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Thunderbolt GPU questions
- Thread starter omvs
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Uncompressed frames aren't being sent to the video card -- just OpenGL commands & data. The card still has the frame buffer and the pixels are coming off its local RAM. Its similar to the USB2 video adapters - they're way slower than TB, and yet still support 1920x1200x60Hz or more.
For 2D work, there's not constant updates, and I imagine the TB link is extremely under-utilized. Even for video, unless the CPU is doing all the decoding, it probably doesn't work very hard. 3D with a lot of elements and/or constantly changing textures is probably where you might start saturating the link.
I'm at ~$250 for Akito enclosure, PCIE extender, and power supply.
Reason I went this way is sorta converse of your argument - I already had the rMB. But I hope to never do Hackintosh again - was doing that for an old desktop before I got a cMP, and it was almost as much hassle as dealing with windows - plus never got sleep to work right.
I hadn't considered any of that. I know what you mean about the card. It just didn't occur that way.
How does that work? Even with the $50 cable it sounds pretty affordable and certainly low enough not to own an additional computer.
FYI: Akito box includes a short thunderbolt cable, so you don't need to budget that.
As to how effective it is - I only did very quick 3D test under OSX (popped up Borderlands 2 title screen) and it seemed comparable to my cMP with the same card. . I've read for rendering using CUDA/OpenCL its very effective.
I was hoping to get a windows install working for some actual use this weekend, but was unsuccesful in getting an EFI windows install. Not sure if its because I tried Win10, the 2012 rMBP, or something else.
Thunderbolt with PCIe 2.0 x1 or x2 is much better than you might expect.
I quote this article: http://www.computerbase.de/2011-08/test-grafikkarten-mit-pcie/3/ You might translate it into englisch.
They compared the same cards with different PCI lanes, from x16 to x1.
For example PCIe 2.0 x1 has ~ 70% - 80% performance of PCIe 2.0 x16, depending of the card.
Even my older eGPU with only 350 MB/s i/o (in contrast to the 800 MB/s of my second eGPU) is way faster than an internal HD 4000 iGPU: https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=20735233#post20735233
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Im considering an eGPU solution because my late 2012 iMac with GT 650M w/ 512MB VRAM is getting long in the tooth, graphically. I know my iMac only has Thunderbolt 1, which has less throughput than TB 2.
DISCLAIMER: I have never built a Mac or PC!
When Ive sat down and thought about what I want to be able to do with an upgraded GPU it basically comes down to these:
1. 1080p
2. 60fps minimum in modern OSX games (Im not considering Bootcamp at this point)
3. Hardware Accelerated PhysX if support for it ever comes to OS X
4. High or Ultra settings in games
5. Has to do the above with demanding new or upcoming games like Metro Redux (2033 and Last Light just being made available for Mac on Steam) AND Unreal Tournament whenever it ships.
It appears that from the hardware perspective, there are three main components (main referring to price) that would be needed:
1. A Thunderbolt GPU
2. A Thunderbolt Monitor
3. A Chassis to contain the parts and make it look somewhat like you intended for it to be there
In terms of parts Ive read about it this thread, and other eGPU threads in MR, Im considering the following:
1. EVGA GTX 960 2GB card $196.99 from Best Buy
2. Asus VE278Q 27 Thunderbolt monitor (2ms) $245.99 from Amazon
3. Akitio Thunder2 PCIe Box $216.99 from Amazon
Given the parts outlined above, are any problems you can see that might make me steer in other directions? Alternate parts? Additional parts? I dont know what I dont know, so there are very likely vital parts Im not considering because Ive never done this kind of project before. (Just about the most hacky thing Ive done on my Mac is to play around in Terminal when making a USB key for installing Mavericks)
The other part where I am completely clueless would be editing Kernel Extensions. I can kind of wrap my mind around why it needs to be done ie so your Mac OS install thinks the external TB GPU is actually a PCIe GPU installed inside your Mac but beyond that, I dont know what I dont know. Any tips on the software side given the hardware Ive expressed interest in above??
Thank you all so much in advance!!
