Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Quadro 4000 for Mac does not work with Maya 2011/OSX 10.6.6

B

bluesteel

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 5, 2007
428
53
Earth
after a lot of thought, i finally went ahead and purchased a Quadro 4000 for Mac from Amazon via overnight delivery yesterday. the Quadro arrived as scheduled today, and I installed it in my 2010 12-core Mac Pro running OSX 10.6.6, but it does not seem to work with the latest version of Autodesk Maya 2011.

i installed the graphics card correctly, made sure the most current drivers were installed, and booted up my computer. the computer recognized the graphics card just fine. but when I launched Maya 2011, none of the viewports showed up and the OSX beach ball just kept spinning, and Maya was "not responding". i tried deleting Maya preferences, and even tried setting up a fresh new user account, but it was a no go.

since i have Autodesk Gold Support, i called up Maya Tech Support, and they confirmed that they haven't tested the Quadro 4000 for Mac themselves yet. they also weren't surprised that it wasn't working.

i already set up a return for the Quadro, and it'll be going back to Amazon at some point today. i'm quite frustrated cause my 5870 is causing some major viewport lag issues that are hindering my ability to create large and complex Maya scenes. i guess Autodesk is working to resolve this issue asap.

if your curious about the Quadro 4000 with Maya 2011 under OSX 10.6.6, well, there you go, its not working.
 
G

gfaherty3

macrumors newbie
Nov 18, 2010
3
0
bluesteel,

I have been watching and waiting for just this kind of news. I have two macs one with the GTX 285 and the other with the ATI 5870 and I was thinking of replacing both with the Quadro 4000 depending on the reviews. I haven't transitioned over to my 12 core machine with the 5870 yet so I haven't noticed any issues with Maya 2011, but I was a little surprised that i am still getting inconsistent viewport behavior but frankly that has happened on every mac since 8.5 or 2008.

I was really hoping that with the Quadro 4000 we might get a real graphics improvement but not yet.

I am really starting to think about hackentoshes.
g.
 
B

bluesteel

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 5, 2007
428
53
Earth
gfaherty3,

i returned the Quadro 4000 today :-( can't wait to get my $830 back!!

i was also watching and waiting for Quadro 4000 for Mac/Maya 2011 reviews and/or testing, but i just couldn't wait any longer. i figured someone had to be the Maya guinea pig..lol :) anyhow, i can't express how disappointed i was that it did not work with Maya 2011 today. Autodesk constantly talks about Maya working best with an nVidia based graphics card, especially a Quadro, and here we finally have an actual Fermi nVidia/PNY workstation graphics card for the Mac, and it doesn't work...unbelievable. at any rate, i'm sure the card will work with Maya down the line, hopefully sooner rather than later. but we still don't know exactly how Maya will benefit from the Quadro on the Mac side.

one thing that surprised me was how much thinner and lighter the Quadro 4000 was compared to the ATI 5870. the quadro also only required one of the two power cables, while the 5870 used both. that 5870 is a beast…a pretty beast! unfortunately, its just not enough for very large and complex Maya scenes. right now i'm like 35% of the way into modeling part of a city, and on top of the horrendous viewport lag i'm experiencing, my scene is exhibiting some really strange anomalies that don't allow me to see my shaded models accurately....everything is all jagged and partially transparent, etc. the bigger my scene gets, the worse the problems get. i just don't know if i can work in OSX with Maya anymore. the graphics issues are driving me crazy and slowing my productivity.

that being said, i'm interested in learning more about how i can use a windows based graphics card under Bootcamp/Windows 7/Maya 2011. problem is that i don't know what graphics card to choose and how to implement it. there are so many PC graphics cards on the market....which one to choose? i'd really love to get a GTX 580/570 or a PC Quadro 4000/5000. but i need the 5870 currently in my Mac Pro for other graphics/visual effects related work under OSX. how can i get a high end nVidia PC graphics card in with the 5870 without voiding the warranty of my new Mac Pro? the 5870 takes up so much space....it looks like its covering up the second x16 slot. and the 5870 is using two power cables...how would i even power a second high end card? how do you fit another beast in there? this is the problem......if i had exact answers, i'd give it a try.

