Hardware-accelerated graphics (Metal, Core Animation, Liquid Glass) for the Intel Iris Xe of the i7-1360P (Raptor Lake-P, 8086:A7A0) on macOS Tahoe 26.7.1, in an OpenCore hackintosh.
There is no Apple driver for Raptor Lake. This project runs Apple's own driver for Tiger Lake Iris Xe (GPUDriversIntel 16.0.32, written for Macs that never shipped) on the newer GPU. Both GPUs share the Xe-LP (Gen12) architecture. A modified NootedGreen Lilu plugin bridges the generation gap in the kernel, and a set of user-space patches bridges the gap between that 2020-era driver and Tahoe's Metal stack.
🚧 Work in progress — this repository is a living snapshot. Development happens day by day on the author's own XPS 13 Plus, and every fix is committed here after it is confirmed on real hardware. Expect frequent updates; see CHANGELOG.md for what changed and what is still being tested, and the releases for the stable points.
macOS power management (XCPM) predates Intel's hybrid CPUs, and on 12th/13th-gen laptops it holds the CPU back:
- P-cores stuck at ~3.8 GHz. XCPM writes the HWP turbo limit in 100 MHz units, but hybrid P-cores count HWP performance in ~78.7 MHz units, so "5.0 GHz" becomes ~3.9 GHz. On top of that, its default EPP (128) clips one-core turbo on Alder/Raptor Lake mobile parts (an Intel-documented behaviour), and energy-efficient turbo holds the top bins.
- Deep idle states off. XCPM's idle table for the spoofed CPU has C8/C10 disabled and uses C3, which these CPUs don't have, so cores never sleep deeper than C6.
The NootedGreen XE-PM profile fixes all of this, 20 s after boot. It is on in this repo's config.plist
as ngreenpm=22: the profile plus a sustained power limit (PL1) of 22 W instead of the 17.5 W the BIOS leaves without
Dell's Windows thermal software (-ngreenpm alone keeps the BIOS PL1). Measured on the XPS 13 Plus (i7-1360P):
| Before | With -ngreenpm |
|
|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 7 single-core | 1269 | 1682–1697 (+33 %) |
| Geekbench 7 multi-core | 5859 | 6772 (+16 %) with ngreenpm=22 (6148 with the 17.5 W PL1) |
| 45 s all-core load | 7079 (17.5 W, 75 °C) | 8423–8706 (+19–23 %, 22 W, ~85 °C); 25–28 W reach 93–94 °C and run slower |
| One-thread clock | 3.3–3.8 GHz | 4.3–4.85 GHz |
| Idle package power | ~4.6 W | ~3.3 W |
Other Alder Lake / Raptor Lake hybrid machines on this stack should see the same turbo fix; add -ngreenpm to try it
(PL1 is only changed with ngreenpm=W; pick it for your cooling)
(keep a backup EFI; it patches XCPM and only applies on macOS 26.7.1 25G241, where the code was checked byte for
byte). EPP: ngreenpmepp=N at boot (default 0, max performance) or sudo sysctl -w debug.xepm.epp=64 live.
Status: sysctl debug.xepm. The C8/C10 part can be switched off live with sudo sysctl -w debug.xepm.cst=0 (=1
turns it back on) or at boot with ngreenpmcst=0, while a possible coil whine at idle is being investigated.
Details in CHANGELOG.md.
If the stack already runs on your machine, update it like this (latest changes in CHANGELOG.md):
- Back up the EFI you boot from (a copy of the
EFIfolder or a second bootable USB EFI). - In your clone, on an APFS disk:
git pull zsh install.sh # rebuilds and reinstalls NootedGreen, the Metal driver, libxedrv and the shader compiler - Copy the new
build/NootedGreen.kextoverEFI/OC/Kexts/NootedGreen.kexton the EFI you boot from. - Reboot and check:
kmutil showloaded | grep NootedGreen. Since 25 Oct,ioreg -rc IntelAccelerator -d1 | grep rowchkalso showsxe-rowchk-post(the GPU fix for the dash artifacts in Preview/Photos, #9).
