Appleinsider explains why Macs don’t support Nvidia GPUs

[Bob Zelin]

ok –
so since GPU acceleration with the AMD cards are supported by FCP X, Davinci Resolve, Maxon Cinema 4D and Autodesk Maya – HOW COME Adobe can’t just go to AMD, give them a bunch of money, and say “let’s get GPU rendering for Adobe CC products working with AMD cards?”.

The only reason this debate goes on and on about NVidia is because of Adobe software. Why won’t Adobe and AMD (or Adobe and Apple) play ball ?

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Craig Seeman]

Remember the days when people complained that Resolve worked best with Nvidia cards. I’ve heard from some quarters Resolve can be quite zippy on Macs (and AMD of course) at least with some functions.

I wonder if Adobe’s base will be eroded by Resolve over time. Perhaps not there yet but maybe a couple of years down the road.

[Bob Zelin]

well Resolve works fine with a Vega 56 or Vega 64 or the Blackmagic eGPU that has the Vega 56 in it.
Because Resolve supports the AMD GPU. Who cares if Apple and NVidia hate each other. Why can’t Adobe
go to AMD to get these questions answered ? There is a story there, as well.
Are you suggesting (I apologize if I appear aggressive with this question) – that no FCP X user ever uses Photoshop, After Effects or Adobe Media Encoder ?

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Andrew Kimery]

Going by the video, I don’t why the creator says that both companies need to come to their senses when seems like Nvidia is writing drivers for the Mac, but Apple refuses to support them in Mojave. It doesn’t sound like Nvidia is doing anything to prevent their cards from being Mac-compatible.

[Bob Zelin] “The only reason this debate goes on and on about Nvidia is because of Adobe software. Why won’t Adobe and AMD (or Adobe and Apple) play ball ? “

Adobe software runs fine on AMD cards, it just can have better performance leveraging Nvidia’s secret sauce in CUDA. Of course now we are getting into the area of Apple using out dated versions of OpenCL in order to force people onto Metal.

And it’s not just Adobe users on the Mac that get shafted by this. For example, if you have one of the new Nvidia cards it’ll debayer your 8K REDCODE RAW footage in real time thanks to Nvidia’s partnership with RED. Nvidia cards are still the go-to choice for many GPU-centric needs and Apple’s refusal to support them only hurts end users.

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/12/13/red-digital-cinema-nvidia-8k-movie-editing/

I’ve been a Mac-centric user for nearly 20yrs, but for the last year I’ve been editing on a PC and to be honest I don’t miss Macs nearly as much as I thought I would. Even my Mac tower at home has spent more time booted into Windows 10 and MacOS.

[Craig Seeman]

[Bob Zelin] “Are you suggesting (I apologize if I appear aggressive with this question) – that no FCP X user ever uses Photoshop, After Effects or Adobe Media Encoder ? “

Affinity Photo, Blackmagic Fusion, Apple Compressor. Just saying that as long as Adobe is intransigent others will get their opportunity.
Of course, both Adobe and Apple are stubborn forces but in Apple’s case, alternatives to Adobe are evolving. It may take a couple of years but Adobe intransigent hurts Adobe. Adobe Mac users already see the performance disadvantage they have on Mac (one assumes they do) and, in this case, I don’t think Apple’s going to blink.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Craig Seeman] “Of course, both Adobe and Apple are stubborn forces but in Apple’s case, alternatives to Adobe are evolving. It may take a couple of years but Adobe intransigent hurts Adobe”

Maybe I’m missing something, but how is Apple refusing to certify Nvidia’s drivers for Mojave the fault of Adobe?

[Craig Seeman]

Adobe is not taking the best advantage of AMD (GPU assisted encoding/decoding) from what I’ve heard.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Craig Seeman] “Adobe is not taking the best advantage of AMD (GPU assisted encoding/decoding) from what I’ve heard.”

Over the years Adobe has improved it’s OpenCL performance and it also adopted Apple’s proprietary API, Metal. Obviously Adobe supports CUDA as well, so I think it’s just the normal performance trade off between creating software that only runs on a vary narrow range of OS and hardware vs creating software that runs on a wide range OS and hardware.

And if there is some magic in CUDA that allows Adobe apps to run best with Nvidia cards (regardless of host platform) why shouldn’t Adobe leverage that? RED partnered with Nvidia to create an off-the-shelf replacement to their REDRocket cards so maybe Nvidia is just making a better product right now?

Apple has dropped OpenCL/GL support, won’t allow certify Nvidia’s drivers (thus blocking CUDA) so the only game in town is Metal if you are on the Mac. I don’t see anyone being intransigent except Apple (and that has been their MO historically).

[Craig Seeman]

In tests that I’ve seen Resolve takes much better advantage of the AMD GPU on Macs than Premiere Pro. That would be Adobe’s intransigent.

[Michael Gissing]

The primary problem I see is that a company that has a small but niche OS, refuses to support the major GPU company’s product. Given Win and Linux are the two major OS’s, Nvidia probably isn’t too fussed but from our narrow view of the world, the Mac OS seems important. When I look at the available hardware and OS options, it also doesn’t matter as the software I use is all cross platform and I prefer Nvidia GPUs so Apple are the loser in my case and for probably an increasing number of users.

Maybe Apple see it as way to niggle Adobe but Blackmagic clearly aren’t fussed. And surely Adobe will improve their performance on Macs. Again the problem is Apple’s attitude, expecting developers to adopt their standards and playing favourites. It’s one of the reasons they won’t be getting any money from me which I’m sure has them awake at night with worry. They better not get AMD offside or maybe then they will have sleepless nights. Meanwhile they are more focused on iPhone sales in China.