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AMD Radeon RX Vega Plug-and-Play in 10.13

I wouldn't trust the High Sierra Vega drivers until after the iMac Pro releases, 'cause then they'll have had to make sure it actually works properly in most use cases.
 
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Well Apple is using these drivers on pre-release iMac Pros and besides a few glitches like WebGL in Chrome, the Vega is currently working better than Pascal does with the Nvidia Web Driver in my experience. I think it's ready for prime time and I see no reason to discontinue using it.
 
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MisterAndrew said:
Vega drivers are already getting better. With DX12 the Vega 64 and even the 56 outperform the GTX 1080Ti in Forza 7. At high resolution the 1080Ti manages to pull ahead in FPS, but it doesn’t deliver frames as smoothly. Vega are now the fastest GPUs!

http://wccftech.com/amd-rx-vega-64-outperforms-nvidia-gtx-1080-ti-23-dx12-forza-7/
Click to expand...

I think Forza 7 is a very special case because it's a very Xbox One X focus game. MS try very hard to optimise it for XB1X to make sure the public can see that particular console's potential performance. Therefore, it's highly AMD optimised. If every game is like that, than AMD GPU definitely the best gaming GPU. However, in general, it's not.

But I am happy to see that as long as the game manufacture do it right, how good the AMD card can perform (not meaning compare to a bottlenecked Nvidia GPU, that's meaningless, but how good the actual graphic is)
 
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Agreed!

One game ain't enough. Once it starts taking over in synthetic benchmarks, AND just about every other title, then I'll believe it "overtakes" a 1080Ti. Right now, it get's spanked by everything else. It's a GTX 1080 competitor at best. Overtaking the 1080Ti will take many more optimizations with a barrel full of luck.

That article is sensationalism at best. One data point now needs to turn into 20 data points for that to actually happen.
 
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MisterAndrew said:
Well Apple is using these drivers on pre-release iMac Pros and besides a few glitches like WebGL in Chrome, the Vega is currently working better than Pascal does with the Nvidia Web Driver in my experience. I think it's ready for prime time and I see no reason to discontinue using it.
Click to expand...

At this point I wouldn't put too much faith in the performance of the drivers.

The pre-release iMacs will have pre-release drivers with pre-release performance.

They're probably fine to use for day to day but I don't think they're likely ready for stuff like benchmarking.

I mean, we know even the Windows ones aren't for a lot of things, so unless the Mac drivers are way beyond the Windows ones in development...
 
Not everyone wants to be an early adopter, but I'm satisfied with the performance of the drivers at this point. Much better than Nvidia web drivers.
 
Yes, but you can get a better price than that store. Here’s a Sapphire 64 for $619 at Newegg. Newegg hasn’t updated their site to reflect the end of the Radeon Pack promotions which ended on Sept. 30th so you don’t get the games with it. What’s weird about that is that you can’t even purchase a 56 from them right now because they attached the games as part of a required combo that no longer exists.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16814202300

Update: It looks like they fixed the combo glitch for the 56, but they haven't lowered the price.
 
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System Information doesn't list the Metal feature set for my Vega 56 card so I ran code for a metaltest.swift I made for High Sierra in the Xcode playground. It supports Metal 2 (macOS_GPUFamily1_v3).

Here's the code:

import Metal

var supportedDevices: [MTLDevice] = MTLCopyAllDevices()

if (supportedDevices.count > 0)

{

for device in supportedDevices {

let isSupported_v1 = device.supportsFeatureSet(MTLFeatureSet.macOS_GPUFamily1_v1)

let isSupported_v2 = device.supportsFeatureSet(MTLFeatureSet.macOS_GPUFamily1_v2)

let isSupported_v3 = device.supportsFeatureSet(MTLFeatureSet.macOS_GPUFamily1_v3)

print("\(device.name), supported (v1): \(isSupported_v1), supported (v2): \(isSupported_v2), supported (v3): \(isSupported_v3)")

}

}

else

{

print("No supported devices found")

}

Metal 2 supported.jpeg
 
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MisterAndrew said:
System Information doesn't list the Metal feature set for my Vega 56 card so I ran code for a metaltest.swift I made for High Sierra in the Xcode playground. It supports Metal 2 (macOS_GPUFamily1_v3).

Here's the code:

import Metal

var supportedDevices: [MTLDevice] = MTLCopyAllDevices()

if (supportedDevices.count > 0)

{

for device in supportedDevices {

let isSupported_v1 = device.supportsFeatureSet(MTLFeatureSet.macOS_GPUFamily1_v1)

let isSupported_v2 = device.supportsFeatureSet(MTLFeatureSet.macOS_GPUFamily1_v2)

let isSupported_v3 = device.supportsFeatureSet(MTLFeatureSet.macOS_GPUFamily1_v3)

print("\(device.name), supported (v1): \(isSupported_v1), supported (v2): \(isSupported_v2), supported (v3): \(isSupported_v3)")

}

}

else

{

print("No supported devices found")

}

View attachment 723070
Click to expand...

