anyone try the 11.3 developer beta just released?
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MP All Models AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT / 6900 XT for macOS?
- Thread starter Xenobius
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Lets hope something new is there... also AMD drivers for Apple Silicon would be great so we can use eGPU on new Macs while we wait for M1X which probably will render eGPU useless in most scenarios.
Not even at MacRumors, and I wouldn't like to mention this Apple-ish related website. I think you can find it on Google.
I wanted to report back on this as I think I achieved nirvana- at least for the moment until the RX 6XXXX drivers are supported on Mac OS.
I tried MANY different things to get a solid bootcamp system that supported the Radeon RX 6900 XT. The system got wedged or I was in Windows Hell for extended periods of time. Here is the data on the Mig:
-Absolutely use Bootcampdrivers.com . I succeeded with the 64bit January 2021 "Blue edition" drivers. I am guessing Red works even better, but I'm going to catch my breath before I go further.
-I never succeed with Windows 10 202H completely. Instead, I succeed by starting with Windows 10 1803 image
-Get all the drivers working with bootcampdrivers.com on the OLDER version of windows 10. Follow directions on BootcampDrivers.com EXACTLY. Wipe first using DDU as he says (this will ditch the current AMD bootcamp drivers). Install his package which is derived from the January 21 AMD software release. I have the 580x also installed from the factory.
-For windows to support the 6900 correctly, I SEEM to need to boot with the HDMI cable inserted into that card. Once I have, I can switch the cable back and forth between that card and the 580x. By all means if you have TWO monitors use both, but if you do I'd just as soon plug both into the RX 6900X LOL.
-THEN Upgrade Windows. I am now at 1909. It was difficult to get there because Windows told me it would update to 1909, but it jumped to 202H instead (frustrating). IMHO 1909 works. 202H is NOT good with the AMD drivers yet, at least I was experiencing "driver hangs" and other nasty stuff. I had no such issues on Win 1803 or 1909.
So how to do that? WATCH WINDOWS UPDATE CAREFULLY. When I saw it starting to download 202H feature upgrade, I literally pulled the plug on the mac to keep it from being able to resume that when I shut down.
I then used a tip to "perform an upgrade from a Windows ISO file". https://www.thewindowsclub.com/clean-install-or-upgrade-to-windows-10-using-windows-10-iso . There are instructions there on upgrading. From the live windows installation, you can go into iso file (now that windows actually supports mounting some kind of disk image), then click setup.exe. Now everything you do to install will be an "Upgrade" from the persepctive of "1909" if that's the image you used.
Next problem: How do you get a windows 180x or 190x ISO? Use RUFUS: https://rufus.ie/ . It was REALLY tricky to do that too, since I had to put a USB stick in to get it to display the "DOWNLOAD" button. Once I did and clicked download, I got the series of questions about which OS (windows 10) , 64 bit, and of course the actual specific windows build. More instructions here: https://pureinfotech.com/download-windows-10-1909-iso-after-2004-releases/
I would grab those ISOs while you still have a supported way to do it.
Can't wait for the mac OS support; in the mean time, you're going to have a mean bootcamp machine with the AMD in there. It just takes patience.
Useful tools:
-BigSur. Actually, the Catalina bootcamp assistant didn't work so well for me. The BigSur one did. I actually got that advice from apple. So I created a new volume with big sur (heck no I didn't ditch Catalina) and used it's bootcamp assistant.
-Winclone. I have been using winclone extensively to back up working or semi-working bootcamp partitions to an image while booted back in catalina. This provides a very good safety net for experimentation. I've had to do restores 10 or more times.
-Fusion: If you need to be in mac OS and working on something else in windows boot camp, fusion is great for allowing that and the latest version supports directx11 with its virtual drivers. Caveat: DONT use fusion to install the AMD drivers or do any operations related to AMD drivers with the exception of UNINSTALL using DDU or AMD's uninstall utility (which is inside their software install; it is also in bootcamp). The new Fusion is Free for some use cases. I paid so I am not 100% sure it will support boot camp. It's worth the money though.
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Wasn't able to go above 1809 (everything higher is 'Code 12'/Yellowbang in Device Manager). And for my machine which TB port you plug into is important. Use Group Policy Editor and set Windows Update policy to "2" and then ignore it.
MBPr early-2015 w/ TB2 (top port closest to Mag Safe)
Razer Chroma Core X
AMD 6900XT
Stock Radeon Drivers 2020.12.2 and 2020.2.1
Win 10 1809
Didn't want to fork over the money for WinClone, so I use PartImage on a Linux Live CD (KDE Neon) to backup to a NAS/SMB and restore from it (On restore be sure to delete all the extra partitions Windows Upgrade makes so you have enough space).
Don't love using Windows, but unfortunately the drivers didn't work on Ubuntu and I only have so much time to waste.
Just to check, are you saying we could use fusion to boot into a UEFI win 10 install in macos? That's great if it works, as I've got fusion player installed on my MBP for my bootcsmp there but didn't realise it would work with the Mac Pro UEFI install.
