MacPro as a Windows Gaming Machine

[xn3xterx]

i like that MacPro Case. I want to buy a second MacPro 4.1/5.1 and want to install Windows on it for Gaming. I’ll think a six core cpu is enough for Gaming . But i have 2 questions

Can windows boot from a NVME SSd with a pci adapter in the Mac Pro ?
Is the PCie 2.0 fast enough for maybe a vega64 ? How much faster would it be in a pcie 3 slot ?

 

[macsforme]

Is the PCie 2.0 fast enough for maybe a vega64 ? How much faster would it be in a pcie 3 slot ?

Standard Windows GPUs (without Mac EFI) run at PCIE 1.1 speeds in a Mac Pro under bootcamp, unfortunately. :-( It's a cost of maybe up to 10% of framerate (sometimes less), which isn't a lot but it's a bummer nonetheless.

 

[thornslack]

Still makes a viable gaming rig but starting to be a pain. At this point if you don't have one already I'd just build a windows box.

 

[DearthnVader]

I agree with @thornslack, just build yourself a nice Ryzen system with a RX580 or a GTX1060, you'll be much happier and your computer won't be 8 years old.

 

[crjackson2134]

Not to mention the difficulty of installing Win10. I had to install Win8.1 and then upgrade to Win10 just to get a bootable system.

I have and HD7970 MVC flashed card & I believe the card is bootblocking the Fresh Win10 install. It's near impossible (for me) to make it work.

Fortunately I had a Winclone backup of a perfectly running system and was able to restore it to the ORIGINAL SSD (wincolne images will only restore to the original disk uuid & partition uuid). It's been a real pain.

Today, I'm trying a vol > vol clone to put it where I want it.

All that said, if you want a gaming machine, build a Ryzen box and enjoy...

 

[h9826790]

Can windows boot from a NVME SSd with a pci adapter in the Mac Pro ?

Is the PCie 2.0 fast enough for maybe a vega64 ?

Yes, but lots of hard work to do. And there is no beneift to boot from NVMe anyway. You better put a very low cost SATA SSD at the optical bay for OS only, then install all your games on the NVMe (if you really want that).

In fact, most games are still optimised for HDD. Of course SSD will give you better loading time, but don’t expect there are any significant difference between SATA SSD and NVMe. In my experience, most games bottleneck is not at the SSD (even when loading), further upgrade to NVMe won’t help much.



Yes, I am running a 1080Ti right now in my cMP with Windows 10 for gaming. It’s benchmarks basically same as the reviews’ result. And from the monitoring software. The games rarely demand more than 50% bus width even only running at PCIe 1.1 x16.

Again, 99% of the time, the bottleneck is not at the bus width, no need to worry about that.

For your info, I run games at 3840x1080 on a CHG90, so, max at 144Hz. I usually fine tune the settings to let the games run at between 60-100FPS. And most games can actually run at max settings.

To make the cMP performs (in Windows), most games should run better with Nvidia cards due to better driver support. And it’s so much easier to power a 1080Ti than a Vega 64 on the cMP. For non OC card, I can power a reference 1080Ti with just the two mini 6pins and run Furmark stress test without issue. For Vega 64, that’s a guarantee shutdown.
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Not to mention the difficulty of installing Win10. I had to install Win8.1 and then upgrade to Win10 just to get a bootable system.

I have and HD7970 MVC flashed card & I believe the card is bootblocking the Fresh Win10 install. It's near impossible (for me) to make it work.

Fortunately I had a Winclone backup of a perfectly running system and was able to restore it to the ORIGINAL SSD (wincolne images will only restore to the original disk uuid & partition uuid). It's been a real pain.

Today, I'm trying a vol > vol clone to put it where I want it.

All that said, if you want a gaming machine, build a Ryzen box and enjoy...

Install Win 10 legacy mode should be very easy with a flashed 7970. The real issue is if you want to install in EFI mode, because that's not compatible with the 7970's Mac EFI.

But I agree if start from scratch, I will definitely buy a gaming PC, but not cMP for that.

 

[tu2thepoo]

If you're mainly about the aesthetics of the Mac Pro case, you're probably better off getting a "for parts" mac pro off eBay and just getting an ATX conversion kit like this:https://www.thelaserhive.com/product/mac-pro-atx-kit-with-psu-mount/ (or a powermac G5 and one of those conversion kits)

If you're going to put time/money into building a separate Mac4,1/5,1 Win10 machine, you might as well go whole-hog and get something that'll let you have built-in USB3.1/TB3/etc.

