Frequently Asked Questions About NVIDIA PC (non-EFI) Graphics Cards

rcook55 · Feb 7, 2013

_dob_ said:
This leads me to my question ... Does anybody know how to auto-boot in the Mac Pro BIOS emulation instead having to hold down Option and selecting the "Windows" drive every single time ?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Unless I'm mistaken can't you select the boot drive from OS X? Just choose the Windows drive when you want to reboot into windows.

_dob_ · Feb 7, 2013

rcook55 said:
Unless I'm mistaken can't you select the boot drive from OS X? Just choose the Windows drive when you want to reboot into windows.

The "Windows" drive does not show up in Startup Disk / System Preferences. And if I select my SSD with ML, I will be skipping Chameleon and thus attempting to boot with the built-in 32bit EFI once more that does not support ML.

If Boot Camp does allow you boot into Windows via Startup Disk (haven't used it in years), then perhaps there is also a way to have it point to the Chameleon boot loader partition?

initialsBB · Feb 8, 2013

Asgorath said:
Updated the OP. Need to go through and update the list of cards that have been confirmed to work, will get to that ASAP.

GT610 working great for me in slot 2 as a GUI card, next to a GTX 570 in slot 1.

rcook55 · Feb 9, 2013

I had a nVidia GT220 1Gb RAM card from a repair pull and decided to pop it in and see what happened. Mostly it works fine. A few oddities.

This particular card has a 2 DVI dongle instead of 2 separate DVI ports, I have one monitor connected the the #1 port but when I reboot it comes up thinking it's the second monitor. I'm not sure if the dongle is the issue or if it's due to me still having the 7300GT plugged in. I need to do some more tests. I have not installed the web driver either, FWIW.

I'm not sure if it's placebo or what but things do seem crisper on the monitor with this card. Steam games work fine.

nigelbb · Feb 10, 2013

MacVidCards said:
For awhile I have gotten sporadic reports of 570 & 580 cards overheating & stopping Mac Pros. Over time I realized that it was ALWAYS a 2008 3,1 Mac Pro.

So, I got one of these.

While working on our new GTX580 that does NOT require external power I made some discoveries.

1. 580 3GB cards using reference design suffer this issue. This means that reference GTX570 are most likely affected as well. (Reference boards are typically the Dual DVI & Mini HDMI cards)

2. The 3 GB 580 from MSI is immune. As are the EVGA 580 Classified Ultra 3GB and the Gigabyte 580 3 GB that has 3 fans.

3. The EVGA 570 cards that use the non-reference board are also immune. This means the beloved 2.5GB cards and the 1.2 GB cards that have DP & HDMI in addition to Dual DVI are immune. Most of these immune 570s have fan centered in heatsink. The affected cards have fan at the END of the heatsink.

4. GTX680 reference board immune as are GTX480.

So basically so far it just seems that the original design for GTX570 & GTX580 can NOT be used in a 3,1 in lowest slot. This stinks for people trying to use multiple slots as moving 570/580 to Slot 2 solves problem but wastes slot 1 and covers up slot 3.

I guess this means that the MSI Twin Frozr II & MSI Twin Frozr III GTX570 1.2GB cards are not reference designs as they work great in our two Mac Pros.

mattlong1978 · Feb 11, 2013

Does this sound right?

Hi, I've been following this thread as I'm contemplating how I can improve gaming performance, my current setup is a 2008 Mac Pro using an ATi 5870 hooked up to an Apple 27" Cinema Display (Non Thunderbolt) running Mountain Lion 10.8.2.

I was just hoping someone would confirm I've got the right idea here with what I'm going to purchase, firstly the EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW and secondly because I use the Cinema Display a Kanex C247DL to go from Mini DisplayPort to Dual Link DVI.

Does this sound ok? any advice or corrections would be appreciated, Cheers

xcodeSyn · Feb 11, 2013

mattlong1978 said:
...a Kanex C247DL to go from Mini DisplayPort to Dual Link DVI.

