[GUIDE] macOS Catalina 10.15.6 on Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Elite and RX 580

[miliuco]

macOS Catalina on: Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Elite motherboard + i3 9100 Coffee Lake processor + AMD Radeon RX 580 graphics card + fenvi FV-T919 WIFI and Bluetooth card + Clover r5121 + AppleALC, Lilu, VirtualSMC, XHCI-unsupported, IntelMausiEthernet, USBPorts and WhateverGreen.

Hardware
 

• Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Elite motherboard: support for Intel 8 and 9 generation processors, Realtek ALC1220 audio, Intel I219V Ethernet, 4 PCI-E slots, 2, 3 and 3.1 USB ports, Intel Graphics 630 integrated graphics card
• 9th generation Intel i3 9100 processor
• Nox Hummer H-212 120mm CPU Fan
• Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 MHz 16 GB RAM (2 x 8)
• AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB graphics card
• Wifi and Bluetooth Card Fenvi FV-T919
• Mars Gaming MPII850 Power Supply (850W)
• Samsung EVO 860 SSD disk.
   

What works well?

Pretty much everything I've tried:

• Radeon RX 580: 3 DP ports and 1 HDMI port, output to 2 displays simultaneously
• Shutdown, reboot and sleep
• Integrated sound and HDMI sound output
• USB ports (2, 3 and 3.1)
• Enable TRIM for SSD drive
• AirDrop, Sidecar, etc.
   

What is not working well?

Integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 card: see below.

BIOS settings (version F9)

I only write down the significant options, there are many other options that do not influence macOS and that you can configure to your liking (for example the LEDs on the board, etc.).

• XMP Profile: Auto / Profile 1 / Enabled (eXtreme Memory Profile, I use 3200 MHz memory and without this profile it works at 2600)
• Platform Power Management: Disabled
• VT-d: Disabled
• XHCI Hand-Off: Enabled
• Legacy USB Support: Enabled
• Network Stack: Disabled
• CSM: Disabled
• Secure Boot: Disabled
• Fast Boot: Disabled
• OS Type: Other OS
• Wake on LAN: Disabled
• Integrated Graphics: Auto
• Initial Display Output: PCIe 1 Slot
• DVMT Pre-Allocated: 256M or higher.
   

EFI folder for Clover (installation USB stick / SSD disk with Catalina)

SSDT

Some SSDT.aml files in EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched.

SSDT-DTPG.aml (helper module for SSDT)
SSDT-EC.aml (USB power charge)
SSDT-UIAC.aml (USB port mapping)
SSDT-USBX.aml (USB port mapping)
SSDT-PMC.aml got from OpenCore to have native NVRAM on Z390 mother boards
SSDT-Z390-RP21-SLOT4-TB3HP.aml (Thunderbolt devices hot plug) it can be skipped.

Drivers in EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI

ApfsDriverLoader.efi
AudioDxe.efi
DataHubDxe.efi
FSInject.efi
VBoxHfs.efi
SMCHelper.efi
OcQuirks.efi *
OpenRuntime.efi *
OcQuirks.plist *.

* see OC Quirks below.

Extensions in EFI / CLOVER / kexts / Other

AppleALC.kext
IntelMausi.kext
Lilu.kext
USBPorts.kext
VirtualSMC.kext
WhateverGreen.kext
XHCI-unsupported.kext.

NOTE 1: The USBPorts.kext extension along with 3 aml files included in patched folder (SSDT-EC.aml, SSDT-UIAC.aml y SSDT-USBX.aml) were generated by joanserramiret with the configuration of USB ports for this motherboard so that the limit defined by macOS of 15 ports is not exceeded. Leaves the system configured in this way:

• Enabled all USB2 ports that are not part of a USB3 port (1 internal for BT + 4 rear that are together + 2 on the front)
• Enabled the USB2 ports that are part of the 2 rear red USB3.1 ports
• Disabled the USB2 ports that are part of the 4 rear blue USB3 ports
• Enabled all USB3 ports except the internal one for USB type C connection.

Summary: Rear blue ports do not recognize USB2 devices.

NOTE 2: XHCI-unsupported.kext is required for XHC chipsets whose Device ID is not included in macOS. Depending on the USB driver of your board, it may be necessary to install some additional extension:

• 8086: 8CB1 on macOS 10.11.1 or lower: XHCI-9-series.kext
• 8086: 8D31, 8086: A2AF, 8086: A36D, 8086: 9DED: XHCI-unsupported.kext
• 8086: 1E31, 8086: 8C31, 8086: 8CB1, 8086: 8D31, 8086: 9C31, 8086: 9CB1: FakePCIID.kext + FakePCIID_XHCIMux.kext.

