RTX Series Cards have Native Bootscreen Support!

[TehFalcon]

(not my video)

Great news!!

EDIT:

A better video (not my video)

Confirmed by MVC on Netkas http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,13881.0.html


Confirmed by CreatePro on MacProUpgrade on FaceBook

EFI UGA has also been located in RTX 2080 roms!

Very interesting. So while people here were arguing why this couldn't be possible, I downloaded a random RTX ROM from TechPowerUp (Asus.RTX2080.8192.180831.rom) and had a brief look at it. Besides its enormous size (1MB, seems to contain to identical copies of the same VBIOS and UEFI) I found an interesting bit in the decompressed UEFI binary:

Offset 1A28: 8B29 2C98 FAF4 CB41 B838 77AA 688F B839
That's the definition of EFI_UGA_DRAW_PROTOCOL, sitting right next to the definition of EFI_GRAPHICS_OUTPUT_PROTOCOL_GUID (Offset 1A18)!

My experience with other UEFI ROMs is quite limited, but a quick look into an GM204 UEFI binary revealed just the GOP part, but no mention of UGA support (and as we all know, they won't output anything in a cMP unless flashed).

So this might actually be legit!



I don't think that's an issue. 4K boot screens have been troublesome, because the original "Mac Edition" EFIs didn't support DisplayPort 1.2. My Dell U2515H in DP1.2 mode won't show anything either, although it's just WQHD. On the other hand, 4K boot screens do work on HD 7xxx or Kepler GPUs when connected by HDMI 1.4 or DP 1.1 (obviously not 60Hz in this case).
The RTX UEFI drivers will surely support DP 1.2.

 

[bookemdano]

Interesting...

I can't get too excited yet until there are more details and corroboration, but certainly an intriguing development--especially the contention that it had something to do with the 138 bootrom. Did Apple change something more substantial in it than we thought?

 

[tsialex]

Interesting...

I can't get too excited yet until there are more details and corroboration, but certainly an intriguing development--especially the contention that it had something to do with the 138 bootrom. Did Apple change something more substantial in it than we thought?

138.0.0.0.0 only has the UGA DXE. If this is real, maybe NVIDIA did some magic to support both UGA and GOP.

We need more reports, a dump would be nice too.

 

[TinyWorkshop]

super interesting..........

 

[bsbeamer]

IF true, this could be enough for me to upgrade to an RTX from my GTX 1080 FE. Still on High Sierra for now...

 

[ActionableMango]

That's awesome! Now if only they would fix the driver situation.

 

[eksu]

No way. And I was going to buy a Vega FE.

EDIT: Probably still going to get the Vega for hardware decoding of hevc, better OS support, and also a W7000 firepro to drop in slot 3 for boot screens after flashing.

 

[tsialex]

No way. And I was going to buy a Vega FE.

Now I don't know what to get...

Last Mac Edition card from NVIDIA was eVGA GTX 680 and now from nothing, without even a support article, not even a press release, they implement UGA for all RTX cards? Santa Claus worked hard this year…

 

[flehman]

Seems like there are so many variables right now that are unresolved: if/when nVidia releases Mojave web drivers, if/when Apple releases additional firmware updates or Mojave updates that could give or take away functionality, and hovering behind all of that is the spectre of what a MP 7,1 may bring if it ever arrives. Now throw in this report of 2080s with bootscreens. I have kept going back and forth about whether to replace my GPU for Mojave or keep saving for that 7,1 and I am still afraid to invest in anything. Way too fluid a situation.

 

[bsbeamer]

There's a rumor floating around on another forum that the AMD contract expires in December 2018 and NVIDIA was asked to pull the .108 driver to not jeopardize their contract for upcoming 2019 machines. Not sure what to believe. Just patiently waiting...

 

[flehman]

There's a rumor floating around on another forum that the AMD contract expires in December 2018 and NVIDIA was asked to pull the .108 driver to not jeopardize their contract for upcoming 2019 machines. Not sure what to believe. Just patiently waiting...

Agreed. I may be standing pat on 10.13.6 for awhile until more pieces of this puzzle fall into place.

 

[crjackson2134]

Personally I'm beyond skeptical...

If you look at the opening video, there is a big "Create Pro" Matt showing. Create Pro is the company that was feuding with MVC for stealing his custom NVIDIA ROM's. They were said to be reverse engineering his work afterwards. I suspect they have put together a custom flash for the card. I would love to be wrong, but I would have to see a LOT more reports on this from known sources before I would buy into this.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Cool but Metal will have to be updated with Ray Tracing support to benefit the RTX cores and Nvidia still doesn’t support 10 bit output on GeForce cards.

