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yugioh5d

macrumors regular
Mar 20, 2015
105
9
I just tried this for the first time and to my shock it actually appears to work at full 6K! I don't know why I had written this off without even trying it.

I think the only downside to this is that the TS3 is only sending 85W to the MBP, whereas the XDR can send the full 96W.

Anyone know of a bullet proof way I could test/confirm that I'm truly getting the same resolution/performance when connecting the display through the TS3 as I am when connecting it directly?

Have you tested the performance? If so, how is it?

So, I've received an XDR earlier than expected, and was able to test this for myself.

Unfortunately, *no configuration I tried* could achieve better than 5k (as reported by option-clicking "Scaling" in the Displays preferences) when daisy-chained over 2m 40Gbps cables. I tried a few different cables, as well as a few different dual-port Thunderbolt devices in the middle: no dice.

Apparently, there's literally no way to move a Pro Display XDR more than 2 meters away from the rear of your rack. >,>
So, Mac Pro -> CalDigit -> Display only gives 5K resolution? Other than the resolution, is there any impact on the performance?

Two XDR cables (that came with the XDRs), a Belkin active 40Gbps 2m cable, and a 40Gbps 0.5m passive cable that came with a Sonnet enclosure a couple of years ago; and I tried the CalDigit TS3+ mentioned above and a Universal Audio Apollo X-series TB3 audio-interface as the "intermediate" devices for daisy-chaining. No dice. )=
Wait, so Mac Pro -> CalDigit -> Display didn't work?

I'm currently need a slightly longer cable (2.5-3m), and thinking of daisy chain it through the CalDigit from Apple store. I only use one XDR monitor though.
 
Last edited:

elliottcable

macrumors member
Apr 7, 2007
42
8
Chicago, IL
Nope, Mac Pro -> Caldigit -> Display does not work. Well, in the sense that you're not going to get 6k@60fps — it handles the connection gracefully, auto-rotation still works, and colour-profiling still works. Everything looks *real* fuzzy, though, so I don't really think "eh 5k is good enough for me" is a reasonable solution — just buy a much-cheaper Z27q! (I'm using one right now.)

Here's one setup I tried, just to add some photographic proof:

IMG_4886.jpeg


(I've also tried two other "last-mile" cables, the second 2m-active 40Gbps from my other XDR; and a 0.5m 40Gbps.)

Interestingly, when daisy-chained, the display actually presents a different EDID — product-ID AE2F normally, and product-ID of AE23 if behind another Thunderbolt device. Full EDID-dump for the same physical display, connected two different ways, available here.

Screen Shot 2020-03-16 at 5.23.46.png


The difference boils down to the different product-IDs, and a difference between 10bpc and 12bpc.

You can, of course, override the EDID-encoded suggested resolutions — but my experience when configuring both a directly-connected (AE2F) Pro Display XDR and a daisy-chained (AE23) Pro Display XDR side-by-side to display at 6016×3384 was … less-than-an-improvement. I tried to photograph the very, very noticeably blurry daisy-chained display, but I don't think it really photographs very well — trust me, it's no solution at all:

IMG_4888.jpeg


Left is directly connected, running at full 6k; right is daisy-chained, forced to 6k.

Hope this information is helpful to somebody; I'm pretty freakin' disappointed with Apple, right now; as mentioned in the other thread, this makes the Rackmount Mac Pro pretty, uh, frustrating. To say the least.
 
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yugioh5d

macrumors regular
Mar 20, 2015
105
9
Hope this information is helpful to somebody; I'm pretty freakin' disappointed with Apple, right now; as mentioned in the other thread, this makes the Rackmount Mac Pro pretty, uh, frustrating. To say the least.

Thank you for the detailed information. Hopefully one day there will be a 3m cable one that support 6k.
 

joevt

Contributor
Jun 21, 2012
6,634
4,068
Nope, Mac Pro -> Caldigit -> Display does not work. Well, in the sense that you're not going to get 6k@60fps — it handles the connection gracefully, auto-rotation still works, and colour-profiling still works. Everything looks *real* fuzzy, though, so I don't really think "eh 5k is good enough for me" is a reasonable solution — just buy a much-cheaper Z27q! (I'm using one right now.)