This board (generally Z390 chipset boards) carries the USB 3.1 controller with device ID A36D so the XHCI-unsupported kext is required. You can check your device ID at

/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBHostFamily.kext/Contents/Plugins/AppleUSBXHCIPCI.kext/Contents/Info.plist

Config.plist file

The differential options are:

Acpi> DSDT: change HECI to IMEI / change SAT0 to SATA
Acpi> Fixes: FixShutdown
Acpi> Drop OEM_DSM
Acpi> Drop Tables> DMAR / MATS
Acpi> SSDT> PluginType selected (Plugin Type number blank)
Acpi> Halt Enabler / FixHeaders

Boot> Boot Arguments> slide = 0 / darkwake = 8

Devices> USB> Inject / FixOwnership / HighCurrent
Devices> Audio> Inject 11

Kernel and Kext Patches> Apple RTC and KernelXCPM selected
Kernel and Kext Patches> KextsToPatch> Name: com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort / Find: 40600200 / Replace: 00000000 / Comment: SATA hot plug
Kernel and Kext Patches> KextsToPatch> Name: com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort / Find: 45787465 726E616C / Replace: 496E7465 726E616C / SATA orange icons

SMBIOS> iMac19.1

System Parameters> Inject Kexts: Yes / Inject System ID: selected.

Quirks > select AvoidRuntimeDefrag – DevirtualiseMmio – EnableSafeModeSlide – ForceExitBootServices – ProtectUefiServices – ProvideConsoleGopEnable – ProvideCustomSlide – SetupVirtualMap – SyncRuntimePermissions and set ProvideMaxSlide = 0. *

Set true DevirtualiseMmio and ProtectUefiServices in OcQuirks.plist file (recommended on Z390 mother boards).

* see OC Quirks below.

macOS Catalina install

There are many publications with instructions so I will only comment on a few specific details.

• The installation USB memory must have a GUID partition scheme so that the board's UEFI can boot from it.
• I have prepared the USB with the createinstallmedia method + the application "Install macOS Catalina" in the Applications folder
• The device is USB 3 and, connected to the front USB 3 port, it performs the task quite quickly
• I have used Clover r5121 which is currently the latest version.
• The EFI folder of the installation USB can be the same as that of the hard disk with 2 differences: Acpi> SSDT> PluginType deselected and Acpi> Boot leave Default Boot Volume blank and Timeout -1 (so that no volume will boot automatically from the Clover menu).
• To mount the EFI partition (of the disk or the USB device) I have used Clover Configurator which makes this task very simple or the command line (diskutil), first finding out what disk and partition number is the EFI (diskutil list) and showing it later (mountdisk):
  sudo diskutil list
  sudo diskutil mountdisk / dev / disk2s3

 

RX 580

Although my RX 580 card is a model from the XFX brand, known for using custom VBios and giving problems in macOS, in my case it seems to work well with Lilu and WhatEverGreen. Booting the operating system it does not show artifacts, the 3 DP ports and the only HDMI port work, you can send the image simultaneously to 2 screens (I have not tried more) with the usual duplication options, yo can send sound in addition to image to one TV by HDMI, during the installation of the operating system it works correctly provided that Lilu and WhatEverGreen are in the USB device, etc. GeekBench 5 Scores: Metal 50100 / OpenCL 44100. As a comparison, the integrated card does not reach 4800 in Metal.

Regarding the hardware decoding of H264 and HEVC videos, the Hackintool tool and the VideoProc application report that it is not supported although the playback of files of both types with rates of up to 20 mbps is correct so I suspect that it actually encodes well. In order for hardware decoding to appear as supported in the commented applications, the integrated Intel Graphics 630 card must be enabled even if it is disconnected in headless mode (using the RX 580 card as primary sending image to the screen).

 

Sound

This board incorporates the Realtek ALC1220 chip that needs the AppleALC extension to work. AppleALC is a Lilu plugin so both must be properly installed.
Note: Clover > Devices > Audio > Inject 11 or 13 or 15. I’ve tried several layouts and this are the only valid at least in my case.
Some users have commented that the system does not load AppleALC and they have no sound despite having the extensions in EFI / CLOVER / kexts / Other. In these cases it can be successful to install AppleALC and Lilu in / Library / Extensions and rebuild the extensions cache with Hackintool (a very convenient way to do it) or with this Terminal command:

sudo spctl --master-disable; sudo mount -uw /; killall Finder; sudo chown -v -R root: wheel / System / Library / Extensions; sudo touch / System / Library / Extensions; sudo chmod -v -R 755 / Library / Extensions; sudo chown -v -R root: wheel / Library / Extensions; sudo touch / Library / Extensions; sudo kextcache -i /

 

What this command does is disable Gatekeeper, mount the system disk in read / write mode, repair permissions on the extensions folders and rebuild the cache. But all of that is done by Hackintool with less work on our part.

