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Desktop Comet Lake

Support Version
Initial macOS Support macOS 10.15, Catalina

Starting Point

So making a config.plist may seem hard, it's not. It just takes some time but this guide will tell you how to configure everything, you won't be left in the cold. This also means if you have issues, review your config settings to make sure they're correct. Main things to note with OpenCore:

  • All properties must be defined, there are no default OpenCore will fall back on so do not delete sections unless told explicitly so. If the guide doesn't mention the option, leave it at default.
  • The Sample.plist cannot be used As-Is, you must configure it to your system
  • DO NOT USE CONFIGURATORS, these rarely respect OpenCore's configuration and even some like Mackie's will add Clover properties and corrupt plists!

Now with all that, a quick reminder of the tools we need

::: warning

Read this guide more than once before setting up OpenCore and make sure you have it set up correctly. Do note that images will not always be the most up-to-date so please read the text below them, if nothing's mentioned then leave as default.

:::

ACPI

ACPI

Add

::: tip Info

This is where you'll add SSDTs for your system, these are very important to booting macOS and have many uses like USB maps, disabling unsupported GPUs and such. And with our system, it's even required to boot. Guide on making them found here: Getting started with ACPI

For us we'll need a couple of SSDTs to bring back functionality that Clover provided:

Required SSDTs Description
SSDT-PLUG Allows for native CPU power management on Haswell and newer, see Getting Started With ACPI Guide for more details.
SSDT-EC-USBX Fixes both the embedded controller and USB power, see Getting Started With ACPI Guide for more details.
SSDT-AWAC This is the 300 series RTC patch, required for all B460 and Z490 boards which prevent systems from booting macOS. The alternative is SSDT-RTC0 for when AWAC SSDT is incompatible due to missing the Legacy RTC clock, to check whether you need it and which to use please see Getting started with ACPI page.
SSDT-RHUB Needed to fix Root-device errors on Asus and potentially MSI boards. Gigabyte and AsRock motherboards do not need this SSDT

Note that you should not add your generated DSDT.aml here, it is already in your firmware. So if present, remove the entry for it in your config.plist and under EFI/OC/ACPI.

For those wanting a deeper dive into dumping your DSDT, how to make these SSDTs, and compiling them, please see the Getting started with ACPI page. Compiled SSDTs have a .aml extension(Assembled) and will go into the EFI/OC/ACPI folder and must be specified in your config under ACPI -> Add as well.

:::

Delete

This blocks certain ACPI tables from loading, for us we can ignore this.

Patch

This section allows us to dynamically modify parts of the ACPI (DSDT, SSDT, etc.) via OpenCore. For us, our patches are handled by our SSDTs. This is a much cleaner solution as this will allow us to boot Windows and other OSes with OpenCore

Quirks

Settings relating to ACPI, leave everything here as default as we have no use for these quirks.

Booter

Booter

This section is dedicated to quirks relating to boot.efi patching with OpenRuntime, the replacement for AptioMemoryFix.efi

MmioWhitelist

This section is allowing devices to be passthrough to macOS that are generally ignored, for us we can ignore this section.

Quirks

::: tip Info Settings relating to boot.efi patching and firmware fixes, for us, we need to change the following:

Quirk Enabled Comment
DevirtualiseMmio YES
EnableWriteUnprotector NO
ProtectUefiServices YES
RebuildAppleMemoryMap YES
ResizeAppleGpuBars -1 If your firmware supports increasing GPU Bar sizes (ie Resizable BAR Support), set this to 0
SetupVirtualMap NO
SyncRuntimePermissions YES
:::

