Thunderbolt eGPU Possibilities for Early Intel Macs?

[TheShortTimer]

Installing PurgeWrangler was a cakewalk once I paid attention to the instructions!

I I

I understand that Kryptonite is the improved version but I can see an advantage with PurgeWrangler in that I can leave the Thunderbolt cable connected constantly instead of disconnecting and then reconnecting it when the log-in screen appears as I needed to do with Kryptonite.

I can drag windows and applications around the HDTV to my heart's content without even a hint of glitching and tearing!

On the subject of perfomance, I have some further updates: since upgrading both the 2011 MBA and MBP to High Sierra, I've played a couple of 4K videos on both machines in full screen with QuickTime using their internal HD 3000 GPU's. Both videos are encoded in H.264 with a resolution of 3840 x 2160. Neither machine can cope with Video #1 but Video #2 plays perfectly on the MBP and near flawlessly on the MBA - with just a few seconds of lagging at the beginning when viewed on the latter.

The NVS 510 is unable to play either of the videos - even on the MBP which has far greater horsepower than the MBA. This is insane: the technically superior GPU is outperformed by its inferior counterpart.

Both of these 4K videos now play perfectly on the NVS 510 with the MBA.

It seems that Kryptonite was the culprit in some way?

*1440p windowed on YouTube works fairly well. Full screen playback causes severe lagging. 4K mode is just too much.

After switching to PurgeWrangler, 1440p full screen playback on YouTube is now possible with the NVS 510 and it's faultless.

4K on YouTube, even windowed is still too much for the NVS 510.

I just tried this exact video and it plays virtually flawlessly using the RX 460 and VLC, with just a couple dropped frames right at the beginning. CPU load is about 25%, GPU load around 20≈25%. This is a stark contrast to the unwatchable slideshow the HD 3000 subjects me to.

The 510 can't cope with it. For the first few seconds there's a spurt of severely lagged playback and then the frame-rate plummets to near zero. I also tried this 4k 50fps video and the playback was even worse with one or two frames per minute. Would it be possible for you to see how they fare on your 510 please? Then we'll know for certain whether the card simply isn't up to the task. I haven't set up PurgeWrangler yet with my 2011 MBP to see if the extra horsepower makes a difference.

If I swap the 510 for the HD 7770 will have to run the PurgeWrangler installer all over again to configure it for a new card?

Maybe your DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter is to blame for that?

These are the options that are available to me with the 510 connected to my HDTV:

As you can see, the option to use the TV as an output device is missing.

This is great progress, I want to try the HD 7770 next and see what happens!

 

[Amethyst1]

I can see an advantage with PurgeWrangler in that I can leave the Thunderbolt cable connected constantly instead of disconnecting and then reconnecting it when the log-in screen appears as I needed to do with Kryptonite.

Yes, that’s pretty annoying when it’s your main system.

It seems that Kryptonite was the culprit in some way?

It seems to be, but it’s interesting that it only affects 2011 Macs — and AMD GPUs more severely than NVIDIA ones.

Would it be possible for you to see how they fare on your 510 please?

Sure.

If I swap the 510 for the HD 7770 will have to run the PurgeWrangler installer all over again to configure it for a new card?

Yes, the kexts to be patched differ across AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. You have to undo the current patches first (“Uninstall”) and then rerun the installer.

This is great progress, I want to try the HD 7770 next and see what happens!

I wonder if it’s possible to combine Lilu and WhateverGreen to make the 7770 work with purge-wrangler’s patches.

 

[TheShortTimer]

It seems to be, but it’s interesting that it only affects 2011 Macs — and AMD GPUs more severely than NVIDIA ones.

I'll stick with NVIDIA cards in that case for the 2011 Macs and I'll retry the GT 630 seeing as that's an NVIDIA product and wouldn't require re-patching.

Sure.

Thanks.

Yes, the kexts to be patched differ across AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. You have to undo the current patches first (“Uninstall”) and then rerun the installer.

Ah, an immediate solution comes to mind to have two separate installations: one configured for AMD GPUs and the other for NVIDIA's.

