MP 6,1 MacPro6,1, Ventura/Sonoma and OCLP (still DRM issues)

[tsialex]

Tonight, OCLP team (thx @khronokernel) started supporting MacPro6,1 and Ventura for the first time:

OCLP 0.5.1 Nightly brought Ventura support for the late-2013 Mac Pro. Somethings don't yet work, like DRM and CPU power management (Ventura is running with the VMM flag enabled), but besides that, it's fast/stable and the installation is fully automatic:

DRM is one of the two major bummers right now and nothing (really nothing) that demands DRM with Safari works, Netflix asks for Silverlight for example:

The other major bummer is the missing macOS CPU power management - no Intel SpeedStep, so the CPU is always clocked from the nominal to the Turbo frequency with no SpeedStep down clock when the CPU is idle - this generation of Xeon processors can down clock to 1,1GHz when idle.

Sleep works, fan works - the SMC works and is independent of the CPU power management by macOS, so the fan works as expected. While you are not in CPU load, no greater heat is generated, even without SpeedStep working at this moment.

Apple removed AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext from Ventura, and OCLP devs are waiting for Apple to publish the XNU sources to start re-implementing it (edit 20221103: Apple already released the XNU sources xnu-8792.41.9 for Ventura GM) - the workaround to begin supporting the late-2013 was setting the VMM flag and running Ventura as a VM.

As of OCLP 0.6.6, Power Management seems to be working, but still present minor DRM issues with late-2013 Mac Pro, like when mirroring to an AppleTV.

 

[cdf]

The good old VMM flag:

OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/resources/build.py at 72464f3d54b96d157b60e7c4eeeb0ff3999666a7 · dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher

Experience macOS just like before. Contribute to dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[plunger]

Very impressive result. Looks like there's still life in my 2013 Mac Pro and 2015 MacBook Pro.

 

[th0masp]

Great news.

CPU power management - is that a new OS feature or one that used to work in previous releases or some even lower level CPU functionality? My 'can has never been upgraded from official Mojave which so far does all I need so I'm not exactly up to date with what's been added to the OS in the last three or so years.

 

[tsialex]

Great news.

CPU power management - is that a new OS feature or one that used to work in previous releases or some even lower level CPU functionality? My 'can has never been upgraded from official Mojave which so far does all I need so I'm not exactly up to date with what's been added to the OS in the last three or so years.

Normal CPU power management - Apple removed AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext from Ventura, so, the only way to run Ventura with MacPro6,1 right now is with a VM. VMs don't have Intel SpeedStep or Turbo.

 

[prefuse07]

You Mac OS devs/hackers truly are a godsend!

 

[KD7IWP]

Any chance that the thing would run pretty hot without CPU power management? Does that means it runs at the fixed minimum speed for the CPU? For example the 1680 V2, would it run constantly at 3.0 ghz?

 

[avro707]

Any chance that the thing would run pretty hot without CPU power management? Does that means it runs at the fixed minimum speed for the CPU? For example the 1680 V2, would it run constantly at 3.0 ghz?

That's my concern as well. I'm not sure if I want to go down that route with my 2.7ghz 12 core / D700 machine.

But I'm definitely keeping an eye on this because it will certainly extend the life of the 6,1.

 

[tsialex]

At this moment, runs without SpeedStep, so, maximum non-Turbo speed, full-time.

People this is the stepping stone, no dev is saying to install it right now and the issues are clearly informed.

 

[KD7IWP]

I hear you. I have a spare NVMe so I'll probably install this weekend to play around with. I recognize it isn't prime time yet, but amazing that people have put the work in to get this going.

 

[KD7IWP]

I tried it out, runs just fine. Machine never felt hot or anything. Can’t say I ran any apps that read out temps. The Intel Power Gadget tool doesn’t report anything, presumably because the OS can’t talk directly to the CPU in that way.

 

[arw]

For fun I tried it. My mouse hangs every now and then and Maps.app stutters and crashes when zooming close but it's amazing that it's already working at all! Geekbench OpenCL and Metal is the same for my D300 as on Big Sur.
Although Ventura is still buggy (even my supported MacBook Pro suffers the permanent USB-disk-eject problem) I'm thankful and hopeful for an additional year of official updates.

 

[chkwong]

View attachment 2102970

Tonight, OCLP team (thx @khronokernel) started supporting MacPro6,1 and Ventura for the first time:

View attachment 2102971
View attachment 2102974

OCLP 0.5.1 Nightly brought Ventura support for the late-2013 Mac Pro. Somethings don't yet work, like DRM and CPU power management (Ventura is running with the VMM flag enabled), but besides that, it's fast/stable and the installation is fully automatic:

View attachment 2102975
View attachment 2102973

DRM is one of the two major bummers right now and nothing that demands DRM with Safari works, Netflix asks for Silverlight for example:

View attachment 2102972

The other major bummer is the missing CPU power management, Apple removed AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext, and OCLP devs are waiting for Apple to publish the XNU sources to start implementing it - the work around to start supporting the late-2013 was setting the VMM flag and running Ventura as a VM.

so Great to know, thanks

 

[chkwong]

At this moment, runs without SpeedStep, so, maximum non-Turbo speed, full-time.

