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

5,1 2010 + eVGA GTX 980 Ti MacVidCards EFI sluggishness

favoretti

favoretti

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 7, 2018
30
7
Please don't kill me on the spot. I know I'm number 23084203948 with this thread. I have read a LOT of them.

I've installed eVGA GTX 980 Ti into my mid2010 5,1 mac pro. Both power sockets are connected. 32G RAM, 2x quad-core xeons. With 2x 4k displays working in 2k mode (2560x1440) desktop rendering speed (chrome, slack, basic apps, whatnot) is very sluggish. Games work well, just that the desktop lag is horrific. Even when scrolling in a single long page in chrome I can see pieces of the page render with my bare eye.

My MBP mid-2015 with stock video card performs better.

Latest web driver is installed, so is CUDA.

What am I missing?
 
what version of macOS and build number?
what version of NVIDIA web driver?
what version of CUDA?

may not be related, but worth asking: do you have an SSD as your main system drive? is it APFS formatted or HFS+?
 
bsbeamer said:
what version of macOS and build number?
what version of NVIDIA web driver?
what version of CUDA?

may not be related, but worth asking: do you have an SSD as your main system drive? is it APFS formatted or HFS+?
Click to expand...
System Version: macOS 10.13.3 (17D47)
Kernel Version: Darwin 17.4.0
Boot Volume: MACSSD
Boot Mode: Normal
Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
System Integrity Protection: Disabled
Time since boot: 17:59

387.10.10.10.25.156 for 17D47 already installed
CUDA: 387.128

Main system drive is a PCI-X SSD indeed, non-apfs (hfs).
 
favoretti said:
System Version: macOS 10.13.3 (17D47)
Kernel Version: Darwin 17.4.0
Boot Volume: MACSSD
Boot Mode: Normal
Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
System Integrity Protection: Disabled
Time since boot: 17:59

387.10.10.10.25.156 for 17D47 already installed
CUDA: 387.128

Main system drive is a PCI-X SSD indeed, non-apfs (hfs).
Click to expand...
Do you have a spare drive you could use and install Sierra to it?
This could help determine if it's OS related, as h98 alluded to above, or hardware, or other.
 
Squuiid said:
Do you have a spare drive you could use and install Sierra to it?
This could help determine if it's OS related, as h98 alluded to above, or hardware, or other.
Click to expand...
I certainly have a spare drive, however, not an SSD, I hope that won't matter?
I'll try to install it tonight and will report back.
 
  • Like
Reactions: h9826790 and Squuiid
favoretti said:
I certainly have a spare drive, however, not an SSD, I hope that won't matter?
Click to expand...

Should not matter and should also help to determine any possible issue with your PCIe.

You can re-install the OS on top of existing OS without having to wipe or do a clean install. That does fix issues, sometimes. If going ahead with that, would suggest to have a bootable clone just in case.
 
bsbeamer said:
Should not matter and should also help to determine any possible issue with your PCIe.

You can re-install the OS on top of existing OS without having to wipe or do a clean install. That does fix issues, sometimes. If going ahead with that, would suggest to have a bootable clone just in case.
Click to expand...
I have a metric ****-ton (technical term) of backups that I can selectively restore, so in theory I could even do a completely fresh install.. However I wanna do that as a real last resort type of thing, potentially when I understand what causes the glitches :)
 
Hmm, so I've got home and tried playing around some more.. It seems the problems are most noticeable on HDPI resolutions. Would that give any more pointers? Still sluggish, but somewhat faster than HDPI mode. (Prepping Sierra USB stick as we speak)
[doublepost=1518029042][/doublepost]Also, every once in a while when I scroll in finder some fields fall out into black squares :O random ones.


Slack_-_TNT_e-commerce_2018-02-07_19-43-24.png
 
using SwitchResX or any "cheats" to enable HDPI?
what specific monitor(s) are you using?
what ports are you using to connect to monitors?
 
bsbeamer said:
using SwitchResX or any "cheats" to enable HDPI?
what specific monitor(s) are you using?
what ports are you using to connect to monitors?
Click to expand...

Used RDM and SwichResX, doesn't matter qua performance. Screens are 2x Samsung U28E570 connected via 1x DP each.
 
favoretti said:
Hmm, so I've got home and tried playing around some more.. It seems the problems are most noticeable on HDPI resolutions. Would that give any more pointers? Still sluggish, but somewhat faster than HDPI mode. (Prepping Sierra USB stick as we speak)
[doublepost=1518029042][/doublepost]Also, every once in a while when I scroll in finder some fields fall out into black squares :O random ones.


Slack_-_TNT_e-commerce_2018-02-07_19-43-24.png
Click to expand...

This black block looks like web driver issue. You better contact Nvidia, send them this picture, therefore, they may able to fix it in the future web driver.
 