::: details More in-depth Info

  • AvoidRuntimeDefrag: YES
    • Fixes UEFI runtime services like date, time, NVRAM, power control, etc.
  • DevirtualiseMmio: YES
    • Reduces Stolen Memory Footprint, expands options for slide=N values and very helpful with fixing Memory Allocation issues , requires ProtectUefiServices as well for Z490.
  • EnableSafeModeSlide: YES
    • Enables slide variables to be used in safe mode.
  • EnableWriteUnprotector: NO
    • This quirk and RebuildAppleMemoryMap can commonly conflict, recommended to enable the latter on newer platforms and disable this entry.
    • However, due to issues with OEMs not using the latest EDKII builds you may find that the above combo will result in early boot failures. This is due to missing the MEMORY_ATTRIBUTE_TABLE and such we recommend disabling RebuildAppleMemoryMap and enabling EnableWriteUnprotector. More info on this is covered in the troubleshooting section.
  • ProtectUefiServices: YES
    • Protects UEFI services from being overridden by the firmware, required for Z490.
  • ProvideCustomSlide: YES
    • Used for Slide variable calculation. However the necessity of this quirk is determined by OCABC: Only N/256 slide values are usable! message in the debug log. If the message OCABC: All slides are usable! You can disable ProvideCustomSlide! is present in your log, you can disable ProvideCustomSlide.
  • RebuildAppleMemoryMap: YES
    • Generates Memory Map compatible with macOS, can break on some laptop OEM firmwares so if you receive early boot failures disable this.
  • ResizeAppleGpuBars: -1
    • Will reduce the size of GPU PCI Bars if set to 0 when booting macOS, set to -1 to disable
    • Setting other PCI Bar values is possible with this quirk, though can cause instabilities
    • This quirk being set to zero is only necessary if Resizable BAR Support is enabled in your firmware.
  • SetupVirtualMap: NO
    • Fixes SetVirtualAddresses calls to virtual addresses, however broken due to Comet Lake's memory protections. ASUS, Gigabyte and AsRock boards will not boot with this on.
  • SyncRuntimePermissions: YES
    • Fixes alignment with MAT tables and required to boot Windows and Linux with MAT tables, also recommended for macOS. Mainly relevant for RebuildAppleMemoryMap users.

:::

DeviceProperties

DeviceProperties

Add

Sets device properties from a map.

::: tip PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)

This section is set up via WhateverGreen's Framebuffer Patching Guide and is used for setting important iGPU properties. If you have a -F series CPU, you can ignore this section as you do not have an iGPU.

The config.plist doesn't already have a section for this so you will have to create it manually.

AAPL,ig-platform-id is what macOS uses to determine how the iGPU drivers interact with our system, and two values choose between are as follows:

AAPL,ig-platform-id Comment
07009B3E Used when the Desktop iGPU is used to drive a display
00009B3E Alternative to 07009B3E if it doesn't work
0300C89B Used when the Desktop iGPU is only used for computing tasks and doesn't drive a display
  • Note: With macOS 10.15.5 and newer, there seems to be a lot of issues with black screen using 07009B3E, if you get similar issues try swapping to 00009B3E

We also add 2 more properties, framebuffer-patch-enable and framebuffer-stolenmem. The first enables patching via WhateverGreen.kext, and the second sets the min stolen memory to 19MB. This is usually unnecessary, as this can be configured in BIOS(64MB recommended) but required when not available.

  • Note: Headless framebuffers(where the dGPU is the display out) do not need framebuffer-patch-enable and framebuffer-stolenmem
Key Type Value
AAPL,ig-platform-id Data 07009B3E
framebuffer-patch-enable Data 01000000
framebuffer-stolenmem Data 00003001

(This is an example for a desktop UHD 630 without a dGPU and no BIOS options for iGPU memory)

:::

::: tip PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1C,0x1)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

This entry relates to Intel's I225-V 2.5GBe controller found on higher end Comet Lake boards, what we'll be doing here is tricking Apple's I225LM driver into supporting our I225-V network controller:

Key Type Value
device-id Data F2150000
  • Note: If your board didn't ship with the Intel I225 NIC, there's no reason to add this entry.
  • Note 2: If you get a kernel panic on the AppleIntelI210Ethernet kext, your Ethernet's path is likely PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1C,0x4)/Pci(0x0,0x0)

:::

::: tip PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1b,0x0)

layout-id

  • Applies AppleALC audio injection, you'll need to do your own research on which codec your motherboard has and match it with AppleALC's layout. AppleALC Supported Codecs.
  • You can delete this property outright as it's unused for us at this time

