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MacBook Pro's NVIDIA Chipsets Can Support Dual GPU and 8GB RAM

Originally Posted by mgpg89
OK ... Can someone clear this up for me?

Windows Vista already supports GeForce Boost by using both GPU's at the same time, right?
So when I'm gaming on my MBP through Bootcamp, will I be able to use both at the same time?

dnjmarlboro said:
+1
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NO - BECAUSE Apple nor Nvidia has released drivers to support it under windows. Plus you have to run Vista to get the benefits.

The drivers are out there for other laptops but Apple needs to make one for the MBP... yes its the same in windows as well. The day I got it I thought I could install the windows drivers and get it to work. I installed Vista as well to see if I could get it to work.
 
slackpacker said:
Originally Posted by mgpg89
The day I got it I thought I could install the windows drivers and get it to work. I installed Vista as well to see if I could get it to work.
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have you ever tried to install the original nvidiadrivers with this tool http://www.driverheaven.net/nvmodtool.php ? i think ther original nforcedriver should support the feature with vista. i have my vista ordered today, so i couldn't trie yet.
 
Cuda

arn said:
I think the on-the-fly switching will come. The current implementation clearly just seems like something they got working to get it out the door. I feel certain that will come in a future Mac OS X update.
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That is certainly the case.
The dual-GPU I would hope would come too, but that seems more up in the air. Maybe with Snow Leopard.
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Or maybe they will be able to apply one unit to graphics and dedicate another for CUDA or what ever Apple calls GPU acceleration of programs. This could lead to a very interesting machine, the GPU on the chip set would have direct access to memory leading to very good acceleration and reducing the need to swap data between memory spaces.

It will be very interesting to see how Snow Leopard leverages these machines.
Part of it depends on how common these NVIDIA chipsets become in Macs.

arn
Click to expand...
I think it is pretty obvious. This is an architecture that could go far in lower end hardware. It is not suitable for the Mac Pro but for just about everything else it could be a huge win. Even the Mini's replacement when it comes could follow the duality of the Mac Book and Mac Book Pro.

By that I mean a low end Mini replacement built with just the integrated chip and a higher end model with both. This, like with the Mac Books, gives Apple the option to offer up a range of performance.

The next few months will be very exciting as it looks like Apple is executing a very aggressive long term plan. I suspect that part of that plan includes having lots of computational resources.

Dave
 
This is actually a good question.

ZzBoG said:
Hmmm.. Can anybody explain, why would you want to switch to a lower grade video card??
Click to expand...
Well you do save money err power. This should be obvious but a more powerful GPU simply draws more power on a given process.
Why not just use the higher grade one?
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Depends on your needs. If you want to squeeze battery time you don't run un-needed facilities. It is like shutting off bluetooth when on the go.
Battery life? It shouldn't be A LOT of battery saving coming this way...

ah?
Click to expand...

That all depends Apple is talking about an hours difference. That depends of course on what the GPU is doing at that moment in time. The reality is that answer to your question is never easy.

Dave
 
Eidorian said:
Once again the game is in Apple's court to support these features.
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Yeah, I don't get why they didn't get these features in BEFORE release. There must be some pretty severe limitations in the core of OS/X that prevented it. It wasn't like they didn't know that NVIDIA was producing these chips ahead of time. This is more than a missing device driver...
 
Evangelion said:
It's totally 64bit. Tiger had 64bit kernel and 64bit CLI-appm but Leopard extends 64-bitness to the GUI as well.
Click to expand...

Tiger's and Leopard's kernels are all 32-bit.

Tiger added a 64-bit Unix layer (CLI), and Leopard extended that to a 64-bit GUI layer (Cocoa).

Snow Leopard is the version bringing the 64-bit kernel for a true 64-bit OS, end to end.
 
Evangelion said:
Why is this article about the MacBook Pro alone, when the MacBook also uses that very same chipset?
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Exactly!

It's huge news that both the Macbooks AND Macbook Pros support 8GB of RAM--its the whole reason I decided to go with the new Macbook (because I saw 9to5Macs story Monday morning).

