Metal Compatible Card

[phlegmer]

My stock 5770 in my Mid-2010 MP is now showing it's age by Unreal Engine games now requiring Metal. Seeking advice as to what would be a good replacement. I'm not a huge Mac gamer so nothing too expensive.

I understand that lot of the older nVidia's should work. Was leaning towards a used 760. Would really like to be able to flash it with the Mac Rom in order to see what it's doing during boot up. Been searching around the interwebs and haven't found what would be needed for this model.

If there is a better / easier choice that still doesn't break the bank, that would be great.

Thanks!

 

[ActionableMango]

I understand that lot of the older nVidia's should work. Was leaning towards a used 760. Would really like to be able to flash it with the Mac Rom in order to see what it's doing during boot up.

If you want Nvidia, boot screens, and an easy flash, then the GTX680 is probably the way to go.

For AMD, R9 280 X was a popular choice for flashing.

Both of those will be a nice step up from a 5770.

 

[goMac]

If you want Nvidia, boot screens, and an easy flash, then the GTX680 is probably the way to go.

For AMD, R9 280 X was a popular choice for flashing.

Both of those will be a nice step up from a 5770.

The 680 Metal drivers are not good, especially if you go to High Sierra. They might improve in the future, but I'd stick with AMD for now if Metal is important to you.

Not opinion. They're just objectively not good in performance or stability. And it seems to be across the full range of cards.

 

[Asgorath]

The 680 Metal drivers are not good, especially if you go to High Sierra. They might improve in the future, but I'd stick with AMD for now if Metal is important to you.

Not opinion. They're just objectively not good in performance or stability. And it seems to be across the full range of cards.

Do you have specific examples of Metal apps that perform poorly or have stability issues on a 680 in High Sierra? All the reports I've seen suggest the web drivers are significantly better in 10.13, e.g. World of Warcraft performs much better and so on. FWIW your comments also don't line up with my own experience on both a GTX TITAN X (Maxwell) and a GTX 1080.

 

[goMac]

Do you have specific examples of Metal apps that perform poorly or have stability issues on a 680 in High Sierra? All the reports I've seen suggest the web drivers are significantly better in 10.13, e.g. World of Warcraft performs much better and so on. FWIW your comments also don't line up with my own experience on both a GTX TITAN X (Maxwell) and a GTX 1080.

I have a 680. Kernel panics, performance issues, apps crashing. Checked around and I'm not the only one.

Blizzard stuff seems to generally hold together with only some glitches, but Unreal Engine (which OP mentions) has serious issues.

Unreal Engine had issues under Sierra/Metal/Nvidia as well, but they were usually just performance/inconsistent frame rate issues. Even with web drivers.

I'm about to swap for Vega because Metal has been an ongoing problem with Nvidia and I'm over it.

 

[Asgorath]

I have a 680. Kernel panics, performance issues, apps crashing. Checked around and I'm not the only one.

Blizzard stuff seems to generally hold together with only some glitches, but Unreal Engine (which OP mentions) has serious issues.

Unreal Engine had issues under Sierra/Metal/Nvidia as well, but they were usually just performance/inconsistent frame rate issues. Even with web drivers.

I'm about to swap for Vega because Metal has been an ongoing problem with Nvidia and I'm over it.

That doesn't match my experience at all, on either a GeForce GTX TITAN X (Maxwell) or a GTX 1080 (Pascal). Performance and stability are significantly better on High Sierra, though I've had zero issues with kernel panics or app crashes in general.

 

[goMac]

That doesn't match my experience at all, on either a GeForce GTX TITAN X (Maxwell) or a GTX 1080 (Pascal). Performance and stability are significantly better on High Sierra, though I've had zero issues with kernel panics or app crashes in general.

680 could be different than Pascal, but Metal/Unreal engine is a mess on the 680 and after checking around I'm not the only one having issues. So it's not just me, my OS install, or my card.

Are you running Unreal based stuff on Metal?

 

[Asgorath]

680 could be different than Pascal, but Metal/Unreal engine is a mess on the 680 and after checking around I'm not the only one having issues. So it's not just me, my OS install, or my card.

Are you running Unreal based stuff on Metal?

Yes, I ran a few of the Unreal Engine demos when I first updated to 10.13 on both my Maxwell and Pascal cards, and everything worked great. Are you talking about some other apps/games?

 

[goMac]

Yes, I ran a few of the Unreal Engine demos when I first updated to 10.13 on both my Maxwell and Pascal cards, and everything worked great. Are you talking about some other apps/games?

Nope. Anything Unreal Engine that's on Metal.

Demos might not be on Metal. Stuff like Obduction and Fortnight are good examples.

 

[MisterAndrew]

RX Vega cards are now selling for MSRP at Newegg.

 

[Asgorath]

Nope. Anything Unreal Engine that's on Metal.

Demos might not be on Metal. Stuff like Obduction and Fortnight are good examples.

I built the demos from source and they were definitely using Metal. Not sure what to tell you, it's working great for me and the High Sierra drivers seem way better for Pascal in particular. Maybe you're having issues because you're on a <= 4GB card while I'm on 8 or 12GB?

 

[goMac]

I built the demos from source and they were definitely using Metal. Not sure what to tell you, it's working great for me and the High Sierra drivers seem way better for Pascal in particular. Maybe you're having issues because you're on a <= 4GB card while I'm on 8 or 12GB?

All I can say is I know I'm not the only one having these issues, and I've heard there are bugs open on Apple's end to deal with them.

VRAM shouldn't cause my machine to lockup and panic...

 

[phlegmer]

If you want Nvidia, boot screens, and an easy flash, then the GTX680 is probably the way to go.

Ordered a used EVGA GTX680 SC 2GB and hopefully will be here later this week.

Looks like I just follow your steps in your sig using the rom dump from here and all will be good? Think I read somewhere that not all the ports will be active after the flash. Is that correct?

I'm not at all doing any sort of massive gaming. I just have a few light weight Steam games that suddenly stopped working because they upgraded UE which now require Metal compatible cards.

Thanks All!

 

[ActionableMango]

Ordered a used EVGA GTX680 SC 2GB and hopefully will be here later this week.

Looks like I just follow your steps in your sig using the rom dump from here and all will be good? Think I read somewhere that not all the ports will be active after the flash. Is that correct?

I'm not at all doing any sort of massive gaming. I just have a few light weight Steam games that suddenly stopped working because they upgraded UE which now require Metal compatible cards.

Thanks All!

Looks right. As far as I know, all of the ports should work unless you have an exotic/unusual model 680.

 

[phlegmer]

Looks right. As far as I know, all of the ports should work unless you have an exotic/unusual model 680.

Card came and been trying to run NVFlash from just within a bootable thumbdrive. Everytime I try to run NVFlash, I keep getting that "This program cannot be run in DOS mode" I found this site which specifically says that it's version is to be run in DOS mode. Same problem. I tried creating the thumbdrive with FreeDOS and also MS-DOS.

Any advise?

Thanks

 

[ActionableMango]

Card came and been trying to run NVFlash from just within a bootable thumbdrive. Everytime I try to run NVFlash, I keep getting that "This program cannot be run in DOS mode" I found this site which specifically says that it's version is to be run in DOS mode. Same problem. I tried creating the thumbdrive with FreeDOS and also MS-DOS.

I don't know. I always did it from Windows command line.

You don't have to flash it in a Mac Pro, so if you have any Windows computer it should be fine.