For us, we'll be using the boot-arg alcid=xxx instead to accomplish this. alcid will override all other layout-IDs present. More info on this is covered in the Post-Install Page

:::

Delete

Removes device properties from the map, for us we can ignore this

Kernel

Kernel

Add

Here's where we specify which kexts to load, in what specific order to load, and what architectures each kext is meant for. By default we recommend leaving what ProperTree has done, however for 32-bit CPUs please see below:

::: details More in-depth Info

The main thing you need to keep in mind is:

  • Load order
    • Remember that any plugins should load after its dependencies
    • This means kexts like Lilu must come before VirtualSMC, AppleALC, WhateverGreen, etc

A reminder that ProperTree users can run Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + R to add all their kexts in the correct order without manually typing each kext out.

  • Arch
    • Architectures supported by this kext
    • Currently supported values are Any, i386 (32-bit), and x86_64 (64-bit)
  • BundlePath
    • Name of the kext
    • ex: Lilu.kext
  • Enabled
    • Self-explanatory, either enables or disables the kext
  • ExecutablePath
    • Path to the actual executable is hidden within the kext, you can see what path your kext has by right-clicking and selecting Show Package Contents. Generally, they'll be Contents/MacOS/Kext but some have kexts hidden within under Plugin folder. Do note that plist only kexts do not need this filled in.
    • ex: Contents/MacOS/Lilu
  • MinKernel
    • Lowest kernel version your kext will be injected into, see below table for possible values
    • ex. 12.00.00 for OS X 10.8
  • MaxKernel
    • Highest kernel version your kext will be injected into, see below table for possible values
    • ex. 11.99.99 for OS X 10.7
  • PlistPath
    • Path to the info.plist hidden within the kext
    • ex: Contents/Info.plist

::: details Kernel Support Table

OS X Version MinKernel MaxKernel
10.4 8.0.0 8.99.99
10.5 9.0.0 9.99.99
10.6 10.0.0 10.99.99
10.7 11.0.0 11.99.99
10.8 12.0.0 12.99.99
10.9 13.0.0 13.99.99
10.10 14.0.0 14.99.99
10.11 15.0.0 15.99.99
10.12 16.0.0 16.99.99
10.13 17.0.0 17.99.99
10.14 18.0.0 18.99.99
10.15 19.0.0 19.99.99
11 20.0.0 20.99.99
12 21.0.0 21.99.99
13 22.0.0 22.99.99
14 23.0.0 23.99.99
15 24.0.0 24.99.99

:::

Emulate

Needed for spoofing unsupported CPUs, thankfully in 10.15.5+ Comet Lake S support was added so no need to spoof here. For those running High Sierra or Mojave, you will need the below to spoof to a supported CPU model(due to stability issues, this guide will not go over such CPUID spoofs)

Force

Used for loading kexts off system volume, only relevant for older operating systems where certain kexts are not present in the cache(ie. IONetworkingFamily in 10.6).

For us, we can ignore.

Block

Blocks certain kexts from loading. Not relevant for us.

Patch

Patches both the kernel and kexts.

::: tip Fixing I225-V controllers

This entry relates to Intel's I225-V 2.5GBe controller found on higher end Comet Lake boards, what we'll be doing here is tricking Apple's I225LM driver into supporting our I225-V network controller. However, this is only needed on Catalina and Big Sur, up to 11.3.

Key Type Value
Base String __Z18e1000_set_mac_typeP8e1000_hw
Comment String I225-V patch
Count Number 1
Enabled Boolean True
Find Data F2150000
Identifier String com.apple.driver.AppleIntelI210Ethernet
MinKernel String 19.0.0
MaxKernel String 20.4.0
Replace Data F3150000
  • Note 1: If your board didn't ship with the Intel I225 NIC, there's no reason to add this entry.
  • Note 2: Leave all other keys at their default values

:::

Quirks

::: tip Info

Settings relating to the kernel, for us we'll be changing the following:

Quirk Enabled Comment
AppleXcpmCfgLock YES Not needed if CFG-Lock is disabled in the BIOS
DisableIoMapper YES Not needed if VT-D is disabled in the BIOS
LapicKernelPanic NO HP Machines will require this quirk
PanicNoKextDump YES
PowerTimeoutKernelPanic YES
XhciPortLimit YES Disable if running macOS 11.3+