But you know what? 9to5Mac reported this Sunday (the RAM fact anyways). Gizmodo is a little late to the party.

http://www.9to5mac.com/8GB-MacBook-NVIDIA
 
Eidorian said:
The virtual GPU is still a virtual GPU. They're getting better at using hardware acceleration but the virtual OS still isn't completely, directly interacting with the real GPU.
Click to expand...

The problem of interacting with "the" real GPU is that Windows (or Linux, or whatever virtual OS you use) believes that it owns that GPU completely and obviously doesn't cooperate with MacOS X. With two GPUs, it would be possible to arrange things so that for example MacOS X never touches the discrete GPU, and Windows is made to believe that it has _only_ the discrete GPU, not the integrated one.
 
sangosimo said:
apple need to learn to write better drivers because windows easily allows for those features.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I hear Steve Jobs is sending all Apple programmers to driver school over at the Microsoft campus so they can learn to write better drivers.

Those bums over at Apple don't know how to write drivers. Any kid can do it. Even those Linux tree-hugging hippies know how to write drivers.

</sarcasm>
 
dvince2 said:
Personally, I think 640k ought to be enough for anyone.
Click to expand...

Hehe, nice one. That highlights the folly of those who say "Who needs 8GB, 4GB is plenty". Its all about progress. 8GB may seem a lot now, but in a year's time it'll become standard.

arjaosx said:
Two words to quench your curiosity

SNOW LEOPARD
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Absolutely, I totally agree that the software implementation will be in Snow Leopard - goes very nicely with the theme they seem to have with Snow Leopard - with Grand Central and multicore goodness etc. Its just a pity that users will have to pay for it. Then again, Mac users haven't had to pay any extra for a dodgy 64-bit version of their operating system that doesn't even run IE properly :)

Evangelion said:
It's totally 64bit. Tiger had 64bit kernel and 64bit CLI-appm but Leopard extends 64-bitness to the GUI as well.
Click to expand...

Read this article, it cleared a lot of things up for me: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/26/road_to_mac_os_x_10_6_snow_leopard_64_bits.html

As a few others have already said, Leopard extended 64 bit to Cocoa, and Snow Leopard will extend 64 bit to the kernel, whereas all three including Tiger had 64 bit Unix core.

As far as dual GPU usage is concerned, I think a stumbling block will be cooling. This is the major reason why mobile processors have not been able to progress as far as desktop - it has nothing to do with the size or power usage, its all about whether the laptop will melt into a lump if it gets turned on!
 
Does anyone actually know whether or not graphics performance on the new MBPs is better on Vista than on XP? Is GeForce Boost actually occurring?
 
yoavcs said:
Yeah, I hear Steve Jobs is sending all Apple programmers to driver school over at the Microsoft campus so they can learn to write better drivers.

Those bums over at Apple don't know how to write drivers. Any kid can do it. Even those Linux tree-hugging hippies know how to write drivers.

</sarcasm>
Click to expand...


No sarcasm required because after the balls up they made of iTunes 8 for Windows it's pretty accurate.
 
dernhelm said:
Yeah, I don't get why they didn't get these features in BEFORE release. There must be some pretty severe limitations in the core of OS/X that prevented it. It wasn't like they didn't know that NVIDIA was producing these chips ahead of time. This is more than a missing device driver...
Click to expand...

Software has to be written and tested. It doesn't just appear from thin air. When you develop software, and it is time critical like software to support new MacBook and MacBook Pro models, you decide what things you absolutely need to ship the computers and what things you don't need to ship. That's what Apple has done.
 
this is all tempting great news... but im still waiting until an updated mbp is released after snow leopard is launched. at this point if the laptops are still only dual core, i am holding out until a 4-core mbp is released. 15 inch, 17 inch, i dont care which one gets it first. i'll buy it. i don't need a mbp right now, i have an 8-core mac pro which runs both of my businesses. the mbp would just be for fun and portable editing/production work. but until there is a 4-core model, it is useless for me.
 