Don't run make-efi.sh again to update: it generates new serial numbers (SMBIOS), which signs you out of
iCloud/iMessage. Keep your EFI and only replace the kext.
If it doesn't boot, use the backup EFI. Single fixes can be turned off with the boot-arg named in their CHANGELOG entry. Details: docs/INSTALL.md.
🇧🇷 Leia em português: README.pt-BR.md
⚠️ Experimental. Expect occasional GPU hangs and kernel panics. Keep a second bootable disk (or the USB installer) around. Read docs/STATUS.md before you start.
| Area | Status |
|---|---|
| Desktop, Dock, windows, Liquid Glass blur | ✅ GPU-accelerated through Metal |
| Native panel resolution (3840×2400) and HiDPI scaling (1280–1920 pt wide) | ✅ switch with tools/xe-res, not System Settings (a brief glitch during the switch is cosmetic) |
| GPU clock | ✅ ~1300 MHz under load (requests RP0 1500 MHz; the CPU package power limit PL4/IccMax caps it at ~1300), idles in RC6 |
| CPU | ✅ full turbo (up to ~4.85 GHz on one P-core) with -ngreenpm (XE-PM, see above) · ✅ all 16 threads (4 P-cores with HT + 8 E-cores) — the E-cores used to hang the boot; fixed with one byte in Cpuid1Data (see STATUS). CpuTopologyRebuild 2.0.2 (default mode) groups them as 4 P-cores with 4 threads each, so heavy work lands on P-cores; System Information shows 12 cores |
| HEIC / YUV images (wallpapers, photos) | ✅ |
| App icons, Finder icons, image thumbnails | ✅ (the 10-bit extended-range layer format w30r/BGR10_XR is Apple-silicon-only: real Intel Macs don't render it either) |
| Hardware video decode | ✅ H.264 on the GPU (bit-exact vs. software) for apps that use VideoToolbox: QuickTime, Photos, video editors, conversions. Needs -ngreengva and the patched VA plugin (macos/vadriver/build-vadriver.sh, installed by hand for now) · ✅ HEVC too (NootedGreen XE-GVAHEVC) · ⚠️ Safari decodes on the CPU: its WebKit GPU process may not load drivers from /Library/GPUBundles · ⚠️ with -ngreengva FairPlay content (Apple Music, probably Apple TV+) does not play: the VA plugin takes the hardware key-exchange path and fails with "ME not loaded" (#11); remove the boot-arg if you need it |
| YouTube | ✅ Chrome with GPU compositing, up to 4K (VP9/AV1 decoded on the CPU) · ✅ Safari up to 1080p H.264 (needs an audio output: the internal speakers, Bluetooth, or the BlackHole virtual device) |
| Screen recording | ✅ |
| Touchscreen | ✅ up to 10 fingers via VoodooI2C; tools/xe-toque adds one-finger scroll, hold-for-right-click, edge swipes, pen, magnifier and a touch mode, and hides the pointer while you touch (the trackpad brings it back) |
| Trackpad, keyboard | ✅ trackpad and touchscreen on GPIO/APIC interrupts (no polling freezes) |
| Brightness | ✅ tools/xe-brilho (the macOS slider now covers the full panel range with ngreenblmax=17777) · ⚠️ the sun keys depend on a Dell firmware state that changes from boot to boot; F6/F7 always work through xe-brilho daemon |