DISCLAIMER: I have never built a Mac or PC!
When Ive sat down and thought about what I want to be able to do with an upgraded GPU it basically comes down to these:
1. 1080p
2. 60fps minimum in modern OSX games (Im not considering Bootcamp at this point)
3. Hardware Accelerated PhysX if support for it ever comes to OS X
4. High or Ultra settings in games
5. Has to do the above with demanding new or upcoming games like Metro Redux (2033 and Last Light just being made available for Mac on Steam) AND Unreal Tournament whenever it ships.
It appears that from the hardware perspective, there are three main components (main referring to price) that would be needed:
1. A Thunderbolt GPU
2. A Thunderbolt Monitor
3. A Chassis to contain the parts and make it look somewhat like you intended for it to be there
In terms of parts Ive read about it this thread, and other eGPU threads in MR, Im considering the following:
1. EVGA GTX 960 2GB card $196.99 from Best Buy
2. Asus VE278Q 27 Thunderbolt monitor (2ms) $245.99 from Amazon
3. Akitio Thunder2 PCIe Box $216.99 from Amazon
Given the parts outlined above, are any problems you can see that might make me steer in other directions? Alternate parts? Additional parts? I dont know what I dont know, so there are very likely vital parts Im not considering because Ive never done this kind of project before. (Just about the most hacky thing Ive done on my Mac is to play around in Terminal when making a USB key for installing Mavericks)
The other part where I am completely clueless would be editing Kernel Extensions. I can kind of wrap my mind around why it needs to be done ie so your Mac OS install thinks the external TB GPU is actually a PCIe GPU installed inside your Mac but beyond that, I dont know what I dont know. Any tips on the software side given the hardware Ive expressed interest in above??
Thank you all so much in advance!!
Last year I found a way to display your running FPS within Borderlands 2 and the Pre sequel.
"I found a neat trick to enable you to see the FPS you're running in Borderlands 2, but I wonder if anyone's had time to see if it works in the Pre-Sequel?
In the Finder, click on the Go menu and then press and hold the option key. This will add the Library to the list of things you can open from that menu. Click on Library, and then it will open this normally-invisible Library folder.
From there, go to ~/Library/Application Support/Borderlands 2/WillowGame/Config. In that folder, you'll want to open the WillowInput.ini in Text Edit. Find the [Engine.Console] section and edit the following line right under it:
Change ConsoleKey=Undefine to ConsoleKey=Tilde
Save and quit Text Edit.
Open Borderlands 2, and hit the tilde ~ key. This should bring up a single line console in the middle of the screen.
Type this into that line to see your running FPS:
stat FPS
It will show your running FPS in the top righthand corner.
Also, it will only work until you quit the game. You have to invoke the console by hitting ~ each time you want to see the FPS
I researched these from a combination of PC and Mac resources, and have tested it myself. It has no adverse effect on gameplay. But, if you want to get back to the pre-altered game, just single click on the UNEDITED WillowInput.ini file (BEFORE you change it) and duplicate it, and drag it to your Mac's desktop. Drag it back to replace the edited one if needed.
I use the method to track adjustments to the graphics settings to see what - if anything - they change in the performance of the game.
I'm running a late 2012 21.5" iMac 2.9Ghz i5, 8GB RAM, GeForce GT 650M 512MB (I realize that my video ram is my bottleneck for high texture settings, before anyone says anything.
I could be wrong, but the game seems capped at 60FPS, because at lowest res at lowest settings, that's about where it hovers (56-60FPS). Running it at 1080p and everything on & maxed, it runs about 28-32FPS.
Thoughts? I'm just tickled to be able to know what that performance is in this game, because I'm a numbers guy. But I'm also curious to see if the Pre-Sequel runs smoother on same hardware."
Irishman:
I enabled FPS for Borderlands TPS. On my rMBP 2012 w/ external 970, I get 35-40fps at 3840x2160, all settings cranked up. At 1920x1080, I get 50-55fps. TPS has a setting to uncap the video - not sure about Borderlands 2 (though they basically use the same engine).