Here's one setup I tried, just to add some photographic proof:

(I've also tried two other "last-mile" cables, the second 2m-active 40Gbps from my other XDR; and a 0.5m 40Gbps.)

Interestingly, when daisy-chained, the display actually presents a different EDID — product-ID AE2F normally, and product-ID of AE23 if behind another Thunderbolt device. Full EDID-dump for the same physical display, connected two different ways, available here.


The difference boils down to the different product-IDs, and a difference between 10bpc and 12bpc.

You can, of course, override the EDID-encoded suggested resolutions — but my experience when configuring both a directly-connected (AE2F) Pro Display XDR and a daisy-chained (AE23) Pro Display XDR side-by-side to display at 6016×3384 was … less-than-an-improvement. I tried to photograph the very, very noticeably blurry daisy-chained display, but I don't think it really photographs very well — trust me, it's no solution at all:

Left is directly connected, running at full 6k; right is daisy-chained, forced to 6k.

Hope this information is helpful to somebody; I'm pretty freakin' disappointed with Apple, right now; as mentioned in the other thread, this makes the Rackmount Mac Pro pretty, uh, frustrating. To say the least.
The ae2f EDID that SwitchResX shows is the ae2e EDID after it was modified by the Apple override file. The ae23 EDID is unmodified. Use the AGDCDiagnose command to get the real EDID in each case. It will also show the connection type (you need dual HBR3 for 6K if you don't have a Navi card that supports DSC which only requires single HBR2).

Maybe ae23 occurs when it's behind an Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt controller (even though the DisplayPort In adapter is from a Titan Ridge controller). Maybe we need to test a Titan Ridge based Thunderbolt dock, such as the HP Thunderbolt Dock G2.

Maybe ae23 occurs because the Apple Thunderbolt connection manager sees two hops (instead of one) from the source Titan Ridge controller to the XDR Titan Ridge controller and is only allowing dual HBR2 in that case (5K). In that case, a Titan Ridge dock will not work.

Changing the EDID will not change the connection type. A patch to the Apple Thunderbolt driver may be required to always allow dual HBR3 over multiple hops.
 

elliottcable

macrumors member
Apr 7, 2007
42
8
Chicago, IL
Welp, I bought a used HP Thunderbolt G2 dock (the one with the new Titan Ridge chipset) specifically to test this. Not only does it not allow daisy-chaining the XDR, the XDR doesn't connect *at all* through it, which, see my previous posts, it at least will do when behind my other Thunderbolt testing devices.

Code:
HP Thunderbolt Dock G2:

  Vendor Name:    HP Inc.
  Device Name:    HP Thunderbolt Dock G2
  Vendor ID:    0xF0
  Device ID:    0x467
  Device Revision:    0x1
  UID:    0x00F026BDE1111200
  Route String:    3
  Firmware Version:    19.2
  Port (Upstream):
  Status:    Device connected
  Link Status:    0x2
  Speed:    Up to 40 Gb/s x1
  Current Link Width:    0x2
  Link Controller Firmware Version:    0.80.0
  Port:
  Status:    No device connected
  Link Status:    0x7
  Speed:    Up to 40 Gb/s x1
  Current Link Width:    0x1
  Link Controller Firmware Version:    0.80.0

Note, "No device connected." Display doesn't turn on.
 

joevt

Contributor
Jun 21, 2012
6,634
4,068
Welp, I bought a used HP Thunderbolt G2 dock (the one with the new Titan Ridge chipset) specifically to test this. Not only does it not allow daisy-chaining the XDR, the XDR doesn't connect *at all* through it, which, see my previous posts, it at least will do when behind my other Thunderbolt testing devices.