| Shutdown / restart | ✅ fast (XE-IDLEBOUND; used to stall ~3 min and panic) |
| Boot screen | ✅ sharp Apple logo from the first frame, no garbage flash (OpenCore Resolution=Max + gfxrst=1 + XE-BOOTHOLD) |
| Internal speakers | ✅ our own AudShim kext runs Intel's SOF firmware on the audio DSP, SoundWire and both RT1316 amplifiers; XeSpeakers makes them a normal macOS output (volume, mute). Capped at −3 dB (AudShim 0.9.1), no speaker protection · AudShim 0.9.2 powers the DSP down after 30 s of silence (audshimidleoffms=N, 0 = never); the first sound after that takes ~1–2 s · ✅ internal microphones (RT714) as "Microfone interno" |
| Wi-Fi, Bluetooth | ✅ native Wi-Fi menu via AirportItlwm-Tahoe (no HeliPort) · ❌ AirDrop/AWDL · ✅ Bluetooth (IntelBluetoothFirmware) |
| CPU temperatures | ✅ package, every P-core and E-core, plus package/CPU/GPU watts, in the tools/xe-temp menu-bar app (reads NootedGreen's debug.xepm.sensors, no root; install in INSTALL) |
| Touchpad haptics | ✅ click-vibration strength with tools/xe-haptic / the xe-hapticbar menu-bar slider · ❌ no on-demand pulse (Force Touch feedback) |
| Fingerprint reader | ✅ for sudo (Goodix 27C6:63BC via libfprint, PAM module in sudo_local; tools/fingerprint) · ❌ login, screen unlock and Touch ID prompts (no Secure Enclave) |
| Power button | ✅ a short press locks the screen (tools/xe-pblock) |
| Sleep | ❌ no system sleep in the default install (Modern Standby only firmware; experimental S0 deep idle enters and wakes by RTC alarm, but lid/power button do not wake it and the panel stays black on wake, so it is paused and not shipped, see STATUS); ✅ display sleep (backlight off; with -ngreenfbdpms the panel does not come back), and lid close turns the display off (tools/sleep) |
Everything else about the laptop (NVMe, battery, USB) is a regular OpenCore setup. The camera (OV01A10 behind Intel's
IPU6) does not work on macOS; the fingerprint reader works for sudo only. Internal speakers work since
2026-10-22 without any Apple audio driver: AudShim boots the Intel cAVS 2.5 audio DSP with Intel's SOF firmware
(taken from the official sof-bin release at install time, not shipped here), starts SoundWire and the RT1316
amplifiers, and the XeSpeakers AudioServerPlugIn publishes the output and microphone devices (docs/INSTALL.md).
The EFI presents the GPU as Tiger Lake (device-id 9A49). Apple's TGL kexts load from /Library/Extensions, and NootedGreen patches them in memory: display engine 13 quirks, the GuC-less host scheduler, broken resolve paths, IOSurface layout changes in Tahoe, GPU frequency, and more (docs/KERNEL-PATCHES.md). In user space, the TGL Metal driver is binary-patched and gets an adapter library (libxedrv) that converts Tahoe's private Metal structures to the old layout and works around hardware limits. The TGL shader compiler (IGC gen12lp, LLVM 3902) runs inside Tahoe's compiler service (LLVM 32023) through an API adapter and an LLVM bridge (docs/METAL.md).