how does your GTX 285 work with Maya 2011? any viewport issues? i was considering one of those too if i could find a used one…but i hate buying used computer equipment.

i also called Apple today and talked to a senior Mac Pro technical support rep. i guess these senior reps have a direct bloodline to the engineers. anyhow, i just let him know how sad it was that the graphics card choices for the Mac Pro were so limited and problematic. he was a nice guy….we talked for about 40 minutes about the subject. i guess he was glad that i called in, and said that more people need to let them know what they want, or else Apple will never make an effort to offer more graphics options for general usage and/or professionals.
 
Last edited:
G

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,694
bluesteel said:
i also called Apple today and talked to a senior Mac Pro technical support rep. i guess these senior reps have a direct bloodline to the engineers. anyhow, i just let him know how sad it was that the graphics card choices for the Mac Pro were so limited and problematic. he was a nice guy….we talked for about 40 minutes about the subject. i guess he was glad that i called in, and said that more people need to let them know what they want, or else Apple will never make an effort to offer more graphics options for general usage and/or professionals.
Click to expand...

This. Make sure Apple knows you want better cards and good things might happen.
 
gazwas

gazwas

macrumors 6502
Aug 11, 2008
350
301
Its not just Maya.

Basically I have been told the card basically doesn't work properly with 10.6.6.

Quote from the tech support on another forum for some software I use below:

"Unfortunately the Quadro 4000 is currently NOT working for Mac. It IS working under Windows. The problem resides inside the Mac OS 10.6.6. Even with a "driver" directly from Nvidia the OpenCL part (stack) is not enabled by the operating system. We have filed a problem report with Apple, and we assume this card WILL work in the near future."

What is it with Apple and GPU's?
 
H

highdefw

macrumors 6502
Apr 19, 2009
259
0
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

Obviously it's not a priority for Apple... Just catch up to windows standards and offer more choices. I don't see why not, it's not like Apple has no money for R&D, otherwise why keep around the pro line to just watch us suffer with the few cards that are actually "supported".

Hopefully the next FCS update will be the start for good things to come...
 
G

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,694
highdefw said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

Obviously it's not a priority for Apple... Just catch up to windows standards and offer more choices. I don't see why not, it's not like Apple has no money for R&D, otherwise why keep around the pro line to just watch us suffer with the few cards that are actually "supported".

Hopefully the next FCS update will be the start for good things to come...
Click to expand...

Again, NVidia writes the Quadro 4000 drivers.

These issues have nothing to do with Apple.

(I would also argue that the lack of available cards is largely not Apple's issue either. Apple doesn't control 3rd party distribution channels. They only control what cards they offer with the Mac Pro.)
 
B

bluesteel

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 5, 2007
428
53
Earth
goMac said:
Again, NVidia writes the Quadro 4000 drivers.)
Click to expand...

i'm not sure your entirely correct about this. i talked to nvidia and they said that nvidia sends Apple only the "base" driver, and then Apple takes it from there. it looks like Apple finishes developing the driver. they told me that any driver issues are Apple's responsibility.

after i installed the Quadro on my Mac, i inserted the nvidia drivers disc to install the driver, but i was told by the installer that the latest driver was already installed on my system. the Quadro 4000 driver must have been installed through a previous Apple Software Update. the driver came from Apple.

goMac said:
(I would also argue that the lack of available cards is largely not Apple's issue either. Apple doesn't control 3rd party distribution channels. They only control what cards they offer with the Mac Pro.)
Click to expand...

i believe your incorrect here too. nvidia says that Apple is the reason that there aren't more nvidia graphics cards available for the Mac Pro. they said that they would love to provide more graphics cards for the Mac Pro. i also talked to an engineer at Apple, and he admits that its apples fault that there aren't more graphics card choices for the Mac Pro. he actually said that they don't see the market to justify more choices. if Apple wants more graphics card choices, they work with a 3rd party vendor like nvidia. is Apple's computer.....if they want more graphics cards for the Mac Pro, they go out and forge relationships and make it happen. Apple initiates the process.

one thing i keep hearing from 3rd party vendors is how difficult it is to work with Apple. don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to bash Apple.....i like Apple, but the lack of graphics card choices seems like Apple's fault, plain and simple.
 