:::

::: details More in-depth Info

  • AppleCpuPmCfgLock: NO
    • Only needed when CFG-Lock can't be disabled in BIOS
    • Only applicable for Ivy Bridge and older
      • Note: Broadwell and older require this when running 10.10 or older
  • AppleXcpmCfgLock: YES
    • Only needed when CFG-Lock can't be disabled in BIOS
    • Only applicable for Haswell and newer
      • Note: Ivy Bridge-E is also included as it's XCPM capable
  • CustomSMBIOSGuid: NO
    • Performs GUID patching for UpdateSMBIOSMode set to Custom. Usually relevant for Dell laptops
    • Enabling this quirk with UpdateSMBIOSMode Custom mode can also disable SMBIOS injection into "non-Apple" OSes however we do not endorse this method as it breaks Bootcamp compatibility. Use at your own risk
  • DisableIoMapper: YES
    • Needed to get around VT-D if either unable to disable in BIOS or needed for other operating systems, much better alternative to dart=0 as SIP can stay on in Catalina
  • DisableIoMapperMapping: NO
    • Needed if you are experiencing issues with Wi-Fi/Ethernet/Thunderbolt with VT-D enabled and more than 16GB of memory installed. This quirk requires a patched DMAR table with Reserved Memory Regions removed
    • We recommend disabling VT-D, so we don't need this enabled
    • Not needed for 13.2.1 and lower
  • DisableLinkeditJettison: YES
    • Allows Lilu and others to have more reliable performance without keepsyms=1
  • DisableRtcChecksum: NO
    • Prevents AppleRTC from writing to primary checksum (0x58-0x59), required for users who either receive BIOS reset or are sent into Safe mode after reboot/shutdown
  • ExtendBTFeatureFlags: NO
    • Helpful for those having continuity issues with non-Apple/non-Fenvi cards
  • LapicKernelPanic: NO
    • Disables kernel panic on AP core lapic interrupt, generally needed for HP systems. Clover equivalent is Kernel LAPIC
  • LegacyCommpage: NO
    • Resolves SSSE3 requirement for 64 Bit CPUs in macOS, mainly relevant for 64-Bit Pentium 4 CPUs(ie. Prescott)
  • PanicNoKextDump: YES
    • Allows for reading kernel panics logs when kernel panics occur
  • PowerTimeoutKernelPanic: YES
    • Helps fix kernel panics relating to power changes with Apple drivers in macOS Catalina, most notably with digital audio.
  • SetApfsTrimTimeout: -1
    • Sets trim timeout in microseconds for APFS filesystems on SSDs, only applicable for macOS 10.14 and newer with problematic SSDs.
  • XhciPortLimit: YES
    • This is actually the 15 port limit patch, don't rely on it as it's not a guaranteed solution for fixing USB. Please create a USB map when possible.
    • With macOS 11.3+, XhciPortLimit may not function as intended. We recommend users either disable this quirk and map before upgrading or map from Windows. You may also install macOS 11.2.3 or older.

:::

Scheme

Settings related to legacy booting(ie. 10.4-10.6), for majority you can skip however for those planning to boot legacy OSes you can see below:

::: details More in-depth Info

  • FuzzyMatch: True

    • Used for ignoring checksums with kernelcache, instead opting for the latest cache available. Can help improve boot performance on many machines in 10.6

  • KernelArch: x86_64

    • Set the kernel's arch type, you can choose between Auto, i386 (32-bit), and x86_64 (64-bit).
    • If you're booting older OSes which require a 32-bit kernel(ie. 10.4 and 10.5) we recommend to set this to Auto and let macOS decide based on your SMBIOS. See below table for supported values:
      • 10.4-10.5 — x86_64, i386 or i386-user32
        • i386-user32 refers 32-bit userspace, so 32-bit CPUs must use this(or CPUs missing SSSE3)
        • x86_64 will still have a 32-bit kernelspace however will ensure 64-bit userspace in 10.4/5
      • 10.6 — i386, i386-user32, or x86_64
      • 10.7 — i386 or x86_64
      • 10.8 or newer — x86_64

