So wait, I have a question and can't seem to find the answer, I was told I can't use the stock GPU in a Mac Pro 1 1 to have El Capitan working. I have a Mac Pro I got from a friend and it has a Geforce 8400 GS installed in it, I don't believe this is stock, but if it is just let me know, will this card work or is there a requirement that El Capitan has?
It’s not whether the card is “stock” or not, it is to do with the sales age of the card. If it is too old, then MacOS does not have the kext (driver). You might be able to look through the Nvidia web site to see if they have support for your card under El Capitan.
You need to do some research. The Netkas forums have a wealth of information about graphics cards under MacOS, especially for “unsupported” configurations.
http://forum.netkas.org/
When you were told you could use “stock” cards, the intention was to say that you can use a card that is specifically retailed to the generic PC market. You don’t need a card specifically marketed for the Mac platform.
The difference is the ability to see the initial boot sequence screen display over the digital interfaces (DVI, Display Port, etc...). Those cards that are “Mac versions” have additional EFI code in the card’s firmware for the EFI boot environment to initialise the card and use it to show the pre-boot information on the screen. Those cards that are “generic PC versions” do not have the additional EFI code, so generally the Mac can’t initialise the card during pre-boot, it will be able to initialise and use the card once MacOS takes over. It means you just need to be patient and wait for the Mac to boot almost fully before the screen comes to life.
The age of the card is still important. MacOS El Capitan officially supports MacPro 3,1 and those other Mac platforms from those sales years onwards. Apple uses a small set of graphics cards, if the chipset family is supported by one of the supported Mac machines, then MacOS will generally have a kext (driver) for those cards that use that chipset family.
Nvidia are unique amongst most vendors because they also ship their own kexts (driver) sets specifically for MacOS.
Your 8400GS will “still work”.
HOWEVER....
It’s almost a certainty that it’s too old and there are no drivers for it under El Capitan.
This means that it will most likely use the software renderer. This is fine for general activity, but there will be no hardware accelerated features. El Capitan makes extensive use of gfx card acceleration, so the perceived performance will probably feel slow. You will probably experience screen “tearing” when you do things like drag a window around, etc....
Get hold of a newer card, you won’t regret it.
Personally I use an ATI Radeon 5770 mostly, and sometimes I swap out to a GeForce 680 (GTX I think) that my son handed down to me...
Q)
