New Nvidia Drivers for Lion - Allow most cards to run, no EFI or ATY_Init needed

[matthoadrobson]

Hey guys some questions that you might be able to answer. Apologies if I mix up terminology etc...

1. Can I add in a second graphics card, and use that for CUDA in After Effects/Premiere either 5.5 or CS6? I ask this because as I understand it the NVIDIA cards won't run in anything other than single channel mode, so I'm guessing it's not worth sticking them in the 16x lane on my MP 5,1. So in other words stick with the HD 5770 as main display and just use the 570 for CUDA and possibly OpenCL.

2. How easy/possible is it to flash say a GTX570 with EFI?

3. Does anyone have any ideas as to why apple have added, and then apparently taken away this support (10.7.4) but it remains in ML betas? Why have they added backward compatibility? Is this merely the result of them heading to NVIDIA GPUs on laptops and a side effect or are they actually coding in support for 570s 580s etc?

4. If it is the case that they are coding in NVIDIA stuff for more than just laptops, then doesn't this suggest that there is a new mac pro coming? I mean if they are coding for double width cards (i.e not for imac) then surely they haven't yet given up on mac pro?

5. Which is the most reliable NVIDIA for a mac pro 5,1? I edit video for clients and so it can't fall over all the time as this will make me massively unpopular at work.

6. And lastly, and completely off topic, is there a legit way to get a FCP studio 6 upgrade to 7?

Thanks!

Matthew Hoad-Robson
Creative Director, Brickwall Films
www.brickwallfilms.com

 

[philiph]

So...im quite new to this and quite confused, so will do my best to explain what i need and what i (think) i understand.

I own a mac pro 4.1 and am running lion 10.7.3

I need to upgrade my gfx and, from what people have been saying in this thread, it seems I can now install a third party gfx card in my mac without having to flash the graphics card (although as cintori points out, updating lion in the future may cause problems and flashing is still a better long term solution)

So my questions are as follows...

Can I use any third party gfx card? If no, then would anybody be kind enough to list compatible cards, or link me a list?

It seems that the new Nvidia drivers make it possible to use their cards without using aty_init - is only for Nvidia cards, or do AMD radeon cards have similar drivers?

Is buying an additional power cable only other thing i need to do to get a pc gfx card working in my mac? Is the power cable specific to the gfx card i buy?

And lastly, will using a pc graphics card only work if booting from windows, or will it work fine in osx as well?

Sorry if these answers have already been posted, or if my questions seem a little stupid, spent a couple days reading forum posts and thought it would be best just to ask - thanks for everybodys info on here, it has already helped me understand everything much better

 

[Asgorath]

3. Does anyone have any ideas as to why apple have added, and then apparently taken away this support (10.7.4) but it remains in ML betas? Why have they added backward compatibility? Is this merely the result of them heading to NVIDIA GPUs on laptops and a side effect or are they actually coding in support for 570s 580s etc?

Apple didn't add it, NVIDIA added it in the driver you can download from their website (linked in the OP). One can infer that the driver in 10.7.4 is similar to the one that Apple supplied with 10.7.3, i.e. it doesn't contain the necessary bits to make the PC cards work. The fact that Mountain Lion betas do contain the support suggests that eventually the stock Apple drivers will have everything needed to make them work out of the box. Given the fact that this was enabled by a web driver from NVIDIA, I would guess that until the necessary bits are included in a stock Apple release, we will see web drivers similar to 270.00.00f01 that enable the PC cards.

 

[MacVidCards]

I don't know if anyone thought this through, but the very fact that Nvidia is writing these nifty new drivers MUST mean something.

The ONLY current "official" Mac / Nvidia GPU combo is a Mac Pro and a Quadro 4000.

Nvidia would likely know if the Mac Pro was EOL'd.

Nvidia would certainly know if their chips were making a comeback in Mac machines. (i.e., Macbook and iMac)

Apple was pretty mad about the disintegrating solder used in 8600/8800 cards and switched to AMD/ATI around that time. But maybe this signal a change.

EDIT: I just became aware of the fact that using these drivers means you no longer need to remove the AGPM kext.

Nvidia has been listening and has made these as Mac friendly as they can.

With the release of CS6, more and more people are going to want Nvidia.

They have made it easier than ever.

Either Nvidia GPUs are coming back to Macs, or Nvidia knows that the Mac Pro is continuing. Why else perfect the GTX570/580 drivers? I suppose they may have wanted to match AMD who gave their cards "magic" drivers back in 10.6.8 but if they had gotten a "no more Mac Pros" notice from Apple they wouldn't have much incentive to finally finish the GTX570/80 drivers.

So, in summary, I'd say these drivers are a good sign for Mac & Nvidia having some form of future ahead.

 

[anim8or]

Hi MacVidCards I installed my GTX 470 last night and it works perfectly as far as i could test it.

Once CS6 arrives I will be able to thoroughly put it through its paces.

Just to confirm though, I can drop the AGPM kext back into its folder and i will have no issues.

I am running 10.7.3 btw and installed the latest CUDA and drivers from the NVIDIA site.

 

[Asgorath]

Just to confirm though, I can drop the AGPM kext back into its folder and i will have no issues.

Correct, I'm running a GTX 560 Ti in my Mac Pro 5,1 with the drivers linked in the first post, and everything works fine with AGPM still present. There is no need to remove AGPM if you're using a standard PC card.

 

[MacVidCards]

Don't update to 10.7.4 yet if you are using these drivers !!!!

OSX 10.7.4 breaks the "MAGIC " support.

I have a feeling that Nvidia will release new drivers for 10.7.4 soon, but until then I will figure out and post a fix.

EDIT: OK, here is a quick fix. This will enable the driver to include GTX570 and GTX580.

I will do one for GTX560 later on.

If you were using the ""self init" feature, you will also need to install ATY_Init from Netkas.

If you had one of our EFI cards, this should do it by itself.

You will need to use Kextdrop or Kexthelper to install this once you unzip it.

If you are using an EFI card, you will have one screen still functional to "see" from while you install this. If you were using the "Magic" feature, the card will be black as night until you install this fixed next AND ATY_Init.

If you were using Magic Drivers to run a GTX4xx card, you don't need this fixed kext, just ATY_Init.

Turns out it's too big to attach here

https://rapidshare.com/files/4110492248/NVDAGF100Hal.kext.zip

 

[Asgorath]

New driver for 10.7.4 appears to be available on NVIDIA's site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-270.00.00f06-driver.html

Edit: I'm going to ssh into my system after the 10.7.4 update and install the driver from the command line like this:

sudo installer -pkg 270.00.00f06\ Web\ Release.mpkg -target /

I opened up the .dmg and copied the installer into my home directory, pretty sure this will work. Will report back if I have any problems.

Edit: And it seems to have worked just fine:

~> sudo installer -pkg 270.00.00f06\ Web\ Release.mpkg -target /
Password:
installer: Package name is NVIDIA Driver 270.00.00f06
installer: Installing at base path /
installer: The install was successful.
installer: The install requires restarting now.

Rebooted and it's up and running as before with full acceleration. Note that to enable SSH you have to check the "Remote Login" box in the Sharing preferences.

 

[MacVidCards]

New driver for 10.7.4 appears to be available on NVIDIA's site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-270.00.00f06-driver.html

Edit: I'm going to ssh into my system after the 10.7.4 update and install the driver from the command line like this:

sudo installer -pkg 270.00.00f06\ Web\ Release.mpkg -target /

I opened up the .dmg and copied the installer into my home directory, pretty sure this will work. Will report back if I have any problems.

Edit: And it seems to have worked just fine:

~> sudo installer -pkg 270.00.00f06\ Web\ Release.mpkg -target /
Password:
installer: Package name is NVIDIA Driver 270.00.00f06
installer: Installing at base path /
installer: The install was successful.
installer: The install requires restarting now.

Rebooted and it's up and running as before with full acceleration. Note that to enable SSH you have to check the "Remote Login" box in the Sharing preferences.

Thanks for figuring this out.

FOr those less techie and who own a 2nd Mac with current OS, I would STRONGLY recomend the you turn on "Screen Sharing" on your Mac Pro. Test with your 2nd Mac before running Apple's 10.7.4. When you can run Mac Pro remotely, you will be able to deal more easily with this should future updates break the cards again.

Or just keep a GT120 or 2600XT handy with EFI to "see" from.

 

[Gomff]

I wonder if someone can help me out here...I've installed the latest Nvidia drivers and the OpenGL performance on my system with a GTX 570 is quite poor....Cinebench is reporting about 9.6 frames per sec which is dreadful for such a card, even in OS X.

Is there anything else I can do to improve openGL performance? Core graphics and DVD etc are working, but things like transitions to full screen are really jerky.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Asgorath]

I wonder if someone can help me out here...I've installed the latest Nvidia drivers and the OpenGL performance on my system with a GTX 570 is quite poor....Cinebench is reporting about 9.6 frames per sec which is dreadful for such a card, even in OS X.

Is there anything else I can do to improve openGL performance? Core graphics and DVD etc are working, but things like transitions to full screen are really jerky.

Thanks for any help.

Sounds like the driver isn't installed correctly. What does your System Profiler say? If it says something like "NVIDIA Card Model XXXX" then something went wrong with the driver install and you should try again. How did you install the driver? Any messages in the installer log file? Did you do a clean reboot after the install was done?

 

[Abbas]

Oh crap-

After the update, when I try to install the new NVIDIA driver, I get the error message that this computer will not support this NVIDIA graphics solution.

Running the GTX580 on a Mac Pro 1,1 and it was working just fine until the update

EDIT: Ok, extracted the Payload driver and installed that. Back to it working. Phew!

 

[Gomff]

Sounds like the driver isn't installed correctly. What does your System Profiler say? If it says something like "NVIDIA Card Model XXXX" then something went wrong with the driver install and you should try again. How did you install the driver? Any messages in the installer log file? Did you do a clean reboot after the install was done?

System profiler reports the correct card, GTX 570. OpenGL is working, but it's just poor for the card that's in there.

I installed from the latest Nvidia drivers for 10.7.4......Had to install from the web payload inside the package but it definitely installed OK.

Anyone?

 

[Asgorath]

I installed from the latest Nvidia drivers for 10.7.4......Had to install from the web payload inside the package but it definitely installed OK.

Why did you have to install from the payload inside the package? Are you running a Mac Pro 1,1 or something?

Are you using an EFI flashed card or a regular PC VBIOS only card? Did you delete/move AGPM? Are you running ATY_Init as well? Are both power cables connected to the card? How did you reboot after the installer finished?

You might want to check the installer log, which should be available by hitting Cmd-L after the installer is done (also the Window -> Installer Log menu entry I think). One other thing to try would be to do this from a Terminal window:

sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

and then do a clean reboot to make sure the new driver is getting loaded.

 

[Gomff]

Why did you have to install from the payload inside the package? Are you running a Mac Pro 1,1 or something?

Are you using an EFI flashed card or a regular PC VBIOS only card? Did you delete/move AGPM? Are you running ATY_Init as well? Are both power cables connected to the card? How did you reboot after the installer finished?

You might want to check the installer log, which should be available by hitting Cmd-L after the installer is done (also the Window -> Installer Log menu entry I think). One other thing to try would be to do this from a Terminal window:

sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

and then do a clean reboot to make sure the new driver is getting loaded.

Hey Asgorath,
Thanks for taking the time to respond.

I feel bad for not being more clear about this but the system in question is a a hackintosh. 10.7.3 Nvidia drivers installed absolutely fine, although the openGL performance was just as poor in that case as well. After upgrading the system to 10.7.4 I downloaded the new Nvidia drivers and had the install issues I mentioned. The card is just a stock PC card. What's weird is that the card doesn't seem bad at all when using it in a 3d program like Modo, it's just cinebench that exposes it as not performing up to snuff.

Apologies for not mentioning this earlier...This may sound daft but I honestly didn't think it would make a difference since the GTX 570 isn't supported officially in standard macs or hacks. I could try installing the card in my 2008 machine to see if performance is any better in a real mac, it's just motivating myself to find the time to do it.

 

[Asgorath]

it's just cinebench that exposes it as not performing up to snuff.

Have you tried games or other real apps? If Cinebench doesn't like your system for whatever reason, that's not the end of the world right? Cinebench itself is really pretty old at this point and isn't indicative of performance in general, even for Cinema 4D (which is up to R13 now, as opposed to R11.5 for Cinebench).

Maybe give Unigine Heaven a whirl and see what the perf looks like there? FWIW I'm running a stock 560 Ti in a 2010 Mac Pro and it works great for me, no perf problems at all.

 

[MacVidCards]

What System id are you using?

If it is 3,1 or 4,1 or 5,1 you may need to remove AGPM kext. Not necessary in actual Macs now, but may still be in Hacks.

Drag it to desktop to make a copy, then chuck the one in the S/L/E. Reboot and see if it changes.

If you wish to reinstall it, use a kext utility to keep permissions kosher.

Worth a shot.

 

[Gomff]

Thanks Asgorath and Macvidcards for the thoughts and suggestions.....I'll take them on board and try them out respectively.

I suspect that something isn't right since the transitions from normal to full screen are quite jittery as well, indicating that it's a system wide issue rather than just Cinebench being long in the tooth.

 

[MacVidCards]

Quick How - To...Enable OpenCl in GF100 and GF110

Apple wants to keep their 5870 as "King of the Hill" so they resorted to the tried & true "kneecapping" method approved by thugs and gangsters for years.

As usual, even with the Nvidia "magic Drivers" for 10.7.4, the OpenCl for GF100 and GF110 cards is turned OFF by default. Make sure you have run Apple 10.7.4 followed by Nvidia's fix for 10.7.4 before doing this. Install one of the OpenCl test/benchmark apps and confirm that it sees no OpenCl devices.

This applies to GTX470 and GTX480 (GF100) and GTX570 and GTX580 (GF110)

Whether you have an EFI card or a PC one in OSX, this fix is exactly the same. Card must already be running with 3D, etc. This has NOTHING to do with CUDA.


1. Go to: /System/Library/Extensions/GeForceGLDriver.bundle and drag it onto your desktop

2. Now, go to: /Desktop/GeForceGLDriver.bundle/Contents/MacOS/GeForceGLDriver

3. Open it in a Hexeditor of your choice.

4. SEARCH AND REPLACE:

FIND "EB A8 83 F8 02"

REPLACE WITH "EB A8 83 F8 03"

I think you will find and replace 4 of them.

5. Save the file in same place. If it creates a "~" version, trash and empty it.

6. Use Permission Savy install method of your choice. (Kexthelper works but won't quit, Kextdrop didn't know what a "bundle" was last time I checked, hopefully he has updated it by now, there are others) Replace original but keep a copy of original in case you screw this up. (If you are convinced this is beyond you, I predict that you will find a way to mess it up, despite being clever enough, subconscious is a scary thing)

7. Once you have replaced the bundle with your modified bundle, you need to run a "repair permissions". You will probably see parts of GLDriver bundle get fixed. Just saved you some frustrating re-boots.

8. Now reboot and try running one of the OpenCl test apps. They can give wildly inconsistent results, I have no idea why. But it works now so quit wynching and, fire up FCPX and posts results of your fabulous success.

Note that GF104,108, etc require additional fix. I will post that if people ask or you can google past fixes and try those.

If this doesn't work, please post why. Try some Googling first as I seem unable to avoid my urge to pounce on foolish questions which could have been easily answered with 30 seconds of Googling. Mind bogglingly stupid questions will be rewarded with The Pillory and Public Humiliation.

Worked on a GTX480 just now. I believe my Russian friend Netkas discovered this first, I have just updated for latest files.

 

[Mediaformae]

+nVidia

Wish nvidia cards would include mdvi ports.

I wish Apple offered nVidia cards in its following hardware releases, by default configuration or by custom order.

 

[MDangerous]

Apple wants to keep their 5870 as "King of the Hill" so they resorted to the tried & true "kneecapping" method approved by thugs and gangsters for years.

As usual, even with the Nvidia "magic Drivers" for 10.7.4, the OpenCl for GF100 and GF110 cards is turned OFF by default. Make sure you have run Apple 10.7.4 followed by Nvidia's fix for 10.7.4 before doing this. Install one of the OpenCl test/benchmark apps and confirm that it sees no OpenCl devices.

MacVidCards, are you saying the reason why Nvidia card lagged behind the ATI cards on Mac is because the OpenCL was turned off? How long has this been happening? I remember the disappointing results from the Nvidia from years ago. Was this the case with them too?

 

[MacVidCards]

MacVidCards, are you saying the reason why Nvidia card lagged behind the ATI cards on Mac is because the OpenCL was turned off? How long has this been happening? I remember the disappointing results from the Nvidia from years ago. Was this the case with them too?

nope, totally missed it.

 

[Photovore]

I have not read every post on this thread, but . . .

. . you all say these cards work with a quick flashing.

What I need to know, is:

1) Do these card work only for gaming, etc.?

Or

2) Will they work for OpenCL code that I am writing myself?

... I may need to wait for Apple to release drivers for OpenCL, as I've always had to do in the past.

Is this true? OR, do these "all-cards-work" scenarios work for those of us who do our own OpenCL programming?

Thanks folks!

 

[Abbas]

Can't comment on OpenCL but Diablo 3 runs butter smooth at 2560x1600 at pretty much maximum quality on mt GTX580 which is simply using the NVIDIA drivers bundle on my Mac Pro 1,1

. . you all say these cards work with a quick flashing.

What I need to know, is:

1) Do these card work only for gaming, etc.?

Or

2) Will they work for OpenCL code that I am writing myself?

... I may need to wait for Apple to release drivers for OpenCL, as I've always had to do in the past.

Is this true? OR, do these "all-cards-work" scenarios work for those of us who do our own OpenCL programming?

Thanks folks!

 

[zzzachi]

quite confusing this thread...

IS ANYBODY ABLE TO CONFIRM the possibility to run a GTX-580 3GB in an original Apple Mac Pro ?
(2010 version)

and if yes, what does it need to make it work ?

- with External PSU or just a Cable Adapter?
- possible to have it next to the original ATI 5770/5870?
- Driver situation? (Lion Version / Which Drivers from Nvidia)
- which GTX580 3GB model did you buy exactly?
- other factors?

I hope some people who actually tried/use this in person can report!
thx