Last edited:
G

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,694
bluesteel said:
i'm not sure your entirely correct about this. i talked to nvidia and they said that nvidia sends Apple only the "base" driver, and then Apple takes it from there. it looks like Apple finishes developing the driver. they told me that any driver issues are Apple's responsibility.
Click to expand...

Apple only manages the final drivers for Apple OEM cards. The Quadro 4000 is not an Apple OEM card. This is why Apple's drivers don't work with it.

Usually Apple will add 3rd party card drivers in the next major update (10.7) to ensure users can at least properly boot from the install disks and setup.

(I believe this information is even faulty, but I can't really talk further about that.)

bluesteel said:
after i installed the Quadro on my Mac, i inserted the nvidia drivers disc to install the driver, but i was told by the installer that the latest driver was already installed on my system. the Quadro 4000 driver must have been installed through a previous Apple Software Update. the driver came from Apple.
Click to expand...

Apple does not provide the driver with the OS. This is very strongly noted on NVidia's site, and matches my experience.

bluesteel said:
i believe your incorrect here too. nvidia says that Apple is the reason that there aren't more nvidia graphics cards available for the Mac Pro. they said that they would love to provide more graphics cards for the Mac Pro. i also talked to an engineer at Apple, and he admits that its apples fault that there aren't more graphics card choices for the Mac Pro. he actually said that they don't see the market to justify more choices. if Apple wants more graphics card choices, they work with a 3rd party vendor like nvidia. is Apple's computer.....if they want more graphics cards for the Mac Pro, they go out and forge relationships and make it happen. Apple initiates the process.
Click to expand...

Yeah, NVidia is full of crap. Nothing is stoping NVidia from making their own cards for the Mac. No one needs Apple's approval to make a device driver or an expansion card.

This is like the time Valve claimed they needed Apple's approval to make Half Life 2 for Mac, when the reality is Apple doesn't have any control over 3rd parties making 3rd party software.

bluesteel said:
one thing i keep hearing from 3rd party vendors is how difficult it is to work with Apple. don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to bash Apple.....i like Apple, but the lack of graphics card choices seems like Apple's fault, plain and simple.
Click to expand...

From what I've heard, it's difficult to get Apple to upgrade their OEM cards mid-revision (impossible, actually.) It's entirely no problem to release your own card.

Again, Apple has absolutely nothing at all to do with a 3rd party releasing their own cards. ATI has been releasing their own cards for years for Mac with no problems. NVidia has the drivers (for Fermi even), and NVidia makes the hardware. Apple doesn't even enter into the equation.
 
M

mBox

macrumors 68020
Jun 26, 2002
2,361
86
Just to add...

Ive had my Quadro 400 for a few months now.
I had to remove it due to constant crashing with RED Rocket card using RED Cine X plus Adobe CS5 After Effects.
I installed it on a Mp 2.93 12-Core by removing the ATI 5870.
Now the crashes are fewer with the ATI but that card sucks for AE.
Stupid black frames here and there, some screen anomalies plus the lag :p
Im re-install the OS with the Nvidia this time but wondering if I should stick with an older OS? Does anyone know what the last known version e.g. 10.6.3 that works with the Quadro 4000?
Im glad I still have a BOXX 8400 w/Quadro 5600 for Maya here :)
I didnt know about the Maya problem with OSX :(
 
G

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,694
I would think the Quadro 4000 would be slower in After Effects, actually. The 5870 is the faster OpenGL card. But honestly, OpenGL mode in After Effects is glitchy no matter what card you use it with.

Premiere Pro is the only Adobe product which can actually take advantage of the Quadro.
 
