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Nomad110

macrumors regular
Jun 16, 2012
166
49
Hi Nomad, sorry to go off topic for a moment but please can you just tell me if the fans of your MBP kick off when its driving the XDR? I am torn between the MBP, Mac Pro or both plus the XDR!! Also which to get the nano or glossy!!!!!
Just being connected to the display does not increase fans or CPU or GPU at all. So it idles perfectly quietly if that is what your asking.
As for the display i would suggest glossy unless you have a particular challenging environment. I’m in a normal office/studio and it’s awesome. Of course I upgraded from the UltraFine5K so it’s glossy also.
 

joevt

macrumors 604
Jun 21, 2012
6,968
4,262
The critical piece would be that the TCON in the XDR could handle Display Stream Compression (decompression part) too. The marketing page spec footnote is suggestive that it does ( that more bandwidth with the MBP 16").
There is an AGDCDiagnose dump for the Apple Pro Display XDR (but so far only for 5K mode) at #22 . The DisplayPort DPCD registers show DSC is supported (there's flags for supported, enabled, and status). You can get source code for the DSC compression algorithm from VESA free downloads and test how lossless it is.

It isn't weird at all. 6k of 10 bit color at 60Hz takes up way more bandwidth than 5k does. (even more so with simulated 10 bit color).
You misunderstand. The weird thing would be this: You have a USB 3.0 device connected to the XDR running at 5K. Then you switch to 6K. What happens? With the way you think it works, the USB 3.0 device is disconnected and reconnects as USB 2.0. That would be bad if it were a harddrive - remember that USB 3.0 uses different pins than USB 2.0. A USB 3.0 connector is actually two USB ports: USB 3.0 and USB 2.0.

With the way I think it works, the USB 3.0 device remains connected to the USB 3.0 port. Only PCIe bandwidth is reduced. The USB connection is unchanged. It would behave the same as a PCIe 3.0 x1 USB 3.1 gen 2 card (7.9 Gbps) working in slot 4 of my MacPro3,1 (PCIe 1.0 speed 2 Gbps).

Maybe switching from USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 while the device is powered and connected isn't always a bad thing - but how can you be sure for all types of USB devices/controllers/hubs? It's unlikely and therefore probably not a thing.

Someone with an XDR display can test that.
 

goMac

macrumors 604
Apr 15, 2004
7,663
1,694
On the missing scaled resolutions...


Generally, when you have an “odd” resolution that isn’t the normal Retina or the panel resolution, macOS renders at double scale to do a cleaner downsample.

So setting a resolution like that looks like 5k might actually cause macOS to do a 10k render of your screen. Not sure a GPU could even do that.

So that’s why the larger size odd resolutions might be missing. Rendering them at double resolution for cleaner scaling is just too big of a deal.
 

joevt

macrumors 604
Jun 21, 2012
6,968
4,262
So setting a resolution like that looks like 5k might actually cause macOS to do a 10k render of your screen. Not sure a GPU could even do that.
macOS with RX580 allows scaled resolutions up to 8190 tall. A 16:9 resolution for that is 14560x8190 which seems to work fine. It gives a HiDPI mode of 7280x4095.

When I tried activating a 16384x8190 resolution, the window server crashed and I had to relog in (not a computer restart). Now all my scaled resolutions are upside down (until I reattach the eGPU). I could not go wider than 16K. SwitchResX allows up to 32K by 32K to be entered, but the macOS AMD driver won't accept anything greater than 16Kx8K.

macOS Intel graphics driver doesn't allow scaled resolution greater than 6720x3780 (actually the size of the 6K display). I believe this is an arbitrary limit Apple has placed on Intel graphics. It allows Intel Graphics to use the 3360x1890 HiDPI mode that people with the XDR display use (but Intel Graphics only allows outputting to XDR at 5K).
 

cmdrbuzz

macrumors newbie
Apr 29, 2018
5
5
My XDR turned up today. The stand, however, apparently has been lost by UPS somewhere between Germany and the UK.

Apple are less than helpful, being that the monitor is fairly paperweighty without a stand, their response is to order another one due in mid Feb.

Me thinks I may be returning the XDR if they cannot get a stand here quicker than 2 months.
 
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Bradleyone

macrumors regular
Jul 7, 2015
232
262
Sydney, Australia
Me thinks I may be returning the XDR if they cannot get a stand here quicker than 2 months.

Are you within buying distance of a flagship Apple Store? They just may have one in stock.

(When I was at the Apple Store Sydney a few days ago, the Stand was the only thing they did have in stock. They'd sold out of their preconfig Mac Pros and XDRs, but presumably someone bought one of the latter with a VESA mount and didn't need the stand.)

As someone with a February ship date for the whole XDR, I'd dearly love to be in your predicament! Even if I had to prop it on a bunch of telephone directories in the meantime.
 
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JordanNZ

macrumors 6502a
Apr 29, 2004
779
290
Auckland, New Zealand
Hey everyone! I received my XDR Display Friday (I was one of the first few minutes to order, originally had the December 20 - 30 ships by date, then strangely got an email a few days ago that said it was slipping to January 8 -11, but crazily it still arrived on the 27th.

I'm currently driving it from my new MacBook Pro 16" top of the line and it's GORGEOUS...

BUT - I'm experiencing a very strange noise issue when hooking up to external speakers. We do audio production, so we need nice studio monitors. I'm traveling now with it, so I don' have my home studio.

At first, I tried to hook up two external KRK Pro Studio Monitor Speakers just using the headphone jack of the MBPZ, and the audio distortion was horrible, it's like you can actually hear the computer thinking through the speakers - all kinds of interference (it even sounds like you hear disk writes and reads (which is silly because its an SSD, but you get the idea).

HERE'S THE DISTURBING PART - If I unplug the XDR Pro Display from the laptop, ALL DISTORTION goes away. Monitors sound fine. I was suspecting interference from the thunderbolt cables next to the microphone port - so I changed sides (power / display on opposite side of headphone jack), and distortion got a little bit better.

Hoping this was a microphone jack issue not happy powering studio monitors, I went and sprung for the latest version Universal Audio's $1000 Twin X USBC 3 Audio Interface, a studio quality audio interface that hooks up via USBC to your computer, then it has it's own external sound card and is now driving the monitors.

Sadly, about 20% of the sound noise and distortion is still there - they are constantly crackling and popping and giving "computer noise" (when you scroll through a web page or do something on screen, you "hear" it in the speakers as noise.). It's much better through the external sound card but still there.

AND AGAIn - HERE IS THE DISTURBING PART - if I disconnect the XDR Pro Display, all sound distortion goes away and they sound pristine and perfect like they should.

I'm starting to worry the Pro XDR display is causing interference issues - radio/magnetic/something - either through it's cabling or just in general giving off interference to the speakers. When it's unplugged, everything is fine, when it's powered up - speaker noise.

I will have to wait until I get back home to try on my studio setup by hooking up the display to iMacPro and different higher quality studio monitors... but this making me nervous.

Surely Apple tested the Pro Display with studio monitors near it.

Many are aware of the horrific issues the first LG 5k monitors had when they came out (they were Apples attempt to deliver a "supported" 5k monitor through LG when Apple discontinued their Cinema Displays and the first batch of them (until fixed 6 months later in version 2) had massive shielding issues - they hadn't properly shielded the monitor and it was causing all kinds of interference issues with speakers, wi-fi, bluetooth, etc. It was a disaster for Apple and LG.

I'm having nightmares this is the same issue all over again with a $5,000 display.

Hoping to hear from anyone else who will get an xDR and use in a music studio environment with studio monitors speakers, some kind of sound interface, etc, and see if they get the sound interference I'm getting when the display is connected.

Make sure you're using balanced cables from the Apollo Twin to the speakers (TRS jack to XLR), and experiment with powering the speakers from the same power strip as the monitor, and powering them from a different one. I've had this issue before. The balanced cables are the important part.
 

chfilm

macrumors 68040
Nov 15, 2012
3,427
2,110
Berlin
Has anybody ordered two?
I'm wondering, even though the specs allow it, how would UI performance be on two of these monsters if only driven by a single Vega II?
I'm wondering if for two displays, two GPUs would also be a good idea... I currently run two DELL 5k displays and performance overall is wonderful on a single VEGA except of course across all the Adobe Suite.
I tried using only a single display and it didnt get better at all, so I assume they are just poorly programmed.

I do observe however that if I start working with video or photos, the VRAM of the Vega fills up pretty quickly.
So that's why I was wondering if maybe a second one, each driving one display would be beneficial. Any thoughts or experiences?
 
