5,1 suddenly ignoring my graphics card?

[MaryQNK]

Hi there,

I hope someone can help me figure this out. For the past ten months, I've been using a flashed NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti in my Mac Pro 5,1 (Mid 2010). It's worked perfectly. I do a lot of 3D rendering and this card sped everything up and it was wonderful. Now I'm pretty sure there's nothing wrong with the card itself, but something has changed recently and my programs no longer seem to recognize the graphics card as something to use. Everything is apparently running on CPU, which pushes my CPU to the max when I try to render a 3D image or use Zbrush or make Photoshop do something complex. Everything I'm used to seeing the GPU help with is trying to work with CPU only and I can't see why.

I use iStat Menus to keep an eye on temperatures and load on my CPU and GPU and everything inside the box. It's showing my GPU, but has it listed as 'Inactive.' Although it does seem to be doing something, as it shows up in the iStat menu I can call up from my desktop's menu bar.

System Information shows the card, but only claims it is working as my Display Controller. This shouldn't be the case. Can anyone help me figure out why my card is suddenly being ignored by everything but the monitor I have plugged into it?

I did recently run a software update from the App store, but nothing else has been changed or updated. I'm not sure why that would cause a problem like this, so I don't know if that had anything to do with it.

Here are my specs:

Mac Pro 5,1 (Mid 2010) running macOS Sierra 10.12.6
Processor: 2 x 3.33 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 64 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Startup Disk 512GB SSD
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6144 MB
--
NVIDIA Web Driver: 378.05.05.25f01 (Up to date)
CUDA Driver Version: 387.99

Attached are screenshots of what System Information shows me and what iStat shows me.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[h9826790]

I couldn't see any problem. Your 980Ti is working.

The item that has no driver is the audio controller. That's normal in MacOS.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-hdmi-audio.1499797/

 

[MaryQNK]

Oh, wow, that was a fast reply. Hi, h9826790. Thanks for stopping by.

Really? (I like that answer, I admit. I'd much rather be misinterpreting things than have a big problem.) So the second listing in System Information that says NVDA,Parent has no drivers installed... what is it telling me about? Is that the audio?

It wasn't the card not working that's the problem, really, it's everything else not making use of the card. That's what's bewildering me. Is there some setting somewhere that might be blocking my programs from recognizing or using the GPU?

 

[ActionableMango]

Is there some setting somewhere that might be blocking my programs from recognizing or using the GPU?

ZBrush is CPU based, not GPU based.

Same for Photoshop with the exception of a few very specific features.

 

[h9826790]

Oh, wow, that was a fast reply. Hi, h9826790. Thanks for stopping by.

Really? (I like that answer, I admit. I'd much rather be misinterpreting things than have a big problem.) So the second listing in System Information that says NVDA,Parent has no drivers installed... what is it telling me about? Is that the audio?

It wasn't the card not working that's the problem, really, it's everything else not making use of the card. That's what's bewildering me. Is there some setting somewhere that might be blocking my programs from recognizing or using the GPU?

Correct, that's the audio part. If HDMIAudio is installed, you will see something like this.

My 1080Ti is installed in slot 2, therefore, there is another device recognised in slot 2, which is the Audio Controller with driver installed.

For me, your card is working properly. You just have false expectation on it.

P.S. Those inactive items in iStat setting is just the menu bar items that you choose not to display on the menu bar. Nothing to do with your GPU's actual function.

 

[MaryQNK]

Ah, okay, then I can stop being worried about Zbrush and assume that it's just Daz Studio Iray (my rendering program) that's not using the card as it should. Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding about that, ActionableMango. I'm not used to Zbrush yet and assumed it would be at least partially GPU based like my other 3D program.

Thanks for the explanation, h9826790. I'm glad most of my concern is just me reading things and not understanding them.

I shall have to direct my troubleshooting towards Daz Studio now. It's nice to have everything else eliminated as the problem, though, so I'm very glad I stopped by and asked. Now I won't worry about things that are actually working properly. If it's just my renderer having problems, that might be a simple fix. (And the only reason I know for sure that Iray isn't using the GPU is because the log file shows those records. Lots of warnings and errors along the lines of: "IRAY rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 980 Ti): Device initialization failed, will not be used" and notices that the scene is being rendered on CPU) But that'll be a Daz problem and not a system problem or a problem with the card itself. That's a huge relief. Off to the Daz forums I'll go, then.

Thank you both for setting me straight!