Code:
HP Thunderbolt Dock G2:

  Vendor Name:    HP Inc.
  Device Name:    HP Thunderbolt Dock G2
  Vendor ID:    0xF0
  Device ID:    0x467
  Device Revision:    0x1
  UID:    0x00F026BDE1111200
  Route String:    3
  Firmware Version:    19.2
  Port (Upstream):
  Status:    Device connected
  Link Status:    0x2
  Speed:    Up to 40 Gb/s x1
  Current Link Width:    0x2
  Link Controller Firmware Version:    0.80.0
  Port:
  Status:    No device connected
  Link Status:    0x7
  Speed:    Up to 40 Gb/s x1
  Current Link Width:    0x1
  Link Controller Firmware Version:    0.80.0

Note, "No device connected." Display doesn't turn on.
Strange. The HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 has three USB-C ports (besides the one upstream Thunderbolt port that is hidden underneath). Only the one with the Thunderbolt icon is meant for Thunderbolt devices. Does it work with other daisy chained Thunderbolt devices?
 

elliottcable

macrumors member
Apr 7, 2007
42
8
Chicago, IL
Strange. The HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 has three USB-C ports (besides the one upstream Thunderbolt port that is hidden underneath). Only the one with the Thunderbolt icon is meant for Thunderbolt devices. Does it work with other daisy chained Thunderbolt devices?

Yep; like I mentioned in the post ;_;

A chain of MacPro7,1 -> HP G2 -> Apollo x16 -> TB3-TB2 converter -> Apollo Twin functions as expected; System Report reports the thunderbolt ports as connected and my audio-interfaces work.

A chain of MacPro7,1 -> HP G2 -> XDR results in the display not turning on, and the above System Report showing nothing connected to the G2. /=
 

alexdilley

macrumors newbie
Sep 1, 2020
13
2
So can you / can't you TB3 daisy-chain MBP-16 (i.e. w/DSC) -> CalDigit TS3+ -> XDR 6K @ 60Hz? With bandwidth to spare to still get up to 10Gbps via the TS3's rear USB-C port? @adamwathan?
 

joevt

Contributor
Jun 21, 2012
6,634
4,068
So can you / can't you TB3 daisy-chain MBP-16 (i.e. w/DSC) -> CalDigit TS3+ -> XDR 6K @ 60Hz? With bandwidth to spare to still get up to 10Gbps via the TS3's rear USB-C port? @adamwathan?
Speaking of XDR USB speed, there were questions about Apple's tech specs regarding that in the thread at #4
I had made a request for info about that at #130
Basically, I want to understand what the changes in controller/hub/device are depending on XDR connection type.
 

naughtybehavior86

Suspended
Apr 29, 2021
47
24
Any updates on this? Is the conclusion still that an XDR Pro paired with a TS3+ will work at full 6k as long as you use the 2m cable the TS3+ comes with?

Only an issue if you try to use a longer cable?
 

Human Person

macrumors newbie
Aug 22, 2021
5
1
Hello. I may be able to add something to all this.

TLDR:
I have the following, a rack pro with vega pro ii card, blackmagic egpu, pro display xdr, owc TB3 dock, and a corning 5m tb3 optical cable.

Corning 5m cable, 7,1 to XDR = no signal
TB3 dock intermediary to XDR = 5k limit
TB3 to blackmagic 580 to XDR, will try and post with results
TB4 hub as intermediary, waiting on one to arrive

