MP 1,1-5,1 Is possible to get a Bootscreen with Sapphire Nitro RX 580 on Mac Pro 4.1?

[Matheeus]

Hi,
i'm about to buy an AMD Sapphire Nitro RX 580, to upgrade my Mac Pro 4.1 that has a Nvidia GT 120, so I can have a Metal card to upgrade to Mojave and more recent versions of macOS.

I want to know if this GPU can show the bootscreen or there's some workaround to enable it (i readed about some flashing things, but I didn't achieve to see any guide about).

Thank you!

 

[tsialex]

i'm about to buy an AMD Sapphire Nitro RX 580,

Are you sure of your choice of GPU? Sapphire Nitro GPUs are oversize, too wide, and block the usage of Mac Pro's slot 2.

Sapphire Pulse is the one that you should use with a Mac Pro if you want the second 16x PCIe slot to work.

I want to know if this GPU can show the bootscreen

Since this is a PC GPU, not a Mac Edition one, the answer is no.

Pre-boot configuration with a Mac Pro requires that the GPU supports the Mac Pro EFI 1.10, which only AppleOEM/Mac Edition GPUs have. You can also flash the PC GPU, if the there is a public firmware that supports MacEFI, or use EnableGop if the GPU is UEFI GOP compatible (most GPUs relased from 2015ish forward are UEFI GOP compatible). EnableGop is the prefered method today.

For EnableGop to work the GPU is required to have the FACTORY INSTALLED GPU FIRMWARE completely unmodified, so, 2nd hand mining GPUs or any other GPU that had the GPU firmware modified won't work until you re-flash the factory firmware.

or there's some workaround to enable it

Yes, this is the main thread for EnableGop:

EnableGop: Pre-OpenCore GOP support for EFI-era iMacs and Mac Pros

You wait ten years for a driver to enable pre-boot graphics on unsupported GPUs in EFI era Macs, and then two come along at once... This post is to announce a firmware driver to enable the native Apple boot picker and early macOS boot progress bar (plus other parts of the firmware UI: target...

forums.macrumors.com

If this process is too much complicated for you, my BootROM Reconstruction Service already provide a fully upgraded 144.0.0.0.0 BootROM image with EnableGop already injected.

 

[Matheeus]

Hi,
thank you for your reply, got me some good advices.

Sapphire Pulse is the one that you should use with a Mac Pro if you want the second 16x PCIe slot to work.

When you refer to the Pulse, you mean this card?

 

[tsialex]

Hi,
thank you for your reply, got me some good advices.



When you refer to the Pulse, you mean this card?

Yes. Btw, no need to be a Sapphire Pulse, several other GPU manufacturers have non-OC cards that fits perfectly inside the Mac Pro.

One very commonly used here in the forum is the XFX RX 580 GTX model:

XFX USA

www.xfxforce.com

XFX is not a brand that is usually not recommended in general, but this specific card works perfectly and do not block slot-2.

 

[Matheeus]

Hi,
I just got the RX580 (Sapphire Pulse edition) I installed it in my MacPro and this allowed me to launch the Mojave installer.

It updated my ROM and after, it got me to Desktop and started the Mojave OS installation, but after reboot where I saw the Apple boot screen with progress bar of installation, now I get a black screen after another restart (I hear the boot chime), I don't know if it's already installing or something gone wrong. Any hint? I forced shutdown and rebooted and I see already a black screen.

 

[Matheeus]

I've placed the old GT 120 in a 4x slot to see the boot screen, seems that the boot loops between the apple and a "Stop" sign. Any hint?

 

[Matheeus]

Just got to boot in Mojave.

I was following the tutorial to patch the ROM to inject the EnableGOP.

I rebooted my cMP4.1 to Firmware mode and did a ROM dump/backup using Macschrauber's Rom Dump but when I got the log of the backup I read on the final line: "VSS2 (Formatted) (VSS2 header problem), found 42 variables (42 valid)"

Can I proceed anyway with the flash or I should stop here? I don't know if this is a problem.

 

[Matheeus]

Here's a screenshot (please note I've back upgraded the Firmware from 4.1->5.1)

 

[tsialex]

Can I proceed anyway with the flash or I should stop here? I don't know if this is a problem.

This is a major problem and usually ends with a bricked Mac Pro overtime. The NVRAM volume corruption is commom place with cross-flashed early-2009s, you can try doing a deep NVRAM reset.

If the NVRAM volume is normal after doing the deep NVRAM reset, you can try injecting EnableGop - if not, you gonna need the BootROM reconstruction service.