I now have Windows 7 working too (was a big PITA), but I haven't benchmarked it yet. My machine did spontenously boot last night while running Civ 5 - not sure if my power supply is inadequate, or something else is flakey. Haven't had any spontaneous boots in OSX yet.
You don't need a thunderbolt monitor - if fact, I don't see how you could drive it with an external card - that will only have displayport/dvi/hdmi. You would need an external supply for the 960 - the akito box can't supply that kind of juice. Earlier in the thread there's links with the kext hacking instructions. Though if you're handy with Terminal, I can give you copies of my scripts that do it - I decided to automate the procedure so OSX updates weren't so painful.
I enabled FPS for Borderlands TPS. On my rMBP 2012 w/ external 970, I get 35-40fps at 3840x2160, all settings cranked up. At 1920x1080, I get 50-55fps. TPS has a setting to uncap the video - not sure about Borderlands 2 (though they basically use the same engine).
I now have Windows 7 working too (was a big PITA), but I haven't benchmarked it yet. My machine did spontenously boot last night while running Civ 5 - not sure if my power supply is inadequate, or something else is flakey. Haven't had any spontaneous boots in OSX yet.
You don't need a thunderbolt monitor - if fact, I don't see how you could drive it with an external card - that will only have displayport/dvi/hdmi. You would need an external supply for the 960 - the akito box can't supply that kind of juice. Earlier in the thread there's links with the kext hacking instructions. Though if you're handy with Terminal, I can give you copies of my scripts that do it - I decided to automate the procedure so OSX updates weren't so painful.
A UEFI Windows install will only work on Macs that are UEFI 2.0-compliant. Which means only Haswell and later Macs, plus the Ivy Bridge-E nMP will work with Windows in UEFI.
Yours is an Ivy Bridge, non-UEFI 2.0 compliant Mac.
On my late-2013 Haswell 15" rMBP, I got a GTX 780 Ti in a Sonnet IIID working, with a Corsair RM450 PSU powering it. It was just as easy as plug and play into Boot Camp (prior to boot) and installing the NVIDIA drivers.
Thats not completely true. I can actually get a UEFI install of Windows 8.1/10 installed, but the iGPU/dGPU presents problems. People have figured out workarounds, but I instead went fo a non-EFI solution so I could still use Windows 7 -- Windows 8.1 was annoying me too much during the experiments.
Certainly its much better to use the newer machines since they're UEFI 2, but stating you can't do it on the 2012 models misleading. At best you can say its not supported...
I'm not understanding, although that's probably my shortcoming.
Are you saying that I don't need to insist on getting a TB monitor and that an HDMI, Displayport or DVI monitor will work fine? Or, are you saying that I don't need an external monitor at all?
Also, when you say "I don't see how you could drive it with an external card - that will only have displayport/dvi/hdmi" I'm not following your meaning here.
So, in general, are there any reasons to think that the 960 wouldn't meet all my needs, if paired with a sufficient PSU? Do you have any suggestions for specific PSUs? It doesn't have to be a $10 PSU, so if spending a little more on one that might keep the cable clutter to a minimum, I'm all about it.
Exactly my point. If there are any driver issues arising from a UEFI install on an Ivy Bridge or earlier Mac, it means that UEFI install isn't compatible and can't be done without problems.
The ports on the extrenal card are going to be DVI, display port, or hdmi. If you're going to hook to the external card directly, I don't believe you can use a thunderbolt display -- at least I don't think the apple one supports displayport -- perhaps the ASUS can take either thunderbolt or displayport.
The are some people who don't hook displays to the external gpu - I believe the way this works is the external GPU sends the framebuffer back through the link to the internal gpu. The reason you might want to do this is using the internal display of a laptop or iMac but get the acceleration of the external gpu. My rMBP doesn't support this -- I believe because the integrated dGPU interferes.
My advice is keep it simple - just hook a normal monitor up to the external gpu. That means virtually any display will work fine.
