Lag in Games and Unity on Ryzen 5 4600G + RX 470 Hackintosh

[viiar31]

Hi everyone,


I’m running macOS on my AMD system and it works fine for normal tasks, but I’m having serious lag issues in games and the Unity editor.
3D games have low FPS and Unity feels slow and unresponsive.


My hardware:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 4600G
• GPU: AMD RX 470
• RAM: 16 GB
• SSD: 512 GB

Everything else works normally, so it’s only graphics-intensive stuff that’s giving me trouble.


Question:
What could cause this lag? Is there anything I should change (kexts, settings, SMBIOS, patches) to improve GPU performance?
Has anyone had a similar setup and fixed these issues?


Thanks in advance!

 

[leesurone]

Are you sure its whatever version of macOS or OpenCore that is affecting gaming performance? You don't say what games you are running but the AMD RX 470 is an almost 10 year old 4GB card. That would seem to be a bottle neck in itself.

For 2024 PC gaming, minimum graphics cards mean running at 1080p with decent settings; look for at least an
NVIDIA GTX 1060/1650 or AMD RX 580/6600, while for modern features like Ray Tracing, an RTX 20 series or RX 6000 series (like the RX 6600) offers better baseline support.

16GB of RAM is also an entry level requirement. I would suggest using an alternative OS for comparison.

 

[viiar31]

Thank you for your reply! I appreciate the point about the age of the RX 470, but I don't think its age is the sole cause of the significant lag I'm seeing, especially in the Unity Editor and older games.

Here's why I suspect this is a Hackintosh-specific issue rather than a pure hardware bottleneck:

1. Performance Comparison: When running the same games/tests on Windows/Linux on this exact hardware, the RX 470 delivers significantly better and more acceptable 3D performance. This suggests the card is capable of much more than I'm currently getting in macOS.
2. Specificity of Lag: General macOS tasks (browsing, video, 2D apps) are fast and smooth. The performance collapse only occurs under heavy 3D load (games/Unity), which points to a potential issue with full Metal acceleration or a conflict caused by the necessary AMD kernel patches.

My goal is not to achieve modern gaming FPS, but to get the RX 470 to perform at its expected native capacity within macOS.

I am primarily looking for Hackintosh optimization advice. Specifically:

• Can anyone confirm if the AMD Kernel Patches for the Ryzen 5 4600G (Zen 2) are known to introduce a noticeable performance penalty in 3D graphics/Metal compared to Intel systems?
• Is there a better SMBIOS (e.g., MacPro7,1 vs. iMacPro1,1) that is more stable or performs better for the Ryzen + Polaris (RX 470) combination?
• Are there any specific DeviceProperties injections needed for the RX 470 to ensure the iGPU of the 4600G is completely ignored, even though it's disabled in the BIOS?

I'm trying to eliminate software conflicts before concluding the hardware is the only problem. Thanks for any specific technical input!

 

[leesurone]

Thank you for your reply! I appreciate the point about the age of the RX 470, but I don't think its age is the sole cause of the significant lag I'm seeing, especially in the Unity Editor and older games.

Here's why I suspect this is a Hackintosh-specific issue rather than a pure hardware bottleneck:

1. Performance Comparison: When running the same games/tests on Windows/Linux on this exact hardware, the RX 470 delivers significantly better and more acceptable 3D performance. This suggests the card is capable of much more than I'm currently getting in macOS.
2. Specificity of Lag: General macOS tasks (browsing, video, 2D apps) are fast and smooth. The performance collapse only occurs under heavy 3D load (games/Unity), which points to a potential issue with full Metal acceleration or a conflict caused by the necessary AMD kernel patches.

My goal is not to achieve modern gaming FPS, but to get the RX 470 to perform at its expected native capacity within macOS.

I am primarily looking for Hackintosh optimization advice. Specifically:

• Can anyone confirm if the AMD Kernel Patches for the Ryzen 5 4600G (Zen 2) are known to introduce a noticeable performance penalty in 3D graphics/Metal compared to Intel systems?
• Is there a better SMBIOS (e.g., MacPro7,1 vs. iMacPro1,1) that is more stable or performs better for the Ryzen + Polaris (RX 470) combination?
• Are there any specific DeviceProperties injections needed for the RX 470 to ensure the iGPU of the 4600G is completely ignored, even though it's disabled in the BIOS?

I'm trying to eliminate software conflicts before concluding the hardware is the only problem. Thanks for any specific technical input!

Nice post, what is the expected native capacity in macOS ? What is the real time difference between Windows, which is the preferred gaming platform, and whatever version of macOS you are running?

 

[viiar31]

Thank you for your questions. Here is a brief summary of the performance difference:

Expected Native Capacity & Difference​

The AMD RX 470 is natively supported by macOS and uses the Metal API (confirmed working). The expected performance in macOS should be roughly 10–25% lower than on Windows, which is the preferred gaming platform.

Real-Time Performance Deficit​

The actual difference I am experiencing is much worse, pointing to a configuration issue:

• Windows/Linux FPS: 40–60+ FPS (Medium/High settings).
• Current macOS FPS: ~15 FPS in Euro Truck Simulator 2.

This massive 65%+ performance deficit confirms that a system component is failing under load.

The Core Issue​

My current Geekbench 6 Multi-Core score is only ~6000, which is far below the expected 7500–8500+ for the Ryzen 5 4600G.

This CPU performance deficit is almost certainly the primary cause of the severe 3D lag. The GPU is bottlenecked because the CPU cannot deliver the required power due to incorrect kernel patching.

I am working on updating the cpuid_cores_per_package patches in my OpenCore config to fix the CPU performance issue before re-testing the GPU.