Phrasikleia said:
I hate to be cynical, but I suspect Apple is doing its usual slow roll-out of features, holding back to reserve a feature as bait later on (bait to get people to shell out more money somehow). The "activation" of these benefits will end up costing money.
Click to expand...

could be? but we all know Apple is careful what they release. Maybe they felt stability was not there yet. I am liking what I am hearing, because like you all - i had some doubts about these new machines. But I also posted that Apple seemed to be up to something that would make these machines cook.

well, since I bought my macbook in April, I am not in the market right now - But come summertime after my laptop is a year 1/2 old, who knows... A pro running Snow Leopard may be in my future. I just hope that since Snow Leopard is Leopard with more stability and less bloat, that I will not have to upgrade all my software. I would only realistically be able to afford the new pro and applecare. I would not have the money to upgrade everything I have. I would rather take that money a month or so later and buy one of the new 30" LED ACD's that can power my laptop as well as providing a couple of extra ports for stuff I would never need to unplug (time machine backup drive, ipod cable, maybe a full sized keyboard, my wacom tablet)....
 
I think people are being over optimistic.

Running both GPUs at the same time will, as some already pointed out, likely increase heat and temperature. The current MBP needs to have a cooling system with heatsinks big enough to accomodate for this. If Apple doesn't even have proper drivers for GeForce Boost yet, how could they even have tried this feature and made sure no overheating occurs?

More likely, GeForce Boost will be enabled in some way on the next revision of MBP, released around Snow Leopard (to make you buy a new MBP...) Or, Apple choses to never support this feature in OS X (and definatly not in Windows).

I just have a bad feeling about this. It's like "see but not touch"...
 
Mackan said:
I think people are being over optimistic.

Running both GPUs at the same time will, as some already pointed out, likely increase heat and temperature. The current MBP needs to have a cooling system with heatsinks big enough to accomodate for this. If Apple doesn't even have proper drivers for GeForce Boost yet, how could they even have tried this feature and made sure no overheating occurs?

More likely, GeForce Boost will be enabled in some way on the next revision of MBP, released around Snow Leopard (to make you buy a new MBP...) Or, Apple choses to never support this feature in OS X (and definatly not in Windows).

I just have a bad feeling about this. It's like "see but not touch"...
Click to expand...

I am overclocking the 9600M GT in mine by ~100% and am having no heat issues. The cooling on this machine is very very good indeed.
 
Evangelion said:
How so? Just because "kernel_task" contains the word "kernel" does not mean that it's the actual kernel. Kernel is not a process that gets listed in the Activity Monitor, it's the core of the OS.
Click to expand...

I know. Just reminded me of “GNU's Not Unix”...

I'll make sure i insert the <Humour>...</humour> tags in future...

although I thought the :D was a dead giveaway!
 
Yixian said:
I am overclocking the 9600M GT in mine by ~100% and am having no heat issues. The cooling on this machine is very very good indeed.
Click to expand...

100%? Have you started an overclocking thread somewhere to share your results?
 
If there's nothing hard-ware related inhibiting SLI, is there any reason why dual GPU's wouldnt work on Windows w/ Boot Camp?
 
OK, everyone, hold your horses.

The subset of Santa Rosa that was in the last two revisions of MBP also theoretically supports 8GB RAM. But people on several forums have experimented with 4GB DIMMs in "Santa Rosa" MBPs. The result is that they run fine with 6GB RAM, but not with 8GB RAM. With 8GB RAM installed, "Santa Rosa" MBPs slow down to the point of unusability as soon as the OS allocates more than 4GB of real RAM.

Don't go out and buy a unibody MBP with the idea you can install 8GB RAM until someone actually tries it. I'm surprised no one already has, but the DDR3 4GB DIMMs are a lot more expensive than the DDR2 ones right now...

I'm waiting on this with bated breath. I'm already planning to install 6GB in my Penryn/SR MBP and want to hear for sure if these new machines can do 8GB.
 
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