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Fastest Mac GPUs with full EFI boot screens, etc, GTX570 & GTX580

GTX 680 support in CS6.02

Just saw this on the Adobe forums.

added GPUs to the list of those that Premiere Pro CS6 will use for GPU processing: GT 650M (which is in the newer MacBook Pro computers) and GTX 680

Is this something MacVidCards can work with?
 
Hi MacVidCards,

I have run into a problem with my Mac Pro 3,1 2.8Ghz Octo 16Gb, (10.6 I'm pretty sure); and after a fair bit of research have placed blame on the 8800GT. I tried to do the "Oven Bake" trick but it did not resolved the issue.

I started looking into a new Video Card and that's when I found you, so I thought I'd get in contact.

To preface my questioning, the MacPro does not boot correctly so I cannot access the computer. I can however access the HDD's via "Target Disk Mode" with no problem.

I am a photographer and am quite heavily reliant on Photoshop and similar video intensive programs. Vary rarely, a game of x-plane... Also, I would prefer to spending my money on photographic equipment, not computer equipment :eek:

So, can you please recommend the top 3 alternatives for my Mac. And as stated above, one that will work with simply plugging it in, as I cannot access the computer to modify drivers etc.

Thanks a lot.
 
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flynnyfalcon said:
I have run into a problem with my Mac Pro 3,1 2.8Ghz Octo 16Gb, (10.6 I'm pretty sure)

[...]
So, can you please recommend the top 3 alternatives for my Mac. And as stated above, one that will work with simply plugging it in, as I cannot access the computer to modify drivers etc.
Click to expand...

--
2) What about SnowLeopard?

SnowLeopard will never, ever work with PC cards. Period. If you've been holding off updating, perhaps the fact that Mountain Lion works with PC cards will be enough to convince you to update.

No matter what, updating to the latest OS is the only way to get driver updates, and if you care about GPU performance then this alone should be enough motivation to stay current. Apple only supports the latest major OS version.
--

From https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1440150/

EDIT: Perhaps a flashed card from MacVidCards might do the trick..
 
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MacVidCards said:
Cindori is merely web hosting Netkas' work.

So if he did it right and you install it right, it should enable OpenCl on cards with more than 2 GB.

You need to install it into the right place, not just the Extensions folder.
Click to expand...

I did it exacltey as the instructions told me too. System's wrecked again. I guess I'll just live without OpenCl...
 
El Awesome said:
I did it exacltey as the instructions told me too. System's wrecked again. I guess I'll just live without OpenCl...
Click to expand...

the copy path should be

/System/Library/Extensions/GeForceGLDriver.bundle/Contents/MacOS

(Replacing the one that is currently there)

not

/System/Library/Extensions/GeForceGLDriver.bundle/Contents/Bundle

this was a typo that was "corrected" right after that post

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=15614530#post15614530

but never edited into the msg

Sorry bout that (if u missed it)
 
flynnyfalcon said:
Hi MacVidCards,

I have run into a problem with my Mac Pro 3,1 2.8Ghz Octo 16Gb, (10.6 I'm pretty sure); and after a fair bit of research have placed blame on the 8800GT. I tried to do the "Oven Bake" trick but it did not resolved the issue.

So, can you please recommend the top 3 alternatives for my Mac. And as stated above, one that will work with simply plugging it in, as I cannot access the computer to modify drivers etc.

Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...

Did your MP come with a 8800GT? If not do you still have the original card? They had a HD2600XT as standard originally. Try that one first if you can.
I would attempt to reinstall Snow Leopard when you have a working monitor or upgrade to Mountain Lion if you are not using Rosetta based applications.
As stated once you have Mountain Lion as your OS you can chose one of many newer Nvidia cards to use instead.

This would work for Snow Leopard and is very cheap but very puny:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nvidia-GT120-for-2008-up-Mac-Pro-Dual-DVI-DaVinci-Resolve-Runs-2-30-/230840996693?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item35bf321355

This would be ideal once you have Mountain Lion on board:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nvidia-GTX-570-for-Apple-Mac-Pro-2-5-GB-CUDA-DaVinci-Resolve-Adobe-Premiere-570-/330790764997?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item4d04aa81c5
Expensive but very powerful CUDA card.

