OT: Apple not supporting nVidia graphics in OS X Mojave

[Oliver Peters]

I think you are down to a ground-up, totally clean install. But before you do that, create a new user account on the Mac and see if you have any success there.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Paul Neumann]

Will do. Thanks for listening.

[Tom Sefton]

I can’t see another Mac Pro being built with a non swappable gpu, but if it can handle 8K media and the system has thunderbolt 3 so can use an egpu, I can’t see the issue.

Just observing the gpu wars at the moment, if Apple chooses one over another and it works fine with the highest quality footage available, does it really matter if you can upgrade or replace them with another from the same manufacturer in the future?

Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk

[Michael Hancock]

[Tom Sefton] “and it works fine with the highest quality footage available,”

I’d say the missing word here is “today”. Works fine “today”. Who knows what is coming out tomorrow.

If nVidia works better with tomorrow’s footage then it would be preferable to have the option to just buy an nVidia card and keep working than wait for AMD to come out with a card that works as well, then wait for Apple to support that card.

—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor

[Andrew Kimery]

[Tom Sefton] “I can’t see another Mac Pro being built with a non swappable gpu, but if it can handle 8K media and the system has thunderbolt 3 so can use an egpu, I can’t see the issue.

Just observing the gpu wars at the moment, if Apple chooses one over another and it works fine with the highest quality footage available, does it really matter if you can upgrade or replace them with another from the same manufacturer in the future?”

Not all programs work best with AMD GPUs though. Some work much better with Nvidia GPUs. If Apple only wants to ship products with AMD GPUs I can see that from a parts management perspective. But blocking Nvidia GPUs from working at all (especially with the flexibility that eGPU opens up) is just like… really Apple?

[Oliver Peters]

[Tom Sefton] “does it really matter if you can upgrade or replace them with another from the same manufacturer in the future?”

Yes, it does. Because as we have already seen, Apple has deprecated Nvidia cards and CUDA in favor of AMD and Apple’s internal Metal2 technology. If you still have a Mac Pro tower, you can ditch your Nvidia card (if you have one) and replace it with an AMD Radeon. Right now AMD is the favored child at Apple. But if they decide to change to something else (Nvidia, Intel, their own chips) and deprecate AMD cards – and you have a built-in AMD GPU – then there’s no way to upgrade without replacing the entire computer.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Oliver Peters]

[Andrew Kimery] “But blocking Nvidia GPUs from working at all (especially with the flexibility that eGPU opens up) is just like… really Apple?”

Personally I suspect a 2019 MP will build upon the design of the Mini and rely heavily on eGPUs. Then it’s less of a card issue and more of a driver issue.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Andrew Kimery]

[Oliver Peters] “Personally I suspect a 2019 MP will build upon the design of the Mini and rely heavily on eGPUs. Then it’s less of a card issue and more of a driver issue.”

Right, I poorly worded my statement. It’s is a driver issue, as opposed to a physical piece of hardware issue, but if the drivers aren’t good (or aren’t available at all) there’s no reason to use an Nvidia GPU/eGPU with a Mac.

[Michael Gissing]

My 2009 MacPro died a few days ago. I was testing it to sell to a friend for parts, particularly the power supply which is what died. So that’s it, off to the ewaste recycle. I no longer have anything Apple in my life.

This silly feud with NVIDIA is one of many reasons why I will not step back into the Apple world for hardware or software.

[Tod Hopkins]

OS 10.14 Mojave does not work properly with nVidia cards. I have several perfectly good nVidia cards.
OS 10.13 High Sierra will not work with my old Mac Pros which are nicely upgrades and powerful machines.
The current version of Premiere (13) does not support hardware acceleration under OS 10.12, so I’m still using CC2018.

The good news is I can run CC2018 and everything else I need on Sierra without any noticeable sacrifice in performance.

The bad news is that after 26 years with Apple I can no longer make a rational argument for Mac hardware at the high end. Or for that matter, the new OS who’s sole new feature appears to be forced hardware obsolescence.

By the way, I like Windows 10. It’s fast.

Cheers,
tod

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.
Washington, DC