Background:
I have a rack pro recently purchased from ebay as folks begin to await imminent upgrades to the 7,1. I bought it because I was tired of the comically awful experience of using a macbook pro (2019 16” almost fully loaded) as a daily driver between three locations. For whatever reason, Apple never delivered on the promise of a mobile computer taken between multiple docks in different locations. Maybe if each only has one external display, but at two or more, each session begins with the fresh hell of them defaulting to mirrored displays. Want to run two in portrait bookending one in landscape (as pictured)? Have fun with MacOs choosing default resolutions and going back to mirroring displays each time you rotate one. The whole process takes roughly five minutes each setup, and makes me not want to plug in or unplug. Moreover, the experience with the blackmagic egpu is less than perfect, often artifacts or glitches appear. I need to take manual fan control and max it to keep the poor thing below 150-160 degrees (F), even just during the least resource intensive tasks like running Quickbooks. Getting into meaty graphics or video work saw me add one, then two, finally a third vornado desk fan to keep things in check. Some of that is living in Florida and it being summer where an AC struggles to keep the home office in the low 80’s during the midday. So, after a bunch of saving and selling a kidney or two, I got the rack pro beast. It ended up being an international version whose seller lacked the rails, but mislabeled the graphics and I ended up with a pro vega II instead of a 580. Cool. My goal was to operate two pro display XDRs from the rack pro on an under-desk cart with its power backup, with the XDRs being wall mounted. It would replace a 2013 trashcan that had, in the past, powered two thunderbolt displays daisy chained through a cheap TB2 external ssd bay, using two runs of 2m TB2 cables to get an umbilical line with enough slack for rolling out the cart and making any needed changes. I thought I could achieve my upgrade goals if only I threw enough money at the problem, but currently not so much. This has been an upgrade hell for years, as I’d been waiting to upgrade the 2013 trashcan since 2017.

———

Here is what I have tried and found. The corning cable seems to behave as if it didn’t exist. Plugged it in to each port on the vega ii, but only ever saw a black screen. Tried running one 40gb tb3 cable to my OWC dock used when I had the macbook as my daily driver, with the second Apple cable run to the XDR, but could only achieve 5k this way. My next attempt is to try with two Apple TB3 cables and the owc TB4/USB4 hub very recently releases. According to several youtube reviews, it has the controller needed to maximize speed over the usbc ports on tne xdr, and am hoping this will get me to 4m of total distance. My OWC dock seems to have the controller maxing out at 5k, where the new one can even make 8k.

If that does not work, I imagine that it may be possible to upgrade the pro vega ii to a w5700x mpx module and see if it changes anything. I’d hoped I could save myself that upgrade and wait for future cards since the vega is fast enough for me (coming from a 5300 inside the macbook, so much better already).

I have yet to try the optical cable or regular cable to the blackmagic and then to the XDR, as i was going to sell it and didn’t figure i needed it any longer, but will see what happens since no one else on here likely has the kit to get that answer first hand. Apple’s business team has treated me like I have three heads for asking any of this, as if it never occurred to anyone that people don’t like tossing a giant tower on their desk as if the monitors were themselves a dongle to hang off. Using a vesa arm certainly does reduce the usable cable length since you have to leave enough for each configuration, but the alternative is buying expensive pro stands that don’t get quite high enough for ergonomics without an additional stand underneath them.

Let me know if there are some additional permutations you’d like to see tried.


Update 1 (18:07) - updated to the latest MacOs version of Big Sur, and retried hot-plugging the corning cable direct from vega ii to XDR. This time I got signal… it was just… blurry. It claims it is scaled 6k, but hot-swapping back to the Apple cable confirmed it wasn’t my eyes, it was blurry over the optical cable. No idea why.

Went TB3 to blackmagic egpu to TB3 to XDR, works and looks fine (not blurry).

Tried optical TB3 to blackmagic egpu to Apple TB3 to XDR - works, seemingly not blurry, or if it was, seemingly in between optical cable only and Apple pro cable Only.

Tried optical cable direct vega ii to XDR, blurry again despite registering as 6k.

Unfortunately, this blurriness does not make it into screenshots taken, which leads me to believe it has something to do with gears and widgets hidden beneath the display property menus accessible at my level of knowledge.

At minimum, we can say that egpu to XDR will work despite whatever limitations come with such a clunky solution. Perhaps the XDR refresh with an A series chip will address this somehow, or maybe it will just add face ID and airplay support, No idea… It makes me hope the M series iMac Pro replacements are going to be in the body and bezels matching the XDR, as having on of them be a computer would eliminate the distance problem. Otherwise I have to undersling the 7,1 below the desk and hope there’s enough of a cable run. Really tired of having everything spaghettied out while waiting on finding a solve.
 

