Appleinsider says Apple’s management doesn’t want to support NVIDIA

William Gallagher and Mike Wuerthele at AppleInsider hacve an article on how someone at Apple Management doesn’t want NVIDIA support in MacOS.I have been talking about this for years. Apple doesn’t care about the pros. They care about what they want. And they want the companies that kowtow to them.And the new “modular” macpro is obviously not going to be what Pros want if you can’t use the components that you want. It seems any new MacPro will only work with AMD video cards. And many video pros want NVIDIA and CUDA, as well as for science people who need proprietary CUDA support! Honestly it means that likely there will be no accessible pci slots in the new MacPro, and not even thunderbolt support for NVIDIA.There were all these rumors that the exclusivity with AMD ended as of 2019, but it seems Apple is done with NVIDIA. Hell there were even rumors that 2xxx series work with startup unlike all non-supported apple cards, and if that is true Apple is actively supressing NVIDIA!Now I hear from friends that the new iMac Pro is awesome, but I hate no PCI slots or extra internal storage! Hell you can get PC’s with built in Raids that don’t even require sleds for spinning hard drives. I mean a macpro with an external raid would blow people’s minds! Even if it was a “module” you could add on!I don’t want to move to Windows. I love my surface, because I can run real photoshop, but would rather have it be a mac, and I want my computer to ge a mac, but am more and more scared that a mac will not be great for a pro.

Will NVIDIA release video card drives for Mac OS Mojave?

So Apple has released it's latest OS, OS X 10.14 Mojave, and it dropped Open CL support, breaking many legacy programs and also unfortunately breaking NVIDIA's CUDA.Apple has released a list of cards that are compatible with Metal and will work with Mojave. It lists 2 old Mac Edition NVIDIA cards as working (though with really old drivers that won't work with any modern card) and a slew of AMD cards (also with issues I will get into later).So for many OSes NVIDIA has been releasing Web Drivers and CUDA drivers that gave support to 3rd party NVIDIA cards within a MacPro 5,1 (or flashed 4,1).Unfortunately it seems that Mojave broke CUDA support, and NVIDIA has not been able to get it working, so they haven't even released Web Drivers. The link says that they need to work with Apple to get it working, which may mean it will never happen. As Apple has only released machines with AMD cards since someone at NVIDIA leaked the specs on a computer before a Steve Jobs Keynote.So anyone with an NVIDIA card can't upgrade to Mojave (well you can but without any video card acceleration it will be a mostly useless computing experience).This does not give confidence that the promised new Mac Pro for 2019 will be able to use NVIDIA cards either. And I for one have been greatly impressed with NVIDIA cards and CUDA acceleration.And the issue above with AMD cards come into play here. AMD cards do support metal and do it very well, but they are continually beaten by NVIDIA cards not only in performance, but especially in power consumption and heat generation.And the fact that AMD cards will work in a MacPro 5,1 in Mojave is great (though without any boot screens as they are not flashed for Mac), but the power consumption of those cards is not. So even the consumer Radeon RX 580, 570 or even 560 can draw too much power for a MacPro and cause power spikes and crashes. The solution is to either hack your mac's power supply by tapping into all the power cables to draw enough power, or run an external power supply for your video card (made more difficult since all my PCI cards are full with a USB 3 card, a Blackmagic card and an ssd hard drive).And NVIDIA cards use so much less power that you can easily run an NVIDIA GTX 1080 8GB in a MacPro and it will outperform an RX 580 (check this out at Barefeat). And sure the RX Vega 64 beats the GTX 1080, but it requires an external power supply and if you were going to go that the GTX 1080Ti beats the AMD. And it gets even worse if you check the Metal scores, as even the GTX 1070 beats the RX VEGA 64 significantly in Metal scores, and the Vega 64 has huge issues with Fans and drivers support.So will NVIDIA fix CUDA, or are they giving up on…

