"Thanks to MacVidCards, there is a breakthrough in the support of NVIDIA GPUs in eGPU Boxes. They now work connected to the 2013 Mac Pro cylinder running macOS 10.13.4 -- without patching the OS."
http://barefeats.com/egpu_nmp_titan_vega.html That's right, the cards are nearly ready to ship. Part 2 is coming, more cards, more Macs, more "breakthrough" revelations. Stay tuned. eGPU is coming to nMP 6,1 as a mainstream item, now longer a hobbyist's weekend tinkering project. 10.12.6, 10.13-`10.13.4, and Win 10 all supported. Ready for VR. Anyone interested?
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We had planned to intro something a while back. If we had, we'd all be in a world of hurt right now. From 10.12.6 to 10.13 Apple changed some rules. Going into 10.13.4 they changed some more. Had we shipped cards for 10.12.6 they would have required one or two reflashings at this point. Nobody would have enjoyed that. Least of all the people reflashing all the cards.
Now that the concept of eGPU is blessed by Saint Tim, we are hopeful that the rug-pulling and other shenanigans are over. Where are we now? Glad you asked. We have some Nvidia products that amaze and delight. They "Just Work". You put one of our Titan-Xps in your TB2 or TB3 chassis and plug it in to your nMP 6,1. 10.12.6 boots right up on the external screen and you can start CUDA crunching. Or hit the "option" key and see your other boot choices. Getting that "High Sierra" urge? 10.13.4 will boot up pretty as you please. Feel like "taking a walk on the wild side"? Hold "option" again and choose Windows 10. Plug your Oculus Rift in and run terrified in the Arizona Sunshine. Or write the next hit VR title that changes the world. Outside of Apple and Nvidia labs, 3 people on the planet have done that. (Me, Netkas, and Barefeats) I demoed this at UCLA last year, time to let it out in the world. Did I mention that any of these three OSs require no hacks, cracks, old kexts, new kexts, DSDTs, Test Mode Signing, CSRUtil nonsense or regular DTs, etc? In fact no hocus pocus whatsoever? We link you to a page at Apple.com (you know these guys, yeah?) and you paste a single string from their site into the terminal. The magic card EFI does the rest. Feel like taking your Titan Xp to the new fastest Mac? Using a slightly different boot sequence you can boot 10.13.4 on an iMac Pro with the same ease. (Windows not tested yet on this machine) I was able to run 2 @ Titan Xps on a lowly 13" MBP (real function key model) and a staggering FOUR TITAN Xps on a 2016 MBP 15" with the RX460. You read it right, the 15" had all 4 (FOUR) (QUATRO) TB3 ports running the world's premier Mac eGPU. Blender scaled nicely, cutting the original Titan Xp render time into nearl;y 1/4. That 4 hour render can be finished while you have lunch. The 13" MBP booted smoothly into Win 10 as well, no Error 12, Error 43, or fiddle faddling needed. Just use the boot picker displayed on the external screen and choose the OS you want. Obviously Apple could toss a wrench into the works, but we're prepared to take a shot if you are. If you prefer leaping through flaming hoops of hacked and broken old kexts that may contain security holes, that is another option. We think the world will prefer a card that does the work, letting you work on projects (or play games) instead of playing games with half baked "scripts" that KP and do the black screen peek-a-boo. First run of 1080s, 1080Tis, and Titans will be sold with understanding that Apple MIGHT pull a fast one and break support. You'll be expected to restrain yourself from updating until any change is tested and cleared. If they do need a reflash we'll expect patience while we post a workaround until a new flash is ready. We'll charge a nominal shipping and handling fee to update the cards and everyone is back in business. eGPU cards will be a US branch only thing initially. Once we have a grasp on things, we will bring them out in our EU partners, should they choose to do so. The good news is you don't have to take our word for it. Some tests were already posted at a site mentioned here before. And I heard a rumor that some really interesting reports are coming in the VERY near future. Should get some interest going. If any other review sites want to give one a try, have your agent call our agent. The TB3 boot screens need a GUI clean up. Our lead programmer has been on safari but should be returning from the jungle to finish this soon. We need to test on more machines but nMP 6,1 and 2014 Mini are fully supported already. This time, we mean business. We will be changing eGPU from a hacker's hobby into something people use with ease and stability to get work done. (and games played) A 6,1 nMP with eGPU can run rings around a bog stock iMac Pro in many applications. Keep the $1,000s you save for a trip somewhere. Get ready. You sophisticated European types now have 2 ways to buy from an EU distributor. MacProUK has been around for awhile and now another gentleman in Poland who sells on Ebay using our name. They are legit and get their roms from us. I'll let them post links in the comments. They are welcome and encouraged to link to our drivers page. (Drivers are property of Nvidia)
If you buy from someone else who sells unlicensed copies or links to us without an agreement please help us publicly shame them. (If our EU guys send you a bad card let us know, they have agreed to uphold our high standards.) We go to a great deal of trouble to make roms for all varieties of Nvidia card supported in the drivers. I just looked on my spreadsheet, nearly 30 different GTX970/980 cards alone. The schmucks get ahold of one rom and flash it to 10 or 15 different cards. Some work, some crash. An easy way to know a poorly flashed card is a Maxwell or Pascal Dual Fan card that runs both fans all the time. This is the result of a single fan rom on a dual fan card. It will never run right. If you want a solid card that boots and runs, we are the one and only source. If you enjoy supporting the various EU revenue folks, but it from us and pay VAT and Customs and shipping. Or get it from them and hopefully keep some of that for yourself. Nvidia should have a driver out shortly. (within 24 hours)
We are otherwise engaged and won't be able to update the driver page right away but it will get done soon after Nvidia posts it. If you have clicked the "Update" button before having a cup of coffee and are now watching black lines run slowly up the screen as the EFI-only driver runs your very pricey Titan Xp, you have no one to blame but...Apple. OSX has contained drivers for GTX780 and the first Titan for years. Many years. Many, many years. Apple decided that was enough progress for them and stopped including newer Nvidia cards 2 generations ago. So we play their little "the future has not come...to Cupertino" game with each OS point and Security Update. For the desperate, the usual tricks should work. Digging thorough old blog posts shows the hex edit way. But there is a script put forward by a gent named Benjamin Dobell which should work well for this. It allows you to mix and match OS and driver with relative ease. You can also make a mess of your OS if you get a little loose with the terminal. So don't. First one to link to the Github page in the comments gets a gold star! (stop laughing, a gold star is redeemable for 5% off next MVC card !) |
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