Yes- the bootcamp trick has been up VMware's sleeve for a while. VMware workstation and fusion have always had the ability to operate directly on a drive partition instead of a vmdk "file" (virtual machine disk). I now have 3 macs doing this.
By the way a bit more information on windows. I have gotten pro versions based on some advice here and elsewhere. However, every time I upgrade my win 10 1909 image to pro, the AMD card starts getting those nasty timeouts and often I get kernel panics. So stick with Win 10 home unless you have something better. I may try upgrading first, and then doing the bootcampdrivers.com install at some point when I'm bored. Waste of an expensive windows license so far.
By the way a bit more information on windows. I have gotten pro versions based on some advice here and elsewhere. However, every time I upgrade my win 10 1909 image to pro, the AMD card starts getting those nasty timeouts and often I get kernel panics. So stick with Win 10 home unless you have something better. I may try upgrading first, and then doing the bootcampdrivers.com install at some point when I'm bored. Waste of an expensive windows license so far.
Adding to the above comment, VMWare has supported UEFI boot for a while. Not only can it boot off UEFI OS installs from physical drives, but also from virtual drives.
It’s just a toggle in the settings to enable VMWare’s UEFI implementation. It’s actually required to boot EFI only systems like macOS in VMWare.
Thanks for the info. I'll have to play around with this, after i make a clone of my win 10 system. Fusion player with my MBP was pretty good for getting Win 10 updates done while I'm in MacOS, except the fan was on full blast.
I'm running 10 Pro and for the most part is been stable once i log into it. I've had seemingly random BSOD (tracked it down to probably an issue with my USB 3 hub) and some weird behaviour on boot sometimes.
Thanks! Will try it out.
For what it's worth I ran 10 Pro 1909 and had some issues with the 20h2 update so i rolled it back to 1909, then updated again to 20h2 and it's been stable. Only driver i used from bootcamp was the Bluetooth driver for the original card lol. Even the Adrenaline drivers were from AMD.
11.3 beta 2 is out https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/17/apple-seeds-macos-big-sur-11-3-beta-2/
Hopefully 6800/6900 would be supported, soon.
Crypto-mining craze has inflated the price of 580/5700XT til the point where it doesn't make sense... 😖 Saying that, anyone has a spare 5700XT for sale and hopefully not with a high price tag?
Crypto-mining craze has inflated the price of 580/5700XT til the point where it doesn't make sense... 😖 Saying that, anyone has a spare 5700XT for sale and hopefully not with a high price tag?
This is insulting to everyone in this thread, other pro mac user and embarrassing for Apple now. These GPUs were released 3 months ago. Apple and AMD would have had time to put drivers into Mac OS long before that as well. How does a 2 trillion dollar company fail so hard at this?
Pathetic.
Pathetic.
As annoying as it might be for anyone looking to beef up performance via generic PC components, I feel you rant misses the mark a bit. As pure 'venting' it's fine enough, but Apple only coordinates releases of hardware/software with their own products.
Once they drop a new module for Mac Pros, generic cards will very likely work as a side effect.
Apple designs and develops for their Macs (but this can also include partners in some cases) and then compatibility spreads out from that. It's not the other way around where AMD would release a card and Apple scrambles to support it.
Saying it's embarrassing or a "scandal" implies that Apple has tried to develop drivers for these cards but failed. I am 100% sure that the drivers will be ready when the next modules launch.
No.
These same GPUs have been functioning for 3 months for people on Windows. There's NO EXCUSE.
You don’t get drivers for GPU until Apple ships a product with that architecture. This isn’t news. They have to test the GPU with their own system first and they can’t provide tech support for people having bugs with a new GPU until they themselves are shipping the same.
No, that's just giving Apple a pass on holding 3rd party devices hostage, just like they do with Nvidia drivers. This doesn't exist with Windows users. Apple should not get to decide what we connect to our computers. Period.
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I don't follow. Has AMD stated that they've been blocked from supporting the card by Apple? There's no DRM going on. You can boot the card fine in other OSs using the same hardware. It's just that Apple hasn't bothered to write device drivers for a product they don't even sell.
support.apple.com
Apple sells only a very limited number of discrete graphics cards for the 7,1. That's part of the deal when you buy the thing: it's Apple or bust but you should expect tier-1 support for the few drivers they do release. Anything you buy aftermarket isn't their problem.
Whether this is a good deal or not for the end user is a different matter. But Apple isn't doing anything shady or unexpected here.
Use an external graphics processor with your Mac - Apple Support (CA)
Learn how to access additional graphics performance by connecting to an external graphics processor.
Apple sells only a very limited number of discrete graphics cards for the 7,1. That's part of the deal when you buy the thing: it's Apple or bust but you should expect tier-1 support for the few drivers they do release. Anything you buy aftermarket isn't their problem.
Whether this is a good deal or not for the end user is a different matter. But Apple isn't doing anything shady or unexpected here.