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joevt

Contributor
Jun 21, 2012
6,634
4,068
Hello. I may be able to add something to all this.

TLDR:
I have the following, a rack pro with vega pro ii card, blackmagic egpu, pro display xdr, owc TB3 dock, and a corning 5m tb3 optical cable.

Corning 5m cable, 7,1 to XDR = no signal
TB3 dock intermediary to XDR = 5k limit
TB3 to blackmagic 580 to XDR, will try and post with results
TB4 hub as intermediary, waiting on one to arrive

Background:
I have a rack pro recently purchased from ebay as folks begin to await imminent upgrades to the 7,1. I bought it because I was tired of the comically awful experience of using a macbook pro (2019 16” almost fully loaded) as a daily driver between three locations. For whatever reason, Apple never delivered on the promise of a mobile computer taken between multiple docks in different locations. Maybe if each only has one external display, but at two or more, each session begins with the fresh hell of them defaulting to mirrored displays. Want to run two in portrait bookending one in landscape (as pictured)? Have fun with MacOs choosing default resolutions and going back to mirroring displays each time you rotate one. The whole process takes roughly five minutes each setup, and makes me not want to plug in or unplug. Moreover, the experience with the blackmagic egpu is less than perfect, often artifacts or glitches appear. I need to take manual fan control and max it to keep the poor thing below 150-160 degrees (F), even just during the least resource intensive tasks like running Quickbooks. Getting into meaty graphics or video work saw me add one, then two, finally a third vornado desk fan to keep things in check. Some of that is living in Florida and it being summer where an AC struggles to keep the home office in the low 80’s during the midday. So, after a bunch of saving and selling a kidney or two, I got the rack pro beast. It ended up being an international version whose seller lacked the rails, but mislabeled the graphics and I ended up with a pro vega II instead of a 580. Cool. My goal was to operate two pro display XDRs from the rack pro on an under-desk cart with its power backup, with the XDRs being wall mounted. It would replace a 2013 trashcan that had, in the past, powered two thunderbolt displays daisy chained through a cheap TB2 external ssd bay, using two runs of 2m TB2 cables to get an umbilical line with enough slack for rolling out the cart and making any needed changes. I thought I could achieve my upgrade goals if only I threw enough money at the problem, but currently not so much. This has been an upgrade hell for years, as I’d been waiting to upgrade the 2013 trashcan since 2017.

———

Here is what I have tried and found. The corning cable seems to behave as if it didn’t exist. Plugged it in to each port on the vega ii, but only ever saw a black screen. Tried running one 40gb tb3 cable to my OWC dock used when I had the macbook as my daily driver, with the second Apple cable run to the XDR, but could only achieve 5k this way. My next attempt is to try with two Apple TB3 cables and the owc TB4/USB4 hub very recently releases. According to several youtube reviews, it has the controller needed to maximize speed over the usbc ports on tne xdr, and am hoping this will get me to 4m of total distance. My OWC dock seems to have the controller maxing out at 5k, where the new one can even make 8k.

If that does not work, I imagine that it may be possible to upgrade the pro vega ii to a w5700x mpx module and see if it changes anything. I’d hoped I could save myself that upgrade and wait for future cards since the vega is fast enough for me (coming from a 5300 inside the macbook, so much better already).

I have yet to try the optical cable or regular cable to the blackmagic and then to the XDR, as i was going to sell it and didn’t figure i needed it any longer, but will see what happens since no one else on here likely has the kit to get that answer first hand. Apple’s business team has treated me like I have three heads for asking any of this, as if it never occurred to anyone that people don’t like tossing a giant tower on their desk as if the monitors were themselves a dongle to hang off. Using a vesa arm certainly does reduce the usable cable length since you have to leave enough for each configuration, but the alternative is buying expensive pro stands that don’t get quite high enough for ergonomics without an additional stand underneath them.

Let me know if there are some additional permutations you’d like to see tried.


