PCIRootUID=0/1, pci=off, -f, -F, -x (which stops me from seeing the verbose awkwardly), IPGEnable-No, cpus=1, arch=i386, and I tried lots of combinations of those flags. I tried different Clover options, ATIInject on and off, VBiosSomeThing on and off... No matter what I try, ingest stuck at "PCI configuration begin" (sometimes I get a few lines past that, but it's just random, and it stops just the same.

I extracted my DSDT with F4 at Clover boot loader and loaded it in MasiASL, fixed the compilation errors thanks to a post of someone that had almost the same motherboard (Acer 3410t I think), I booted with it, but no success, still stuck at the same place.

 

Maybe I could try to apply some patches to my DSDT but I don't know which one.

Maybe I could remove some kexts from S/L/E which maybe stops MacOS from starting (even though it starts perfectly with switch mode activated in the BIOS).

If this can help, I remember having successfully used my Radeon Mobility with this computer with older versions of MacOS (10.6 or 10.7). Back then it didn't stop at "PCI configuration error" or I could get passed that with npci=0x2000 or something like that.

I tried with Clover and with Chameleon and get the exact same result.

 

If you have any idea on how I could solve this problem, it would be fully appreciated !

Thanks

[chessperso]

I reinstalled 10.11.1 from a usb key I made manually copying files from InstallESD.dmg and installing Clover on the usb key, because I thought my release could be the cause. But I am still stuck at PCI configuration begin if i disable the integrated GPU, whereas it worked with older versions of OS X

As suggested in various forums, I tried to use the AppleACPIPlatform.kext from 10.9.5, but this can be done only in 10.10 as 10.11 uses a too different version (4.0 instead of 3.x as I read...). So what I got was a Kernel Panick ! I had to put back the newer Kext.

I also tried to use a SMBIOS for MacBookPro 3,1 with no success.

Any idea ?

[chessperso]

I figured that maybe MacOS doesn't know what to do when I set the graphics to discrete in the BIOS, So when in that mode I dumped my vBios with AIDA64 in Windows, renamed it from ***.dump to 1002_9552.rom, placed it in EFI\CLOVER\ROM, I extracted my EDID, put it in config.plist, set the proper parameters in config.plist (load vBIOS + InjectATI + InjectEDID). I thought it might resolve the PCI configuration issue but it didn't. Is there any way to have more explicit info about what is really happening when it gets stuck there ? Because to me, verbose mode is not enough in that case. We are left with no clue at all.

By the way I read that swichable AMD/Intel is not the same as nVidia/Intel. In the latter case, nVidia needs Intel to be active this is why Optimus nVidia system does not allow to disable integrated via DSDT, but it might be the case with AMD/Intel.

Do you think that patching the framebuffer or make a custom personality might help, eventhough Clover ATI injection (Shrike) makes my card automatically recognized in Clover and in MacOS ?