I was wondering about the same thing for the GTX 1070.

Good news! It, too, apparently supports macOS_GPUFamily1_v3 according to the metal test code you shared with us.

Screen Shot 2017-10-03 at 12.33.14 AM.png
 
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MisterAndrew said:
Vega drivers are already getting better. With DX12 the Vega 64 and even the 56 outperform the GTX 1080Ti in Forza 7. At high resolution the 1080Ti manages to pull ahead in FPS, but it doesn’t deliver frames as smoothly. Vega are now the fastest GPUs!

http://wccftech.com/amd-rx-vega-64-outperforms-nvidia-gtx-1080-ti-23-dx12-forza-7/
Click to expand...


"A First Look at Futuremark’s New 3DMark Time Spy Extreme: DX12 Benchmark Now in 4K"
Anandtech published test:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1189...remarks-time-spy-extreme-dx12-benchmark-in-4k

Could you point a test where VEGA is better?
 
MisterAndrew said:
Vega drivers are already getting better. With DX12 the Vega 64 and even the 56 outperform the GTX 1080Ti in Forza 7. At high resolution the 1080Ti manages to pull ahead in FPS, but it doesn’t deliver frames as smoothly. Vega are now the fastest GPUs!

http://wccftech.com/amd-rx-vega-64-outperforms-nvidia-gtx-1080-ti-23-dx12-forza-7/
Click to expand...

Nvidia drivers are now optimised for Forza. In the PC world new optimisations come several times a month, unlike macOS which stays with the same almost basic (no advanced features enabled) drivers for a long time.
 
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I posted a new thread about this. It probably belongs here. Are all Vega 56 variants pretty much the same? I can get a pretty good deal on a PowerColor card on EBay with EBay Bucks, etc. Is there any reason not to get this card vs an MSI or Sapphire?
 
nbwallace said:
I posted a new thread about this. It probably belongs here. Are all Vega 56 variants pretty much the same? I can get a pretty good deal on a PowerColor card on EBay with EBay Bucks, etc. Is there any reason not to get this card vs an MSI or Sapphire?
Click to expand...

They're all the same with respect to the hardware since they're reference cards made by AMD. The warranty service would be the the only major thing to consider. PowerColor offers a 1 year warranty on reference cards, 2 years from Sapphire & XFX, 3 years from MSI & Gigabyte. I've read PowerColor has poor customer service and often rejects warranty claims. I've read Sapphire and Gigabyte are pretty good to deal with. Some warranties may be transferable to a second owner (serial based) so you'll have to check with them. Also PowerColor, MSI, & Gigabyte put their own sticker over the fan, so you'll have to decide if that matters to you. I doubt a PowerColor warranty is transferable so you may not want to buy one used. It's $449.99 after a $20 rebate for a Gigabyte version from Newegg right now.
 
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Might be a silly question, but I'll try anyway. I'm on 10.12.6, would it be possible to use the Vega drivers from HS so that it works in Sierra?
I'm not updating in the near future, but I'm considering the AMD cards available to us.
 
pierrox said:
Might be a silly question, but I'll try anyway. I'm on 10.12.6, would it be possible to use the Vega drivers from HS so that it works in Sierra?
I'm not updating in the near future, but I'm considering the AMD cards available to us.
Click to expand...

No, if that works, may be quite a few of us will use 10.6.8 with new drivers.
 
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pierrox said:
Might be a silly question, but I'll try anyway. I'm on 10.12.6, would it be possible to use the Vega drivers from HS so that it works in Sierra?
I'm not updating in the near future, but I'm considering the AMD cards available to us.
Click to expand...

Given how tightly coupled the vendor graphics drivers are to the various Apple components (frameworks, kexts etc) this will basically never work. You might be lucky and find that the drivers from 10.13 work with 10.13.1 for example, as it's less likely that Apple has changed the binary interfaces that the vendor drivers depend on between minor revisions like that. It's almost guaranteed that these interfaces have changes across major OS revisions like 10.12 to 10.13.
 
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Hi everybody.
I've a problem with AMD VEGA 56.

I have this configuration:

1) Macbook Pro 15 (late 2016) with High Sierra 10.13
2) Mantiz-02 connected via thunderbolt 3 port
3) AMD Radeon VEGA RX 56 (by Sapphire)
4) LG 38" widescreen 4k monitor connected with one of the 3 display port of the VEGA.
5) My SIP was enable;
For now I have NO SSD hard drive connected (I order a Samsung EVO 500GB to put inside the Mantiz for connect it direclty with VEGA)

My system read correctly MANTIZ and VEGA card.
But I have this problems:

1) With VEGA connected my monitor freeze very often (can move the mouse)
2) If I try to use Editing Application like DAVINCI RESOLVE, ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS, macOs goes in crash;
3) Also with the GAME (like Tomb Raider) it's impossibile to open then;
4) Also with YOUTUBE I have problems...

Somebody can explain me if I made something wrong?
Maybe I need to change the VEGA?

Thank you.
 
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