MacPro Crashes are certainly to do with my NVIDIA Video Card

So I have been having some serious crash problems of late on my MacPro 4,1 that has been firmware flashed to a 5,1 with an NVIDIA GTX 670 and 4GB of RAM. I have posted about it here and here.I am running 10.12.2 with 32 GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 4095 MB and I had started getting bad crashes with noise in the image, which I show in a previous post. And it was happening more and more, especially when trying to run Premiere Pro. I had been running the OS X driver instead of the web driver, as it seemed to be more stable, but when I switched to the web driver 367.15.10.25f01 those crashes stopped, though I did get random restarts still, and crashes when I try and run Premiere Pro (which my previous posts show was from the Web Driver).So the fact that the different drivers have the different crashes to me seems to show that it is for sure the video card that is causing the crashes. Unfortunately I don't really have the money right now for a replacement. Eventually I want to replace this whole rig with a PC (as the 2013 Trashcan MacPro is not a powerful enough machine for what I need) but that would be even more.Now I currently have Premiere Pro running, but am doubtful it won't crash again soon. And I have run TechTool Pro 12 and it showed my Graphics RAM as being fine. Are there any other tests to see if my video card is for sure failing? I posted at Apple forums, but have gotten no help.EDIT: Well I was wrong about none of the video noise crashes with the Web Driver. I hadn't had any, but when running Premiere they happen with consistence. I have had 4 of them in less than an hour. Seems like as soon as CUDA cuts in the issue is happened with the web driver. Basically I can't use Adobe (the main use for my machine) or I get the crashes. SHIT!EDIT 2: Also posted on MacRumors and at least one poster says bad video card.