 

[crjackson2134]

Install Win 10 legacy mode should be very easy with a flashed 7970. The real issue is if you want to install in EFI mode, because that's not compatible with the 7970's Mac EFI.

But I agree if start from scratch, I will definitely buy a gaming PC, but not cMP for that.

Not on my machine. I've tried legacy mode for 18 hours straight. No combination would work. I did manage to get it installed, but it wouldn't boot. I finally rearranged my drives so that the original drive was in the original spot. Then did a Winclone restore. It booted twice and ran perfectly. I decided to do a Volume > Volume clone (PCIe/SATA SSD to BAY1/SATA SSD). As soon as I made the transfer, it broke BOTH volumes and no boot condition returns.

I removed each drive and tried each separately but NOJOY!

I have now, repartitioned BAY1 back to HFS+, Reformatted PCIe/SATA0 SSD to FAT and restored the working image again. It went without hiccups but still won't boot. NVRAM resets & SMC resets out the wazoo...

Nothing works now... Just get BONG > White Screen > Black Screen > Monitor Sleeps > Fans on full - NO BOOTING.

I think if I knew the command to ZERO out everything on this disk, It might work by restoring the Image again. When I run FirstAid on the Root Device, it mentions checking and EFI/Restore partition that probably doesn't belong. THIS may be the reason it won't boot, but I'm not really sure.

ASTONISHING!

Out of the blue, it booted! I'm typing this from Win10. To bad it's impossible for me to put this on a SSD in BAY1.

I'm worried it won't boot again after switching back to macOS or turning it off. I have no clue how the wife is supposed to make use of this.

 

[h9826790]

Not on my machine. I've tried legacy mode for 18 hours straight. No combination would work. I did manage to get it installed, but it wouldn't boot. I finally rearranged my drives so that the original drive was in the original spot. Then did a Winclone restore. It booted twice and ran perfectly. I decided to do a Volume > Volume clone (PCIe/SATA SSD to BAY1/SATA SSD). As soon as I made the transfer, it broke BOTH volumes and no boot condition returns.

I removed each drive and tried each separately but NOJOY!

I have now, repartitioned BAY1 back to HFS+, Reformatted PCIe/SATA0 SSD to FAT and restored the working image again. It went without hiccups but still won't boot. NVRAM resets & SMC resets out the wazoo...

Nothing works now... Just get BONG > White Screen > Black Screen > Monitor Sleeps > Fans on full - NO BOOTING.

Not sure what the problem is. It's a good install, I can access fine with VMWare, but it won't boot.
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Looks like a lot of work. I'd like to see a working finish product.

Not sure what's wrong.

But I can share how I did it on my HD7950 (same Mac EFI / driver as the 7970. So, should able to share the same setup process).

I must emphasis that I ONLY did this with the ORIGINAL Win 10 installation disc. The ISO was download directly from MS when Win 10 was just released. That should be the very 1st official release. So, I have no idea if the latest Windows installation ISO can work with the 79xx card (if should, but I never try).

For Legacy installation.

1) MUST use the disc but not any USB installer.
2) Connect a SATA SSD directly to one of the native SATA II ports, not on any PCIe card (It's recommended to remove all other hard drives, but it's not mandatory. Just prevent accidentally format for wrong drive in step 4)
3) Hold C to boot (auto boot to the Win 10 installer)
4) remove all partitions on the target drive
5) re-create a partition with max capacity (the installer should automatically create all other required partitions)
6) continue Windows installation
7) once completed, install bootcamp drivers package (do NOT restart)

If you have any Apple software RAID, perform step 8-10. In my own experience, without these steps, always BSOD on the next boot. And these drivers don't work on the latest Win 10 anyway, so, better to disable them.

8) Navigate to c:\windows\system32\drivers\
9) Rename AppleHFS.sys to AppleHFS.sys.BACKUP
10) Rename AppleMNT.sys to AppleMNT.sys.BACKUP

11) install the latest AMD driver

That's pretty much done. And it work every single time for me.

After this, I will use WinClone to make a backup image file. This is the image for fast "installation".

I never try to boot Windows via any PCIe card. IMO, that's a bad idea. All hard drives on PCIe cards are considered external on the cMP. And Windows doesn't support boot from external drive natively. And cloning from an "external" SSD to an internal SSD seems causing issue in your case.