Ethernet

This board carries the Intel I219V chip that works well with the IntelMausiEthernet extension.

Wifi & Bluetooth

I use a Fenvi FV T-919 mini PCI-E card that carries both wifi and bluetooth chips. This card works perfectly in macOS without needing anything other than placing it on the board because it is recognized as Airport Extreme and Bluetooth Apple. Has its own article on perez987.

Disks

Samsung EVO 860 SSD. It is a solid state disk with references to work well in Mac. In my case it works well, with a read speed of 430 and a write speed of 250. I have tried faster SSDs but they have given problems to install Catalina, instead with the EVO 860 everything has worked perfectly.

Integrated graphics

Integrated Intel Graphics 630 card: we can to make it work correctly by adding some properties in Clover's Devices tab. For it to work you have to:

- enable it on the board as primary graphics: Initial Display Output IGFX instead of PCIe 1 Slot (actually this is the final step after modifying config.plist)
- add in config.plist: Boot> Boot Arguments> igfxonln = 1
- apply a patch (video and audio) in config.plist: Devices> Properties. It is easier to do it from the config.plist file in text mode than from Clover Configurator. With the file open as text find the lines

        <key>Audio</key>
        <dict>
            <key>ResetHDA</key>
            <false/>
            <key>Inject</key>
            <integer>11</integer>
        </dict>

 

Immediately above of them paste this text:

        <key>Properties</key>
        <dict>
            <key>PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1F,0x3)</key>
            <dict>
                <key>layout-id</key>
                <data>CwAAAA==</data>
                <key>model</key>
                <string>Cannon Lake HDMI</string>
                <key>hda-gfx</key>
                <string>onboard-2</string>
                <key>AAPL,slot-name</key>
                <string>Internal@0,31,3</string>
                <key>device_type</key>
                <string>Audio device</string>
            </dict>
            <key>PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)</key>
            <dict>
                <key>framebuffer-con0-busid</key>
                <data>AAAAAA==</data>
                <key>framebuffer-con0-type</key>
                <data>AAgAAA==</data>
                <key>framebuffer-con2-flags</key>
                <data>xwMAAA==</data>
                <key>model</key>
                <string>Intel UHD Graphics 630</string>
                <key>framebuffer-con1-busid</key>
                <data>AAAAAA==</data>
                <key>device-id</key>
                <data>kT4AAA==</data>
                <key>framebuffer-con2-type</key>
                <data>AAgAAA==</data>
                <key>framebuffer-con2-busid</key>
                <data>BAAAAA==</data>
                <key>device_type</key>
                <string>Display controller</string>
                <key>hda-gfx</key>
                <string>onboard-1</string>
                <key>framebuffer-patch-enable</key>
                <data>AQAAAA==</data>
                <key>framebuffer-con1-type</key>
                <data>AAgAAA==</data>
                <key>AAPL,slot-name</key>
                <string>Internal@0,2,0</string>
                <key>AAPL,ig-platform-id</key>
                <data>BwCbPg==</data>
                <key>framebuffer-con2-enable</key>
                <data>AQAAAA==</data>
                <key>framebuffer-con1-enable</key>
                <data>AQAAAA==</data>
                <key>framebuffer-con0-enable</key>
                <data>AQAAAA==</data>
            </dict>
        </dict>

But the system crashes when comes out of sleep mode (the PC restarts after a few seconds of leaving sleep mode). This behavior occurs if the cable that comes out from the HDMI port on the motherboard (the only existing connector on this Mobo) plugs in a DisplayPort port on the monitor; if it plugs directly into another HDMI port (monitor or TV) the bug does not occurs and the PC goes in and out of sleep normally.

Currently the only way to have the graphics card connected to a port other than HDMI without this crash is by replacing the "hda-gfx" property with "no-hda-gfx" in the above code of config.plist. The 2 lines

               <key>hda-gfx</key>
               <string>onboard-2</string>

must be replaced by

                <key>No-hda-gfx</key>
                <data>AAAAAAAAAAA=</data>

After adding this property, you will no longer have sound over HDMI / DP but sleep works very well.

In summary:
- Intel HDMI to DisplayPort monitor> has HDMI audio output but has kernel panic when coming from sleep
- Intel HDMI to HDMI TV> has HDMI audio output and sleep works fine
- Intel HDMI to DisplayPort monitor with "no-hda-gfx"> sleep works fine but HDMI audio output is lost.