Still getting bad crashes on my MacPro, seems to be connected to NVIDIA card

Still getting nasty crashes, and seems to be with my GTX 670 4 GB in my 4,1 (firmware updated to 5,1) MacPro on Sierra 10.12.2. I am running Web Driver 367.15.10.25f01 and CUDA 8.0.57. From my included Crash Log it is looking like it is the Web Driver, and it crashed as soon as I started Premiere Pro 2017, though I seem to have been not having the previous noise crash running it, but am going to try switching back to the standard NVIDIA driver with Sierra and see if that works.Tue Jan  3 17:13:57 2017*** Panic Report ***panic(cpu 14 caller 0xffffff7f8c15235e): NVRM[0/5:0:0]: Read Error 0x0010a1c4: CFG 0x118910de 0x00100406 0x8a000000, BAR0 0x8a000000 0xffffff93b424d000 0x0e4090a2, D0, P3/4Backtrace (CPU 14), Frame : Return Address0xffffff93cd37b760 : 0xffffff800aef211c 0xffffff93cd37b7e0 : 0xffffff7f8c15235e 0xffffff93cd37b8a0 : 0xffffff7f8c22cf7d 0xffffff93cd37b900 : 0xffffff7f8c53ee0a 0xffffff93cd37b960 : 0xffffff7f8c21e17e 0xffffff93cd37b9b0 : 0xffffff7f8c21de09 0xffffff93cd37ba60 : 0xffffff7f8c2c6b82 0xffffff93cd37bac0 : 0xffffff7f8c26884d 0xffffff93cd37bb00 : 0xffffff7f8c268230 0xffffff93cd37bcb0 : 0xffffff7f8c12ebf8 0xffffff93cd37bcf0 : 0xffffff7f8c2c6a61 0xffffff93cd37bd20 : 0xffffff7f8c540530 0xffffff93cd37bd40 : 0xffffff7f8c540418 0xffffff93cd37bd90 : 0xffffff7f8c528252 0xffffff93cd37be00 : 0xffffff7f8c25e109 0xffffff93cd37be20 : 0xffffff7f8c158b71 0xffffff93cd37bee0 : 0xffffff800b4be51f 0xffffff93cd37bf30 : 0xffffff800b4bcd81 0xffffff93cd37bf80 : 0xffffff800b4bc366 0xffffff93cd37bfb0 : 0xffffff800aea0af7       Kernel Extensions in backtrace:         com.nvidia.web.NVDAResmanWeb(10.1.5)[5273B57C-0D1D-344A-93A7-BEFDDD7C0F73]@0xffffff7f8c0e6000->0xffffff7f8c40ffff            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[6F8D3ACB-27CB-3B57-9E06-53E377762F5C]@0xffffff7f8b69d000            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(513.1)[07F97C14-C6EE-3577-9875-8BA38DDCBCCD]@0xffffff7f8c0ca000            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(513.1)[578F9D07-96F4-3F09-A6A6-047F257CB3BA]@0xffffff7f8c083000            dependency: com.apple.AppleGraphicsDeviceControl(3.13.78)[FD48FB7F-3F5F-38F1-A8C7-B82C80807726]@0xffffff7f8c0da000         com.nvidia.web.NVDAGK100HalWeb(10.1.5)[64926FEF-8B32-39BB-AA94-06FA5E0F9AFE]@0xffffff7f8c422000->0xffffff7f8c5dffff            dependency: com.nvidia.web.NVDAResmanWeb(10.1.5)[5273B57C-0D1D-344A-93A7-BEFDDD7C0F73]@0xffffff7f8c0e6000            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[6F8D3ACB-27CB-3B57-9E06-53E377762F5C]@0xffffff7f8b69d000BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_taskMac OS version:16C67Kernel version:Darwin Kernel Version 16.3.0: Thu Nov 17 20:23:58 PST 2016; root:xnu-3789.31.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64Kernel UUID: 8DF81F81-019F-348E-B47E-40A4484B9E21Kernel slide:     0x000000000ac00000Kernel text base: 0xffffff800ae00000__HIB  text base: 0xffffff800ad00000System model name: MacPro5,1 (Mac-F221BEC8)System uptime in nanoseconds: 23837399125361last loaded kext at 23090533694669: com.apple.driver.AppleXsanScheme    3 (addr 0xffffff7f8e32e000, size 32768)last unloaded kext at 23625041872161: com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub    900.4.1 (addr 0xffffff7f8e31f000, size 12288)loaded kexts:com.expandrive.filesystems.strongfuse    3.5.2com.nvidia.CUDA    1.1.0com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower    1.6.7com.nvidia.web.NVDAGK100HalWeb    10.1.5com.nvidia.web.GeForceWeb    10.1.5com.nvidia.web.NVDAResmanWeb    10.1.5com.blackmagic-design.driver.BlackmagicIO    10.8.3jp.plentycom.driver.SteerMouse    4.2.6com.apple.filesystems.cddafs    2.6.1com.apple.driver.AppleHWSensor    1.9.5d0com.apple.filesystems.autofs    3.0com.apple.driver.AppleTyMCEDriver    1.0.2d2com.apple.driver.AGPM    110.23.14com.apple.driver.AppleOSXWatchdog    1com.apple.driver.AudioAUUC    1.70com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient    3.6.4com.apple.driver.AppleMCCSControl    1.2.15com.apple.driver.pmtelemetry    1com.apple.iokit.IOUserEthernet    1.0.1com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver    127com.apple.driver.AppleHDA    278.56com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyDriver    278.56com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager    5.0.2f4com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X    7.0.0com.apple.driver.AppleHV    1com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport    5.0.2f4com.apple.driver.AppleLPC    3.1com.apple.driver.AppleIntelSlowAdaptiveClocking    4.0.0com.apple.driver.ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin    1.0.0com.apple.driver.MaxTranserSizeOverrideDriver    404.30.1com.apple.driver.Oxford_Semi    404.30.1com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient    394.30.2com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage    295.20.1com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI    5.5.5com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless    1.0.0d1com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib    1.0.0com.apple.driver.Intel82574LEthernet    2.7.2com.apple.driver.AirPort.Brcm4360    1130.3.1a4com.apple.BootCache    40com.apple.filesystems.hfs.kext    366.30.3com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort    326com.apple.driver.AppleRTC    2.0com.apple.driver.AppleHPET    1.8com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons    5.0com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS    2.1com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC    5.0com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC    1.7com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClient    219.0.0com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall    172com.apple.security.quarantine    3com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet    8com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement    219.0.0com.apple.kext.triggers    1.0com.apple.iokit.IOSurface    153.3com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib    278.56com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib    525com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily2    289.27com.apple.AppleGraphicsDeviceControl    3.13.78com.apple.driver.AppleSSE    1.0com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController    1.0.14d1com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport    513.1com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport    5.0.2f4com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothHostControllerTransport    5.0.2f4com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController    278.56com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily    513.1com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily    278.56com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusPCI    1.0.14d1com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP    2.2.7com.apple.iokit.IOSlowAdaptiveClockingFamily    1.0.0com.apple.driver.AppleSMC    3.1.9com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginLegacy    1.0.0com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily    6.0.0d8com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily    11com.apple.driver.AppleUSBAudio    307.7com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily    205.11com.apple.vecLib.kext    1.2.0com.apple.driver.usb.IOUSBHostHIDDevice    1.1com.apple.driver.IOBluetoothHIDDriver    5.0.2f4com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily    5.0.2f4com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver    900.4.1com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageDriver    131.1.1com.apple.driver.usb.networking    5.0.0com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHostCompositeDevice    1.1com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIBlockCommandsDevice    394.30.2com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireSerialBusProtocolTransport    2.5.1com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireSBP2    4.2.7com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHub    1.1com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice    394.30.2com.apple.iokit.IOBDStorageFamily    1.8com.apple.iokit.IODVDStorageFamily    1.8com.apple.iokit.IOCDStorageFamily    1.8com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireFamily    4.6.5com.apple.iokit.IOAHCISerialATAPI    266com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily    394.30.2com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family    1200.12.2com.apple.driver.mDNSOffloadUserClient    1.0.1b8com.apple.driver.corecapture    1.0.4com.apple.filesystems.hfs.encodings.kext    1com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily    3.2com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily    288com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBEHCIPCI    1.1com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBUHCIPCI    1.1com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBUHCI    1.1com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBEHCI    1.1com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBXHCIPCI    1.1com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBXHCI    1.1com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHostPacketFilter    1.0com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily    900.4.1com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties    1.1com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM    2.1com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime    2.0com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily    2.0.0com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily    1.1com.apple.security.sandbox    300.0com.apple.kext.AppleMatch    1.0.0d1com.apple.driver.AppleKeyStore    2com.apple.driver.AppleMobileFileIntegrity    1.0.5com.apple.driver.AppleCredentialManager    1.0com.apple.driver.KernelRelayHost    1com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily    1.1com.apple.driver.AppleBusPowerController    1.0com.apple.driver.DiskImages    444.30.5com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily    2.1com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily    31com.apple.driver.AppleFDEKeyStore    28.30com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform    5.0com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily    2.9com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily    1.4com.apple.kec.pthread    1com.apple.kec.Libm    1com.apple.kec.corecrypto    1.0Model: MacPro5,1, BootROM MP51.007F.B03, 8 processors, Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 2.26 GHz, 32 GB, SMC 1.39f5Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670, PCIe, 4095 MBMemory Module: DIMM 1, 4 GB, DDR3 ECC, 1066 MHz, 0x830B, 0x4D324C344737324342344E41314E2D424520Memory Module: DIMM 2, 4 GB, DDR3 ECC, 1066 MHz, 0x830B, 0x4D324C344737324342344E41314E2D424520Memory Module: DIMM 3, 4 GB, DDR3 ECC, 1066 MHz, 0x802C, 0x33364A53463531323732505A2D3147344631Memory Module: DIMM 4, 4 GB, DDR3 ECC, 1066 MHz, 0x802C, 0x33364A53463531323732505A2D3147344631Memory Module: DIMM 5, 4 GB, DDR3 ECC, 1066 MHz, 0x830B, 0x4D324C344737324342344E41314E2D424520Memory Module: DIMM 6, 4 GB, DDR3 ECC, 1066 MHz, 0x830B, 0x4D324C344737324342344E41314E2D424520Memory Module: DIMM 7, 4 GB, DDR3 ECC, 1066 MHz, 0x802C, 0x33364A53463531323732505A2D3147344631Memory Module: DIMM 8, 4 GB, DDR3 ECC, 1066…