The GTX 670 has a DisplayPort output, so you could just get a DP to mini DP cable/adapter instead and pass the expensive DVI to mini DP adapter which may or may not work properly.

mattlong1978 · Feb 11, 2013

xcodeSyn said:
The GTX 670 has a DisplayPort output, so you could just get a DP to mini DP cable/adapter instead and pass the expensive DVI to mini DP adapter which may or may not work properly.

Thanks for that ive found several adaptors, i take it theres no issues going from mini displayport to displayport?

Asgorath · Feb 11, 2013

mattlong1978 said:
Thanks for that ive found several adaptors, i take it theres no issues going from mini displayport to displayport?

Correct, this is vastly preferred if you have a Display Port connector on your card. No problems at all going DP to Mini-DP or vice versa.

rcook55 · Feb 11, 2013

So today I was given an old Dell XPS to do with what I want. It came with an 8800GTX card. It looks identical to what would have come with a Mac Pro 1,1 like I have. Before I just try it can anyone comment on if it will work or not?

MacVidCards · Feb 11, 2013

The 8800GTX is unique in that Nvidia made a goof in Lion and (despite having it brought to their attention) have never fixed it.

It will work in Lion but it won't work well.

What happens is that for some odd reason that specific device id tries to load drivers for G80 and G70 chips.

You will need to remove the GeForce 7000 kexts to have it work in Lion.

rcook55 · Feb 12, 2013

MacVidCards said:
The 8800GTX is unique in that Nvidia made a goof in Lion and (despite having it brought to their attention) have never fixed it.

It will work in Lion but it won't work well.

What happens is that for some odd reason that specific device id tries to load drivers for G80 and G70 chips.

You will need to remove the GeForce 7000 kexts to have it work in Lion.

Thanks for the response. So more questions, "won't work well" as in don't bother it will annoy me enough that it's not worth it? Second, can you link to how to remove the 7000 kexts and if I do so I assume that the 7300 will stop working? Also on 10.7.5 will I still need to install the latest web driver or is the included driver fine?

If I attempt to get the 8800GTX working will I have the apple boot screen and will steam games work? Bootcamp? If all of this works I'll take the time to figure it out. Otherwise I'll simply save up for a GTX560 and be done.

Oh and MacVidCards, I see your in Hollywood. You ever work with Solvent Dreams?

Killerbob · Feb 12, 2013

Question for users with non-EFI cards;

When using a GTX680 graphics card, I know there is no boot screen, hence no boot menu. However, if inserting a USB stick with OSX installation files on it, which I can boot on, to use disk utility etc., will that work on a non-EFI card?

dpny · Feb 12, 2013

Simple question: with the release of 10.8.3 imminent and, with it, updated drivers for the 600-series cards, will I have any problems doing an OS upgrade with my 670 and its lack of a boot screen?

One of the X-Plane developers has been testing the 10.8.3 developer builds and has found a minimum 15% increase in fps.

Asgorath · Feb 12, 2013

Killerbob said:
Question for users with non-EFI cards;

When using a GTX680 graphics card, I know there is no boot screen, hence no boot menu. However, if inserting a USB stick with OSX installation files on it, which I can boot on, to use disk utility etc., will that work on a non-EFI card?

The installer runs a version of the Window Server, and thus works fine on a non-EFI card. Basically, once you get past the grey Apple logo, you no longer need the EFI.

dpny said:
Simple question: with the release of 10.8.3 imminent and, with it, updated drivers for the 600-series cards, will I have any problems doing an OS upgrade with my 670 and its lack of a boot screen?

One of the X-Plane developers has been testing the 10.8.3 developer builds and has found a minimum 15% increase in fps.

OS updates work fine on non-EFI cards, I've been running one since 10.7.3 without any problems. I've updated all the way to 10.8.2, it works just fine.

Killerbob · Feb 12, 2013

Asgorath said:
The installer runs a version of the Window Server, and thus works fine on a non-EFI card. Basically, once you get past the grey Apple logo, you no longer need the EFI.

Super, as the installer has the "boot menu" in it. Just go to Disk Utility and ESC out. Then in the menu you can select boot disk.

This works also with the Accelsior card, which does not work in the Apple boot menu...

m4v3r1ck · Feb 12, 2013

_dob_ said:
The "Windows" drive does not show up in Startup Disk / System Preferences. And if I select my SSD with ML, I will be skipping Chameleon and thus attempting to boot with the built-in 32bit EFI once more that does not support ML.

