Third Party Nvidia Drivers for OSX?

[xdefeatsy]

I was wondering if, like in windows, there were any Nvidia Drivers (both Nvidia and Third Party) for my Intel Macbook Pro with the 8600m GT. The closest thing I have to advanced controls on my MBP is "Displays" in System Preferences. I was wondering if anyone knows of an OS X Nvidia driver for this card so I can do some tweaking.

Thaks

 

[BraiCrai]

I was wondering if, like in windows, there were any Nvidia Drivers (both Nvidia and Third Party) for my Intel Macbook Pro with the 8600m GT. The closest thing I have to advanced controls on my MBP is "Displays" in System Preferences. I was wondering if anyone knows of an OS X Nvidia driver for this card so I can do some tweaking.

Thaks

I got the 9400M GT in my 13" MacBook, and I'd like some tweaking too! Anyone here by accident that knows some gaming/tweaked drivers I can use except for those that Apple got me? I'd like some more power out of my graphics card.

Thanks in advance.

 

[scissorband]

Hahaha. Drivers from anyone else except from Nvidia? This is pretty laughable considering how closed source Nvidia is. They refuse to release documentation on their hardware so anyone who wants to write drivers will have to reverse engineer the entire thing and write their own drivers which is much more effort than it's worth. Nvidia is one of the main complaints of the open-source people. So I wouldn't expect a "third-party" driver for Nvidia products any time soon.

 

[BraiCrai]

Hahaha. Drivers from anyone else except from Nvidia? This is pretty laughable considering how closed source Nvidia is. They refuse to release documentation on their hardware so anyone who wants to write drivers will have to reverse engineer the entire thing and write their own drivers which is much more effort than it's worth. Nvidia is one of the main complaints of the open-source people. So I wouldn't expect a "third-party" driver for Nvidia products any time soon.

Don't know if you're known on the Windows platform. But with Windows there are 3rd party nvidia drivers. (http://www.omegadrivers.net/)
I hoped such drivers would exist for Apple too, so I can get some more FPS out of my card. 3Rd party or not, other drivers are welcome.

 

[scissorband]

Don't know if you're known on the Windows platform. But with Windows there are 3rd party nvidia drivers. (http://www.omegadrivers.net/)
I hoped such drivers would exist for Apple too, so I can get some more FPS out of my card. 3Rd party or not, other drivers are welcome.

I've never used Windows before but with Windows there is a 90%+ market share so I'm guessing that's enough incentive for the 90% of people in the world using Windows to write drivers for such a product.

But we're talking about Unix-like computers here, not Windows. The userbase is much lower meaning there are less people wanting to put so much effort into this. If there were more people that would be willing to get together and write drivers, things would go much faster but unfortunately there's not much reward if only a few people spend a lot of time in doing something like this.

Unless Nvidia writes the drivers you guys want or release documentation, it's doubtful that anyone will be willing to code drivers for Mac. (Unless a lot of money is offered, I guess)

Edit: I just read information about Omega drivers:

The drivers are tweaked versions of those officially released by ATi and nVidia, mainly using registry tweaks and offering an alternative installer. They are not custom drivers compiled from source code.

Registry tweaks...too bad it's not that easy on OS X.

 

[BraiCrai]

I've never used Windows before but with Windows there is a 90%+ market share so I'm guessing that's enough incentive for the 90% of people in the world using Windows to write drivers for such a product.

But we're talking about Unix-like computers here, not Windows. The userbase is much lower meaning there are less people wanting to put so much effort into this. If there were more people that would be willing to get together and write drivers, things would go much faster but unfortunately there's not much reward if only a few people spend a lot of time in doing something like this.

I totally agree on the fact that we're the minority here, and that it's the reason we are sort of 'left behind'. Not to point out Apple as a failure, because it's the greatest machine i've ever had. Once you go Apple, you never go back.

But on topic, I just wanted to know if there's some sort of better driver out there. Do you think if I'd install Windows with BootCamp with those Omega Drivers it would give me that extra bit of FPS I want? Or is it a hopeless action to get some extra power out of a card that is just not good enough for my expectations? The 9400M GT is a weak card in comparison with it's bigger brothers.

T.i.a.

 

[scissorband]

I'm in a similar situation as you (13" MBP) and it only includes the 9400 graphics. The 15" and up however has option to include the 9400 as well as the 9600, which is a beast. So I'm guessing the 13" Mac notebooks were not really targeted at gamers or graphics editors that need high-end graphics and more focused on mobility. I'm not sure the 9400 will do much good at all especially for gaming even if you do "tweak" it.

 

[BraiCrai]

I'm in a similar situation as you (13" MBP) and it only includes the 9400 graphics. The 15" however has the 9400 as well as the 9600, which is a beast. So I'm guessing the 13" Mac notebooks were not really targeted at gamers or graphics editors that need high-end graphics and more focused on mobility. I'm not sure the 9400 will do much good at all especially for gaming even if you do "tweak" it.

To be honest, I love my MacBook Pro, indeed the 13" white one, but I was slightly dissapointed with it's graphical power. When I installed World of Warcraft (Yeah yeah I know..) and played it with the same settings as my old Windows laptop (Dell XPS) I instantly noticed that this machine was (way) less powerful than my Dell.

I think i'm just wanting too much of it. Maybe I should just buy it's bigger brother! haha

 

[smogsy]

To be honest, I love my MacBook Pro, indeed the 13" white one, but I was slightly dissapointed with it's graphical power. When I installed World of Warcraft (Yeah yeah I know..) and played it with the same settings as my old Windows laptop (Dell XPS) I instantly noticed that this machine was (way) less powerful than my Dell.

I think i'm just wanting too much of it. Maybe I should just buy it's bigger brother! haha

WoW just runs slower on OSX, even on my Mac Pro it can crawl in dalaran. my Gaming Rig gets 150fps+