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Hacking in 2022, the criticality of the GPU


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Sharing and testing some thoughts about what I have found: It seems more and more likely that the first bottleneck to a fully functional hack is the choice of the GPU, whether iGPU or dGPU which in turns of course influences the CPU decision as well.

 

What I found to be the most limiting or hardware sensitive features on MacOS are:

1, HW video encode/decode with DRM

2. SideCar which is related to video encoding above.

3. Continuity/Watch unlock

 

Continuity and watch unlock can be addressed by using an original Apple WIFI/BT Card which at least for now are easy to get hand on.

 

SideCar these days work in this order of priority: T2 Chip > iGPU > dGPU(barely useable). The T2 Chip is obviously only on Apple hardware. The last iGPU supported are the HD630 on Comet Lake and Iris Plus on Ice Lake for laptops which is only a mild evolution from the Kaby Lake era. Rocket Lake and AMD APUs are excluded.

Since the only dGPU supported are a specific set of AMD, my experience with their support of Sidecar, although possible has been very choppy and unstable making the intel iGPU very desirable. I am not sure whether this will improve.

 

DRM hardware decoding has been the most elusive feature to get working for me.

Need dGPU: Because Apple is likely using some proprietary firmware to drive the iGPU on their models equipped with one, the overarching recommendation to get this working is to get an AMD GPU and use the iMacPro1,1 or MacPro7,1 SMBIOS while disabling the iGPU if you have one. This solution however guarantees to lose SideCar because these models rely on the T2 chip for the SideCar video encoding.

SMBIOS: If both SIdeCar and DRM are to work on the machine, both iGPU and dGPU need to be supported which only leaves us with the iMac SMBIOS as viable choices. I have also read here and there a lot of people having the incorrect perception that the video encoder from their powerful/fast AMD GPU is better than the one from their intel iGPU. For having noodled a lot with NVR and H265/H264 encoding/decoding on both iGPU/dGPU for my home security system, I can vouch than nothing is further from the truth. The nVidia and AMD capabilities are indépendant from their 3D acceleration or computing silicon and are rather a sidekick feature of the GPU which is not as rounded, efficient and capable as the intel iGPU ones. In reality, without the T2 chip, video capability is better with the iMac SMBIOS than with the iMacPro one. The problem is that DRM can only work on the AMD dGPU so we need both and the ability to switch from one to another depending on whether DRM is needed.

Which dGPU?: It is interesting that AMD has gone as far as to remove the video decoder and partial encoder from their latest NAVI24 silicon… Not sure how much longer Apple is going to continue to support new AMD GPUs but the choices are getting more and more restrictive.

Shiki/UnfairGVA: Apple has been removing support for encoders versions after versions and ShikiGVA hacks don’t appear to work anymore on Monterey. Somehow UnfairGVA still does and at least enables some dynamic switching between iGPU and dGPU decoding.

 

In conclusion, in order to get these features to work at the same time, if this matters to you, you are stuck with a CPU with a supported iGPU and the last intel models are the Comet Lake/Ice Lake 10th generation Core CPUs along with an supported AMD dGPU. The forced compromise between performance from upgrading CPUs to Rocket Lake, Alder Lake or Ryzen 5XXX and losing these features if they matter to you makes going with Apple Silicon eventually more and more attractive though surprisingly, at least to me, it is all comes down to be about the compatibility of the (i)GPU.

Edited by rafale77
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21 hours ago, 5T33Z0 said:

As far as DRM is concerned there is a compatibility chart which lists all the modes of the shikigva boot-args and defaults overrides which might be helpful:

 

https://github.com/acidanthera/WhateverGreen/blob/master/Manual/FAQ.Chart.md

That documentation also mentions that it is not supported started from Big Sur which I validated to not work on Monterey.

 

17 hours ago, Hervé said:

Last supported iGPUs in macOS extend to Iris Plus graphics of 10th gen Ice Lake CPUs, granted these are for laptops only.

I probably should have mentioned I was only referring to desktops. I will add Ice Lakes for Laptops in my original post. Thanks!

 

16 hours ago, Aluveitie said:

Regarding Navi 24, it was intended to as a laptop GPU, to be paired with an AMD APU handling hardware encoding/decoding.

That’s what I read too and am finding it quite a cheap and foolish move to have then made a Radeon Pro workstation and 2 desktop cards out of it.

 

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57 minutes ago, rafale77 said:

That’s what I read too and am finding it quite a cheap and foolish move to have then made a Radeon Pro workstation and 2 desktop cards out of it.

 

Yeah, at least the Pro version is somewhat stupid. The desktop cards were kind of okayish as they just tried to bring some additional supply to ease the shortage. But they should have marketed the 6500 XT as 6400 XT, that would have created less negative press. If you build some kind of workstation, those cards are better options than buying used 5 year old cards.

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1 hour ago, Aluveitie said:

 

Yeah, at least the Pro version is somewhat stupid. The desktop cards were kind of okayish as they just tried to bring some additional supply to ease the shortage. But they should have marketed the 6500 XT as 6400 XT, that would have created less negative press. If you build some kind of workstation, those cards are better options than buying used 5 year old cards.

 

Just curious, why are the desktop cards okayish? To me it seems like it limits the market of these cards to AMD APUs desktops unless they want to fool the uninformed customers who would end up the first modern build with no video encoding/decoding HW acceleration and lose customers when they find out.  To me it’s a deal-breaker… that along with their 4xPCIe4 interface using a 16x connector… Another element of phenomenal stupidity since it also restrict the market for these cards. From a Hackintosh perspective, it just eliminates them along with the fact they are not supported by MacOS anyway and likely never will be. For a single slot, half height card, that leaves us with the 5 year old WX4100 as the best option. I’ve been desperately looking for an upgrade option… Ah I so wish nVidia drivers could still be loaded…

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I see… Still a very narrow market/application and given the performance, even older nVidia cards with decoders (P1000/T600/T1000) would be better choices IMHO. In any case, it out of consideration for a hack.

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Sure. But at the same time I couldn't find either a WX4100 or a P1000 to buy for a reasonable price around here. The only WX4100 I found was twice what the 6500 XT costs.

It is currently the only option I would have to buy a new card for under 250$.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/4/2022 at 5:41 AM, Aluveitie said:

Sure. But at the same time I couldn't find either a WX4100 or a P1000 to buy for a reasonable price around here. The only WX4100 I found was twice what the 6500 XT costs.

It is currently the only option I would have to buy a new card for under 250$.

If you are looking for something new, maybe, the WX4100 actually regularly go for $150-$200 on eBay. I got a couple for $160 each. YMMV of course on the used market. In the US there are a couple listed for $180 right now and a couple of weeks ago I saw one at $200 on Amazon. The nVidia T600 which is a bit faster than the older P1000 (Both not hackable) can also be found below $200.

 

9 hours ago, BALDY_MAN said:

What about the and 7970 gpu.?

but you mite have to add efi to the card gpu bois

 

Huh? That’s 5x higher TDP and a much older GPU for about the same performance and size definitely eliminates it. 

 

Edited by rafale77
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