I wonder if it’s possible to combine Lilu and WhateverGreen to make the 7770 work with purge-wrangler’s patches.

Another challenge awaits.

 

[Amethyst1]

I'll stick with NVIDIA cards in that case for the 2011 Macs and I'll retry the GT 630 seeing as that's an NVIDIA product and wouldn't require re-patching.

It will if the kexts for Fermi cards differ from those for Kepler cards (it looks like at least one does) and purge-wrangler doesn't patch all NVIDIA kexts in one go.

Ah, an immediate solution comes to mind to have two separate installations: one configured for AMD GPUs and the other for NVIDIA's.

My thoughts exactly. I actually have three: the third is for further testing with kryptonite.

 

[TheShortTimer]

According to Dortania's guide, the HD 7770 is supported from Lion to Monterey - which means that it should work under High Sierra but I'd need to install the Lilu and WhateverGreen texts:

Needed kexts

• Lilu.kext
• WhateverGreen.kext

It looks quite straightforward according to this guide to install the kexts manually.

1. Drag and drop your kext file into “/System/Library/Extensions”.

2. Click “Authenticate.”

3. Enter your admin password.

4. Open Terminal and use the command sudo kextload kext.kext to load your newly copied kext file. Make sure to replace “kext.kext” with the name of your kext file.

5. Enter your administrator password.

6. Restart your computer.

This part confuses me - where am I supposed to enter it?

Extras:

• radpg=15: Required for HD 7730/7750/7770/R7 250/R7 250X GPU initialization

 

[TheShortTimer]

In the meanwhile, I've managed to get the GT 630 working!

Well, sort of.

As you can see, it's very much broken. When the MBA reached the log-in screen, it was actually shown on the TV rather than the internal LCD - and perfectly too but that was about as good as it got. The graphics suffer from garbage corruption, videos are not viewable in VLC - the image area is completely green in full screen mode or windowed. Dragging applications around the screen leaves a trail and the display is not refreshed or updated to remove them.

Not much use in terms of its current functionality but even this result is still more progress than I ever achieved with Kryptonite.

 

[TheShortTimer]

According to Dortania's guide, the HD 7770 is supported from Lion to Monterey - which means that it should work under High Sierra but I'd need to install the Lilu and WhateverGreen texts:

I decided to have a go at this...

It looks quite straightforward according to this guide to install the kexts manually.

My initial impressions were correct - copying the kexts manually was child's play but the 7770 causes the MBA to kernel panic in a rebooting loop.

Also, whilst using the NVS-510, I've encountered a bug that causes High Sierra to freeze for a second and then log me out of the session and back to the log-in screen from where I can log back in and macOS automatically resumes the session. During the course of today this has occurred three times within an hour.

This part confuses me - where am I supposed to enter it?

From what I've read here and here "radpg=15" is a setting that's added to the config.plist file of OpenCore but (from my novice knowledge) PurgeWangler uses a different approach so there would be no option to add this setting. If I'm wrong about this I'd welcome the correction.

 

[Amethyst1]

Also, whilst using the NVS-510, I've encountered a bug that causes High Sierra to freeze for a second and then log me out of the session and back to the log-in screen from where I can log back in and macOS automatically resumes the session. During the course of today this has occurred three times within an hour.

This looks like a WindowServer crash. I've also had this happen occasionally with the NVS 510 — but only when changing the resolution of the monitor connected to the eGPU (and this was when I was still using kryptonite). Apart from that, it was stable and even survived several benchmarks in a row. I'll have to do some testing.

From what I've read here and here "radpg=15" is a setting that's added to the config.plist file of OpenCore but (from my novice knowledge) PurgeWangler uses a different approach so there would be no option to add this setting.

I guess you'd have to set up OpenCore again, add Lilu, WhateverGreen and this setting and hope it works in conjunction with the patches purge-wrangler has done to the relevant kexts.

There's an alternative solution which just requires Verde.kext to be installed but it looks to be incompatible with High Sierra.

