diff --git a/hw/ppc/spapr.c b/hw/ppc/spapr.c
index b2baec026f..062d9dc346 100644
--- a/hw/ppc/spapr.c
+++ b/hw/ppc/spapr.c
@@ -4095,17 +4095,16 @@ static void spapr_machine_2_12_instance_options(MachineState *machine)
 static void spapr_machine_2_12_class_options(MachineClass *mc)
 {
     sPAPRMachineClass *smc = SPAPR_MACHINE_CLASS(mc);
-    uint8_t mps;
 
     spapr_machine_3_0_class_options(mc);
     SET_MACHINE_COMPAT(mc, SPAPR_COMPAT_2_12);
 
-    if (kvmppc_hpt_needs_host_contiguous_pages()) {
-        mps = ctz64(qemu_getrampagesize());
-    } else {
-        mps = 34; /* allow everything up to 16GiB, i.e. everything */
-    }
-    smc->default_caps.caps[SPAPR_CAP_HPT_MAXPAGESIZE] = mps;
+    /* We depend on kvm_enabled() to choose a default value for the
+     * hpt-max-page-size capability. Of course we can't do it here
+     * because this is too early and the HW accelerator isn't initialzed
+     * yet. Postpone this to machine init (see default_caps_with_cpu()).
+     */
+    smc->default_caps.caps[SPAPR_CAP_HPT_MAXPAGESIZE] = 0;
 }
 
 DEFINE_SPAPR_MACHINE(2_12, "2.12", false);
diff --git a/hw/ppc/spapr_caps.c b/hw/ppc/spapr_caps.c
index 62663ebdf5..aa605cea91 100644
--- a/hw/ppc/spapr_caps.c
+++ b/hw/ppc/spapr_caps.c
@@ -465,6 +465,19 @@ static sPAPRCapabilities default_caps_with_cpu(sPAPRMachineState *spapr,
         caps.caps[SPAPR_CAP_IBS] = SPAPR_CAP_BROKEN;
     }
 
+    /* This is for pseries-2.12 and older */
+    if (smc->default_caps.caps[SPAPR_CAP_HPT_MAXPAGESIZE] == 0) {
+        uint8_t mps;
+
+        if (kvmppc_hpt_needs_host_contiguous_pages()) {
+            mps = ctz64(qemu_getrampagesize());
+        } else {
+            mps = 34; /* allow everything up to 16GiB, i.e. everything */
+        }
+
+        caps.caps[SPAPR_CAP_HPT_MAXPAGESIZE] = mps;
+    }
+
     return caps;
 }