M

mBox

macrumors 68020
Jun 26, 2002
2,361
86
goMac said:
I would think the Quadro 4000 would be slower in After Effects, actually. The 5870 is the faster OpenGL card. But honestly, OpenGL mode in After Effects is glitchy no matter what card you use it with.

Premiere Pro is the only Adobe product which can actually take advantage of the Quadro.
Click to expand...
Sucks I dont use Premiere these days. Is there a spec chart that proves this? Hmm why did I bother to buy the Quadro then :(
 
G

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,694
mBox said:
Sucks I dont use Premiere these days. Is there a spec chart that proves this? Hmm why did I bother to buy the Quadro then :(
Click to expand...

The Quadro is used for powering the Mercury Engine, which is only part of Premiere Pro.

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/performance/

The Quadro can still do OpenGL acceleration in After Effects, but it's slower than the 5870, and OpenGL is glitchy under After Effects anyway.

It's a very common misconception that After Effects, or even the rest of the suite is accelerated by CUDA/Mercury using the Quadro, and it's not true. I see a lot of misinformation here about that.
 
M

mBox

macrumors 68020
Jun 26, 2002
2,361
86
goMac said:
The Quadro is used for powering the Mercury Engine, which is only part of Premiere Pro.

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/performance/

The Quadro can still do OpenGL acceleration in After Effects, but it's slower than the 5870, and OpenGL is glitchy under After Effects anyway.

It's a very common misconception that After Effects, or even the rest of the suite is accelerated by CUDA/Mercury using the Quadro, and it's not true. I see a lot of misinformation here about that.
Click to expand...
The original intent was to have the Nvidia and the promise of getting it to work with DaVinci. My workload is mostly AE with Maya on top but now that we have a RED MX, I have to start to get it work in our current workflow.
For NLE we use Avid MC with FCP as a back-up.
Yes all our systems have CS5 Master Suite so we do have Premiere.
However, Ive ran out of space to add other apps to my noggin :p
LOL!
 
G

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,694
mBox said:
The original intent was to have the Nvidia and the promise of getting it to work with DaVinci. My workload is mostly AE with Maya on top but now that we have a RED MX, I have to start to get it work in our current workflow.
For NLE we use Avid MC with FCP as a back-up.
Yes all our systems have CS5 Master Suite so we do have Premiere.
However, Ive ran out of space to add other apps to my noggin :p
LOL!
Click to expand...

I've actually never used DaVinci, so I wouldn't know much about that. :) But in theory CUDA accelerated color correction apps should be plenty fast on a Quadro.

I don't think Mediacomposer will work with the Quadro at this point (Avid has to manually certify/enable all cards). FCP certainly doesn't use anything special on the Quadro....

I don't commonly use Maya so I can't speak to that. But I'm pretty sure they also have a card certification process?
 
M

mBox

macrumors 68020
Jun 26, 2002
2,361
86
goMac said:
I've actually never used DaVinci, so I wouldn't know much about that. :) But in theory CUDA accelerated color correction apps should be plenty fast on a Quadro.

I don't think Mediacomposer will work with the Quadro at this point (Avid has to manually certify/enable all cards). FCP certainly doesn't use anything special on the Quadro....

I don't commonly use Maya so I can't speak to that. But I'm pretty sure they also have a card certification process?
Click to expand...
I havent tested Maya since license is on PC. And earlier posts indicate that it doesnt work with Quadro.
I tested MC Software and it was fine with Quadro but yes your right its not approved so we have another workstation for MC along with Nitris hardware.
Well I re-installed the OS and staying put at 10.6.4 for now.
I want to insall AE first and see if it starts up again.
But Im also tempted to install the RED Rocket and see how long itll run without crapping out.
Is there an app thatll test the workstation and display card to see if its all playing nice?
 
G

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,694
mBox said:
I havent tested Maya since license is on PC. And earlier posts indicate that it doesnt work with Quadro.
I tested MC Software and it was fine with Quadro but yes your right its not approved so we have another workstation for MC along with Nitris hardware.
Well I re-installed the OS and staying put at 10.6.4 for now.
I want to insall AE first and see if it starts up again.
But Im also tempted to install the RED Rocket and see how long itll run without crapping out.
Is there an app thatll test the workstation and display card to see if its all playing nice?
Click to expand...