Update 1 (18:07) - updated to the latest MacOs version of Big Sur, and retried hot-plugging the corning cable direct from vega ii to XDR. This time I got signal… it was just… blurry. It claims it is scaled 6k, but hot-swapping back to the Apple cable confirmed it wasn’t my eyes, it was blurry over the optical cable. No idea why.

Went TB3 to blackmagic egpu to TB3 to XDR, works and looks fine (not blurry).

Tried optical TB3 to blackmagic egpu to Apple TB3 to XDR - works, seemingly not blurry, or if it was, seemingly in between optical cable only and Apple pro cable Only.

Tried optical cable direct vega ii to XDR, blurry again despite registering as 6k.

Unfortunately, this blurriness does not make it into screenshots taken, which leads me to believe it has something to do with gears and widgets hidden beneath the display property menus accessible at my level of knowledge.

At minimum, we can say that egpu to XDR will work despite whatever limitations come with such a clunky solution. Perhaps the XDR refresh with an A series chip will address this somehow, or maybe it will just add face ID and airplay support, No idea… It makes me hope the M series iMac Pro replacements are going to be in the body and bezels matching the XDR, as having on of them be a computer would eliminate the distance problem. Otherwise I have to undersling the 7,1 below the desk and hope there’s enough of a cable run. Really tired of having everything spaghettied out while waiting on finding a solve.
Nothing new here - Apple won't allow dual HBR3 over a corning cable or an intermediate Thunderbolt device (dock). But you found a solution by using the corning cable between the Mac and a eGPU and connecting the display to the eGPU. Thunderbolt 4 docks will not improve this. The other solution is using an AMD 5000 series card or a AMD 6000 series card. Sonnet has new eGPUs that use 5000 series cards. The Navi (RDNA and RDNA2) cards support DSC which can allow 6K with a single HBR2 connection.

macOS shows you the frame-buffer size and pixel format but does not show the output resolution or output pixel format. So you might be using a 6K framebuffer, but the output could be limited to 5K (dual HBR2 signal). A utility like SwitchResX or the output from AGDCDiagnose will tell you what the output signal is.
 

Human Person

macrumors newbie
Aug 22, 2021
5
1
So would a 5700 or 6800 mpx module allow going through optical cables or a hub? And is there any benefit to the 6000 series other than the boost in raw performance (such as the standards upgrade that allows 6k at single HBR2)? Being able to run two XDRs properly with the computer not having to be directly between the two is worth upgrading, even if just begrudgingly.
 

joevt

Contributor
Jun 21, 2012
6,634
4,068
So would a 5700 or 6800 mpx module allow going through optical cables or a hub? And is there any benefit to the 6000 series other than the boost in raw performance (such as the standards upgrade that allows 6k at single HBR2)? Being able to run two XDRs properly with the computer not having to be directly between the two is worth upgrading, even if just begrudgingly.
I think the 5700 or 6800 MPX should allow going through optical cables or hub because they can use HBR2 + DSC. If this doesn't work then it's a problem with the OS because we know the XDR can do 6K with HBR2 + DSC.

The 6000 series doesn't add anything except greater performance and HDMI 2.1 support (except MPX only has HDMI 2.0 port). Does macOS support HDMI 2.1 from non-MPX 6000 card or with DisplayPort 1.4 adapter? I don't think I've seen HDMI 2.1 working properly yet (don't forget HDMI 2.0 can do 4K 120Hz using 8bpc and 4:2:0 so you have to check the pixel format using AGDCDiagnose - not just the resolution and refresh rate).

Using HBR2 + DSC should allow two XDR displays per Thunderbolt port/controller including Thunderbolt dock. A Thunderbolt 4 dock or hub would be best because it can connect two XDRs via Thunderbolt with HBR2 + DSC + USB 3.0. A Thunderbolt 3 dock would require at least one of the displays to connect via DisplayPort with HBR2 + DSC + USB 2.0.
 