EFI/ OpenCore EFI for the XPS 13 Plus 9320 (serials removed — generate your own)
OC/config.plist accelerated config
OC/config-install.plist safe config for installing macOS (NootedGreen off, verbose)
src/NootedGreen/ the modified NootedGreen source (Lilu plugin)
build-nootedgreen.sh builds src/NootedGreen with only the Command Line Tools
src/HookCase/ NootedGreen's modified HookCase (MIT) — the TGL kexts depend on it
build-hookcase.sh builds src/HookCase (required; installed to /Library/Extensions by macos/install-macos.sh)
patches/ diff of this fork against upstream NootedGreen 95f8189
macos/ user-space stack: Metal driver patcher, libxedrv, shader compiler, VA (video) plugin patcher, installer
tools/ xe-res (resolution/DPI), xe-brilho (brightness), xe-perfil (color profile), xe-toque (touchscreen gestures),
XeShim + xectl (register access), diagnostics/ (the test programs used to find bugs),
AudShim + audctl + XeSpeakers + audio/ (internal speakers), sleep/ (pmset + lid agent),
xe-haptic + xe-hapticbar (touchpad vibration), fingerprint/ (fingerprint for sudo: libfprint patch,
xe-fp, PAM module), xe-pblock/ (power button locks the screen), xe-temp/ (menu-bar CPU temperature)
docs/ install guide, patch catalogs, status, debugging notes
Documentation: INSTALL · STATUS · KERNEL-PATCHES · METAL · DEBUGGING · HISTORY (how it was done, phase by phase) · EXPERIMENTS (what failed and why) · CATALOG (full patch and tool reference)
1. Make your EFI (on any Mac, with git):
git clone https://github.com/JulioNectar/Hackintosh-XPS13Plus-IrisXe-Tahoe.git && cd Hackintosh-XPS13Plus-IrisXe-Tahoe
zsh make-efi.sh # -> dist/EFI with YOUR OWN serial numbers (never share them)2. Install macOS Tahoe 26.7.1 (25G241) booting with EFI/OC/config-install.plist renamed to config.plist
(acceleration off). BIOS: usual hackintosh settings (storage in AHCI/NVMe mode, not RAID/VMD; Secure Boot off). The E-cores can stay enabled.
3. On the new macOS, with the accelerated config.plist back in place:
xcode-select --install # Command Line Tools, once
zsh install.sh # checks, downloads Apple's driver bundles via NootedGreen, builds, installsCopy the freshly built build/NootedGreen.kext to EFI/OC/Kexts/, approve the extension if asked, reboot.
zsh install.sh --check only runs the checks; zsh install.sh --uninstall removes everything.
Updating: see Already installed? Update.
Other hardware (other Raptor Lake / Alder Lake laptops): the user-space part is the same, but you need your own
EFI (ACPI, USB map, input devices). The full manual procedure is in docs/INSTALL.md.
NootedGreen describes every non-Tiger-Lake GPU as 96 EU (12 subslices × 8 EU, 8 L3 banks) unless told otherwise.
80 EU parts (e.g. i5-1334U, i5-1340P, i5-12500H): add ngreen-eu=80 ngreen-l3=6 to the boot-args. This removes
the rendering artifacts (confirmed on an i5-1340P and an i5-1334U, #3, on an i5-1240P / 46A6, #16, and on a native Tiger Lake i5-1135G7 with 80 EU); these chips have 6 L3 banks
(fuse register 0x9118), not 8. Check: ioreg -rc IntelAccelerator -d1 | grep xe-topo shows 20486.
- NootedGreen by StezzaPilot (sgiammori/NootedGreen): the base of the kernel plugin and the source of the 16.0.32 driver bundles. Licensed under the Thou Shalt Not Profit License 1.0, which also covers the fork in
src/. - WhateverXe and OpenCore Legacy Patcher fork by b00t0x, and jkbuha's WhateverXe work: reference for Gen12 on macOS (including the Tahoe VA-plugin payload-header fix).
- BlackHole by Existential Audio (virtual audio output, GPL-3.0), built by
tools/build-blackhole.sh; also the reference for the AudioServerPlugIn property set. - Sound Open Firmware (Intel SOF firmware and topologies, sof-bin) and the Linux
sound/soc/sof+ SoundWire drivers: the reference for every AudShim step. The firmware is downloaded by you, not shipped. - laobamac/itlwm (AirportItlwm-Tahoe, GPL-2.0), shipped in
EFI/OC/Kexts. - IntelIGPU-Tahoe: reference for running the TGL Metal driver on Tahoe.
- acidanthera (OpenCore, Lilu, WhateverGreen, VirtualSMC, MacKernelSDK), OpenIntelWireless (itlwm, IntelBluetoothFirmware), VoodooI2C, USBToolBox.
- Developed on one Dell XPS 13 Plus by its owner, pair-programming with Claude (Anthropic).
Thou Shalt Not Profit License 1.0, the license of NootedGreen, which this project derives from. Third-party
kexts in EFI/ keep their own licenses, and no Apple binaries are included: see NOTICE.md.