The are some people who don't hook displays to the external gpu - I believe the way this works is the external GPU sends the framebuffer back through the link to the internal gpu. The reason you might want to do this is using the internal display of a laptop or iMac but get the acceleration of the external gpu. My rMBP doesn't support this -- I believe because the integrated dGPU interferes.
My advice is keep it simple - just hook a normal monitor up to the external gpu. That means virtually any display will work fine.
So, there is a possibility of using the GTX 960 directly with my iMac's monitor? I'm liking that a lot from a cost and clutter standpoint.
Any advice on the PSU you mentioned yesterday I would need to power the 960?
If the existence of the dGPU is what prevents using the internal display on my rMBP, I would imagine your iMac might have the exact same problem - you even have the same dGPU as my machine.
I got my best info from here: http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides/ - two different people had done a rMBP 2012. I don't see anyone who's done an iMac 2012 though, so you might be in for a lot of messing around. The DIY software people talk about there is what finally got me by the windows problem.
For power supplies, I went with a $10 one from local computer store, and soldered on the necessary connectors. Its hideously ugly, but cheap. I'd say for your needs you need something with at least 300 watts - ideally with the 6pin or 8pin PCIE connector.
If you wanted a somewhat nicer looking solution than mine, there's a few 960's that fit into the akito box - the ASUS GTX960-MOC-2GD5, Gigabyte GTX 960 Mini ITX, and maybe others. You'll still need to feed in the PCIE connector though, so might not be able to put the cover on, and you'd probably have to solder a connector for the akito box to your power supply, since I don't know any supplies that have a circular style 12v that could supply 8+ amps.
In the end, I would say my time spent on this was probably worth more than the delta would have been for a better machine.
Be prepared for lots of messing around and possible disappointment.Ah, so I'll continue planning - and budgeting - for an external monitor. What do you use with your eGPU/rMBP setup?
I don't know why more iMac owners aren't interested in taking this on. It's certainly getting affordable. The monitor is a one-time expense, so the Akito box and GPU are not extortion-level priced. I wouldn't be looking at it now at all if Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light weren't so fracking unplayable!
I would like to avoid any soldering. Not looking for that much tool-buying, and computer assembly, upgrade, and repair are not the kind of time-suck I'm looking for.
It sounds like what you're saying is that a regular modular PSU like you'd buy for a computer will do? That seems too easy. So I plug the PSU directly into the wall? Some YT videos I've watched online refer to a "paper clip trick" with regard to something to do with the 6-pin and 8-pin sometimes not working right? Does that ring any bells to you? Is that a Windows thing?As far as the power required for the 960, I did remember reading that due to the efficiency of the Maxwell architecture, tdp is about 200-220 watts? Is 300 watts for more of a fudge factor just in case??
I wasn't aware that 960 cards varied in size. I thought it was an nVidia reference design and that OEMs complied with it. You just helped me out there.
So, the shortened GPUs lose a fan, so have the potential to run hotter. Price is about the same. How's performance?I might have to start asking around work to see who can solder.
In the end, I would say my time spent on this was probably worth more than the delta would have been for a better machine.
If soldering is out of the question, I think you're forced to the ugly path. Any powerful graphics card is going to draw way more power through the PCI slot than the wimpy akito power adapter can provide. Unless you can find a 75w 12v DC adapter with the same plug, you'll have to use a PCIE extender w/ a molex connector to provide power.
The reason you'll need a power supply with more wattage than the graphics card needs is that this setup only uses the +12v rails - none of the 5v, 3.3v, that normal PC supplies also provide. I don't think you'll find an affordable 12v only supply that can also provide the juice you need with the required connectors, so using a pc supply is simplest.
Since I knew my card could draw up to 225w (75w pci + 2x75w aux power) I wanted something with about 20A on the 12v rails. In your case, the card only uses one AUX connector, so you could budget for about 150w, though with some slack I'd advise at least 15A to be safe. You also might not want to completely trust the power supply manufacturers, especially on cheaper brands, so more margin is better.
BTW: I tried the consoleKey override for Borderlands TPS and couldn't get it to work under windows. Seems even smoother, but unfortunately can't quantify it.
