After Attaching 4K display, Scaling the resolution cripples my system

[hiim_kyle]

When first booting with my 4K monitor, the "default for display" setting was sitting at 1920x1080. When I chose other scaling options, Larger Text - More Space, any option would result in:
- My mouse stuttering across the screen, also lag when dragging windows
- Overall Lag, the functionality of all apps is crippled. They open slowly, hang on the beachball, and in some cases don't work
- the internet from my usb adapter no longer works although the system shows its still connected to wifi
- boot up is much slower if booting into any of these resolution settings
- changing the resolution setting doesn't fix the lag, a reboot is needed

What I've tried:
I downloaded SwitchResX4 and that lets me boot into 3840x2160@60hz without any of the above problems. However, the UI is just way too tiny to be comfortable for use.

I suspect HiDPI might have something to do with this but even when selecting other resolutions in SwitchRes without HiDPI, the same problems occur.

Any ideas what might be causing my system to freak out when changing the display resolutions?

 

[Edhawk]

I had a quick look at your CLOVER folder and would comment as follows:

You have two disassembled SSDT-PLNF tables in your /CLOVER/ACPI/patched folder. These do absolutely nothing for your system. You need to add the .aml tables for them to work. You obviously don't need both PLNF tables, as you have a Coffee Lake CPU, I would recommend you use the SSDT-PLNFCFL.aml table.

You have a number of unnecessary kexts in your /CLOVER/kexts/Other folder. Remove the following kexts:

• AtherosE2200Ethernet.kext
• RealtekRTL8111.kext
• VoodooHDA.kext
• XHCI-200-series-injector.kext

Your config.plist requires some attention, it lacks a number of common rename patches, boot arguments and fixes.

It is also injecting the wrong AAPL,ig-platform-id for your Coffee Lake iGPU, as you have a discrete graphics card. You should be using 03009B3E not 07009B3E, the latter is for a system with only the IGPU undertaking graphics display.

You have a number of Kext To Patch entries that contradict your other settings, i.e. USB SSDT and WhateverGreen.kext. The four patches highlighted in the screenshot below should be disabled or removed.

Patches to remove or disable.

You are using the less favoured iMac 18.3 SMBIOS for your system. I would recommend you change this to an iMac 19.1 SMBIOS, for better compatibility between your system and macOS.

Some of the above are graphics related, if you sort these issues out you may get your display working as you require.

 

[hiim_kyle]

Hey Ed,
Thank you for this!

I was able to complete everything except:

You have two disassembled SSDT-PLNF tables in your /CLOVER/ACPI/patched folder. These do absolutely nothing for your system. You need to add the .aml tables for them to work. You obviously don't need both PLNF tables, as you have a Coffee Lake CPU, I would recommend you use the SSDT-PLNFCFL.aml table.

I'll need to do some research to figure out what .aml tables are. The .aml files in the patched folder were taken from an install guide for my motherboard (here) and the .dsl files were taken from a whatevergreen.kext download from kext updater.

Your config.plist requires some attention, it lacks a number of common rename patches, boot arguments and fixes.

Are the DSDT patches I currently have useful or should I remove them? Is the congif.plist in this guide a good reference for the patches and boot arguments that should be included?


So far with what I was able to change based off your post, the problem persists.

Thank you for your time!

 

[Edhawk]

I have attached a CLOVER folder that I believe should work with your system, based on your system components.

Some of the additional SSDT's have been taken from other 300 series systems I have created CLOVER boot folders for, so they may not work perfectly.

If you have a kernel Panic with this folder let me know and we can fix the issue. Just post a photo of the point where the boot screen stops.

I would recommend when testing this folder that you install Clover_r5119 to a spare USB.

• Replace the CLOVER folder created on the USB's EFI Partition with the one attached here.
• Then Boot your system, using the USB pen drive.
• You will need to press the F8 or F11, I am not sure which key works with an ASrock motherboard, this will bring up the Boot Menu.
• Select the UEFI partition for the USB drive.
• You will know when you have booted with the USB as the Clover theme will be different to the one you normally use.
• The USB CLOVER will be using the 'Catalina' boot theme.

Give it a try and see if that helps.

 

[hiim_kyle]

Hey Ed,

Thank you for doing this!

I followed the instructions on creating the Clover boot drive and loaded the Clover folder you included. The system boots up normally, the code sequence during boot is a little different, hanging on halusbinmpdu for a few seconds but nothing seems unusual. The system appears to be running well, I'm not noticing any differences between running from this version of clover or the previous one. Only issue I've had is a hang on my wallpaper on a restart and I had to force restart.

