I don't think we'll see the Yosemite level performance until after El Capitan gold master is officially released. Maybe 6-7 weeks left. Then we all be looking for answers about Metal support and where to download demos.
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Resolved Warning: If you have a GTX 980 with Mac Pro, don't install 10.11 Pub Beta 5
- Thread starter Zorn
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This doesn't seem like a positive thing to me. If the web drivers weren't tied to a specific OS version and there was a minor dot release fixing Wi-Fi, security, or whatever, then the web drivers wouldn't break and wouldn't cause headaches for all of us using them and even bigger headaches for all of us who can't use the Apple drivers.
I don't see the benefit to forcing them to break on every release regardless of whether they would have broken due to an incompatibility or been fine due to no incompatibility.
I also don't see Nvidia tying drivers to specific releases of Windows such that every Windows update would break your video drivers there. The very thought is absurd.
Yes, Apple should just include the damn Maxwell drivers already. And yes I'm damn glad Nvidia is supporting us with drivers at all. But regardless I don't like how the drivers are tied to a point-release; there are problems because of it, and I see no benefit to it.
Right, there are two options for NVIDIA:
1) Tie the web driver to a specific OS release to guarantee that the bits it was compiled against are the ones it runs with.
2) Loose lock to the OS version (e.g. 10.10.5) instead of a specific build (e.g. 14F27) , and hope that Apple doesn't change the layout of a structure or class that their driver depends on.
There are obviously pros and cons with each solution, the former means a brief period of incompatibility but the latter can result in unexpected application crashes, kernel panics and so on. The support burden of the latter seems much higher, because now they have to deal with people calling their support line complaining that their system is in a reboot loop after the latest security update from Apple. By forcing the driver to be incompatible and thus not load, they can completely avoid this issue for shipping OSes. Yes, it's annoying for ~24 hours especially if you have a Maxwell card, but again, what are the alternatives?
Let's assume Apple doesn't tell NVIDIA when they're going to release a new OS or a security fix. Let's assume that Apple doesn't tell NVIDIA when said update would actually result in a binary incompatibility. The current solution of quickly rebuilding and releasing a new driver that one would assume has gone through some amount of QA testing really does feel like the most robust solution to the problem. Given that Apple includes drivers for all their shipping hardware, I can believe that Apple doesn't care about the NVIDIA web drivers at all.
1) Tie the web driver to a specific OS release to guarantee that the bits it was compiled against are the ones it runs with.
2) Loose lock to the OS version (e.g. 10.10.5) instead of a specific build (e.g. 14F27) , and hope that Apple doesn't change the layout of a structure or class that their driver depends on.
There are obviously pros and cons with each solution, the former means a brief period of incompatibility but the latter can result in unexpected application crashes, kernel panics and so on. The support burden of the latter seems much higher, because now they have to deal with people calling their support line complaining that their system is in a reboot loop after the latest security update from Apple. By forcing the driver to be incompatible and thus not load, they can completely avoid this issue for shipping OSes. Yes, it's annoying for ~24 hours especially if you have a Maxwell card, but again, what are the alternatives?
Let's assume Apple doesn't tell NVIDIA when they're going to release a new OS or a security fix. Let's assume that Apple doesn't tell NVIDIA when said update would actually result in a binary incompatibility. The current solution of quickly rebuilding and releasing a new driver that one would assume has gone through some amount of QA testing really does feel like the most robust solution to the problem. Given that Apple includes drivers for all their shipping hardware, I can believe that Apple doesn't care about the NVIDIA web drivers at all.
I'd personally prefer the former - at least then we can automatically avoid updates until there is a web driver out. I still think it's completely mind blowing that Apple wouldn't spend the 10 minutes to build even the earliest available nvidia driver into OS X to avoid frustrating their customers with this nonsense.
I am now getting 1 or 2 emails a day, especially after an OS update. People who got a 980 in 10.10.4 who already had web driver installed just mindlessly click the update button and next boot they hit a boot loop.
I actually got an email yesterday from a guy who had taken his cMP to the Genius bar due to boot loop after 10.10.5 update. They of course said the 980 is bad. The geniuses have no idea what a "web driver" is, they looked in their script and saw the machine should have a 4870 or 5870 and blamed the card. Why the guy didn't contact me before he hauled a 60b machine to Apple I don't know.
Apple bet on AMD.
AMD is so far behind Nvidia they can't even get a glimpse of Nvidia's tail lights.
Nvidia equipped cMPs leaving pricey nMP in the weeds is embarrassing.
So, they make you jump through hoops.
And the customers suffer. The 5K iMacs are burning their little hearts out at 105C because Apple can't admit they picked a lame horse. (I read this morning about a guy who uses his 5K iMac fan to dry his hair while rendering, also dries fresh fruit for camping trips.)