Once the installation is done. You should be free move the Windows SSD to any native internal ports. But should not move it to any PCIe card.

Also, you should avoid to use any NTFS software in macOS to mount the Windows boot drive. This can also cause a no boot. If you are lucky enough, disable the NTFS mount (only for that drive) may able to resume the Windows bootability.

 

[crjackson2134]

Not sure what's wrong.

But I can share how I did it on my HD7950 (same Mac EFI / driver as the 7970. So, should able to share the same setup process).

I must emphasis that I ONLY did this with the ORIGINAL Win 10 installation disc. The ISO was download directly from MS when Win 10 was just released. That should be the very 1st official release. So, I have no idea if the latest Windows installation ISO can work with the 79xx card (if should, but I never try).

For Legacy installation.

1) MUST use the disc but not any USB installer.
2) Connect a SATA SSD directly to one of the native SATA II ports, not on any PCIe card (It's recommended to remove all other hard drives, but it's not mandatory. Just prevent accidentally format for wrong drive in step 4)
3) Hold C to boot (auto boot to the Win 10 installer)
4) remove all partitions on the target drive
5) re-create a partition with max capacity (the installer should automatically create all other required partitions)
6) continue Windows installation
7) once completed, install bootcamp drivers package (do NOT restart)

If you have any Apple software RAID, perform step 8-10. In my own experience, without these steps, always BSOD on the next boot. And these drivers don't work on the latest Win 10 anyway, so, better to disable them.

8) Navigate to c:\windows\system32\drivers\
9) Rename AppleHFS.sys to AppleHFS.sys.BACKUP
10) Rename AppleMNT.sys to AppleMNT.sys.BACKUP

11) install the latest AMD driver

That's pretty much done. And it work every single time for me.

After this, I will use WinClone to make a backup image file. This is the image for fast "installation".

I never try to boot Windows via any PCIe card. IMO, that's a bad idea. All hard drives on PCIe cards are considered external on the cMP. And Windows doesn't support boot from external drive natively. And cloning from an "external" SSD to an internal SSD seems causing issue in your case.

Once the installation is done. You should be free move the Windows SSD to any native internal ports. But should not move it to any PCIe card.

Also, you should avoid to use any NTFS software in macOS to mount the Windows boot drive. This can also cause a no boot. If you are lucky enough, disable the NTFS mount (only for that drive) may able to resume the Windows bootability.

Thanks, that's exactly how I proceeded except that I couldn't ever get past step 6. Install would not complete because after copying files from DVD, it couldn't boot into the drive to finish...

Tried for 2 days without even sleeping. Took computer down to barebones, same result. Tried both SSD and/or HDD installed in BAY1 SATA.

I've been on WIN for about an hour trouble free, then it won't boot again. It's a good install as it's a restore of a Winclone image that was working perfectly. After restore, it booted and worked fine.
After shutdown, it won't boot again.

 

[h9826790]

Thanks, that's exactly how I proceeded except that I couldn't ever get past step 6. Install would not complete because after copying files from DVD, it couldn't boot into the drive to finish...

Tried for 2 days without even sleeping. Took computer down to barebones, same result. Tried both SSD and/or HDD installed in BAY1 SATA.

I've been on WIN for about an hour trouble free, then it won't boot again. It's a good install as it's a restore of a Winclone image that was working perfectly. After restore, it booted and worked fine.
After shutdown, it won't boot again.

That’s really strange.

So, if you keep using Windows only, it can restart / boot. But if you boot to MacOS, Windows can boot again?

 

[crjackson2134]

That’s really strange.

So, if you keep using Windows only, it can restart / boot. But if you boot to MacOS, Windows can boot again?

After more trial and error, I’ve found that I can only cold boot to the Win drive as long as it’s NOT selected AS a startup drive in preferences pane or otherwise. I can only Option boot select after shutting down and waiting 15+ Seconds.

Under no circumstances will a restart/warm boot load Windows.

If Win drive was previously selected as a startup drive, it will not boot the win drive.

I hope you understand what I’m saying.

My Win boot flow as follows;

1 - Make sure macOS SSD is selected as startup drive, in preferences pane.

2 - Do normal shutdown.

3 - Wait 15+ seconds.

4 - Press Power button and hold down option key until boot selector displays.

5 - Select Windows Drive with one click, then wait 2-5 seconds.

6 - Click on arrow under the Windows Drive Icon to start launch/boot process.

7 - Wait for Windows to Load

This is the ONLY way it will boot. It took me 3 days to figure out this convoluted process.

