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OS X Lion- Mac Pro Graphics
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mkerr64
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Jul 20, 2011, 07:13 PM
 
Hi there

I just upgraded to OS X Lion on my Mac Pro (early 2009 Nehalem) and I heard this rumour that this OS can handle all Nvidia graphic cards. Is this true? I currently have the GT120 which is rather slow on a 30" display and I want to upgrade to something powerful

Thanks
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angelmb
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Jul 21, 2011, 01:53 AM
 
What I've read is that the ATI 6870 works fine under Lion, both for an upgrade from 10.6.8 and a clean install of Lion. Which means is also works with the Lion installer.
     
OreoCookie
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Jul 21, 2011, 03:37 AM
 
Are you sure that's an issue with the speed of the graphics card? Even the puniest graphics cards can drive a 30" 4 megapixel display.

What makes you say that `graphics is slow'? Are you sure you have enough RAM (i. e. how many page-outs do you have)?
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mkerr64  (op)
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Jul 21, 2011, 09:46 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Are you sure that's an issue with the speed of the graphics card? Even the puniest graphics cards can drive a 30" 4 megapixel display.

What makes you say that `graphics is slow'? Are you sure you have enough RAM (i. e. how many page-outs do you have)?
I have 8gb or ram, right now my page outs will be low because just upgraded to lion os x
even when running a 1080p movie it seems to be jittery and especially slow when playing various games.
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OreoCookie
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Jul 21, 2011, 10:03 AM
 
It is not surprising that games may be slow: if you play them at high resolution, it really taxes your graphics card. I'm surprised that HD playback is slow, it shouldn't be.
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mkerr64  (op)
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Jul 21, 2011, 10:45 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
It is not surprising that games may be slow: if you play them at high resolution, it really taxes your graphics card. I'm surprised that HD playback is slow, it shouldn't be.
seems to be the case, thus i would like to upgrade to something more powerful and i do not want to spend $500 card from apple which is about half the price on of the graphics card on PC (ATI Radeon HD 5870).
I just would like to know which cards are compatible with the new Lion OS X
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Waragainstsleep
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Jul 21, 2011, 11:45 AM
 
You should checkout Netkas' site. I think its netkas.org.
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OreoCookie
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Jul 21, 2011, 02:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by mkerr64 View Post
seems to be the case, thus i would like to upgrade to something more powerful and i do not want to spend $500 card from apple which is about half the price on of the graphics card on PC (ATI Radeon HD 5870).
I just would like to know which cards are compatible with the new Lion OS X
I'm still surprised that a Mac Pro supposedly isn't powerful enough to play back HD content. I'm still not convinced a faster graphics card will help: to my knowledge, only Core Solos (1/2 of Core Duos sold only in the slowest configurations of the Mac mini) were not fast enough to play back HD video properly.

Another thing: if you're using Flash to play back HD content, your CPU requirements may skyrocket. That's also because apparently hardware acceleration no longer works in Lion and a faster GPU will do no good at all. (Don't ask me `Hasn't Adobe had enough time to test Flash on Lion?' )

Seeing as how you have 8 GB RAM, I'd check the cpu utilization during playback next.
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Waragainstsleep
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Jul 21, 2011, 03:01 PM
 
1080p in Flash? Yuck that must be spanking your CPU.
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mkerr64  (op)
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Jul 21, 2011, 10:52 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I'm still surprised that a Mac Pro supposedly isn't powerful enough to play back HD content. I'm still not convinced a faster graphics card will help: to my knowledge, only Core Solos (1/2 of Core Duos sold only in the slowest configurations of the Mac mini) were not fast enough to play back HD video properly.

