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The only chance at GPU acceleration is passing through a supported dGPU (>= AMD RX 6xxx @ 14.x, no chance modern nvidia) with PCI passthrough. Intel iGPUs work

The only chance at GPU acceleration is passing through a supported dGPU (>= AMD RX 6xxx @ 14.x, no chance modern nvidia) with PCI passthrough. Intel iGPUs work up to Comet lake, and some Ice Lake, but anything newer will not work. Apple Silicon build of MacOS probably not going to be emulatable any time soon, though there is some early work in booting ARM darwin Also Intel VT-x is missing on AMD, so virtualization is busted on AMD hosts although some crazy hacks with old versions of virtualbox can make docker kind of work through emulation

steve1977 2y ago
> Also Intel VT-x is missing on AMD, so virtualization is busted on AMD hosts Wouldn’t that work with AMD-V?
- zamalek 2y ago
  Yeah I would expect it too. As far as I know, AMD has had better luck with hackintoshes and VMacs.
  - replete 2y ago
    AMD is far more complicated than Intel based machines in this regard. There's never been an apple computer with an AMD CPU...
    - shortformblog 2y ago
      I encourage you to check out the OSX-PROXMOX project, which fully supports AMD and is designed to simplify these inside-a-VM setups (though not as much as a Docker setup). https://github.com/luchina-gabriel/OSX-PROXMOX https://github.com/luchina-gabriel/OSX-PROXMOX Also, there are a couple of kext projects that allow you to use AMD graphics, even iGPUs, on Hackintoshes. I have not tested this myself, but there are rumblings you may even be able to get this to work with a Steam Deck. https://github.com/ChefKissInc/NootedRed https://github.com/ChefKissInc/NootedRed https://github.com/ChefKissInc/NootRX https://github.com/ChefKissInc/NootRX A lot has changed in the Hackintosh space around AMD of late. I don’t think the automatic pessimism is as warranted as it once was.
      - replete 2y ago
        Proxmox uses QEMU and boots opencore, so its the same set of problems. It's great to see NootedRed progress but its currently limited to RDNA2 AFAIK and there are lots of weird graphical issues in some configurations. Intel is unquestionably a lot simpler.
    - sim7c00 2y ago
      i think for the most part the cpus should be ok. they do have different feature sets but the isa is the same. the platform chipset is a different topic i guess. they dont need to share any logic or semantics between amd/intel as those are controlled by drivers rather than having to execute programmer's machine code directly. not 100% on this, but x86_64 between amd and intel does share a lot of overlap right? if you dont go too far into extensions perhaps. id guess vmxon and vmxoff and vmcs structures etc. will still be the same on both? a lot of security stuff etc. is totally different (amd psp vs intel ME etc.) (still agree ofc, but just thinking about where these differences are located as the cpus can run very similar or the same code)
      - replete 2y ago
        It mostly works, but virtualisation (even on baremetal) isn't possible at the moment, some applications need special patches, and weird issues here and there for some situations. AMD hacks are a hobby for a lot of people
        sim7c00 2y ago
        thats thata given me quite a new hole to fall into and discover :D
- replete 2y ago
  Nope. There's only ever been Intel x86 apple computers so x86 mac software is Intel specific. Most things work fine on AMD, but some things don't work without hacks, such as digital audio workstations, some adobe applications etc. And you can't run hypervisors on an AMD hackintosh, the work around for docker is to install an old version of virtualbox and make it emulate instead.
  - steve1977 2y ago
    > And you can't run hypervisors on an AMD hackintosh But isn't the use case here running macOS in Docker on a AMD-based computer for example? So macOS would only see what QEMU presents it. Or are you talking about virtualization within that container? Then I probably misunderstood.
    - replete 2y ago
      I was referring to baremetal, but the same applies if virtualized on an AMD host
jeroenhd 2y ago
In theory someone could write a display driver for libvirt/kvm/qemu 3D acceleration, like the ones that exist for Windows and Linux. With those (suboptimal) GPU performance would become available to just about any GPU. AMD has its own VT-X alternative (AMD-V) that should work just fine. There are other challenges to getting macOS to boot on AMD CPUs, though, usually fixed by loading kexts and other trickery. I don't really see the point of using Docker for running a full OS. Just distribute an OVA or whatever virtualisation format you prefer. Even a qcow2 with a bash script to start the VM would probably work.
- bpye 2y ago
  Virtualization.framework can also offer a paravirtual GPU [0] - it would definitely be interesting if someone reverse engineered that… [0] - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/paravirtualizedgraphics https://developer.apple.com/documentation/paravirtualizedgra...