 

[TehFalcon]

Cool but Metal will have to be updated with Ray Tracing support to benefit the RTX cores and Nvidia still doesn’t support 10 bit output on GeForce cards.

Metal has ray tracing!

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Metal has ray tracing!

Good if true, hope it can perform as well as DXR and other Windows counterpart APIs.

 

[bookemdano]

(not my video)

v138 Bootrom brings this. Personally tested on an EVGA RTX 2080 out of my Gaming Rig.

Great news!!

I missed this in your OP but are you stating that you duplicated Create Pro's findings? That you were able to hold option and bring up the boot picker on your cMP running 138.0.0.0.0 using your RTX 2080?

 

[goMac]

Metal has ray tracing!

It does BUT Nvidia has yet to ship drivers for it, and it's unclear how deeply Metal can tie into proprietary GPU features right now.
[doublepost=1539724986][/doublepost]

138.0.0.0.0 only has the UGA DXE. If this is real, maybe NVIDIA did some magic to support both UGA and GOP.

We need more reports, a dump would be nice too.

UGA support seems like the most likely explanation if this checks out. It is odd that Nvidia would go out of their way to add that just for Wintel boxes.

If there is an official Mac support, I'd expect to see this roll into Apple drivers. Maybe even eGPU support as well.

It's also hard to believe, if this is Mac support, Nvidia would be doing this just for the 5,1. I wonder if the next Mac Pro will have PCIe support and they want to hit both old and new Mac Pros with the same card.

Edit: Actually formal Mac support would be odd because the power envelope is outside what a stock Mac Pro can do. But maybe they're thinking more about something like the 1070.

 

[landek]

Is a fake video, 2 icons on desktop (internal and external hdd/ssd), no internal hdd inside Mac Pro and on right side Macbook Pro.

 

[MarkC426]

Well spotted eagle eyes....
Plus, it’s damn slow to start up......

 

[bookemdano]

Is a fake video, 2 icons on desktop (internal and external hdd/ssd), no internal hdd inside Mac Pro and on right side Macbook Pro.

Can you expound on this? I assume you are saying there is no internal HDD inside the Mac Pro because there are no caddies. But many of us (myself included) have sometimes plugged a SATA SSD into one of the four drive bays without a caddy. Also, the optical bay has two SATA connectors we cannot see in the video, so maybe a drive plugged into them?

There appears to be an NVMe or AHCI SSD in slot 4, so that would explain the external drive showing on the desktop.

Maybe I am missing something, but I don't think you can say the video is fake based on the drive icons on the desktop.

 

[h9826790]

Personally I'm beyond skeptical...

If you look at the opening video, there is a big "Create Pro" Matt showing. Create Pro is the company that was feuding with MVC for stealing his custom NVIDIA ROM's. They were said to be reverse engineering his work afterwards. I suspect they have put together a custom flash for the card. I would love to be wrong, but I would have to see a LOT more reports on this from known sources before I would buy into this.

They said the card is not flashed, but has native boot screen support.

 

[namethisfile]

The OP says he also tested it. But, I still think it's fake because 1) The Youtube video person says email me for more footage. As if, to imbue even more mystery or suspense, instead of simply just showing more footage as the commentor on that Youtube video had asked.

2) Same thing here, OP just says I tested it, too. And... that's it... there are no other supporting documents/pics/videos/etc... just like the YT video...

 

[crjackson2134]

They said the card is not flashed, but has native boot screen support.
View attachment 795614

When you buy one from NVIDIA, and post that it’s true, I’ll believe it then.

 

[h9826790]

When you buy one from NVIDIA, and post that it’s true, I’ll believe it then.

I personally don't like Create Pro because of their history on this forum. But I really can't understand what's the point to make such a video.

If they said they successfully flashed the card. Then no matter fake or not, make sense, because it may help them to sell more machines. And no one can prove if they really able to create such card.

But if just a fake video about RTX card has native boot screen support with 138.0.0.0.0. It shouldn't help them to make any money. Everyone can buy this card and install into the cMP by themselves.

It will be extremely easy to prove the video is fake. Then their credibility will go even lower (it's very low already).
[doublepost=1539730645][/doublepost]

138.0.0.0.0 only has the UGA DXE. If this is real, maybe NVIDIA did some magic to support both UGA and GOP.

We need more reports, a dump would be nice too.

You mean the dump of the RTX 2080?

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/203751/nvidia-rtx2080-8192-180828

 

[Fangio]

Hmmm... yes still hard to believe. If thats a fake video at YT then what about the create pro site, hacked simultaneously?

https://create.pro/blog/nvidia-rtx-2080-boot-screen-in-mac-pro-51/


Edit, not quick enough. I agree they are risking their whole reputation with this.