  • KernelCache: Auto

    • Set kernel cache type, mainly useful for debugging and so we recommend Auto for best support

:::

Misc

Misc

Boot

::: tip Info

Quirk Enabled Comment
HideAuxiliary YES Press space to show macOS recovery and other auxiliary entries

:::

::: details More in-depth Info

  • HideAuxiliary: YES
    • This option will hide supplementary entries, such as macOS recovery and tools, in the picker. Hiding auxiliary entries may increase boot performance on multi-disk systems. You can press space at the picker to show these entries

:::

Debug

::: tip Info

Helpful for debugging OpenCore boot issues(We'll be changing everything but DisplayDelay):

Quirk Enabled
AppleDebug YES
ApplePanic YES
DisableWatchDog YES
Target 67

:::

::: details More in-depth Info

  • AppleDebug: YES
    • Enables boot.efi logging, useful for debugging. Note this is only supported on 10.15.4 and newer
  • ApplePanic: YES
    • Attempts to log kernel panics to disk
  • DisableWatchDog: YES
    • Disables the UEFI watchdog, can help with early boot issues
  • DisplayLevel: 2147483650
    • Shows even more debug information, requires debug version of OpenCore
  • SysReport: NO
    • Helpful for debugging such as dumping ACPI tables
    • Note that this is limited to DEBUG versions of OpenCore
  • Target: 67
    • Shows more debug information, requires debug version of OpenCore

These values are based of those calculated in OpenCore debugging

:::

Security

::: tip Info

Security is pretty self-explanatory, do not skip. We'll be changing the following:

Quirk Enabled Comment
AllowSetDefault YES
BlacklistAppleUpdate YES
ScanPolicy 0
SecureBootModel Default Leave this as Default for OpenCore to automatically set the correct value corresponding to your SMBIOS. The next page goes into more detail about this setting.
Vault Optional This is a word, it is not optional to omit this setting. You will regret it if you don't set it to Optional, note that it is case-sensitive

:::

::: details More in-depth Info

  • AllowSetDefault: YES

    • Allow CTRL+Enter and CTRL+Index to set default boot device in the picker

  • ApECID: 0

    • Used for netting personalized secure-boot identifiers, currently this quirk is unreliable due to a bug in the macOS installer so we highly encourage you to leave this as default.

  • AuthRestart: NO

    • Enables Authenticated restart for FileVault 2 so password is not required on reboot. Can be considered a security risk so optional

  • BlacklistAppleUpdate: YES

    • Used for blocking firmware updates, used as extra level of protection as macOS Big Sur no longer uses run-efi-updater variable

  • DmgLoading: Signed

    • Ensures only signed DMGs load

  • ExposeSensitiveData: 6

    • Shows more debug information, requires debug version of OpenCore

  • Vault: Optional

    • We won't be dealing vaulting so we can ignore, you won't boot with this set to Secure
    • This is a word, it is not optional to omit this setting. You will regret it if you don't set it to Optional, note that it is case-sensitive

  • ScanPolicy: 0

    • 0 allows you to see all drives available, please refer to Security section for further details. Will not boot USB devices with this set to default

  • SecureBootModel: Default

:::

Serial

Used for serial debugging (Leave everything as default).

Tools

Used for running OC debugging tools like the shell, ProperTree's snapshot function will add these for you.

Entries

Used for specifying irregular boot paths that can't be found naturally with OpenCore.

