Compatibility

macOS hardware support is limited to what Apple supports and community-created patches.

CPU support

AMD Bulldozer (15h) and newer CPUs are supported with the AMD Vanilla patches.

Caution

The patches support only macOS 10.13 and newer, older versions require a custom kernel, which is unsupported by this guide.

Tip

AMD Laptop CPUs are the same as AMD Desktop CPUs.

Danger

A few things in macOS don’t work properly with an AMD CPU, see below.

CPU requirements

Architecture requirements

• x86_64/AMD64 (64-bit) CPUs are supported since Mac OS X 10.4.1

SSE requirements

• SSE3 is required for all Intel versions of macOS
• SSSE3 is required for all 64-bit versions of macOS
• SSE4 is required for macOS 10.12 up to, not including, macOS 10.14
• SSE4.2 is required for macOS 10.14+ and newer AMD GPU drivers. Avoid SSE4.1-only CPUs if possible. May work with some hacks; see Gathering Files > Kexts

AMD CPU incompatibilities

Unfortunately, some things in macOS are broken on AMD systems.

Virtual Machines that utilise AppleHV

Known broken

• VirtualBox newer than 6
• VMWare newer than 10
• Parallels newer than 13.1
• Docker
• Android Studio
• QEMU’s hvf accelerator backend

Danger

Outdated virtualisation software is a large security threat.

Compatibility issues with apps using Intel MKL

Apps utilising Intel MKL will require a patch from a tool such as AMDHelper.

Intel seems to be sabotaging AMD CPUs by making MKL not work on them.

Known apps utilising Intel MKL

• Krisp
• Logic Pro Waves Plug-In
• Adobe software
• Discord

32-bit apps

The AMD Vanilla patches don’t support 32-bit apps, even in WINE/CrossOver. However, it somehow works on Threadripper (TRX40).

GPU support

GPU support is complicated.

AMD GPUs

• GCN and RDNA GPUs are supported in the latest versions of macOS.
• RDNA 3 GPUs are unsupported, Navi 24 is also not supported (yet). Navi 22 is supported by NootRX
• Raven and Renoir AMD iGPUs are supported via NootedRed.
• Other iGPU generations (GCN <5, RDNA) are not supported at all (yet).
• Baffin AMD dGPUs are supported in the latest version of macOS.
• Ellesmere AMD dGPUs are supported in the latest version of macOS.
• Lexa AMD dGPUs are supported via device ID spoof to the respective Baffin variant.
• Polaris 20 AMD dGPUs are not supported (yet).

Danger

MSI Navi users: Installer not working with 5700XT #901, resolved since macOS 11.

NVIDIA GPUs

• Maxwell (9XX) and Pascal (10XX) GPUs are limited to macOS 10.13.
• Turing (20XX, 16XX) GPUs are not supported in any version of macOS.
• Ampere (30XX) GPUs are not supported in any version of macOS.
• Kepler (6XX, 7XX) GPUs are supported up to macOS 11.

With that out of the way, let’s start with gathering the required files.