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moab1

macrumors member
Dec 12, 2019
56
33
Has anybody ordered two?
I'm wondering, even though the specs allow it, how would UI performance be on two of these monsters if only driven by a single Vega II?
I'm wondering if for two displays, two GPUs would also be a good idea... I currently run two DELL 5k displays and performance overall is wonderful on a single VEGA except of course across all the Adobe Suite.
I tried using only a single display and it didnt get better at all, so I assume they are just poorly programmed.

I do observe however that if I start working with video or photos, the VRAM of the Vega fills up pretty quickly.
So that's why I was wondering if maybe a second one, each driving one display would be beneficial. Any thoughts or experiences?

I have two coming at the end of January and a single Vega II. I also have two LG 5k displays so I'll be testing a variety of confirmations. I'm hoping that two displays (either 2 XDR or 1 XDR and 1 LG 5k) will run just fine. That's what I'm planning on at least.

also, where do you see the VRAM of the Vega displayed?
 

chfilm

macrumors 68040
Nov 15, 2012
3,427
2,110
Berlin
I have two coming at the end of January and a single Vega II. I also have two LG 5k displays so I'll be testing a variety of confirmations. I'm hoping that two displays (either 2 XDR or 1 XDR and 1 LG 5k) will run just fine. That's what I'm planning on at least.

also, where do you see the VRAM of the Vega displayed?
Thank you, well I hoped to find out before I get like delivered which should also be in the end of January, but ok.
I think it will work fine with one XDR and one 5k display. I use istat menus and it’s shocking how quickly the vram fills up at times.
mit was always completely maxed out on my one old trashcan d700, while the other card was completely idle. Now, in web browsing, it’s relatively empty, but once I fire up Lightroom or premiere it fills up very quickly. So I’m wondering, I could see myself adding a W5700X when it finally comes out to drive the second display-
But then again I’m asking myself, if you have two Vega II with the infinity fabric, maybe they can split the workload much better between each other? I would really like to see some tests about that and to understand how the Infinity fabric really is being utilized.
 
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aerialbyte

macrumors member
Jan 28, 2018
35
14
I have two coming at the end of January and a single Vega II. I also have two LG 5k displays so I'll be testing a variety of confirmations. I'm hoping that two displays (either 2 XDR or 1 XDR and 1 LG 5k) will run just fine. That's what I'm planning on at least.

also, where do you see the VRAM of the Vega displayed?

See the following post:

I would imagine that based on the amount of streams available, you will be able to do two XDR and one LG 5K, but not two XDR and two LG 5K when using a single Pro Vega II.
 

joevt

macrumors 604
Jun 21, 2012
6,968
4,262
I have two coming at the end of January and a single Vega II. I also have two LG 5k displays so I'll be testing a variety of confirmations. I'm hoping that two displays (either 2 XDR or 1 XDR and 1 LG 5k) will run just fine. That's what I'm planning on at least.
A Vega II can support 3 dual link SST displays. One such display per Thunderbolt controller that has two DisplayPort inputs. The Vega II has two Thunderbolt controllers with two DisplayPort inputs each so you can connect two XDR display to that (but make sure each is connected to a separate Thunderbolt controller). The MPX slot outputs two DisplayPort signals from the Vega II which are shared with the Thunderbolt controllers on the I/O card and the top of the Mac Pro so you can connect one XDR display to one of those four Thunderbolt ports.

Actually, the Mac Pro tech specs say the Vega II can only power two XDR displays, not 3 as expected. The limit is not DisplayPort connections (it has 6 for three 5K displays so three 6K should also work). It must be some kind of bandwidth limit. I talk about MPX module bandwidth, connections, etc. at
mid-2019-mac-pro-pcie-slots-and-thunderbolt-3-add-in-card
There are still some questions about how things work.
 

OkiRun

macrumors 65816
Oct 25, 2019
1,005
585
Japan
Finally ~
Made my order today.

お届け予定日 2
出荷日: 6〜7週間
お届け予定日: 2020/02/22 - 2020/02/29 : 通常配送

Well, China is a long way away.

====

I have a sneaky feeling it isn't even built yet....:cool:
 
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inflame93

macrumors member
Jun 3, 2014
57
23
For those lucky ones that have received yours already, were the delivery estimates on time or did it arrive early?

Mines an early feb window and i’m getting really impatient haha
 

cmdrbuzz

macrumors newbie
Apr 29, 2018
5
5
An update on mine, I had the Display XDR delivered on 31st December but the stand was no-where to be seen. Somewhere between Germany, UK East Midlands and Bristol.