If Boot Camp does allow you boot into Windows via Startup Disk (haven't used it in years), then perhaps there is also a way to have it point to the Chameleon boot loader partition?

Any drivers like Paragon NTFS for MAC OSX running? If so try to uninstall/disable them and see what happens, THIS WAS MY ISSUE

! Goodluck!

MacPoulet · Feb 14, 2013

NVIDIA "Branded" GTX 560 TI

I'm looking at an NVidia branded GTX 560 TI card for my Mac Pro 1,1. How are they compared to say EVGA or ASUS?

I'm guessing the reference card would be pretty decent (not interested in overclocking or running games, it's for FCP / Creative Suite) but I wasn't sure.

Thanks!

Cindori · Feb 14, 2013

In terms of compatibility, reference cards are the way to go. You don't lose much over the third party overclock-friendly versions.

Killerbob · Feb 14, 2013

In terms of power consumption, the reference cards are also preferable, as they are usually not power-hungry, overclocked, tuned versions, and hence are OK for use in std. Mac Pros.

Killerbob · Feb 14, 2013

Asgorath said:
Correct, this is vastly preferred if you have a Display Port connector on your card. No problems at all going DP to Mini-DP or vice versa.

And this works fine with the brightness controls on the Apple keyboard?

I will be putting a eVGA GTX680 SC in my Mac Pro, and using a DP (male) adapter to MDP (female), connect my 27" ACD to it.

skippermonkey · Feb 15, 2013

Latest OS X update?

Has anyone tried the beta builds of OS X 10.8.3? I wondered if it improved or borked Nvidia cards - or made no difference at all. It is, after all, partly centred on graphics drivers...

manamana · Feb 15, 2013

MacPro 4,1 - EVGA GTX 570 - mountain lion

Thanks to the contributors!! This thread is a big help so far. I'm hoping someone who's upgraded the card on a similar system can share their experience.

I have a 2009 macro 4,1, 2.66 quad, 12gb ram, ATI Radeon HD 4870. Currently lagging in CS6 AE and PREMIERE.

I was going to install a (PC version) EVGA GTX 570 but I'm thrown off by the need for external power as my technical ability is limited. Also, not keen on frying my comp as I'm approaching a deadline.

Is there a method that doesn't require external power? Or a card that is simpler to run?

Much thanks.

xcodeSyn · Feb 15, 2013

manamana said:
I was going to install a (PC version) EVGA GTX 570 but I'm thrown off by the need for external power as my technical ability is limited. Also, not keen on frying my comp as I'm approaching a deadline.

Is there a method that doesn't require external power? Or a card that is simpler to run?

Don't understand why you need external power for the GTX 570? It has a TDP of 219W that's well within the 225W limit for a single GPU. What you need to do is to remove your Radeon 4870 and replace it with the GTX 570 using the two six-pin power cables that came with the 4870. You can't keep both cards in the machine because the 4870 has a TDP of 157W and that's well over the 300W limit. Set your 4870 aside and use it only when you need to have a boot screen such as clean install of OS X.

Dillo2 · Feb 16, 2013

manamana said:
Thanks to the contributors!! This thread is a big help so far. I'm hoping someone who's upgraded the card on a similar system can share their experience.

I have a 2009 macro 4,1, 2.66 quad, 12gb ram, ATI Radeon HD 4870. Currently lagging in CS6 AE and PREMIERE.

I was going to install a (PC version) EVGA GTX 570 but I'm thrown off by the need for external power as my technical ability is limited. Also, not keen on frying my comp as I'm approaching a deadline.

Is there a method that doesn't require external power? Or a card that is simpler to run?

Much thanks.

I installed an EVGA GTX 660 Ti in my 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 and it works great. You will need to acquire two power cables just as you will for the GTX 570. Order the GTX 660 Ti with 2 Gb of RAM, otherwise, you will need to patch one of the binary files.

To get the card working with Premiere Pro, follow the instructions published at Smoke on the Water

Frequently Asked Questions About NVIDIA PC (non-EFI) Graphics Cards

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