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slrm94

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 24, 2016
20
0
Sheffield, UK
Hi All,

BACKSTORY:
I have a classic problem which I have been reading about on here for hours but cannot work out if I have found the easiest solution or not?

I have a MacPro 5.1 with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders addition that I want to take past 10.13.6 (Spec below).

The main use of this machine is for Logic X which I cannot upgrade without upgrading the O.S. however I bought this machine with the GTX 1080 as I make logo's and some music videos with the Adobe suite and therefor need some CUDA acceleration meaning I cannot upgrade the O.S 😖

QUESTION:
While reading about the upgrade process and looking at possible cards I noted the Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Black 6GB appears to have both CUDA, needs no additional power and can go up to Big Sur with no messing about? Is that right, I buy it, plug it in and run a few O.S. updates and boom CUDA and Big Sur?

I know the 1080 kicks the crap out of the Titan stats wise (would it be that bad a job in After Effects or would this mostly be higher render times?). If this gets me Big Sur and hours of my life back upgrading, flashing and reading guides I will take it, might even be writing tunes again this side of 2023.

Please feel free to call me an idiot, point out better cards or berate me for not reading more before posting this as I deserve abuse for the measly few hours I have put into reading about this with all the amazing articles you have made. I also did try and search but not as hard as I should, I just cant help wonder if it is this easy why are there not a tonne of articles titled "just get this card and you're done" articles so I must be missing something?


Hardware Overview:
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro5,1
Processor Name: 6-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 3.46 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Total Number of Cores: 12
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per Processor): 12 MB
Memory: 64 GB
Boot ROM Version: MP51.0089.B00
SMC Version (system): 1.39f11
SMC Version (processor tray): 1.39f11
Serial Number (processor tray): J520904Y3BH8C


NVIDIA GeForce GT 120:
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GT 120
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-4
PCIe Lane Width: x4
VRAM (Dynamic, Max): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0640
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3386

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080:
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-1
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Dynamic, Max): 8191 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x1b80
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: VBIOS 86.04.17.00.01
Metal: Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily1 v3
 
AFAIK, CUDA only is supported with NVIDIA own drivers and there is no workaround with that, so, 10.13.6 is the last macOS release that can work with NVIDIA CUDA 10.2.

BTW, you really need to upgrade your EFI firmware to 144.0.0.0.0.

 
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Before you ask, Apple native NVIDIA drivers for Kepler GPUs, that exist up to macOS Big Sur, DO NOT SUPPORT CUDA, at all.
 
Before you ask, Apple native NVIDIA drivers for Kepler GPUs, that exist up to macOS Big Sur, DO NOT SUPPORT CUDA, at all.
Thanks thats already saved me a fortune buying this:

I saw a lot of these cards that said there is a CUDA diver that would work but I have like 44 tabs open right now and I've seen a lot of your posts and can tell you know a tonne more than me:

I'm so lost right now, has anyone got this card and is using CUDA or has a issue similar to mine and has CS6 and Logic Pro working together on a 5.1?
 
Thanks thats already saved me a fortune buying this:

I saw a lot of these cards that said there is a CUDA diver that would work but I have like 44 tabs open right now and I've seen a lot of your posts and can tell you know a tonne more than me:

I'm so lost right now, has anyone got this card and is using CUDA or has a issue similar to mine and has CS6 and Logic Pro working together on a 5.1?
No need to waste time on this matter, I have a 1080Ti back in High Sierra, and that card still only works up to High Sierra nowadays. No way to use CUDA beyond High Sierra. Not for ANY Nvidia card, Kepler makes no difference.
 
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I'm so lost right now, has anyone got this card and is using CUDA or has a issue similar to mine and has CS6 and Logic Pro working together on a 5.1?
Seems you are missing the fact that CUDA is an API, not a hardware resource, and there is no CUDA API support past 10.13.6 - this is a hard line and impossible to workaround it. Mojave/Catalina/Big Sur doesn't have a way to work with CUDA.

Don't waste more of your time with this, if it was possible, there were lot's of how-to's everywhere.
 
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Thanks everyone, looks like you've solved the Soundcard or Keyboard for Christmas debate :)

Hope you all have a great new year
 
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