The New NVIDIA TITAN X is the King of the Hill!

Yes there is a new king of the hill in the consumer video card arena, and that is the new NVIDIA TITAN X. I had expected this to take a while to come out after them releasing the new 10 series, 1080, 1070 and 1060, but it was quickly announced and is coming out August 2nd! Wow! And the specs are amazing!GPU Engine Specs                                               TITAN X                 GTX 1080NVIDIA CUDA® Cores                                          3584                         2560Base Clock (MHz)                                                   1417                         1607Boost Clock (MHz)                                                  1531                        1733Memory Specs:GbpsMemory Speed                                                10                              10GDDR5XStandard Memory Config                        12 GB                       8 GBMemory Interface Width                                         384-bit                      256 bitMemory Bandwidth (GB/sec)                                 480                           320Thermal and PowerMaximum GPU Temperature (in C)                       94                             94Graphics Card Power (W)                                       250 W                     180 WSupplementary Power Connectors                          8 pin and 6 pin       8 pinThat is an extra 1024 CUDA Cores for Adobe Creative Suite to play with, and an extra 4GB of faster RAM for not that much more power draw!If you have been reading my posts, I have come to the realization that my next computer won't be a Mac, and have been looking at custom build PC's like Origin PC or Puget Systems. For a bit I was thinking that maybe 2 SLI GTX 1080's would be the answer for my CUDA needs, but that would basically eat all of my PCI slots. And I likely need some sort of Black Magic Design card to kick out video at least to an HD Monitor for editing, if not an Intensity Pro 4k. And while I can get a USB 3,1 external Raid for hard drives (as I likely won't get a ThunderBolt 3 Motherboard, unless I decide to build for myself), so I could live without a raid controller I would like need a Firefire PCI board to deal with my all my old hard drives until I can afford new enclosures.So it looks like the new NVIDIA TITAN X would be my $1200 card of choice.

Bare Feats compared the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 with 10 other GPU’s in a 2010 Mac Pro

Bare Feats has a great comparison of the new NVIDIA GTX 980 installed in a MacPro and runs it against 10 other GPU options. Not only does this card us standard six pin connectors so it will work fine in the MacPro, but in many tests it doubles the performance of a GTX 680 Mac edition! WOW!If I had the money I would totally go for one of these, since it is literally twice as fast as the GTX 680 Mac Edition, and I currently run a GTX 670, though it does have 4 GB of RAM.I WANT ONE SO BAD!!! Ha! Not happening anytime soon.Your best bet for one is this one from MacVidCards which is $835 plus shipping, the cards has been flashed for Mac so you get the full startup with it (which I annoyingly don't have with my GTX 670).

NVIDIA announces next gen Pascal GPU’s and $3000 Titan Z Graphics Card

PC World has this exciting news.Pascal will use NVLink, to enhance the PCI connection between cards, and allow for 5x to 12x speeds over PCI Express. And with 3D stacking of chips to increase bandwidth between components we will have serious powerhouses here.And the Titan Z has 12GB of memory and 5760 CUDA Cores! Wow, think of the CUDA accelerated editing with that! And Pascal will be even faster than that. AWESOME.And this is why it was insane for Apple to give up on user expandable PCI Express cards in their computers. By limiting graphics to only specific AMD cards they have done their customers a huge disservice, and this is likely why I will end up with a PC someday.

Apple Updates iMacs with Haswell Processors and NVIDIA 7 Series GPU’s

Apple has once again updated it's iMacs, now with Haswell Processors, PCI SSD cards and NVIDIA 7 series GPU's!. Now that the MacPro is going fully AMD only, people wanting CUDA will have iMacs as their main option, as you can go up to a GTX 780M with 4GB of GDDR5 Memory. Would rather have a non-mobile version of the processor, but these should still rock for CUDA.If only APPLE would relent and release a MacPro that is actually expandable, and doesn't use just thunderbolt for expansion, but that is unlikely to happen. Thinking a hackintosh looks more and more likely in my Future!