If you updated to ML and don't need a bootscreen then a PC Nvidia card can drop straight in and cost very little too: http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-1024MB-Graphics-01G-P4-2650-KR/dp/B00966IU4M/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1347653641&sr=8-3&keywords=GTX650 Cheap and cheerful but up to date and much more grunt than a GT120. If you could borrow a SL compatible card from a friend long enough to put ML on you could swap this one in no trouble.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
flynnyfalcon said:
Hi MacVidCards,

I have run into a problem with my Mac Pro 3,1 2.8Ghz Octo 16Gb, (10.6 I'm pretty sure); and after a fair bit of research have placed blame on the 8800GT. I tried to do the "Oven Bake" trick but it did not resolved the issue.

I started looking into a new Video Card and that's when I found you, so I thought I'd get in contact.

To preface my questioning, the MacPro does not boot correctly so I cannot access the computer. I can however access the HDD's via "Target Disk Mode" with no problem.

I am a photographer and am quite heavily reliant on Photoshop and similar video intensive programs. Vary rarely, a game of x-plane... Also, I would prefer to spending my money on photographic equipment, not computer equipment :eek:

So, can you please recommend the top 3 alternatives for my Mac. And as stated above, one that will work with simply plugging it in, as I cannot access the computer to modify drivers etc.

Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...

If you have enabled "screen sharing" in System Preferences you can easily run the machine from any other Mac on network. (ie, a MBP over Airport)

I would also suggest that you try safe booting in. Holding the "shift" key down while booting loads just basic drivers. Sometimes a dying 8800GT can run this way even if it is worthless for running the full driver set. If nothing else, you might be able to log in this way to turn on screen sharing.

The wonderful thing about EFI bootscreens is the system will be minimally functional with an EFI card, even without driver support in main OS.

The GTX570 is best bet for most needs. It has support from 10.7.4 onward. The 2.5GB model is a little more future proof. In DaVinci Resolve we have found that a GPU with less than 1.8 GB is unable to process 4K files. So the Quadro 4000 & 570 2.5 and the 580 3.0 are the only cards that easily handle these larger files. Since it is pretty obvious that resolutions will only increase in the future, I strongly recommend cards with more RAM.

The GTX580 3.0 GB is a PITA to power, so 570 2.5 wins hands down.
 
APPLE RAID + EFI GTX5xx

Just a quick question to all the EFI GTX5xx owners. Are any of you using a genuine APPLE RAID Card along with their GTX5xx (EFI modded) ? Have you had any issues so far? Just curious! :)

Thank you
Florian
 
Okay, so here is what I did:

-I went into
/System/Library/Extensions/GeForceGLDriver.bundle/Contents/MacOS

-I renamed the existing libclh.dylib into libclh_old.dylib and moved the one I downloaded from Cindoris link in there.

-I opened Disk Utility and repaired the permissions on my boot drive

-Rebootet (without any problems)

-Opened LuxMark and got the following error:

RUNTIME ERROR: No OpenCL device selected or available

What did I do wrong?? I should work, shouldn't it?
 
El Awesome said:
Okay, so here is what I did:

-I went into
/System/Library/Extensions/GeForceGLDriver.bundle/Contents/MacOS

-I renamed the existing libclh.dylib into libclh_old.dylib and moved the one I downloaded from Cindoris link in there.

-I opened Disk Utility and repaired the permissions on my boot drive

-Rebootet (without any problems)

-Opened LuxMark and got the following error:

RUNTIME ERROR: No OpenCL device selected or available

What did I do wrong?? I should work, shouldn't it?
Click to expand...

The "larger than 2GB" fix is not an edit of libclh.dylib, it's an edit of the OpenCL framework binary:

http://netkas.org/?p=1161

AFAIK you don't need to modify the libclh.dylib any more. I'm running 304.00.00f20 on 10.8.1 with a 2GB GTX 680, and LuxMark reports OpenCL acceleration just fine. I have no modified my driver binaries in any way.
 
Asgorath said:
The "larger than 2GB" fix is not an edit of libclh.dylib, it's an edit of the OpenCL framework binary:

http://netkas.org/?p=1161

AFAIK you don't need to modify the libclh.dylib any more. I'm running 304.00.00f20 on 10.8.1 with a 2GB GTX 680, and LuxMark reports OpenCL acceleration just fine. I have no modified my driver binaries in any way.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

I did what you just linked twice, very carefully. That doesen't work for me, my whole system is crashing just after editing the file.

edit: I just saw that reinstalling ML replaced the GPU driver. Installing again 304.xxx
edit II: Still not working. Goddammit.
 
