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Frequently Asked Questions About NVIDIA PC (non-EFI) Graphics Cards

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Hello,

I recently buy an EVGA Geforce 970 GTX for my 5.1 mac pro. (Installed 3 days ago)
Today, i saw expansion slots fan much more noisy and faster at 1500 - 2000 rpm (with ATI 5770, speed was 800-1000). The mac was in idle when it happens.

Reset SMC didn't work.
I try the OpenGL extensions viewer trick, and fans are running normally after that.

If someone has a solution...

I'm running on El Capitan Beta 5 with the last nVidia web driver.

Thank you...

Pierre
 
My Radeon 5770 video card just died, and I picked up an ASUS GTX 750 Ti to replace it. I'm running 10.10.5 on a Mac Pro 3,1.

Installation and bootup went just fine. The card works well, and games run smoothly. However… Final Cut Pro rendering is much slower than I expected it. I'm not certain OpenCL is working correctly, or that FCP is making use of it. Did I buy the wrong card? Or is there a way to get Final Cut to make use of the card for rendering?

I see that MacVidCards lists that this card does have OpenCL support. But I didn't think it needed to the flashed for that. I've scoured this thread, and I haven't found a definitive answer to whether I should return this card or not. Any help is appreciated.

Added Note: CUDA is definitely working inside Adobe After Effects with this card, but not OpenCL in Final Cut. Is there any way to get Final Cut to better work with this card?

Additional Note: Forget what I said about OpenCL not working. It is working fine with the GTX 750 Ti. My fault — I was compositing massive images and was expecting a little too much oompf from the new card. Tests with regular HD footage and with other OpenCL-accelerated tools shows that the GTX 750 Ti is just what I needed.
 
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Just put El Capitan GM Candidate on a Mac Pro 4,1 running a non-EFI PNY GTX 660 Ti. The built-in drivers worked fine, but I put on the Web Drivers just in case; CUDA 7.0.64 still runs like a champ so far.
 
Mac Pro 4,1 here with a 660 GTX.

Will I need to do anything in particular if I were to install Boot Camp or should it run effectively as normal? Some seem to advise against it, whilst some say it's fine?

Thanks!
 
Both flashed and unflashed Nvidias should run perfectly fine in Windows. Just install Nvidia drivers & that's it (that's what I did). You might have to manually choose the boot drive if the card isn't flashed.
 
Volcanux said:
Mac Pro 4,1 here with a 660 GTX.

Will I need to do anything in particular if I were to install Boot Camp or should it run effectively as normal? Some seem to advise against it, whilst some say it's fine?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I have the same hardware, and haven't had any issues with Boot Camp. I'm running Yosemite and Windows 7, FWIW.
 
Fl0r!an said:
Both flashed and unflashed Nvidias should run perfectly fine in Windows. Just install Nvidia drivers & that's it (that's what I did). You might have to manually choose the boot drive if the card isn't flashed.
Click to expand...

Duane Dibbley said:
I have the same hardware, and haven't had any issues with Boot Camp. I'm running Yosemite and Windows 7, FWIW.
Click to expand...
Thanks guys!

So I won't have to put my old GPU in to get it working? Good to know if that's the case.
 
I did not see this in the FAQ

How do you do a clean install with a Nvidia 960 installed? I still have my geforce 120 installed and running another monitor.
 
hockeyamd said:
It was a pain to get the 960 in. I was hoping to avoid that. Thanks for the reply
Click to expand...

Or just set nv_disable=1 in your boot-args per the first post in the thread, that will turn off the NVIDIA driver and force software mode and thus avoid the kernel panic from the Maxwell card. Once you have the OS installed you can install the web driver.
 
Asgorath said:
Or just set nv_disable=1 in your boot-args per the first post in the thread, that will turn off the NVIDIA driver and force software mode and thus avoid the kernel panic from the Maxwell card. Once you have the OS installed you can install the web driver.
Click to expand...