 

[h9826790]

After more trial and error, I’ve found that I can only cold boot to the Win drive as long as it’s NOT selected AS a startup drive in preferences pane or otherwise. I can only Option boot select after shutting down and waiting 15+ Seconds.

Under no circumstances will a restart/warm boot load Windows.

If Win drive was previously selected as a startup drive, it will not boot the awin drive.

I hope you understand what I’m saying.

My Win boot flow as follows;

1 - Make sure macOS SSD is selected as startup drive, in preferences pane.

2 - Do normal shutdown.

3 - Wait 15+ seconds.

4 - Press Power button and hold down option key until boot selector displays.

5 - Select Windows Drive with one click, then wait 2-5 seconds.

6 - Click on arrow under the Windows Drive Icon to start launch/boot process.

7 - Wait for Windows to Load

This is the ONLY way it will boot. It took me 3 days to figure out this convoluted process.

Never seen this problem before. No idea how it fix, sorry about that.

If your Mac is "always ON", I will suggest you try Bootchamp. Hopefully it can boot Windows.

If you will shut it down, then I will suggest rEFInd, which gives you a better and much much faster boot manager. No need to hope option key. No matter you or your wife boot the Mac, it automatically go to rEFInd in a few seconds, then both of you can select the required OS easily.

 

[crjackson2134]

Never seen this problem before. No idea how it fix, sorry about that.

If your Mac is "always ON", I will suggest you try Bootchamp. Hopefully it can boot Windows.

If you will shut it down, then I will suggest rEFInd, which gives you a better and much much faster boot manager. No need to hope option key. No matter you or your wife boot the Mac, it automatically go to rEFInd in a few seconds, then both of you can select the required OS easily.

Tried Bootchamp, doesn’t work for me. Bootchamp determines drive is not bootable.

I may try rEFInd if no other solution presents. I feel it’s related to one if not two things...

1 - There may be a hidden EFI partition not showing that came from previously installed macOS on same drive. Mac Disk Utility has been unreliable for me ever since update to High Sierra. Yes, I know how to select View-All option. I have no use for the Volumes-Only view.

Tomorrow I will TRY to boot a gParted Live CD to zero out everything on the drive to an unformatted state, then try again.

2 - I have the newest firmware flash that came with HS. It may be the cause, as I found that I can no-longer boot to a live Ubuntu Linux distro. It gives same black screen & High fan speed as failed Windows boot attempt. It used to boot Ubuntu Live CDs quickly and perfectly.

If all of these things fail, I will install Apple/AMD HD 5870 EFI Card just to be complete in testing. If that has no effect, then only conclusion is the new firmware or there is a hardware issue at this point.

 

[h9826790]

Tried Bootchamp, doesn’t work for me. Bootchamp determines drive is not bootable.

I may try rEFInd if no other solution presents. I feel it’s related to one if not two things...

1 - There may be a hidden EFI partition not showing that came from previously installed macOS on same drive. Mac Disk Utility has been unreliable for me ever since update to High Sierra. Yes, I know how to select View-All option. I have no use for the Volumes-Only view.

Tomorrow I will TRY to boot a gParted Live CD to zero out everything on the drive to an unformatted state, then try again.

2 - I have the newest firmware flash that came with HS. It may be the cause, as I found that I can no-longer boot to a live Ubuntu Linux distro. It gives same black screen & High fan speed as Windows. It used to boot Ubuntu Live CDs quickly and perfectly.

For info, I am also with the 0087.B00 firmware, but doesn't have this issue.

Hopefully there is just some wrong files in the EFI partitions, but not any hardware issue.

 

[crjackson2134]

For info, I am also with the 0087.B00 firmware, but doesn't have this issue.

Hopefully there is just some wrong files in the EFI partitions, but not any hardware issue.

Thanks for info.

If you don’t mind, could you download the latest Ubuntu LTS version and see if it boots properly out of the box for you?

If it’s a hardware failure, hopefully nothing more than video card. Fingers crossed for partition issues.

 

[h9826790]

Thanks for info.

If you don’t mind, could you download the latest Ubuntu LTS version and see if it boots properly out of the box for you?

If it’s a hardware failure, hopefully nothing more than video card. Fingers crossed for partition issues.

I am using non Mac EFI GPU right now. I don't mind to do it if it can work as LiveCD. But if require installation, then may be a bit later (when I install the GT120 back in).