Won't be covered here, see 8.6 of Configuration.pdf for more info

NVRAM

NVRAM

Add

::: tip 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14

Used for OpenCore's UI scaling, default will work for us. See in-depth section for more info

:::

::: details More in-depth Info

Booter Path, mainly used for UI modification

  • DefaultBackgroundColor: Background color used by boot.efi
    • 00000000: Syrah Black
    • BFBFBF00: Light Gray

:::

::: tip 4D1FDA02-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B30102

OpenCore's NVRAM GUID, mainly relevant for RTCMemoryFixup users

:::

::: details More in-depth Info

  • rtc-blacklist: <>
    • To be used in conjunction with RTCMemoryFixup, see here for more info: Fixing RTC write issues
    • Most users can ignore this section

:::

::: tip 7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82

System Integrity Protection bitmask

  • General Purpose boot-args:
boot-args Description
-v This enables verbose mode, which shows all the behind-the-scenes text that scrolls by as you're booting instead of the Apple logo and progress bar. It's invaluable to any Hackintosher, as it gives you an inside look at the boot process, and can help you identify issues, problem kexts, etc.
debug=0x100 This disables macOS's watchdog which helps prevents a reboot on a kernel panic. That way you can hopefully glean some useful info and follow the breadcrumbs to get past the issues.
keepsyms=1 This is a companion setting to debug=0x100 that tells the OS to also print the symbols on a kernel panic. That can give some more helpful insight as to what's causing the panic itself.
alcid=1 Used for setting layout-id for AppleALC, see supported codecs to figure out which layout to use for your specific system. More info on this is covered in the Post-Install Page

  • Networking-Specific boot-args: | boot-args | Description | | :--- | :--- | | e1000=0 | Disables com.apple.DriverKit-AppleEthernetE1000 (Apple's DEXT driver) from matching to the Intel I225-V Ethernet controller found on higher end Comet Lake boards, causing Apple's I225 kext driver to load instead.
    This boot argument is optional on most boards as they are compatible with the DEXT driver. However, it is required on Gigabyte and several other boards, which can only use the kext driver, as the DEXT driver causes hangs.
    You don't need this if your board didn't ship with the I225-V NIC.

    On macOS 12.2.1 and below, use dk.e1000=0 instead |

  • GPU-Specific boot-args:

boot-args Description
agdpmod=pikera Used for disabling board ID checks on some Navi GPUs (RX 5000 & 6000 series), without this you'll get a black screen. Don't use if you don't have Navi (ie. Polaris and Vega cards shouldn't use this)
-radcodec Used for allowing officially unsupported AMD GPUs (spoofed) to use the Hardware Video Encoder
radpg=15 Used for disabling some power-gating modes, helpful for properly initializing AMD Cape Verde based GPUs
unfairgva=1 Used for fixing hardware DRM support on supported AMD GPUs
nvda_drv_vrl=1 Used for enabling NVIDIA's Web Drivers on Maxwell and Pascal cards in macOS Sierra and High Sierra
-wegnoegpu Used for disabling all other GPUs than the integrated Intel iGPU, useful for those wanting to run newer versions of macOS where their dGPU isn't supported

  • csr-active-config: 00000000

    • Settings for 'System Integrity Protection' (SIP). It is generally recommended to change this with csrutil via the recovery partition.
    • csr-active-config by default is set to 00000000 which enables System Integrity Protection. You can choose a number of different values but overall we recommend keeping this enabled for best security practices. More info can be found in our troubleshooting page: Disabling SIP

  • run-efi-updater: No

    • This is used to prevent Apple's firmware update packages from installing and breaking boot order; this is important as these firmware updates (meant for Macs) will not work.

  • prev-lang:kbd: <>

    • Needed for non-latin keyboards in the format of lang-COUNTRY:keyboard, recommended to keep blank though you can specify it(Default in Sample config is Russian):
    • American: en-US:0(656e2d55533a30 in HEX)
    • Full list can be found in AppleKeyboardLayouts.txt
    • Hint: prev-lang:kbd can be changed into a String so you can input en-US:0 directly instead of converting to HEX
    • Hint 2: prev-lang:kbd can be set to a blank variable (eg. <>) which will force the Language Picker to appear instead at first boot up.
Key Type Value
prev-lang:kbd String en-US:0

:::

Delete

::: tip Info

Forcibly rewrites NVRAM variables, do note that Add will not overwrite values already present in NVRAM so values like boot-args should be left alone. For us, we'll be changing the following:

Quirk Enabled
WriteFlash YES

:::

::: details More in-depth Info

  • LegacySchema

    • Used for assigning NVRAM variables, used with OpenVariableRuntimeDxe.efi. Only needed for systems without native NVRAM

  • WriteFlash: YES

    • Enables writing to flash memory for all added variables.