Human Person

macrumors newbie
Aug 22, 2021
5
1
How does one run AGDCDiagnose, or which data points are needed to ascertain if an XDR is operating at full capacity? I have a w6800x and can test the different configurations now to post values.

Also, I suspect the answer is no, but can different card types be hooked up via the infinity fabric? I suspect even if possible, it would be glitchy and/or bottlenecked by the slower card, but haven’t found this info anywhere else, so figured I’d ask.
 

Human Person

macrumors newbie
Aug 22, 2021
5
1
I used switchresx to get the EDID for the two xdr displays. If I’ve read it correctly, they are both running at actual 6k, but I don’t understand enough of this to be sure I’m seeing the real display resolution and not just the text equivalent of what Apple’s display menu tells you when it’s actually upscaling and gaslighting you about it. I will say that it seems like I had better results with both displays going into the w6800x than one into it (optical tb3 cable) and the other into the pro vega ii (2m cable, seemed blurry). I tried swapping back to that config to double check with switchresx, but got no picture from either display when run into the pro vega ii. anyone on here have any info or leads to where to find info on whether it makes any sense to keep the pro vega ii in the system, or does it create any kind of bottleneck for the w6800x Somehow?
 

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joevt

Contributor
Jun 21, 2012
6,634
4,068
I used switchresx to get the EDID for the two xdr displays. If I’ve read it correctly, they are both running at actual 6k, but I don’t understand enough of this to be sure I’m seeing the real display resolution and not just the text equivalent of what Apple’s display menu tells you when it’s actually upscaling and gaslighting you about it. I will say that it seems like I had better results with both displays going into the w6800x than one into it (optical tb3 cable) and the other into the pro vega ii (2m cable, seemed blurry). I tried swapping back to that config to double check with switchresx, but got no picture from either display when run into the pro vega ii. anyone on here have any info or leads to where to find info on whether it makes any sense to keep the pro vega ii in the system, or does it create any kind of bottleneck for the w6800x Somehow?
Post AGDCDiagnose output. It will say what resolution is being used (with AMD GPUs).

If you don't understand something, google it.
/System/Library/Extensions/AppleGraphicsControl.kext/Contents/MacOS/AGDCDiagnose -a > AGDCDiagnose_a.txt 2>&1

When posting text, don't post a screenshot. Put the text in a text file and zip it using the Finder's Compress command, and post the zip file result.
 

Human Person

macrumors newbie
Aug 22, 2021
5
1
Normally forums are the last place I go and had googled and youtube searched for tutorials for a while before entering the thread on how to get this info. Both re:solving the cable length issues as well as the diagnostic tool.

This is just so niche a subject for someone at my level that it was hard to find a good starting point without asking. So few people have these machines at all, let alone the same issues without already having acquired the knowledge to fix them, so I appreciate you giving me a kickstart. Had figured I could help just by having the hardware to run some comparative tests, just didn’t understand how to run them.

I’ve attached the compressed results from running the agdcdiagnose from two cases, filename labelled. This is with two XDRs and a small CaryWorks Viewedge monitor, all plugged into the w6800x. One via optical tb3 cable from corning, another via the included Apple 2m tb3 cable that comes with the xdr. Have found that the blurriness can seemingly happen when I plug any of the monitors into the pro vega ii, but it’s been hard to properly reproduce. If anyone has any test cases they want me to run, let me know.
 

Attachments

  • 2x XDR 1x ViewEdge on w6800x 09-20-21 0929.zip
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  • 2x XDR 1 on pro vega ii 1 on w6800x via optical 09-20-21 1300.zip
    21.3 KB · Views: 51

joevt

Contributor
Jun 21, 2012
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I used switchresx to get the EDID for the two xdr displays. If I’ve read it correctly, they are both running at actual 6k, but I don’t understand enough of this to be sure I’m seeing the real display resolution and not just the text equivalent of what Apple’s display menu tells you when it’s actually upscaling and gaslighting you about it. I will say that it seems like I had better results with both displays going into the w6800x than one into it (optical tb3 cable) and the other into the pro vega ii (2m cable, seemed blurry). I tried swapping back to that config to double check with switchresx, but got no picture from either display when run into the pro vega ii. anyone on here have any info or leads to where to find info on whether it makes any sense to keep the pro vega ii in the system, or does it create any kind of bottleneck for the w6800x Somehow?
I forgot to mention that you can go into SwitchResX, go to the Current Resolutions tab, find the currently selected resolution, double click it, and look at the Active pixels to see what the output resolution is. At the bottom is the scaled resolution (framebuffer resolution). You can also see the pixel clock and refresh rate.