(Homer Simpson's voice: Why? Why must life be so hard? )

 

[TheShortTimer]

This looks like a WindowServer crash. I've also had this happen occasionally with the NVS 510 — but only when changing the resolution of the monitor connected to the eGPU (and this was when I was still using kryptonite).

It's reassuring to know that I'm not alone in experiencing this.

I'd feared that something was wrong with the High Sierra installation.

Apart from that, it was stable and even survived several benchmarks in a row.

During the course of this evening its been solid. The issue appears to be intermittent, which is all the more annoying.

I'll have to do some testing.

Please do.

I guess you'd have to set up OpenCore again, add Lilu, WhateverGreen and this setting and hope it works in conjunction with the patches purge-wrangler has done to the relevant kexts.

The Kryptonite partition still exists so that's something to consider as a possibility. It might be worthwhile creating a 2nd High Sierra installation for these tests.

There's an alternative solution which just requires Verde.kext to be installed but it looks to be incompatible with High Sierra.

Dammit!

(Homer Simpson's voice: Why? Why must life be so hard? )

(With apologies to Coppola and Puzo.)

 

[TheShortTimer]

Keeping in mind your warning regarding shelling large sums for used GPUs that could have been thrashed in their previous lives, I've seen the GTX 780 4GB being sold new for around £95 on eBay.

It's more than I'd ideally like to pay but given that used cards sell for relatively marginally lower prices, this seems like a better choice.

What do you think?

 

[Amethyst1]

What do you think?

Please stay the hell away from that fake card.

Genuine 780s don’t have VGA. They have two DVIs, one DisplayPort and one HDMI.

This thing is most likely a very crappy old Fermi card with a manipulated BIOS.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Please stay the hell away from that fake card.

Genuine 780s don’t have VGA. They have two DVIs, one DisplayPort and one HDMI.

This thing is most likely a very crappy old Fermi card with a manipulated BIOS.

Thanks so much for the warning! I could've bought one and been stung.

Now that I know what to look for, I've spotted quite a few fake cards of varying specs being sold from China.

Bullet, well and truly dodged.

 

[Amethyst1]

Now that I know what to look for, I've spotted quite a few fake cards of varying specs being sold from China.

Try searching for “fake GeForce GTX” on YT. It’s hilarious. The GPU market is so fscked up. As if crazily overpriced GPUs weren’t enough. We’ve to deal with fakes too.

(Sorry for the rant. 'tis not my day today.)

 

[TheShortTimer]

Try searching for “fake GeForce GTX” on YT. It’s hilarious.

I had a look and found at least a dozen videos on the subject. It's mind blowing because they could've sold those cards under their original specification and still made a profit but instead they'd rather earn a crooked penny than an honest banknote.

The GPU market is so fscked up. As if crazily overpriced GPUs weren’t enough.

I opted for an EVGA SC GTX 770 that I saw on eBay described as opened but unused. It cost me £129 GBP (shipping included) but even that was still considerably cheaper than the prices on there for used and "refurbished" units of that exact model or close matches within the 7xx range.

We’ve to deal with fakes too.

Thankfully you saved me from almost buying one.

(Sorry for the rant. 'tis not my day today.)

No need. We all experience these moments and I'm similarly irked at the insane prices for what are quite frankly, old tech and the behaviour of the cut & run con-artists.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Look what arrived this afternoon.

Setting up new cards in PurgeWrangler is now second nature to me.

Time to reboot and see what happens…

So far, so good - it's spinning away. Let's check About This Mac and System Report:

Fantastic!

There's no sign of any garbage, tearing or trailing issues on the HDTV and YouTube videos play in 4K/UHD, full screen on the 2011 MBA using Firefox!*

*It's occasionally glitchy and you have to restart the video and prevent Firefox from downgrading to 1440p but for the most part, full screen 4K playback on the MacBook Air is near-flawless. These stills don't do the clips justice! Firefox is a notorious resource hog so they might fare better with a more efficient browser. (Any suggestions?) 4K 60fps YouTube videos seem to be a no-go: they just won't play. I'm not sure if this is due to the CPU lacking the sufficient horsepower - even with assistance from the GTX 770.

The 4K demo videos I referenced to earlier in this thread are still unable to play fluidly in QuickTime and VLC and I'm wondering what's going on there. I'll need to test them with the 770 and the 2011 MBP and see what happens.

I now have two cards that are supported properly and appear to work correctly so if there are any tests that you'd like for me to run, let me know and I'll share the results for the HD 3000, NVS-510 and GTX 770 respectively.

 

[KeithCody]

Nice work.

 

[Amethyst1]

it there are any tests that you'd like for me to run,

I'd like to see Unigine Heaven and Valley results for the 770 - windowed at 1280×720 without AA and the basic preset so we can compare them to my results.

Off-topic, but I'll never ever get my head around the fact that the DeLorean's speedometer tops out at 95 mph even though the car can do almost 110 mph! What's going on here?

 

[TheShortTimer]

Nice work.

Thank you. @Amethyst1 was a big help.

I'd like to see Unigine Heaven and Valley results for the 770 - windowed at 1280×720 without AA and the basic preset so we can compare them to my results.

Ok, I'll look into that.

Off-topic, but I'll never ever get my head around the fact that the DeLorean's speedometer tops out at 95 mph even though the car can do almost 110 mph! What's going on here?

Fun time! In-universe answer: Doc Brown's modifications probably reduced its speed capability (after all, it only need reach 88 mph) and so he altered the speedometer accordingly but in real life, it was almost certainly a continuity oversight by the production team who created the dashboard prop.

 

[Amethyst1]

it was almost certainly a continuity oversight by the production team who created the dashboard prop

It turns out the “original” speedometer tops out at… 85 mph due to some regulation. Interesting, to say the least.

 

[InuNacho]

Even though I no longer use this setup due to no longer having the Mac and hardware associated with it, I figure it might help someone.

In 2018 I built a Thunderbolt 1 eGPU for my 2012 cMBP. The 512MB GT650 was really struggling with newer software like the Affinity suite and Topaz Labs. CPU was more than strong enough.
I built a setup out of used parts:
OWC Helios 2
AMD WX4100 (I used to work in ITAD and just got it for cheap)
Thunderbolt 2 cable

Using Purgewrangler and Mojave I was able really get a good run out of the hardware! Games saw decent increases in FPS (some saw micro stuttering), creative software flew, and it was an overall pleasant experience. Only downfall was that I could not put the cMBP asleep, it had to be powered up connected to the eGPU and disconnected with the egpu still plugged in.
I also chained a RAID 0 array and didn't see any real decrease in gpu power.

Any of the "non-eGPU" PCIe enclosures will work with graphics cards IF they meet the max power requirements!

 

[TheShortTimer]

Update: I've added a Razer Core X eGPU box to my arsenal.

This means that I can now set up the machines with their own independent box rather than having to continually disconnect/reconnect/reboot due to sharing one box between two machines. I also have the option of configuring them differently or allocating one enclosure for experimenting with various GPUs whilst the other remains static.

As I mentioned in the Early Intel thread I'm able to play 4K UHD video files on my 2011 MBA with the GTX-770 managing the graphical grunt. The VP9 codec works best with a flawless performance on a machine with an extremely modest CPU that was never designed for intensive tasks like this. Unfortunately, beyond YouTube, I haven't been able to find 4K content which uses VP9. 99% of the content available via P2P has been encoded with 264/265 - which often causes the computer to struggle severely. Some play well/ok whilst many are unplayable.

The 2011 MBP fares somewhat better in this respect - thanks to its far more powerful CPU and the benefit of greater horsepower on the GPU front. For example, this video which was a no-go with the NVS-510 plays almost perfectly with the GTX-770 handling the graphical processing.

However other 4K content is problematic. I tested four UHD videos on the 2011 MBP which use x265 and only one was largely playable - with occasional stuttering, glitches and slowdown.

Periodically the image would experience these issues:

It would seem that even with help from the GTX-770, and a significant horsepower advantage over the MBA, the 2011 MBP just cannot hack many UHD 264/265 videos.

I'd like to see Unigine Heaven and Valley results for the 770 - windowed at 1280×720 without AA and the basic preset so we can compare them to my results.

Here you go.

My results are not as detailed as yours though. Did I miss something or were you using the (paid) advanced version?

Even though I no longer use this setup due to no longer having the Mac and hardware associated with it, I figure it might help someone.

It definitely helps me because I own a 2012 cMBP.

In 2018 I built a Thunderbolt 1 eGPU for my 2012 cMBP. The 512MB GT650 was really struggling with newer software like the Affinity suite and Topaz Labs. CPU was more than strong enough.
I built a setup out of used parts:
OWC Helios 2
AMD WX4100 (I used to work in ITAD and just got it for cheap)
Thunderbolt 2 cable

That's a nice setup.

Using Purgewrangler and Mojave I was able really get a good run out of the hardware! Games saw decent increases in FPS (some saw micro stuttering), creative software flew, and it was an overall pleasant experience.

I'm already thinking ahead to the possibility of 8K on the 2012 cMBP with the assistance of a suitably powerful GPU. Which games were you playing, out of curiosity?

Only downfall was that I could not put the cMBP asleep, it had to be powered up connected to the eGPU and disconnected with the egpu still plugged in.
I also chained a RAID 0 array and didn't see any real decrease in gpu power.

So far I haven't experienced this because my MacBooks only enter sleep mode when the lid is closed and that happens when they're going to be carried outside of the home. I've set them all up to just turn off the display after 30 minutes of inactivity but continue running.

What do you use now? Do you still have a RAID setup?

Any of the "non-eGPU" PCIe enclosures will work with graphics cards IF they meet the max power requirements!

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

 

[Amethyst1]

My results are not as detailed as yours though. Did I miss something or were you using the (paid) advanced version?

Hmm. Those results are terrible compared to mine.

I'm also using the free versions ('cause I'll never ever pay for a benchmark ) but have added the results of running the benchmark on the eGPU but displaying it on the MBP's internal LCD in parentheses. The "native" results of running the benchmark on the display connected to the eGPU itself are shown without parentheses.

Is this using purge-wrangler? Can you provide a screenshot of the settings window so I can check if we're using the exact same settings?

 

[TheShortTimer]

Is this using purge-wrangler?

It is.

Can you provide a screenshot of the settings window so I can check if we're using the exact same settings?

I can.

The monitor options are greyed out and cannot be altered. I made a point of dragging the benchmark windows from the MBP LCD over to the HDTV display area in case that was required for the eGPU to be tested.

 

[Amethyst1]

I can.

Your settings are identical to mine. Yet your GTX 770's scores are basically as bad as my HD 3000 ones! It looks like the eGPU isn't being used by these benchmarks at all... or something is wrong.

I made a point of dragging the benchmark windows from the MBP LCD over to the HDTV display area in case that was required for the eGPU to be tested.

Yes, that's important. Please try making the HDTV connected to the eGPU the main display to ensure the benchmark windows will open on the display connected to the eGPU and test that one, not the HD 3000.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Your settings are identical to mine. Yet your GTX 770's scores are basically as bad as my HD 3000 ones! It looks like the eGPU isn't being used by these benchmarks at all...

I thought they were on the extremely low side.

...or something is wrong.

In general, I think that something might be wrong with how purge-wrangler (and Kryponite for the matter) is configuring the eGPUs because on both the Sonnet and the Razer, there's no audio available via HDMI with either the MBA or the MBP but both computers transmit audio over HDMI when connected directly to the HDTV with DisplayPort to HDMI adapters and also the same cable which is used with the eGPUs.

This is how the TV appears in the main menu bar.

As you can see in the Sound preferences there's no option to select the eGPU or the HDTV.

Google uncovered what might be a clue.

August 14, 2018 7:57 pm
Audio passthrough over HDMI and DisplayPort comes and goes depending on the build.

Yes, that's important. Please try making the HDTV connected to the eGPU the main display to ensure the benchmark windows will open on the display connected to the eGPU and test that one, not the HD 3000.

Just to confirm, from Arrangement I'll select the HDTV on the right-hand side and choose Mirror Displays?