:::

PlatformInfo

PlatformInfo

::: tip Info

For setting up the SMBIOS info, we'll use CorpNewt's GenSMBIOS application.

For this Comet Lake example, we'll chose the iMac20,1 SMBIOS - this is done intentionally for compatibility's sake. There are two main SMBIOS used for Comet Lake:

SMBIOS Hardware
iMac20,1 i7-10700K and lower(ie. 8 core and lower)
iMac20,2 i9-10850K and higher(ie. 10 core)

Run GenSMBIOS, pick option 1 for downloading MacSerial and Option 3 for selecting out SMBIOS. This will give us an output similar to the following:

  #######################################################
 #               iMac20,1 SMBIOS Info                  #
#######################################################

Type:         iMac20,1
Serial:       C02XG0FDH7JY
Board Serial: C02839303QXH69FJA
SmUUID:       DBB364D6-44B2-4A02-B922-AB4396F16DA8
  • Note: MacSerial currently does not support Linux, so you must grab a Windows or macOS machine to generate the values

The Type part gets copied to Generic -> SystemProductName.

The Serial part gets copied to Generic -> SystemSerialNumber.

The Board Serial part gets copied to Generic -> MLB.

The SmUUID part gets copied to Generic -> SystemUUID.

We set Generic -> ROM to either an Apple ROM (dumped from a real Mac), your NIC MAC address, or any random MAC address (could be just 6 random bytes, for this guide we'll use 11223300 0000. After install follow the Fixing iServices page on how to find your real MAC Address)

Reminder that you need an invalid serial! When inputting your serial number in Apple's Check Coverage Page, you should get a message such as "Unable to check coverage for this serial number."

Automatic: YES

  • Generates PlatformInfo based on Generic section instead of DataHub, NVRAM, and SMBIOS sections

:::

Generic

::: details More in-depth Info

  • AdviseFeatures: NO

    • Used for when the EFI partition isn't first on the Windows drive

  • MaxBIOSVersion: NO

    • Sets BIOS version to Max to avoid firmware updates in Big Sur+, mainly applicable for genuine Macs.

  • ProcessorType: 0

    • Set to 0 for automatic type detection, however this value can be overridden if desired. See AppleSmBios.h for possible values

  • SpoofVendor: YES

    • Swaps vendor field for Acidanthera, generally not safe to use Apple as a vendor in most case

  • SystemMemoryStatus: Auto

    • Sets whether memory is soldered or not in SMBIOS info, purely cosmetic and so we recommend Auto

  • UpdateDataHub: YES

    • Update Data Hub fields

  • UpdateNVRAM: YES

    • Update NVRAM fields

  • UpdateSMBIOS: YES

    • Updates SMBIOS fields

  • UpdateSMBIOSMode: Create

    • Replace the tables with newly allocated EfiReservedMemoryType, use Custom on Dell laptops requiring CustomSMBIOSGuid quirk
    • Setting to Custom with CustomSMBIOSGuid quirk enabled can also disable SMBIOS injection into "non-Apple" OSes however we do not endorse this method as it breaks Bootcamp compatibility. Use at your own risk

:::

UEFI

UEFI

ConnectDrivers: YES

  • Forces .efi drivers, change to NO will automatically connect added UEFI drivers. This can make booting slightly faster, but not all drivers connect themselves. E.g. certain file system drivers may not load.

Drivers

Add your .efi drivers here.

Only drivers present here should be:

  • HfsPlus.efi
  • OpenRuntime.efi

::: details More in-depth Info

Key Type Description
Path String Path of the file from OC/Drivers directory
LoadEarly Boolean Load the driver early before NVRAM setup, should only be enabled for OpenRuntime.efi and OpenVariableRuntimeDxe.efi if using legacy NVRAM
Arguments String Some drivers accept additional arguments which are specified here.

:::

APFS

By default, OpenCore only loads APFS drivers from macOS Big Sur and newer. If you are booting macOS Catalina or earlier, you may need to set a new minimum version/date. Not setting this can result in OpenCore not finding your macOS partition!

macOS Sierra and earlier use HFS instead of APFS. You can skip this section if booting older versions of macOS.