Hmmmm... you'd need something CUDA enabled...

Not sure offhand. I've done CUDA programming, so that's usually how I benchmark things. :) Premiere Pro would be the best app to test with. Not sure if Mercury Engine needs to be enabled manually, I've never run Premiere Pro CS5 on CUDA hardware, but you could pop in 9 or 10 1080p streams and see if it stutters. :)

I think the next FCP will probably support OpenCL, so if that update ships that would be a good way to test the card.
 
M

mBox

macrumors 68020
Jun 26, 2002
2,361
86
goMac said:
Hmmmm... you'd need something CUDA enabled...

Not sure offhand. I've done CUDA programming, so that's usually how I benchmark things. :) Premiere Pro would be the best app to test with. Not sure if Mercury Engine needs to be enabled manually, I've never run Premiere Pro CS5 on CUDA hardware, but you could pop in 9 or 10 1080p streams and see if it stutters. :)

I think the next FCP will probably support OpenCL, so if that update ships that would be a good way to test the card.
Click to expand...
Hey thanks ;)
I think for now the only testing will be too see if it crashes even when not in use.
The original grief was you would leave the system alone for few hours with processes (rendering) going on then as soon as you touch the mouse the grey screen of pain shows up :p
 
WelshDog

WelshDog

macrumors member
Jan 29, 2002
85
66
Austin
goMac said:
The Quadro is used for powering the Mercury Engine, which is only part of Premiere Pro.

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/performance/

The Quadro can still do OpenGL acceleration in After Effects, but it's slower than the 5870, and OpenGL is glitchy under After Effects anyway.

It's a very common misconception that After Effects, or even the rest of the suite is accelerated by CUDA/Mercury using the Quadro, and it's not true. I see a lot of misinformation here about that.
Click to expand...
So I'm specifying a system now for our AE guy. He's on an original Mac Pro from 2006 so he is overdue for an update. I was going to get him a 12 core, and 16 gigs RAM with the 5870 and wait until I heard more about the 4000 performance. I don't think he uses Open GL rendering. From reading here it doesn't sound like the graphics card makes much difference for AE. Would the stock ATI 5770 be good enough?
 
G

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,694
WelshDog said:
So I'm specifying a system now for our AE guy. He's on an original Mac Pro from 2006 so he is overdue for an update. I was going to get him a 12 core, and 16 gigs RAM with the 5870 and wait until I heard more about the 4000 performance. I don't think he uses Open GL rendering. From reading here it doesn't sound like the graphics card makes much difference for AE. Would the stock ATI 5770 be good enough?
Click to expand...

The 5770 should be a very good card. It puts you in a better position of not having sprung for the 5870 if NVidia fixes the Quadro 4000.
 
M

mBox

macrumors 68020
Jun 26, 2002
2,361
86
B

bluesteel

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 5, 2007
428
53
Earth
i just wanted to update the thread and let everyone know that i got the Quadro 4000 for Mac to work with Maya 2011.
 
sketchguy

sketchguy

macrumors regular
Jan 31, 2008
100
108
Los Angeles, CA
How's the 4000 running w/Maya?

bluesteel said:
i just wanted to update the thread and let everyone know that i got the Quadro 4000 for Mac to work with Maya 2011.
Click to expand...

Specifically, do you see improvements with Viewport 2.0 and the Qt window environment?

I picked up a 5870 on Friday from B&H thinking it would be an improvement over my 8800GT, however, it only has one Dual DVI port and I need to hook up my Cintiq. The MDP -> DVI has been acting wonky, but it finally recognized the Cintiq late last night. New problem, though - one of my Maya projects currently in production crashes when attempting to render with the ATI. I'm now considering returning the 5870 and either getting the PNY Quadro 4000 (cheaper than Apple model) OR, a used GTX 285.

I want to make sure I'm covered for when Maya 2012 comes out this Friday (4/8)

Thanks,

-Steve
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom