Nvidia on Its Lack of macOS Mojave Drivers for Newer Graphics Cards: 'It's Up to Apple to Approve Them'

[Joe Rossignol]

im pleasantly surprised to see Mac Rumors actually acknowledging the existence of the Classic Mac Pro community

however "Nvidia graphics cards based on Kepler architecture, which Apple offered in various Macs between 2012 and 2014, are fully compatible with macOS Mojave. This includes the GeForce GTX 680, GeForce GTX 285, GeForce GT 120, GeForce 8800 GT, Quadro K5000 for Mac, Quadro K4000 for Mac, Quadro FX 4800, and Quadro FX 5600." is quite miss leading and could confuse a lot of people

the GeForce GTX 680 and Quadro K5000 are the only kepler based video cards in that list, the rest of the cards listed are of old, Fermi and Tesla based chipsets which do not support metal in any way shape or form (theres also no such thing as a K4000 for Mac)

any chance to also mention the fact that the new RTX 2070 RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti provide Boot screens in Mac Pros? (its worth mentioning because previous PC NVIDIA cards do not provide boot screens, No PC AMD cards provide boot screens for that matter)

(Its also worth mentioning NVIDIA eGPUs are not supported in the slightest in MacOS, not even the web drivers enable them so im a bit confused as to why eGPUs are being mentioned? the main people suffering here are 2010 and 2012 Mac Pro users)

but I will say I am very happy and thankful that Apple still supports the MacPro5,1 at all

I removed the list. I grabbed it from Nvidia's website, but funny enough I only googled the GTX 680 and Quadro K5000, and falsely assumed the entire list was Kepler. Fixed.

 

[csurfr]

Sadly I see this from all sorts of companies. I emailed Fitbit to ask when they would support Apple Health. Their reply was “our APIs” are available and Apple can choose to implement them. Their attitude made purchasing an Apple Watch so much easier.

So wait....you want to produce a product but you want me to write the software for you to make it work with my OS? That’s the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a while. Nicely done Fitbit.

 

[KhrisGarcia]

Literally dozens of Hackintoshers are also waiting with bated breath for these!

I bought a Vega 64 to replace dual 980s. If Nvidia support was there I would have certainly gone with a 2080. I’m talking hackingosh but I also have a MacBook Pro 15” and IF I had an eGPU I still would have preferred a 2080.

With eGPU support Apple needs to step up and start supporting both AMD and Nvidia and stop playing sides.

 

[lunarworks]

I wonder what Nvidia did to upset Apple. I remember when ATI crossed Jobs and paid the price.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Since the only Macs this applies to are pre-2013 Mac Pros more than 5 years past date of manufacture, just how high a priority should Apple place on approving the drivers?

If it's purely a matter of driver approval, we could also ask Nvidia when they submitted their drivers for approval. It may be that they submitted them quite a while ago during the Mojave beta, but it could also be that they just shipped them to Apple yesterday.

Mojave has been in public release for a little more than a month. Meantime, the current lack of compatibility is a known issue, not, as Forbes might say, a "nasty surprise." Over the decades, I can recall instances where users of specific cards or apps had to wait six months or more to get the updates they needed in order to upgrade their OS (Windows or Mac). Certainly pro users are familiar with this phenomenon.

 

[blackcrayon]

I wonder what kind of custom desktop class Apple designed GPUs Apple has in its labs... Maybe that's part of the reason they aren't too keen on making future things work with nVidia.

 

[VictorTango777]

And how about proper support for DisplayPort MST in Mac OS? There is real DisplayPort support and then there is Apple's crippled, half-hearted DisplayPort support. Should Apple even be allowed to claim that they support DisplayPort?

 

[elvislives]

Apple need to support nVidia! the new macPro will Need them!

 

[namethisfile]

My theory on shunning Nvidia is probably just economics. AMD is giving Apple better prices than Nvidia. And, even though, in general AMD is "slower" than Nvidia, in the case of Macs, the raw performance difference in either Nvidia or an AMD GPU are offset or negated by the fact that it's a Mac. Another theory on top of pure economics theory is that AMD probably just says "Yes, Master, Tim. Whatever you say, Tim. Here you go, Tim. Our latest Vega20 GPU. Sorry we're like a year late. My deepest apology, Tim. We work hard for you, Tim. Master, Tim."

While, Nvidia probably wants a more "collaborative" approach and not as one sided as the relationship is with AMD who has no choice because they <srtike>suck</strike> are AMD....

 

[bsbeamer]

I wonder what Nvidia did to upset Apple. I remember when ATI crossed Jobs and paid the price.

Believe was shortly after the MacBookPro11,3 (MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) with a sort of dual GPU system (Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB & NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M). No one liked how graphics switching worked on this machine. The NVIDIA Web Drivers approach with this machine actually works much better than Apple's implementation.

Also worth mentioning, according to NVIDIA, CUDA is unavailable and will not work unless NVIDIA Web Drivers are installed. So people who have purchased officially available Apple products with NVIDIA GPUs (like my MBP11,3 GT 750M and MP5,1 with GTX 680 Mac Edition) cannot use them as designed in Mojave. Also left in the dark from updating High Sierra 10.13.6 until new drivers are available.