OH yeah, monitors. I'm just using my spare Samsung U28D590 -- the main reason for me going down this route was just to be able to do 3840x2160x60hz on the laptop, which isn't possible normally since its only DisplayPort 1.1. But I wouldn't recommend that monitor for most circumstances -- I generally recommend one of the random 27" 2560x1440 that are affordable. I think you can get them for $300-$400 these days for a good panel. For even cheaper, there's 22"' 1080p's that probably are half that or less.
The reason you'll need a power supply with more wattage than the graphics card needs is that this setup only uses the +12v rails - none of the 5v, 3.3v, that normal PC supplies also provide. I don't think you'll find an affordable 12v only supply that can also provide the juice you need with the required connectors, so using a pc supply is simplest.
Since I knew my card could draw up to 225w (75w pci + 2x75w aux power) I wanted something with about 20A on the 12v rails. In your case, the card only uses one AUX connector, so you could budget for about 150w, though with some slack I'd advise at least 15A to be safe. You also might not want to completely trust the power supply manufacturers, especially on cheaper brands, so more margin is better.
BTW: I tried the consoleKey override for Borderlands TPS and couldn't get it to work under windows. Seems even smoother, but unfortunately can't quantify it.
OH yeah, monitors. I'm just using my spare Samsung U28D590 -- the main reason for me going down this route was just to be able to do 3840x2160x60hz on the laptop, which isn't possible normally since its only DisplayPort 1.1. But I wouldn't recommend that monitor for most circumstances -- I generally recommend one of the random 27" 2560x1440 that are affordable. I think you can get them for $300-$400 these days for a good panel. For even cheaper, there's 22"' 1080p's that probably are half that or less.
Here's a zip file with the two scripts. unzip them to a safe location, copy the nvidia web driver there, then open a terminal and do:
This will hack the nvidia driver so it can be installed without software checks
This will install the modified web driver driver
This gives you root which you need to hack the .kext files
this will apply the patches to local copies. It will put in comments the number of lines fixed in each file - should look something like this:
Now take the lines it outputted (starting with cat & kextcache) and paste them back into the terminal to execute them - this will complete the hacking. I didn't want to make that automatic so I could visually check the right things happened before overwriting the kext files.
Apologies this isn't more user friendly - I was just hacking up something convenient for myself...
Code:
cd DIRECTORY_WHERE_YOU_UNZIPPED_THE_FILES
./HACKDRIVER.pl WebDriver-346.01.02f01.pkg
Code:
open hack.pkg
Code:
sudo su -
Code:
./HACKKEXT.pl
Code:
Daniels-MacBook-Pro-2:nv dhartman$ ./HACKKEXT.pl
cat _System_Library_Extensions_NVDAStartup.kext_Contents_Info.plist_HACK > /System/Library/Extensions/NVDAStartup.kext/Contents/Info.plist # 1
cat _System_Library_Extensions_AppleHDA.kext_Contents_Plugins_AppleHDAController.kext_Contents_Info.plist_HACK > /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext/Contents/Plugins/AppleHDAController.kext/Contents/Info.plist # 1
cat _System_Library_Extensions_IONDRVSupport.kext_Info.plist_HACK > /System/Library/Extensions/IONDRVSupport.kext/Info.plist # 3
kextcache -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext /System/Library/ExtensionsNow take the lines it outputted (starting with cat & kextcache) and paste them back into the terminal to execute them - this will complete the hacking. I didn't want to make that automatic so I could visually check the right things happened before overwriting the kext files.
Apologies this isn't more user friendly - I was just hacking up something convenient for myself...
Actually, the 10.10.3 update may have broken something with my scripts -- or additional hacking might be required.
I hadn't used the external GPU for a few weeks (under OSX) and when I tried tonight it didn't seem to be recognized. It *looks* like I have the kext hacked as before, but maybe something went wrong.
I hadn't used the external GPU for a few weeks (under OSX) and when I tried tonight it didn't seem to be recognized. It *looks* like I have the kext hacked as before, but maybe something went wrong.