The 5K iMac could have been revolutionary, with a Maxwell GPU. Instead it will be legendary, when they all go txxs up at an early age from heat induced failure.
Apple is literally punishing Nvidia for making superior GPUs.
I actually got an email yesterday from a guy who had taken his cMP to the Genius bar due to boot loop after 10.10.5 update. They of course said the 980 is bad. The geniuses have no idea what a "web driver" is, they looked in their script and saw the machine should have a 4870 or 5870 and blamed the card. Why the guy didn't contact me before he hauled a 60b machine to Apple I don't know.
Apple bet on AMD.
AMD is so far behind Nvidia they can't even get a glimpse of Nvidia's tail lights.
Nvidia equipped cMPs leaving pricey nMP in the weeds is embarrassing.
So, they make you jump through hoops.
And the customers suffer. The 5K iMacs are burning their little hearts out at 105C because Apple can't admit they picked a lame horse. (I read this morning about a guy who uses his 5K iMac fan to dry his hair while rendering, also dries fresh fruit for camping trips.)
The 5K iMac could have been revolutionary, with a Maxwell GPU. Instead it will be legendary, when they all go txxs up at an early age from heat induced failure.
Apple is literally punishing Nvidia for making superior GPUs.
I wonder if the OS-specific lock is a concession Nvidia makes for allowing the web drivers to exist in the first place.
Apple could always revoke Nvidia's digital certificate if they wanted, then Nvidia owners would have to disable Gatekeeper to install drivers. Made even worse with El Capitan's system integrity protection coming up. "If Apple didn't approve it, it might as well not exist."
Apple could always revoke Nvidia's digital certificate if they wanted, then Nvidia owners would have to disable Gatekeeper to install drivers. Made even worse with El Capitan's system integrity protection coming up. "If Apple didn't approve it, it might as well not exist."
^^^^Well, as it is, every time I try to install an updated Nvidia Web Driver I get a message saying it's not from a good source or some such BS, and it won't open. This doesn't happen with the Cuda updates, as I recall, only the Web Driver. I need to go to the Security & Privacy Control Panel where there is a message that allows me to open it. I don't get this message with any other program I try to install, only NVIDIA! Surely Apple recognizes Nvidia! What's up with that Crap?
Lou
Lou
You can change the security setting to say "always" or right click for the option otherwise.
^^^^Yes, I know that. There are three boxes I can choose to check to allow apps to open after download.
1. Mac App Store
2. Mac App Store or identified developers
3. Anywhere
I have the #2 option checked, I guess for purposes of security. I could check option 3, but choose not to. But, AGAIN, surely Apple must recognize Nvidia as being an "identified developer." That was the purpose of my post, to show how silly this whole driver business has become.
Lou
1. Mac App Store
2. Mac App Store or identified developers
3. Anywhere
I have the #2 option checked, I guess for purposes of security. I could check option 3, but choose not to. But, AGAIN, surely Apple must recognize Nvidia as being an "identified developer." That was the purpose of my post, to show how silly this whole driver business has become.
Lou
Yeah I've never had this problem, and I have the middle option checked. The web driver is definitely signed correctly as far as I can tell.
Edit: To be clear, I'm talking about 10.10.5 only, I haven't updated to El Cap yet.
I spent a day and a half with El Capitan 10.11.2 and an ASUS GTX 980 ti and couldn't get Windows 7 on a dedicated disk to let me back into the El Capitan disk. The final version of Yosemite and the webdriver from nvidia work well. I agree with one of the other posters above that it would be better to wait for the final version of El Capitan and an updated nvidia driver for that version before switching over to El Capitan with this card.
Yes, that is the danger of having no EFI.
Frequently doing a PRAM reset will at least re-choose OSX, though with unflashed card you won't see anything to be able to turn on drivers.
Always good idea to have screen sharing setup from another machine so that you can quickly fix this issue.
Frequently doing a PRAM reset will at least re-choose OSX, though with unflashed card you won't see anything to be able to turn on drivers.
Always good idea to have screen sharing setup from another machine so that you can quickly fix this issue.
From reading this, it sounds like nvidia is the one to go with. My current 5,1 has the stock 5870 in it.
Do the nvidia cards have the EFI software available online to flash them?
Do the nvidia cards have the EFI software available online to flash them?
^^^^Flashing an Nvidia card involves the services of this member of the forums:
http://www.macvidcards.com
Lou
http://www.macvidcards.com
Lou
Here is an informative thread that I read this morning on that issue: http://forum.netkas.org/index.php?topic=11150.0
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Thank you for the tip on screen sharing -- greatly appreciated!!!