What it doesn't tell you is the connection type (VGA, HDMI/DVI, DisplayPort with link rate RBR/HBR/HBR2/HBR3 and number of lanes 1/2/4), pixel format (RGB, 4:2:2, 4:4:4), pixel depth (6/8/10/12/16 bpc), color (SDR, HDR, BT709, REC2020, etc), tiles (single tile or dual tile). This other info is only found in the AGDCDiagnose output (and only for some GPUs).

If it's blurry, then the active pixels could be 4K or 5K while the Scale resolution is 6K.
For not blurry mode, you need active 6K pixels and no scaling.

I’ve attached the compressed results from running the agdcdiagnose from two cases, filename labelled. This is with two XDRs and a small CaryWorks Viewedge monitor, all plugged into the w6800x. One via optical tb3 cable from corning, another via the included Apple 2m tb3 cable that comes with the xdr. Have found that the blurriness can seemingly happen when I plug any of the monitors into the pro vega ii, but it’s been hard to properly reproduce. If anyone has any test cases they want me to run, let me know.
This is what I see in your AGDCDiagnose outputs:
  1. 2x XDR 1x ViewEdge on w6800x 09-20-21 0929
    1. W6800X: XDR #1 6016x3384@60Hz 1286.01MHz 12bpc RGB HDR10 (HBR2 x4 DSC 12bpp = 3:1 compression)
    2. W6800X: XDR #2 6016x3384@60Hz 1286.01MHz 12bpc RGB HDR10 (HBR2 x4 DSC 12bpp = 3:1 compression)
    3. W6800X: CaryWorks Viewedge 1080x1200@90Hz 147.8MHz 8bpc 4:4:4 BT.709 SDR (HBR2 x4 with an Apple DisplayPort to HDMI adapter)
  2. 2x XDR 1 on pro vega ii 1 on w6800x via optical 09-20-21 1300
    1. Pro Vega II: XDR #2 tile 0 3008x3384@60Hz 648.91296MHz 10bpc RGB HDR10 (HBR3 x4)
    2. Pro Vega II: XDR #2 tile 1 3008x3384@60Hz 648.91296MHz 10bpc RGB HDR10 (HBR3 x4)
    3. W6800X: XDR #1 6016x3384@60Hz 1286.01MHz 12bpc RGB SDR (HBR2 x4 DSC 12bpp = 3:1 compression). This is using a different preset than in the previous AGDCDiagnose output. The presets change stuff in the EDID.
Seems like all the displays are working as expected (they are all getting their max resolution from the GPU).
The XDR connected to Vega II uses dual tile mode (HBR3 x4 per tile) while the XDRs connected to the W6800X use single tile mode (HBR2 x4 with DSC 3:1 compression).
From this we see that the optical cable can do single tile mode.

If you do optical from Vega II, then you would probably be stuck with 5K dual tile mode (HBR2 x4 per tile).

If you do optical from W6800X to a Thunderbolt 4 dock or hub, then you could probably connect two XDRs and have each use single tile mode (HBR2 x4 with DSC 3:1 compression for each display) and still get USB 3.0 from each XDR USB 3.0 hub.

If you do optical from W6800X to a Thunderbolt 3 dock with Titan Ridge, then you might be able to get single tile + USB 3.0 from downstream Thunderbolt port and single tile with USB 2.0 from DisplayPort (with Belkin Charge and Sync Cable).
 

Attachments

  • EDID from Human Person.zip
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