The 4,1/5,1 Mac Pro just won again. They will be the only Pre-2012 Macs to run Mojave with no hacks, cracks, or scripts. The only asterisked footnote was "with Metal Capable GPU".
Wonder where you could get one of those? Well of course our GTX1080Ti will do, but not everyone needs that much horsepower. And then I remembered, we have low cost GT640 cards that are direct and perfect replacement for GT120. No power cables needed. Some even have same ports as a GT120. For someone running a GT120 and a 24" or 27" Apple Display via MDP, as simple as ordering a DP GT640 and a $10 DP to MDP adapter. BINGO...up and running Mojave while all of the other 2009-2011 era Macs look sadly on with their ancient, non-ferrous GPUs soldered firmly to their logic boards. We even have a GT630 with Dual DP ports, can run two of those Apple displays or even a Dell UP2715K . Any of these cards can drive a 4K display via DP port, though they won't show a boot screen higher than 2560x1440. For those who want or need a 4K boot screen, we offer a GTX750Ti. These come in "power cable needed" and "no power cable needed" versions. Of course, all of our Nvidia cards further up the line are also Metal capable. Another great year for 4,1/5,1. Now let's hope those guys working on the hack to let them run the 4.4 Ghz Xeon solve it... We may run a discount coupon, I just need to figure out a good riddle.
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As expected, all of our cards work the same in 10.13.5 as they did in 10.13.4. Even the "it Just Works" eGPU cards.
Multi-eGPU tests may appear in near future. Pre-orders for eGPU cards start in next few days. Will only have a few for sale initially. Regular customers can email for a shot at the first ones. We're going to do the Creme de la Creme of 1080Tis to start. EVGA SCX cards, pix soon. Quick reminder, 10.13.5 has dropped, along with Security Updates for 10.11 and 10.12.
If you are using an Nvidia card that requires their Web Drivers please wait a day or two to run any of these updates. Nvidia typically has drivers out within 24 hours, though not sure how this being nearly the weekend will impact that. If you have already run the update, you will be seeing some odd screen redraws, etc if you have a card with our EFI. If you don't have our EFI you aren't reading this on the affected Mac because it can only display black screens ! If you are desperate there are ways to hack the old drivers to work. I have mentioned them in past blog posts. In any case, let's look forward to the new drivers by Monday. UPDATE: Drivers for 10.13.5 out, still waiting for the Security Update drivers for 10.11.6 and 10.12.6. Barefeats has posted part 3 of his test with our new "Just Works" eGPU cards.
He found the iMac Pro to be a little more trouble than the TB3 MacBooks. We will need to get our hands on one to sort it out. But I can report that a 2011 iMac 27" with AMD 6970 works like a dream with the same eGPU cards. Both internal and external displays work and you can easily move objects from one to other with no jitter or lag. I was also able to connect a 5K and a 2nd 1080 to the iMac. Odd that this AMD dGPU gives no problems but newer ones do. Had iMac on left, 5K in middle and 24" Apple LED on right. I could have handled air traffic control at LAX with all the screen real estate. Here is the thing with doing these cards. Each and every Mac variant acts slightly differently with eGPU. We don't have (and won't) one of every Mac. SO we will start selling the cards targeted for the machines we know they work well for. So first batch will be shipping 2nd week of June if all goes as planned. They will be for nMP 6,1, TB3 MBP 13" with no Touch Bar, 2011 iMac with 6970, and 2014 Mini. They will be tested in 10.13.4 and possibly 10.13.5 Beta. We will do a limited run of 10 or 20 to sort the customer service issues as they will likely require more of that then the cMP cards. The cards most likely work well on other Macs, and we look forward to reports from owners who try on other Macs. But we can't promise what we haven't tested. We will discourage owners from running any of the hacks, cracks, and scripts from the interwebs with our cards. Not needed and more likely than not will cause issues. And realize that an OS update or driver update may BREAK the cards support. So don't run any without checking here first. And once we have a fix, please be patient about us getting it out to you. It is a daunting prospect to sell these cards, we need everyone to help us make it possible. This includes not leaking our work on those same interwebs. Also, if I can figure out how, we will add a eGPU forum for our customers as their needs won't be addressed at other Forums where folks don't have EFI magic making eGPU effortless. Here is latest test from Barefeats: https://barefeats.com/egpu_titan_xp_imac_pro.html As I am booting Macs a couple hundred times a day I started to get sick of seeing the CUDA Pref pane always pop up on desktop.
Whether I need an update or not, I don't need the clutter. I found this nifty terminal line that makes it stops bothering me. rm -f /Library/LaunchAgents/com.nvidia.CUDASoftwareUpdate.plist And next boot you'll only see it when you invite it to your desktop. Thanks to rgov at Nvidia forums. ,Barefeats.com continues to trumpet our success with these cards. Please read the tests and consider clicking on the various links to his vendors. Many have been with us since PowerPC days and deserve support.
So, here is where we are. We have cards 99% ready for nMP 6,1 and Mac Mini 2014, and MBP 2016 TB3 with no touchbar. These machines all work perfectly with our current eGPU cards via EFI. It is likely that other machines with no dGPU will work well. Buying up one of every Mac TB system will take us time & $$$ to support. If you want true and useful eGPU support, help us bring this to the world. You put our eGPU EFI card in a suitable chassis and connect via TB. You boot and hold "Option" key and see what OS's are available. Choose and boot. While nobody else on the planet has gotten a 6,1 nMP to boot Windows 10 via eGPU, our cards do it with the greatest of ease. It is an awesome VR development platform. Proven at Barefeats.com. So, for 10.13.4 on the above systems, you are able to boot an eGPU without the myriad hacks, cracks, scripts, and mods needed via the "enthusiast community". You just plug the card in and boot. EFI on card works the Win 10 or OSX boot. Displays work and you get to work creating content, not experimenting with code kiddie scripts. On iMac Pro we understand that external display works but internal will require further development in OSX. (Windows already perfect) If anyone in LA/Hollywood area wishes to help, loan us your iMac Pro and we will continue development on this. We can do demos of eGPU with nMP 6,1 and working VR in Windows. Did a demo at UCLA last year with perfect results. The nMP 6,1 will be an awesome VR development platform, now. For the mentioned systems we will have cards for sale by June 15. Pre-sales by June 1. We will likely offer GTX1080Ti first as eGPU. 1080s may be next followed by others. Please respect our unique work and long hours of development. We have had bad experiences before when our work went into the public realm due to disingenuous folks in the community. We need your support to make this work make sense for us. Prior bad acts delayed advancements for the whole community. (nMP 6,1 Windows support delayed by a year+ due to this) Support our work so we can continue to be the leaders in this field. If we are undermined again, we will stop work on this and community as a whole will come to a grinding halt. So it appears that many iMacs with MXM cards are experiencing issues with dying cards.
We are going to jump in and do something about this. To begin we will offer direct replacement AMD cards. But as soon as our nifty new (OK, old) 27" iMac with 6970 gets here we will be working on Kepler cards from Nvidia. These run cooler and offer better performance. We will be curious what the ,market will bear. With help from our brilliant staff programmer (Netkas) we could offer Maxwell/Pascal MXM cards. Question is, will anyone pay for these? Value of a 27" iMac of this era is below what any of these cards cost as PC cards so we will have to see. Our European distributors will be authorized to sell these cards too. (One in UK, one in Poland) Please let us know if this is a product you want. "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? 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. |
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