 

[crjackson2134]

I am using non Mac EFI GPU right now. I don't mind to do it if it can work as LiveCD. But if require installation, then may be a bit later (when I install the GT120 back in).

No install. Just boot as live CD. My system using MVC HD 7970, but I can test with my Apple 5870 as a last resort to see if my 7970 is starting to fail.

 

[h9826790]

No install. Just boot as live CD. My system using MVC HD 7970, but I can test with my Apple 5870 as a last resort to see if my 7970 is starting to fail.

I may test the Live CD tonight (my Mac is working right now, can't perform the test).

 

[crjackson2134]

Thank for that. It’s 2 AM (0200 hrs) my time. Time to sleep anyway.

 

[AlexMaximus]

i like that MacPro Case. I want to buy a second MacPro 4.1/5.1 and want to install Windows on it for Gaming. I’ll think a six core cpu is enough for Gaming . But i have 2 questions

Can windows boot from a NVME SSd with a pci adapter in the Mac Pro ?
Is the PCie 2.0 fast enough for maybe a vega64 ? How much faster would it be in a pcie 3 slot ?

The MP 5.1 tower in my view is the nicest industrial design peace out there with a computer inside of it. Its timeless and I fully understand you. I do the occasional steam game on it on Windows 7 and I couldn't be happier. Of course there is a small penalty because of its ageing CPU. But since the tower is a kind of a pimp hobby of mine, I really don't care. Its really sweet, you are welcome to joint the 5.1 club.
To you're questions:
1: I would not go the NVME route, stay on AHCI drives only.
2: Vega64 drivers are still not mature, still many other problems with fan speeds and other bugs on the 5.1. For the GPU, I would go for a Nvidia 1080TI with reference design and pimp it with an evga hybrid cooler upgrade kit 6 month down the line. Stay away from AMD. NVIDIA is so much better and the web driver works till this day. Check out Macvidcards.com for further options and you will be on the save side regarding boot screen. Worked great for me...

 

[Draeconis]

i like that MacPro Case. I want to buy a second MacPro 4.1/5.1 and want to install Windows on it for Gaming. I’ll think a six core cpu is enough for Gaming . But i have 2 questions

Can windows boot from a NVME SSd with a pci adapter in the Mac Pro ?
Is the PCie 2.0 fast enough for maybe a vega64 ? How much faster would it be in a pcie 3 slot ?

Why not upgrade your current Mac Pro and just dual boot

 

[crjackson2134]

I may test the Live CD tonight (my Mac is working right now, can't perform the test).

FYI - PROBLEM SOLVED

I was finally able to boot into Ubuntu ONCE from lower optical drive;. Upper refuse to boot any OS.
From there, I use gParted to look at drives. Found EFI & Recovery Partitions hidden on Windows drive. Deleted both, reformatted to xFat/GUID, restored Winclone and boot becomes a little more reliable, and actually faster.

Still problems with selecting Win drive as startup from macOS and warm booting.
Pulled SSUBX SSD from slot2, installed in slot 3 resolved final booting issues.

SSUBX was preventing CD/DVD drive to load any OS 90% of time. It also prevented WIN10 from being set as a valid startup drive in preferences.

Making both of those changes, it now boots reliably to everything, everytime. In fact, I'm typing this from a Ubuntu Live-CD that wouldn't previously boot to save my life

Thanks for your help...

 

[h9826790]

FYI - PROBLEM SOLVED

I was finally able to boot into Ubuntu ONCE from lower optical drive;. Upper refuse to boot any OS.
From there, I use gParted to look at drives. Found EFI & Recovery Partitions hidden on Windows drive. Deleted both, reformatted to xFat/GUID, restored Winclone and boot becomes a little more reliable, and actually faster.

Still problems with selecting Win drive as startup from macOS and warm booting.
Pulled SSUBX SSD from slot2, installed in slot 3 resolved final booting issues.

SSUBX was preventing CD/DVD drive to load any OS 90% of time. It also prevented WIN10 from being set as a valid startup drive in preferences.

Making both of those changes, it now boots reliably to everything, everytime. In fact, I'm typing this from a Ubuntu Live-CD that wouldn't previously boot to save my life

Thanks for your help...

Good to hear that.

Anyway, just finished the test. Of course, the result is "can boot Ubuntu Live CD"

 

[joebclash]

I have a mac pro 5 1. I would like to try to dual boot windows 10 for gaming. Is there any simple directions to do this? I also have a non-flash gtx 750ti.