::: tip APFS Versions

Both MinVersion and MinDate need to be set if changing the minimum version.

macOS Version Min Version Min Date
High Sierra (10.13.6) 748077008000000 20180621
Mojave (10.14.6) 945275007000000 20190820
Catalina (10.15.4) 1412101001000000 20200306
No restriction -1 -1

:::

Audio

Related to AudioDxe settings, for us we'll be ignoring(leave as default). This is unrelated to audio support in macOS.

Input

Related to boot.efi keyboard passthrough used for FileVault and Hotkey support, leave everything here as default as we have no use for these quirks. See here for more details: Security and FileVault

Output

Relating to OpenCore's visual output, leave everything here as default as we have no use for these quirks.

::: details More in-depth Info

Output Value Comment
UIScale 0 0 will automatically set based on resolution
-1 will leave it unchanged
1 for 1x scaling, for normal displays
2 for 2x scaling, for HiDPI displays

:::

ProtocolOverrides

Mainly relevant for Virtual machines, legacy macs and FileVault users. See here for more details: Security and FileVault

Quirks

::: tip Info Relating to quirks with the UEFI environment, for us we'll be changing the following:

Quirk Enabled Comment
UnblockFsConnect NO Needed mainly by HP motherboards

:::

::: details More in-depth Info

  • DisableSecurityPolicy: NO

    • Disables platform security policy in firmware, recommended for buggy firmwares where disabling Secure Boot does not allow 3rd party firmware drivers to load.
    • If running a Microsoft Surface device, recommended to enable this option

  • RequestBootVarRouting: YES

    • Redirects AptioMemoryFix from EFI_GLOBAL_VARIABLE_GUID to OC_VENDOR_VARIABLE_GUID. Needed for when firmware tries to delete boot entries and is recommended to be enabled on all systems for correct update installation, Startup Disk control panel functioning, etc.

  • UnblockFsConnect: NO

    • Some firmware block partition handles by opening them in By Driver mode, which results in File System protocols being unable to install. Mainly relevant for HP systems when no drives are listed

:::

ReservedMemory

Used for exempting certain memory regions from OSes to use, mainly relevant for Sandy Bridge iGPUs or systems with faulty memory. Use of this quirk is not covered in this guide

Cleaning up

And now you're ready to save and place it into your EFI under EFI/OC.

For those having booting issues, please make sure to read the Troubleshooting section first and if your questions are still unanswered we have plenty of resources at your disposal:

Intel BIOS settings

  • Note: Most of these options may not be present in your firmware, we recommend matching up as closely as possible but don't be too concerned if many of these options are not available in your BIOS

Disable

  • Fast Boot
  • Secure Boot
  • Serial/COM Port
  • Parallel Port
  • VT-d (can be enabled if you set DisableIoMapper to YES)
  • Compatibility Support Module (CSM) (Must be off in most cases, GPU errors/stalls like gIO are common when this option is enabled)
  • Thunderbolt (For initial install, as Thunderbolt can cause issues if not setup correctly)
  • Intel SGX
  • Intel Platform Trust
  • CFG Lock (MSR 0xE2 write protection)(This must be off, if you can't find the option then enable AppleXcpmCfgLock under Kernel -> Quirks. Your hack will not boot with CFG-Lock enabled)

Enable

  • VT-x
  • Above 4G Decoding
    • 2020+ BIOS Notes: When enabling Above4G, Resizable BAR Support may become an available on some Z490 and newer motherboards. Please ensure that Booter -> Quirks -> ResizeAppleGpuBars is set to 0 if this is enabled.
  • Hyper-Threading
  • Execute Disable Bit
  • EHCI/XHCI Hand-off
  • OS type: Windows 8.1/10 UEFI Mode (some motherboards may require "Other OS" instead)
  • DVMT Pre-Allocated(iGPU Memory): 64MB or higher
  • SATA Mode: AHCI

Once done here, we need to edit a couple extra values. Head to the Apple Secure Boot Page