Intel HD 4000: No VGA output in Big Sur

[JKC]

Hi there, I've installed Mac Big Sur on my desktop PC. My graphics was recognized as Intel HD 4000 5MB so I fixed VRAM and it changed to 1536MB. Before I fix VRAM I had output simultaneously on both VGA and HDMI  ports of my mainboard (both connected to one monitor). But after fixing VRAM, VGA output keeps on showing verbose and freezes just before Mac's loading screen and it continues only on HDMI output. I can see a distorted verbose screen on my VGA output when restarting too.
(There's also another problem seemingly shown up after fixing VRAM. Copying files is super slow, and sometimes copying a ~12MB folder takes up tp 50 mins.)

 

My Primary graphics is set to iGPU (64MB). I use Open Core 0.9.4. I've tested changing connectors using Hackin tool but no luck.
As my monitor has 2 inputs (HDMI and VGA), I need to connect HDMI to my GTX 950 and VGA to intel GPU on my mainboard.
What can I do to make my Mac continue using VGA?

 

Specs:
Asus P8Z77-V
Intel i7 3770k
GTX 950
16 GB of RAM

[Hervé]

Ivy Bridge HD4000 has no support for VGA in OS X/macOS. It's been like that since Mountain Lion 10.8.2 so that shows you how far it goes. See here.

nVidia GeForce GTX 950 is Maxwell so no support beyond macOS High Sierra and, even in macOS versions that could support the card, there was no native support and you needed the nVidia Web Driver. That died long ago when Mojave was introduced.

 

"Fixing VRAM" does not mean much. If Big Sur only displayed "HD 4000 5MB", it meant you had no graphics acceleration. It's the only reason why you may have obtained video output on your VGA screen because you were running in unaccelerated, poor performing, VESA mode but Hackintosh was in limping mode and most probably very very slow with many graphics defects. Once you got graphics acceleration working, no VGA output, no.

 

Since you now run Big Sur with HD4000 graphics, your only options for physical outputs are DVI, DP or HDMI and you can totally forget about VGA. If you really want VGA output, you only have 2 options:

1. switch your GTX 950 card for a supported model: AMD or nVidia Kepler. See here. I get triple VGA/DVI/HDMI output out of my Asus GeForce GT730 (Kepler 2.0 GK208 chip) or my Yeston AMD Radeon RX560 (Polaris21/Baffin chip) on my old Core2Duo Dell Vostro 200 ST.
2. if you have another (built-in) HDMI or a DVI or DP output port, use an adapter (has to be active (i.e. with a small chip) to convert digital signal to analog). That's fully supported.

[Hervé]

On checking the specs and the documentation, it appears Asus P8Z77-V motherboard is fitted with VGA/DVI/DP/HDMI video outputs:

 

 

As such, you may purchase a DVI-to-VGA or DP-to-VGA adapter for your purpose. Rest assured that it will work, provided you buy an active adapter, not a passive one.

[JKC]

Thanks Hervé for your detailed reply. I was wondering why I had output on my VGA and now I know why, thanks to your explanations. I think the first option is more for hackintosh builds but as I use windows and linux beside mac, the second option suits best for me. I've got a DVI-I passive adapter but I couldn't check it as my mainboard have a DVI-D port. I think I need to buy an active DVI to VGA adapter.

 

BTW, Is there any fix for "slow copy" problem on my BigSur? I found that I have the same problem with Catalina but I didn't notice any problem when I was using High Sierra.