How to Turn on Hardware Acceleration on macOS 10.13 or Later?

After upgrading to macOS 10.13, many people ran into annoying video rendering problems, no matter what types of graphics card they are using, integrated graphics (Intel HD Graphics/AMD APU), discrete GPU of NVIDIA/AMD, or the two together. Here we offer you the troubleshooting steps to solve video rendering errors in FCPX (Final Cut Pro X) or any other software, mainly by truly enabling hardware acceleration.

Part 1: What Are the Problems on macOS 10.13 or Later?

The problem is that you might fail the video rendering while using FCPX and Compressor. To be specific, you will encounter the following headaches:

1. FCPX crashes as you open it.
2. Your computer gets stuck with no response during the editing.
3. Can't output MP4 video file.
4. The final encoding is extremely tardy. It should have been fast on such good equipment. Worse still, it all ends in failure.
5. After applying transitions and special effects, Final Cut Pro slows down or even crashes.
6. Image gets pixelated, frames get lost, or even large part of the output file has nothing but snowy pictures.
7. Even if you don't use FCPX, problems like lagging and crashing, to name just a few, can also occur when you browse webs in Chrome.

Part 2: Solutions You May Tried But Failed

You might think there is something wrong with your own computer. But actually it is a matter of the system or graphics card or configuration files, for many people out there had the same problem, mostly on their Macs upgraded to 10.13. One thing to note is that computers without integrated graphics card are not involved.

Some people blamed on the discrete graphics card driver in the beginning, however the error was still there if you use IGPU only, while some others tried to fix it by changing parameters of 18.3 SMBIOS in i7 CPU or later. For example:

1. Rename the Product to iMac19, 1.
2. Change the BIOS Version to IM191.88Z.0058.B00.1705091711.
3. Change the Board-ID into Mac-CF21D135A7D34AA6.

Part 3: Turn on Hardware Acceleration on macOS 10.13 to Fix Video Rendering Errors

Next we'll show you how to turn on GPU acceleration like Intel's Quick Sync acceleration, making it possible for Final Cut Pro X to render video with the maximum help of hardware on Mac.

Requirements:

1. CPU: Intel's 6th Generation Core i7 MPUs - Skylake or later generation
2. macOS: High Sierra or later
3. For hardware encoding: Haswell or higher editions

Part 4: How to Turn on Hardware Acceleration on macOS

Step 1. Mount EFI partition
1. Open Clover Configurator.
2. Select Mount EFI under TOOL option.
3. Select your boot Partition and click Mount Partition to mount the EFI boot Partition.
4. Open the EFI partition

Step 2. Download Kext
Please make sure you are downloading the latest versions of the following kexts.
Shiki.kext
Lilu.kext
IntelGraphicsFixup.kext

Whether your graphics card is from AMD or NVIDIA, all of the above three kexts will be needed. Download and put them in the EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other directory.

1. For NVIDIA Users
Download and save the latest version of WhateverGreen. kext to the directory EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other.

2. For AMD Users
Download the latest version of NvidiaGraphicsFixup.kext and put it in the EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other directory.
Download the latest version of FAKEPCIID and FakePCIID_Intel_HD_Graphics.kext. Place them into EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other.

Step 3. Modify the Clover configuration file CONFIG.PLIS
1. Use Clover Configurator to open the Config. Plist file under /EFI/EFI/Clover/.
2. Choose System Parameters and make sure the Inject Kexts option is 'Yes'.
3. Select Boot and add in the Custom flage:

For NVIDIA users: Shikigva = 4; - rad4200
For AMD users: Shikigva = 12
For IGPU users: shikigva = 1

For Kaby Lake & Coffee Lake IGPU users:
- Choose Devices, fill 0x59128086 in IntelGFX. If you are using i3-8100/i3-8350k, then fill with 0x59168086. At length, select Graphics project.
- Choose Graphics, NVIDIA/ AMD users set the value of ig-platform-id to 0x59120003, and IGPU users 0x59120000.

Step 4. DSDT patch
In order to make your graphics card work properly after dormancy, you need to add three patches: HECI -> IMEI, GFX0 -> IGPU and PEGP -> GFX0.

1. Select the ACPI

2. Add the following three patches. It is important to note that GFX0 -> iGPU should be on top of the PEGP -> GFX0.

3. HECI -> IMEI Patch
Comment: change HECI to IMEI
Find* [Hex]: 48454349
Replace [Hex]: 494d4549

4. GFX0 -> IGPU Patch
Comment: change GFX0 to IGPU
Find* [Hex]: 47465830
Replace* [Hex] : 49475055

5. PEGP -> GFX0 Patch
Comment: change PEGP to GFX0
Find* [Hex]: 50454750
Replace [Hex]: 47465830

6. Save the config. Plist

7. Restart the computer and enter BIOS Settings

Step 5. Bios Settings
Two very important settings in the BIOS will determine the reliability of FCPX. Firstly, change the Primary Display to dGPU or iGPU, for "automatic" will lower the performance. Then always enable IGPU after FCPX has used it. The settings in Gigabyte is easy to find. But in Asus, ASRock and MSI the setting is IGPU multi-monitor. To use hardware encoding for FCPX, you need to enable iGPU. See the following motherboard Settings of different brands.

Gigabyte
Chipset -> Integrated Graphics: Enabled
Chipset - DVMT Pre - Allocated: 128 m

• For NVIDIA or AMD
Peripherals - Initial Display Output: PCIe 1 Slot

• For IGPU only
Peripherals -> Initial Display Output: IGFX

ASUS
Advanced \ System Agent(SA) Configuration -> IGPU Multi-Monitor: Enabled
Advanced \ System Agent(SA) Configuration -> DVMT pre-Allocated: 128M

• For NVIDIA or AMD
Advanced \ System Agent(SA) Configuration -> Primary Display: PCIE

• For IGPU only
Advanced \ System Agent(SA) Configuration -> Primary Display: CPU Graphics

ASRock
Advanced \ Chipset Configuration -> IGPU Multi-Monitor: Enabled
Advanced \ Chipset Configuration -> Share Memory: 128MB

• For NVIDIA or AMD
Advanced \ Chipset Configuration -> Primary Graphics
Adapter: PCI Express

• For IGPU only
Advanced \ Chipset Configuration -> Primary Graphics
Adapter: Onboard

MSI
Advanced \ Integrated Graphics Configuration -> IGD Multi-Monitor: [Enabled]
Advanced \ Integrated Graphics Configuration -> DVMT Pre-Allocated: [128M]

• For NVIDIA or AMD
Advanced \ Integrated Graphics Configuration -> Initiate Graphic
Adapter: [PEG]

• For IGPU only
Save the Bios setting and restart to enter the program.

Final Words

This article has offered a list of problems you may encounter when you want to turn on hardware acceleration on macOs 10.13 or any other later version, and also gives you two most feasible methods of solving such problems no matter your computer uses NVIDIA/AMD or Intel HD Graphics. Hoping the solution guide can help you out and if you have any further questions of this sort, don't hesitate to post them in our forum.