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Just a warning for those going to 10.8.2

I had installed the new Sept 2012 nvidia drivers and after having installed the combo 10.8.2 update, after a restart, screen went black and cursor at top left before login

Trying to use vnc to have a virtual screen failed (all I could see was black)

Thus, I had to pop back my old Lion install drive in, tunnel in through vnc (or video might work already for some), load up pacifist and the combo update, manually install the 8 nvidia associated kexts

After a reboot, all is well back in mountain lion
 
Last edited:
jhero said:
Just a warning for those going to 10.8.2

I had installed the nvidia drivers and after having installed the combo 10.8.2 update, after a restart, screen went black and cursor at top left before login

Trying to use vnc to have a virtual screen failed (all I could see was black)

Thus, I had to pop back my old Lion install drive in, tunnel in through vnc (or video might work already for some), load up pacifist and the combo update, manually install the 8 nvidia associated kexts

After a reboot, all is well back in mountain lion
Click to expand...

Didn't have any of these problems when I did it. But each system has it's own quirks.
 
Thanks for the warning about 10.8.2!

I'm totally new to having an "unsupported" card in my system and have to rethink just automatically installing updates.

I'll wait for now until I get an all clear.
 
jhero said:
Just a warning for those going to 10.8.2
I had installed the new Sept 2012 nvidia drivers and after having installed the combo 10.8.2 update, after a restart, screen went black and cursor at top left before login
Click to expand...

Good to know! What card & MP were you using?

Just to make sure I'm reading you correctly--you installed the 304.00.00f20 (Sept. 2012) driver *before* installing 10.8.2? I know doing the opposite will cause problems, but this is the first report I've seen where rolling back to the older driver in 10.8.2 caused problems with a GTX5xx & Mac Pro.
 
I'm on a 3,1 system with 670

Upon investigation, it appears those nvidia kexts were not updated with the 10.8.2 upon installation for whatever reason and I suppose caused the panic

Yep, I installed the sept drivers in 10.8.1 and then just today loaded the combo 10.8.2

My advice would be to make sure the 10.8.2 kexts are installed before restarting after installation of 10.8.2
 
jhero said:
I'm on a 3,1 system with 670

Upon investigation, it appears those nvidia kexts were not updated with the 10.8.2 upon installation for whatever reason and I suppose caused the panic

Yep, I installed the sept drivers in 10.8.1 and then just today loaded the combo 10.8.2

My advice would be to make sure the 10.8.2 kexts are installed before restarting after installation of 10.8.2
Click to expand...

Ah, I forgot about Pacifist, thanks for the backup plan! Did you just right click on the 8 NVIDIA/GeForce extensions and select "Install Into Default Location"?

My current kexts (in 10.8.1 + Sept patch) are version 8.4.4 (304.00.00f20) & the ones in the 10.8.2 installer are 8.0.61 (295.30.20f02). I haven't had a chance to try the older 295 drivers since installing my GTX570 (1.28GB), so I might give the combo install a shot.

Edit: Oh, and jhero, have you had a chance to run Unigine in OSX? Sorry if you've posted it elsewhere, I'm just curious since I also have a 3,1 MP and am trying to gauge whether the GPU is even the bottleneck at this point. (Score: 1275, default, 1920x1200). Glad you got it figured out!
 
Cuyahoga said:
Ah, I forgot about Pacifist, thanks for the backup plan! Did you just right click on the 8 NVIDIA/GeForce extensions and select "Install Into Default Location"?

My current kexts (in 10.8.1 + Sept patch) are version 8.4.4 (304.00.00f20) & the ones in the 10.8.2 installer are 8.0.61 (295.30.20f02). I haven't had a chance to try the older 295 drivers since installing my GTX570 (1.28GB), so I might give the combo install a shot.

Edit: Oh, and jhero, have you had a chance to run Unigine in OSX? Sorry if you've posted it elsewhere, I'm just curious since I also have a 3,1 MP and am trying to gauge whether the GPU is even the bottleneck at this point. (Score: 1275, default, 1920x1200). Glad you got it figured out!
Click to expand...

Roughly the same problem here (EVGA GTX570 2.5 GB version with no EFI mod), I'll try and give step by step of what I did. Sorry if it seems convoluted, just want to be thorough.

Had 10.8.1 running great with latest drivers from nVidia.
Ran 10.8.2 update, reboot OK.
Checked Uniheaven bench, CUDA-Z and Luxmark; the first showed a drop in FPS overall, the second showed that "memory copy" rate had dropped back to old speed previous to the nVidia retail-304 drivers. Finally Luxmark showed the no OpenCL device error.
Hexedit patched OpenCL framework, reboot and Luxmark OK with same performance as before.
Uniheaven still showed drop in FPS.
Looked in kernel extensions and saw OS X update had reinstalled vanilla drivers, tried to reinstall from nVidia retail-304 drivers download but it told me no update was needed. Checked OS X receipts plist and saw it still had reference to my previous install. Used Pacifist to force the reinstallation of the nVidia drivers, reboot to black screen on DVI2 and blinking grey screen on DVI1. Force reboot brings up an OS X dialog telling me it crashed and wether I want to reopen previous session or not. Neither work.
Reboot using shift key to safe boot, no signal to monitor, but with a bit of patience I can VNC into the login screen and to the desktop.
Manually overwrite Nvidia retail-304 drivers with 10.8.2 vanilla drivers, reboot no good, back to black screen.
Safe boot OK to login and then desktop.
Repair permissions with Disk Utility (GeForce drivers and OpenCL framework are the only modified files), reboot to black screen.
Download and install combo 10.8.2 update from apple.com (thank god for 100mbps Internet). Reboot OK but back to square 1; apply OpenCL hex patch OK and UniHeaven still shows performance drop. Performance measures were better under 10.8.1 using nVidia retail-304 & CUDA 5.0.24 drivers.

Guess it's back to 10.8.1 using TimeMachine (with ATI 5770 for boot screens) unless someone can confirm the performance drops noticed in bench apps are cosmetic, a fluke, or nVidia release a new driver soon.

edit: did my subjective test - loading a specific late game save from a big map in Civilization 5. I'ts been sluggish as hell except in 10.8.1 with retail-304 drivers where it was noticeably fast.
 
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powervideo said:
Just saw this on the Adobe forums.

added GPUs to the list of those that Premiere Pro CS6 will use for GPU processing: GT 650M (which is in the newer MacBook Pro computers) and GTX 680

Is this something MacVidCards can work with?
Click to expand...

I just went to the Adobe Tech Specs for AE & PP, and they do NOT list the GTX680 yet as a supported card...
 
Guys, it's pretty simple.

- 10.8.2 has a graphics driver update (including new frameworks), so it will overwrite the 304.00.00f20 driver if you had that installed.

- The 10.8.2 driver doesn't have all the improvements that were found in f20. Thus, benchmarks might get slower, the cards will be forced back to PCIe 1.0 speeds etc.

- The f20 driver WILL NOT WORK with 10.8.2, so don't try and make it work. Guaranteed to be mismatches between the f20 driver and the 10.8.2 frameworks and so on.

We expect NVIDIA to release a new 304-based driver for 10.8.2 any day now. So, you can either stick with 10.8.1 for a few days (that's what I'm planning on doing), or live with the slower performance in 10.8.2 for a few days.
 
Cuyahoga said:
Ah, I forgot about Pacifist, thanks for the backup plan! Did you just right click on the 8 NVIDIA/GeForce extensions and select "Install Into Default Location"?

My current kexts (in 10.8.1 + Sept patch) are version 8.4.4 (304.00.00f20) & the ones in the 10.8.2 installer are 8.0.61 (295.30.20f02). I haven't had a chance to try the older 295 drivers since installing my GTX570 (1.28GB), so I might give the combo install a shot.

Edit: Oh, and jhero, have you had a chance to run Unigine in OSX? Sorry if you've posted it elsewhere, I'm just curious since I also have a 3,1 MP and am trying to gauge whether the GPU is even the bottleneck at this point. (Score: 1275, default, 1920x1200). Glad you got it figured out!
Click to expand...

Since I was on a different disk, I had to select install to 'other disk' but the principle is the same! I'll run Unigine now

Edit: 1920 by 1200 default - 1464
 
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I got the GTX 550Hd from MacVidCards and while the card performance is awesome when compared to my old puny GT120 I have an issue with it: The display fails to sleep. Anyone has experienced this issue? My Mac Pro is running 10.8.1, sept2012 drivers and Netkas OpenCL fix.
 
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