 

[pallymore]

nVidia cards are miles ahead of AMD ones in the pro field now.
I think I've read this a couple of months ago about they have developed the new drivers but Apple is not approving them.
If Apple cared a bit about real AI and game development (remember Apple boasted about both fields in their events) on macs they shoulda signed those damn drivers before releasing Mojave.

 

[Larsvonhier]

Can someone shed some light on this: In what way does Apple have to "approve" the drivers?
We are talking about kernel extensions, right? So it would still be feasible for Nvidia to release their updated web drivers for beta testers and brave users who a) disable SIP and b) allow exceptions to the kext signing

 

[McG2k1]

More and more evidence that apple doesn’t really care about creative professionals.

 

[tobiastimpe]

I don't understand why NVIDIA would need Apple's approval for their own drivers. As far as I can remember, getting a kext signing cert is a one-time process.

Also, this is a funny thing to mention in NVIDIA's position as most of the people waiting for the driver are probably Hackintosh owners who don't have to care about SIP or any kind of kext signing.

 

[StoneJack]

Nvidia cards are generally superior to AMD, I don't understand why Apple keeps using AMD GPUs and seems completely unsupportive of Nvidia.

Wrong. For Macs, Radeons are supported fully in the OS and they don't even need any web drivers and they work flawlessly in Mojave and Sierra without any additional AMD drivers. Which makes Radeons much, much better hardware for Macs. On the other hands, nVidia cards are extremely buggy even with their web drivers. Which is of course, the producer's fault since it can't make decent drivers for its own expensive cards.

 

[dazz87]

Nvidia cards are generally superior to AMD, I don't understand why Apple keeps using AMD GPUs and seems completely unsupportive of Nvidia.

Cost....

 

[Tapiture]

Wrong. For Macs, Radeons are supported fully in the OS and they don't even need any web drivers and they work flawlessly in Mojave and Sierra without any additional AMD drivers.

Just because they work better with Macs doesn't mean that they're superior in quality, it just means Apple designed the Macs to work with AMD cards. Surely they could've done the same with Nvidia cards.

 

[namethisfile]

My other theory about Apple shunning Nvidia amidst the height of Nvidia trouncing the competition (AMD) into psychological bankruptcy with their new RTX lineup without AMD being able to counter it in the near future (yeah, yeah, wait for Navi. Yeah, right) is that Apple is trying to hold off and ride the storm because 1) They will eventually include Nvidia GPU's in Macs after it's been in the market for a year. So, next year could see RTX GPU's in Macs and that is good in both ways for Apple in economics and also allowing maturity of the tech to develop.

2) The relationship with AMD so far has been one-sided, AMD being just a supplier, which works or doesn't work (Mac Pro 6,1 saw no update because of lack of appropriate GPU). And, software for AMD cards are more or less controlled by Apple.

But, with Nvidia, since Nvidia has stake in proprietory software driver tech, Nvidia needs to be more hands on than just being a supplier of GPU's when working with Apple.

 

[4jasontv]

Since the only Macs this applies to are pre-2013 Mac Pros more than 5 years past date of manufacture, just how high a priority should Apple place on approving the drivers?

Could you expand on this? Because my understanding is this also applies to the new macs that were just announced. Anyone with a thunderbolt 3 Mac can’t run the newest OS and last years or newer GPUs. It’s actually a concern for me as I am looking to pair a new Mac mini with a 1080 ti I already own.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Literally dozens of Hackintoshers are also waiting with bated breath for these!

eGPU users as well.... :/

 

[BollywooD]

typical Apple....
Im in the same boat with some Mojave compatible Mac App Store app updates. They have now been stuck "in review" for a month.
no word from Apple.

meanwhile, the negative reviews are piling up, as are the support requests from frustrated users.


Well, at least Apple is consistent in their no f%$#@ given stance toward other companies - big or small

 

[wigby]

Nvidia cards are generally superior to AMD, I don't understand why Apple keeps using AMD GPUs and seems completely unsupportive of Nvidia.

It's all about control. AMD plays ball with Apple and Nvidia does not. I'm not blaming Nvidia but Apple requires more control than Nvidia is willing to offer. Both are making understandable business decisions.

 

[nt5672]

Angry customers mean bad press and that’s always affecting „money“.

Apple's customers are not angry. Apple targets teenagers and college students spending their parents money to look fashionable with Apple devices. These customers don't even know what a GPU is.

Apple is starting to stir in this subject area because of VR and ML. But Apple really does not care, and those of us in the know, know that Apple does not care. So Apple will do just enough to be able to make some marketing statements that will fool most people into thinking that Apple cares about leading edge graphics and computer performance. But its just a smoke screen to get the Apple aficionados to ignore the obvious.

 

[Mikep976]

I really hope this leads to something. I am holding off on buying a eGPU box because I want to use a GPU I already have (980 ti) instead of buying a new Vega or Rx card.

 

[ikir]

AMD has the best low and mid range cards now. Multitasking, Metal are incredibile on AMD and macOS. AMD is the eGPU choice also on Windows. Vega 56 beats GTX 1070 and Vega 64 beats GTX 1080 and for some task is close to 1080 ti. Soon newer Vega will be out, and 99,999% of users dines't need that much power, naturally al of them will say "Nvidia is better...". Nvidia drivers are terrible I am an eGPU pioneer and I own one since 2015 (home made), I used Nvidia on Mac and PCs I can only say their support and drivers are trash. Check also stability statistic on Windows, AMD beats Nvidia again.