Hey Asgorath,

Firstly, thank you for creating and maintaining this thread! SUPER awesome! Using just this boot arg will essentially save any card swapping because it boots to unaccelerated desktop, right? Also, an applescript be written to run this in the terminal and rerun the opposite when driver installation is complete?
 
MacGamver said:
Hey Asgorath,

Firstly, thank you for creating and maintaining this thread! SUPER awesome! Using just this boot arg will essentially save any card swapping because it boots to unaccelerated desktop, right? Also, an applescript be written to run this in the terminal and rerun the opposite when driver installation is complete?
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Correct, that boot arg completely disables the NVIDIA driver, which means you can leave your Maxwell card in place. Once you have the OS updated and corresponding NVIDIA web driver installed, you can remove that boot arg and use the normal nvda_drv=1 to enable the web driver.

I prefer to just set the boot-args from a Terminal window, as you normally want to preserve whatever else has been set. If you want to just write an AppleScript to force boot-args="nv_disable=1" and boot-args="nvda_drv=1" that should work as well.
 
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Is there a new beta web driver for El Capitan 10.10.1?

Apple just pushed out build 15B17c for Public Beta, and when I updated and rebooted, the nVidia driver manager defaulted back to the OS X default driver.

Guess I'll wait a spell.
 
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Asgorath said:
Correct, that boot arg completely disables the NVIDIA driver, which means you can leave your Maxwell card in place. Once you have the OS updated and corresponding NVIDIA web driver installed, you can remove that boot arg and use the normal nvda_drv=1 to enable the web driver.

I prefer to just set the boot-args from a Terminal window, as you normally want to preserve whatever else has been set. If you want to just write an AppleScript to force boot-args="nv_disable=1" and boot-args="nvda_drv=1" that should work as well.
Click to expand...

Sorry to be a pest; And do I understand correctly that this will work for *any* unsupported card, maxwell or otherwise, like the issues with the 10.10.2-3 stock drivers losing basic support?
 
MacGamver said:
Sorry to be a pest; And do I understand correctly that this will work for *any* unsupported card, maxwell or otherwise, like the issues with the 10.10.2-3 stock drivers losing basic support?
Click to expand...

If you mean NVIDIA cards, then yes. The only problem is that you still need some way of getting a boot screen, so it won't work if you only have a Maxwell card in the system. In this case, since there was a GT 120, you can just use that in an unaccelerated mode to get to the OS.

Obviously all of this is much easier with a Hackintosh, since you get boot screens automatically with those.
 
MacGamver said:
Sorry to be a pest; And do I understand correctly that this will work for *any* unsupported card, maxwell or otherwise, like the issues with the 10.10.2-3 stock drivers losing basic support?
Click to expand...

If your card is not Maxwell, then you could try Safe Boot instead of nv_disable.

I use a GTX 650 Kepler card and discovered that adding '-x' to my boot arguments gets me to the desktop after a restart when NVIDIA drivers are broken (after an OS X update, for example).

Nv_disable was not necessary and provided no video anyway. Safe boot will give you a picture.
 
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I don't see why it shouldn't work with shorted pins or 6->8 cable since it's easily in the power limits of a single 6pin.

But I also don't see why anyone would prefer this card over an older midrange OOB card (e.g. 7870, R9 270X, GTX 760), which will be as fast, a lot cheaper and some even DIY flashable
 
Fl0r!an said:
I don't see why it shouldn't work with shorted pins or 6->8 cable since it's easily in the power limits of a single 6pin.

But I also don't see why anyone would prefer this card over an older midrange OOB card (e.g. 7870, R9 270X, GTX 760), which will be as fast, a lot cheaper and some even DIY flashable
Click to expand...

This is only ~160 bucks, I can't see an older card being cheaper unless it's second hand.
 
Fl0r!an said:
Sure, 2nd hand. But even if you wanted something new for whatever reason I'd prefer OOB support and possible flashability.
Click to expand...

And by OOB support, you mean a Kepler card since Maxwell is not? Didn't we come to the agreement that once El Cap releases, Maxwell cards *should* get some basic OOB support?
 
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