I've seen the occasional black block with NVIDIA drivers before, wouldn't be too concerned about that if it was isolated. The rest of the issues are concerning.

How are you powering the card? Using both 6-pins from board?
 
bsbeamer said:
I've seen the occasional black block with NVIDIA drivers before, wouldn't be too concerned about that if it was isolated. The rest of the issues are concerning.

How are you powering the card? Using both 6-pins from board?
Click to expand...
6+6 on the board to 6 + 8 on the card, yeah.
 
favoretti said:
What am I missing?
Click to expand...

It looks like hardware graphics acceleration is not working. In my experience the behavior you are seeing is that typically the Nvidia driver is either not installed, not running, or not selected. The only reason why you are seeing a screen at all is that MVC flashed Maxwell cards work with the fallback software rendering mode, which is very laggy just like you are experiencing.

1. Check to see if the driver is installed and running. System Information, Software, Extensions.

2. Check your NVRAM settings to ensure that the Nvidia web driver is actually selected. (There have been 2-3 people here who found out that the driver is not selected even though it shows as selected in the Nvidia Preference Pane). In Terminal:

nvram -xp​
 
  • Like
Reactions: NOTNlCE, Flint Ironstag and h9826790
ActionableMango said:
It looks like hardware graphics acceleration is not working. In my experience the behavior you are seeing is that typically the Nvidia driver is either not installed, not running, or not selected. The only reason why you are seeing a screen at all is that MVC flashed Maxwell cards work with the fallback software rendering mode, which is very laggy just like you are experiencing.

1. Check to see if the driver is installed and running. System Information, Software, Extensions.

2. Check your NVRAM settings to ensure that the Nvidia web driver is actually selected. (There have been 2-3 people here who found out that the driver is not selected even though it shows as selected in the Nvidia Preference Pane). In Terminal:

nvram -xp​
Click to expand...

Sweet, that is something I didn’t know. Waiting for Sierra install on another drive, will double-check then.

Although what rendering performance is when stock driver is in place isn’t what I call “sluggish”, that’s what I’d call unworkable. But I’ll doublecheck once the other slug (Sierra install from a USB stick finishes).
[doublepost=1518036083][/doublepost]
ActionableMango said:
It looks like hardware graphics acceleration is not working. In my experience the behavior you are seeing is that typically the Nvidia driver is either not installed, not running, or not selected. The only reason why you are seeing a screen at all is that MVC flashed Maxwell cards work with the fallback software rendering mode, which is very laggy just like you are experiencing.

1. Check to see if the driver is installed and running. System Information, Software, Extensions.

2. Check your NVRAM settings to ensure that the Nvidia web driver is actually selected. (There have been 2-3 people here who found out that the driver is not selected even though it shows as selected in the Nvidia Preference Pane). In Terminal:

nvram -xp​
Click to expand...

1.__fish_2018-02-07_21-38-55.png

This looks like it's loaded.

Mac_Pro_2018-02-07_21-41-01.png

This also looks legit..

Back to installing Sierra for a try (first try failed...)
 
Last edited:
You need to re-enable SIP, favoretti, then allow Settings > Security&Privacy > Allow... (to appease GateKeeper), before you can install the nVidia WebDriver to get the driver to fully install.

I actually had to re-re-image the base-HS (10.13.1) image I made after the install to clear the cruft, and step-by-step to allow GateKeeper to vet the process.

While educational, it was not an entirely pleasant experience ;)

Regards, splifingate
 
  • Like
Reactions: Flint Ironstag and h9826790
splifingate said:
You need to re-enable SIP, favoretti, then allow Settings > Security&Privacy > Allow... (to appease GateKeeper), before you can install the nVidia WebDriver to get the driver to fully install.

I actually had to re-re-image the base-HS (10.13.1) image I made after the install to clear the cruft, and step-by-step to allow GateKeeper to vet the process.

While educational, it was not an entirely pleasant experience ;)

Regards, splifingate
Click to expand...

First-time driver installation was in fact done with SIP enabled. I have it disabled now cause I was trying out some patches, and other whatnots. I'm happy to install base High Sierra wiping the main drive. For my apps it's more like "brew FTW!", don't have much non-brew stuff installed. But do you see anything really missing that warrants a reinstall? It seems like all components, kexts, etc are loaded?
 
Soooo. For whatever reason none of my USB sticks are successful in getting Sierra to install. But I did install fresh HS on a spinning disk..

One notable difference is that apparently native driver was able to give me 4K from the get-go on one screen. Installing web driver gave me both screens and 2K mode. Now trying to get a benchmark tool name, that I used to measure stuff in another install. _Seems_ a bit faster, although let's say resizing a heavy browser window is still very very sluggish.

I'll try to get myself a stock of new USB sticks tomorrow and retry with Sierra again.. Man, this is frustrating.
 
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
Back