Apple haven't been the most helpful, they have been polite and sorta tried, but mostly useless.
After lots of calls and emails, the "best" they worked out was me waiting another 3-4 working days to see if UPS magically found it, and if not they'd reorder it for me and it'd be end of Feb before it gets to me.
If they "expedited the order" then possibly (but no guarantee) could be here end of Jan.

When I explained that without the stand the monitor is useless and without the monitor I can't really prove whether the Mac Pro + XDR will actually be suited for work within the return window the guy confirmed that Apple would both not extend the return window or be able to do anything.

So I decided to take things into my own hands, the suggestion above that a shop might have one, I found the London Regent Street store has (had?) one, ordered it for pickup today and jumped on the 2 hour train there and back.

I now have the XDR (and its pretty awesome, though the native resolution is slightly less than the iMac Pro that I've been using even though its bigger) working with the stand.

I spoke to Apple and they will try to refund the missing stand and hopefully that's the end of it.

I will probably ask them to pay for the train tickets as well, but given their lack of help on the rest of the thing, that's probably not gonna happen easily.
 

joevt

macrumors 604
Jun 21, 2012
6,968
4,262
I now have the XDR (and its pretty awesome, though the native resolution is slightly less than the iMac Pro that I've been using even though its bigger) working with the stand.
What do you mean by "native"? The XDR has the highest native resolution of any Mac display. You could get a Dell 8K, but that only works at 30Hz in macOS.

If you're talking about the HiDPI resolution, you can add higher HiDPI resolutions with SwitchResX - just add a scaled resolution that is twice as wide and tall as the HiDPI resolution that you want to use.
 
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chfilm

macrumors 68040
Nov 15, 2012
3,427
2,110
Berlin
Oh my god I saw the display today at the store, poverty glass vs nano, and it made me seriously consider canceling my order and getting a new one with nano coating. It looks SO much nicer.. and I’m not a matte person usually, but they really absolutely nailed this.
i don’t habe too many reflections on my room but hmmm. Anybody else feeling like this after seeing them side by side?
 
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Bradleyone

macrumors regular
Jul 7, 2015
232
262
Sydney, Australia
Anybody else feeling like this after seeing them side by side?

I'm kind of the opposite: I was prepared to be all in on the nano, but when I saw them side by side at a flagship Apple Store, I was ultimately convinced that glossy is for me.

The nano certainly impresses with the way it kills reflections dead. It's like every pixel on the screen is made of colored Vantablack that absorbs incoming light into nanotubes.

However, when not facing the nano directly, the colors fade quite noticeably. The screen also isn't as bright overall relative to the glossy (though of course still a very bright screen), and seems to not have the same pop.

Looking close up at the screen surface texture, it still has the "brushed with steel wool" appearance that matte screens have, not the "invisible to the human eye" appearance I first imagined when hearing "nano".

And for text, a lot of what I do involves reading traditional black text on a white background. I spent a good 20-30 mins doing just this at the Apple Store, comparing the same content and going between the two monitors. Text was noticeably sharper on the glossy and didn't have the matte screen fuzziness that I'd hoped would somehow be possible (again, a scattering surface that might be invisible to the human eye).

Although I would see these as distinct compromises, if you are in an environment with bright lights or a window behind you, they are quite probably worth it for the sheer benefit of removing reflections. After all, what good is a sharp screen if opaque white blobs obscure it, or reflections compete with the screen content.

Apple is very clever showing both screens in the bright lights of the Apple Store. In the store I was at (Sydney), the side of the store is literally a glass wall on the side of the street, with summer sunlight streaming in, and the display was set up just inside the pavement (far left table).

In such bright lighting, the glossy was virtually unusable. I actually had to turn it to face the store interior, so it "only" had Apple's 1000 lux overhead lights to cope with.

The nano was perfect in the bright light and looked like a very high res newspaper.

For me, I control the lighting in my environment and don't need to accept the compromises of the nano, so glossy is the one for me.
 
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AdamSeen

macrumors 6502
Jun 5, 2013
350
423
I'm kind of the opposite: I was prepared to be all in on the nano, but when I saw them side by side at a flagship Apple Store, I was ultimately convinced that glossy is for me.
...
Looking close up at the screen surface texture, it still has the "brushed with steel wool" appearance that matte screens have, not the "invisible to the human eye" appearance I first imagined when hearing "nano".

"brushed with steel wool" - good description. It's what I thought when I went to visit the Apple Store yesterday. The glossy one has better colour and is clearer. I wouldn't opt for the nano unless I needed it. What I would say though, is it seemed the glossy one also had a very slight "brushed with steel wool" feel to it. As if it wasn't perfectly clear, but I had nothing to compare against.
 

jinnyman

macrumors 6502a
Sep 2, 2011
762
671
Lincolnshire, IL
Yesterday, I got to see a real XDR displayed in the Apple store. It was glossy one, but the design of the thing was magnificent!. I’m not sure about the quality though. I had nothing to compare it at the same time, so I guess that’s why. It looked bright yes.

The look of it made me wanting to buy, but I know I don’t need.
Who knows? When I move back to the U.S. later this year, I may go for it, both MP7,1 and XDR.
 

deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,493
4,053
"brushed with steel wool" - good description. It's what I thought when I went to visit the Apple Store yesterday. The glossy one has better colour and is clearer. I wouldn't opt for the nano unless I needed it. What I would say though, is it seemed the glossy one also had a very slight "brushed with steel wool" feel to it. As if it wasn't perfectly clear, but I had nothing to compare against.

From the Apple marketing page for the XDR.

".. Every Pro Display XDR screen is engineered for extremely low reflectivity. ..."

Apple didn't maximize the "gloss" on the non nano textured one. All of them have something, the nano one just has more. The 'gloss' one just doesn't sacrifice angle and color for 'more'. ( matte generally always throws some color and/or angle away to reduce reflections. There is always an image quality impact. It is a trade off. ).
 
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deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,493
4,053
....
Actually, the Mac Pro tech specs say the Vega II can only power two XDR displays, not 3 as expected. The limit is not DisplayPort connections (it has 6 for three 5K displays so three 6K should also work). It must be some kind of bandwidth limit. I talk about MPX module bandwidth, connections, etc. at
mid-2019-mac-pro-pcie-slots-and-thunderbolt-3-add-in-card
There are still some questions about how things work.

The Vega II has an 'older' raster and display subsystem. It is likely bandwidth inside the GPU chip itself and not the MPX modules or external connections that are the issue. I suspect that the Vega II could drive 3 6k display; just not very well (passible if just putting static 2D images on the screen). And for the money Apple is asking for the Vega II they don't want them 'stumbling' with XDR (which also cost a boatload of money), so they are cutting it off on the 'good performance' range.

Navi ( and hence the W5700X ) brings some changes to the internal bandwidth between the subsystems in the AMD GPUs.

"...Finally, AMD has partially updated their display controller. I say “partially” because while it’s technically an update, they aren’t bringing much new to the table ...
..The one notable change here is support for DisplayPort 1.4 Display Stream Compression. DSC, as implied by the name, compresses the image going out to the monitor to reduce the amount of bandwidth needed. .."

But there needs to be more internal bandwidth get the data to the compressor before there can be less data coming out of the chip. So even if don't turn the compressor on there is just more bandwidth internally between major buffers/"memory stores".
 

Eyezestful

macrumors newbie
Jan 4, 2020
9
6
The Vega II has an 'older' raster and display subsystem. It is likely bandwidth inside the GPU chip itself and not the MPX modules or external connections that are the issue. I suspect that the Vega II could drive 3 6k display; just not very well (passible if just putting static 2D images on the screen). And for the money Apple is asking for the Vega II they don't want them 'stumbling' with XDR (which also cost a boatload of money), so they are cutting it off on the 'good performance' range.

Navi ( and hence the W5700X ) brings some changes to the internal bandwidth between the subsystems in the AMD GPUs.

"...Finally, AMD has partially updated their display controller. I say “partially” because while it’s technically an update, they aren’t bringing much new to the table ...
..The one notable change here is support for DisplayPort 1.4 Display Stream Compression. DSC, as implied by the name, compresses the image going out to the monitor to reduce the amount of bandwidth needed. .."

But there needs to be more internal bandwidth get the data to the compressor before there can be less data coming out of the chip. So even if don't turn the compressor on there is just more bandwidth internally between major buffers/"memory stores".

Thanks for this explanation, it is really helpful. I was also surprised to see that a Vega duo would not be able to handle 3 XDR displays! It seems two separate Vega II scan handle it easily due to more pcie connections being used.

I have a question that I have not seen answered elsewhere yet, would it be possible to buy the Mac Pro with a Vega duo and then add a Vega II solo and still use the infinity fabric link?

Apple mentions this with two solos and two duos but not with one solo and one duo. If anyone with more technical understanding could explain this, it would be greatly appreciated!

thank you.
 
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