Unfortunately the display scale issue still persists as well as a few other quirks I've noticed over the past month or so (long hang on the Asrock bios screen, bluetooth completely disabled on osx and windows 10).

Again, I appreciate your help with this!

 

[Edhawk]

What if anything have you installed to your /Library/Extensions or /System/Library/Extensions folders?

What 'Fixes' have you applied, kexts or other applications to try to alleviate the graphical issues?

I would recommend you remove any additional 'Fixes' and kexts you have applied or installed. These 'Fixes and kexts' may be contributing to the issues.

Which cable and connection from the RX Vega card are you using - HDMI or DisplayPort?

Have you checked that the cable you are using is compatible with he display resolution you are using.

Are you using an Adapter cable?

Which Framebuffer does your RX VEGA64 use, Kamarang or Iriri? Look in your IOReg for this information. You may need to use an SSDT for your VEGA64, so it is correctly identified.

I have attached two SSDT's below, one for the Kamarang framebuffer and the other for the Iriri framebuffer. Try booting with the Kamarang SSDT added to your /CLOVER/ACPI/patched folder (copy and paste the SSDT to the folder) and see what difference it makes, if any. Then remove the Kamarang and copy the Iriri SSDT to the /CLOVER/ACPI/patched folder, reboot and see if that is any better.

 

[hiim_kyle]

I don't believe I have added anything to either of those extension folders other then, at one time, I did add lilu and Whatevergreen to the system/library/extensions folder but have since removed them because the app Kext Updater would alert me to them being there ever time I started the app and suggest removing them. For reference, I have added screen shots of both folders.

System/Library/Extensions:


Library/Extensions:


As for fixes, I have been using a utility called SwitchResX to put my monitor into 3840x2160. I checked the RadeonDeInit box in Graphics in my clover config.

With your Clover folder not causing any panics thus far, should I commit to adding it to my primary EFI folder?

I am using a DisplayPort cable to the monitor. No adapters.

I was unable to find mention of either Kamarang or Iriri in IORegistry prior to adding your SSDT files. Adding those files one after the other didn't cause any issues, and I was able to find them mentioned in IORegistry after. However, the problem persists in both cases.

I have attached a video of me changing the display scaling.

 

[Edhawk]

Your /S/L/E folder contains a number of kexts and plugins that have different icons to those around them. Have you changed these kexts in some way? The kexts and plugins are meant to be in this folder, as I compared your screenshot to my current Catalina 10.15.7 /S/L/E folder and they were identical except for the unusual icons.

See the attached screenshot of your /S/L/E folder with the kexts and plugins highlighted in a RED rectangle. When you open the image you will need to enlarge the viewing scale to be able to see what I mean.

/System Library/Extensions folder with unusual kext and plugin icons highlighted

Can I ask you to remove WhateverGreen.kext from your /CLOVER/kexts/Other folder and try the SSDT's again. See if that makes any difference.

 

[hiim_kyle]

I'm not sure about the icons, the plugins appear to have this icon



I ran a few tests:
Deleted whatevergreen and tried both SSDT's. The first one I used was iriri and the computer would only boot as far as where the apple logo would normally show up after the verbose text and the screen went black and said no signal. I took this to mean it didn't work, so I reloaded into my original efi and swapped the SSDT with the kamarang one. The same thing happened on reboot but this time I decided to try a different displayport output on my card to see if that would do anything and suddenly the monitor got signal and was at the login page. From here, I tried to change the display scale and the same problem happened as before. So I rebooted and tried the iriri SSDT again, with the new GPU output. From this point onward, regardless of which SSDT I had in the EFI, the login screen would be in 1920X1080 and, once logged in, switch to 4k but be laggy/buggy like when I change the display scale. I then tried removing the SSDTs completely and this created the same boot experience, 1080 into 4k, glitchy and buggy. Adding watevergreen fixes functionality in 4k and we're back where we started! haha

At this point, I'm thinking I should just work on a fresh install using the EFI folder you provided and hopefully this will eliminate any of the changes I may have made along the process of getting my system to work in the first place. That might also fix the bluetooth problem which has been bugging me for some time now.

 

[Edhawk]

Nice tests, pity one of the options didn't resolve the issue.

A Clean install is probably a good option to take, as we don't know the cause of the issue.