People this is the stepping stone, no dev is saying to install it right now and the issues are clearly informed.

Full-time Full speed fans on too ?

 

[tsialex]

Full-time Full speed fans on too ?

No, SMC still works and it's independent of the CPU power management by macOS. While you are not in CPU load, no heat is generated, even without SpeedStep working.

 

[chkwong]

No, SMC still works and it's independent of the CPU power management by macOS. While you are not in CPU load, no heat is generated, even without SpeedStep working.

Thanks for info, excited to try

 

[emmab2006]

This is awesome to know, Just picked up a Mac Pro 6,1 for the first time 2 days ago, arriving Monday, stock specs but plans to drastically expand it. Nice to know Ventura is possible. The way you guys do this is insane.. well done !

 

[Xde]

Seems to be straightforward,
but will the Ventura installer update the MacPro 6.1 bootRom?

 

[arw]

Seems to be straightforward,
but will the Ventura installer update the MacPro 6.1 bootRom?

No. Ventura (or any macOS installer) doesn't contain a firmware for an unsupported model.
So in this case no spoofing with OpenCore to prevent a firmware update is necessary.
Newer models than the MP6,1 (like Macs with T2 chips and probably all AS ones) may need internet access to download additional stuff (firmware?) before a macOS update can continue. (I don't have any insight what is actually happening).
If you do want the latest (public) firmware for the MP6,1, the safest way is to install the latest supported version of macOS - in this case Monterey 12.6.1.

 

[tsialex]

You will need to run Monterey for any future firmware updates.

 

[Xde]

@ arw
@ tsialex

ok thanks for reply !
Yesterday I made the USB installer, without problems.
Mainly for testing and play around.
But I stopped a possible Ventura install, because I wanted to avoid bootrom changes.

I am still on bootrom from Catalina and I am not sure, if it is good to update.
Never tried Monterey.
As I use mainly Mavericks and Mojave and today I have no idea to go beyond Catalina.
(Its not a productive machine)
There is always a hype around bootrom updates. But is it really worth?
Maybe there are more bugs than before and finally Apple may not fix them one day ?
As today I never had problems in graphics or sleep issues or anything else.

Nice weekend

 

[BubbaMc]

Nice! Thanks for letting us know.

Does Airplay to Mac, Universal Control and Sidecar work?

 

[tsialex]

There is always a hype around bootrom updates. But is it really worth?

Current 470.0.0.0.0 late-2013 BootROM update solved serious crashes and security failures, so, yes, you need to install it running BigSur/Monterey.

Maybe there are more bugs than before and finally Apple may not fix them one day ?

Happens with all Macs one day and you can't do anything about it. Apple will support late-2013 Mac Pro until Monterey still have Software Updates, up to September 2024.

As today I never had problems in graphics or sleep issues or anything else.

Nice weekend

While you didn't had the crashes yourself, the bugs that cause it are still present.

Running Catalina will not get firmware updates anymore, since it's unsupported since September.

 

[tsialex]

Nice! Thanks for letting us know.

Does Airplay to Mac, Universal Control and Sidecar work?

AFAIK, some of these rely on VideoToolBox H.265 acceleration which AMD Tahiti GPUs do not have at all - Tahiti GPUs are from early 2012, announced in December 2011, years before HEVC/H.265 hardware acceleration (HEVC/H.265 hardware assistance started to be supported with Macs/VideoToolBox API with Polaris GPUs). Maybe with eGPU.

There is talk on GitHub to add the Tahiti UVD3.2/H.264 hardware acceleration to the Apple VideoToolBox API, but I don't know how the H.265 requirement will be solved or even if the H.264 support helps anything besides video decoding/encoding/editing.

 

[Xde]

Current 470.0.0.0.0 late-2013 BootROM update solved serious crashes and security failures, so, yes, you need to install it running BigSur/Monterey.

Hello tsialex,
thanks for your information. Will think about it.
Yesterday, the install failed, probably for the USB Stick install destination. Seems that that USB stick does not mount at all times.
Today I partitioned an external SSD and installed there and it worked.
After all, I did not root update in the post install, as I dont know if this happens only on this partition or on all partitions.
But with the installer stick also connected via USB, it works to boot.
Off the external SSD, Ventura workes more or less somewhat slowly, maybe because the missing post install.

After all, OCLP workes interesting, Ventura itself a matter of taste, at least up to date.