(based on the post "[GUIDE] General Framebuffer Patching Guide (HDMI Black Screen Problem)" by CaseySJ; thanks also to deeveedee for his help).

This card can be left activated without connection to the monitor (headless mode) and apparently does not show any interference with the rest of the system.

With the integrated card as the main card, the system shows enabled both graphics cards and allows to have a screen connected to the Intel 630 via HDMI and a different screen connected to the RX 580 via DP or HDMI, in this case the primary screen is that from the Intel and the other only works when the graphics driver is loaded but, once the system is up and running, the screens allow duplication options as if they depend on a single card.

 

 
 

 

 

Evolution to Oc Quirks

OC Quirks is an EFI driver for Clover that replaces AptioMemoryFix and all OsxAptioFix variants. It supports the OpenCore quirks model. AptioMemoryFix has evolved little in the most recent stage and is in a way becoming obsolete. Next versions of Clover will probably stop installing AptioMemoryFix and switch to OC Quirks which is evolving and receiving frequent improvements. You can read about this on the working group website: ReddestDream.

Migrating our installation from AptioMemoryFix to OC Quirks is relatively simple:

• download the latest version of OC Quirks (search Releases, current version is 23)
• have a USB device that boots up properly to use in case of failure
• mount the disk's EFI partition
• delete AptioMemoryFix and any other OsxAptioFix variant
• add OcQuirks.efi, OpenRuntime.efi and OcQuirks.plist to Clover's drivers/UEFI folder
• change to true DevirtualiseMmio and ProtectUefiServices in the file OcQuirks.plist (recommended on boards with Z390 chipset)
• in Clover> Quirks config.plist file, check the boxes AvoidRuntimeDefrag - DevirtualiseMmio - EnableSafeModeSlide - ForceExitBootServices - ProtectUefiServices - ProvideConsoleGopEnable - ProvideCustomSlide - SetupVirtualMap - SyncRuntimePermissions and assign the value 0 to ProvideMaxSlide
• Restart the PC.

 

Kernel Panic with BIOS F10c if integrated graphics is enabled

The Z390 Aorus Elite board comes with BIOS F9 with which the text of this post has been written.

A few days ago I updated to the current version which is F10c and, since then, I have suffered a kernel panic with the forbidden symbol when going from the Clover menu to the macOS boot screen if the integrated card was enabled in BIOS. This happened regardless of whether the Intel UHD Graphics 630 card was set to Clover (fully for monitor output or headless mode for encoding) or not.

Returning to BIOS F9 the system has returned to working as before and the kernel panic has disappeared. I can have the card enabled or disabled again in BIOS without problems.

 

efi-quirks.zip

Edited September 20, 2020 by miliuco

[deeveedee]

Nice!  We discsussed this in another forum.  Were you ever able to get OCQuirks to work without a separate OCQuirks.plist (using only the Quirks config in the CLOVER config.plist)?

 

Glad the no-hda-gfx trick (required when using a HDMI->DP adapter) is working on this rig, too.  As I mentioned before, I needed no-hda-gfx property, because I use DP->DVI adapters.

Edited September 20, 2020 by tonyx86

[miliuco]

8 hours ago, tonyx86 said:

Were you ever able to get OCQuirks to work without a separate OCQuirks.plist (using only the Quirks config in the CLOVER config.plist)?

 

Yes, I am working without a separate OCQuirks.plist file since I installed Clover 5122. When this version of Clover came out, I read in some forums that with version 5122 the need for OCQuirks.plist had disappeared and this configuration could be done from the section Clover's Quirks.
I've tried it and it seems to work fine. All I did was remove OCQuirks.plist and check the equivalent boxes in Clover's Quirks tab.

Edited September 20, 2020 by miliuco

[deeveedee]

On 9/20/2020 at 5:02 PM, miliuco said:

Yes, I am working without a separate OCQuirks.plist file since I installed Clover 5122. 

 

OK - that's good to know.  I asked because you had asked me about this in the other forum and in Post #1, you still say to use a separate OCQuirks.plist.

[miliuco]

1 hour ago, tonyx86 said:

 

OK - that's good to know.  I asked because you had asked me about this in the other forum and in Post #1, you still say to use a separate OCQuirks.plist.

Hi! I hadn't recognized you. Indeed when installing Clover 5122 at the beginning I needed to use the Quirks config.plist but, although I am not sure why, at some point I added in the Clover config.plist the parameters of the quirks that I had in the other plist, I removed this plist from the drivers folder and everything seemed to work fine.  I think it may have coincided when I activated native NVRAM and started working without nvram.plist but I’m not sure.