steve1977 2y ago

> Also Intel VT-x is missing on AMD, so virtualization is busted on AMD hosts Wouldn’t that work with AMD-V?

zamalek 2y ago
Yeah I would expect it too. As far as I know, AMD has had better luck with hackintoshes and VMacs.
- replete 2y ago
  AMD is far more complicated than Intel based machines in this regard. There's never been an apple computer with an AMD CPU...
  - shortformblog 2y ago
    I encourage you to check out the OSX-PROXMOX project, which fully supports AMD and is designed to simplify these inside-a-VM setups (though not as much as a Docker setup). https://github.com/luchina-gabriel/OSX-PROXMOX https://github.com/luchina-gabriel/OSX-PROXMOX Also, there are a couple of kext projects that allow you to use AMD graphics, even iGPUs, on Hackintoshes. I have not tested this myself, but there are rumblings you may even be able to get this to work with a Steam Deck. https://github.com/ChefKissInc/NootedRed https://github.com/ChefKissInc/NootedRed https://github.com/ChefKissInc/NootRX https://github.com/ChefKissInc/NootRX A lot has changed in the Hackintosh space around AMD of late. I don’t think the automatic pessimism is as warranted as it once was.
    - replete 2y ago
      Proxmox uses QEMU and boots opencore, so its the same set of problems. It's great to see NootedRed progress but its currently limited to RDNA2 AFAIK and there are lots of weird graphical issues in some configurations. Intel is unquestionably a lot simpler.
  - sim7c00 2y ago
    i think for the most part the cpus should be ok. they do have different feature sets but the isa is the same. the platform chipset is a different topic i guess. they dont need to share any logic or semantics between amd/intel as those are controlled by drivers rather than having to execute programmer's machine code directly. not 100% on this, but x86_64 between amd and intel does share a lot of overlap right? if you dont go too far into extensions perhaps. id guess vmxon and vmxoff and vmcs structures etc. will still be the same on both? a lot of security stuff etc. is totally different (amd psp vs intel ME etc.) (still agree ofc, but just thinking about where these differences are located as the cpus can run very similar or the same code)
    - replete 2y ago
      It mostly works, but virtualisation (even on baremetal) isn't possible at the moment, some applications need special patches, and weird issues here and there for some situations. AMD hacks are a hobby for a lot of people
      - sim7c00 2y ago
        thats thata given me quite a new hole to fall into and discover :D
replete 2y ago
Nope. There's only ever been Intel x86 apple computers so x86 mac software is Intel specific. Most things work fine on AMD, but some things don't work without hacks, such as digital audio workstations, some adobe applications etc. And you can't run hypervisors on an AMD hackintosh, the work around for docker is to install an old version of virtualbox and make it emulate instead.
- steve1977 2y ago
  > And you can't run hypervisors on an AMD hackintosh But isn't the use case here running macOS in Docker on a AMD-based computer for example? So macOS would only see what QEMU presents it. Or are you talking about virtualization within that container? Then I probably misunderstood.
  - replete 2y ago
    I was referring to baremetal, but the same applies if virtualized on an AMD host

jeroenhd 2y ago

In theory someone could write a display driver for libvirt/kvm/qemu 3D acceleration, like the ones that exist for Windows and Linux. With those (suboptimal) GPU performance would become available to just about any GPU. AMD has its own VT-X alternative (AMD-V) that should work just fine. There are other challenges to getting macOS to boot on AMD CPUs, though, usually fixed by loading kexts and other trickery. I don't really see the point of using Docker for running a full OS. Just distribute an OVA or whatever virtualisation format you prefer. Even a qcow2 with a bash script to start the VM would probably work.

bpye 2y ago
Virtualization.framework can also offer a paravirtual GPU [0] - it would definitely be interesting if someone reverse engineered that… [0] - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/paravirtualizedgraphics https://developer.apple.com/documentation/paravirtualizedgra...