Another thing: if you're using Flash to play back HD content, your CPU requirements may skyrocket. That's also because apparently hardware acceleration no longer works in Lion and a faster GPU will do no good at all. (Don't ask me `Hasn't Adobe had enough time to test Flash on Lion?' )

Seeing as how you have 8 GB RAM, I'd check the cpu utilization during playback next.

it using VLC, and playing 1080P.
i know that upgrading the graphics card will improve gaming specs anyways.
i guess knowledge about the graphics cards on lion are not truly known yet
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Waragainstsleep
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Jul 22, 2011, 04:47 AM
 
But did you check if it was thrashing the CPU or not?
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mkerr64  (op)
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Jul 22, 2011, 11:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
But did you check if it was thrashing the CPU or not?
its nowhere close to maxing out. i have 8 cores
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Todd Madson
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Jul 23, 2011, 12:14 PM
 
Recommending Mplayer OS X extended. It has multicore support for decoding playback whereas VLC does not.

Make sure you use the "Official Mplayer SVN with FFMPEG-MT" decoder which is the multithreaded decoder.

One reason you may be experiencing this is remember that Lion catalogs all of your drives upon installation so you could be in for several hours of slow performance.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jul 23, 2011, 02:29 PM
 
Whats the data rate on the file? How big is it and how long?
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Don Pickett
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Jul 24, 2011, 02:23 PM
 
FYI, ATi's OS X drivers are better than nVidia's.
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mkerr64  (op)
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Jul 24, 2011, 09:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by Todd Madson View Post
Recommending Mplayer OS X extended. It has multicore support for decoding playback whereas VLC does not.

Make sure you use the "Official Mplayer SVN with FFMPEG-MT" decoder which is the multithreaded decoder.

One reason you may be experiencing this is remember that Lion catalogs all of your drives upon installation so you could be in for several hours of slow performance.
awesome, thanks allot !

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Whats the data rate on the file? How big is it and how long?
the files are 8+ gb

Originally Posted by Don Pickett View Post
FYI, ATi's OS X drivers are better than nVidia's.
so does that mean i can use any ATI graphics for OS X? or simply the flashed one for mac?
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Waragainstsleep
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Jul 24, 2011, 10:33 PM
 
8GB isn't huge unless you are talking 5-10 minute clips. If those are feature length they should be no trouble for a Mac Pro.
It couldn't be your disk could it?
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Don Pickett
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Jul 24, 2011, 11:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by mkerr64 View Post
so does that mean i can use any ATI graphics for OS X? or simply the flashed one for mac?
It means you'll get higher fps with ATi. THe difference used to be huge, but it is narrowing.
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mkerr64  (op)
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Jul 24, 2011, 11:17 PM
 
so, does this mean i can get a NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 560, and it will work? or will there be drive issues ?

i have plenty of space on my mac pro.

thanks for helping me out
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Waragainstsleep
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Jul 25, 2011, 06:39 AM
 
No one got a chance to answer my question in the other locked thread.

Any thoughts on how Apple would implement Thunderbolt on a Mac Pro?
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l008com
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Jul 25, 2011, 08:59 PM
 
I bought Apple's ATI 5770 upgrade for something like $225 (with EDU discount). Pretty affordable and its a nice solid card. Of course, I do very little gaming, and there really aren't any OpenCL apps yet, so I've seen very little from my upgrade, aside from running games in Bootcamp.
     
angelmb
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Jul 26, 2011, 01:07 AM
 
And unlike previous ATI cards, it looks great on the outside. No more silly pc-ish livery.
     
mkerr64  (op)
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Aug 3, 2011, 12:11 AM
 
I talked with people from the genius bar and from tigerdirect. they both told me the issue is hardware in the Mac Pro in terms of its capability with PC graphics. ATI specifically made their 5870 card with a unique design of some sort. no other cards will work.
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Don Pickett
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Aug 7, 2011, 03:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by mkerr64 View Post
I talked with people from the genius bar and from tigerdirect. they both told me the issue is hardware in the Mac Pro in terms of its capability with PC graphics. ATI specifically made their 5870 card with a unique design of some sort. no other cards will work.
Windows uses BIOS, OS X uses EFI.

That said: Mac OS X may natively support "PC" Radeon graphics cards

If Apple is set to announce support for PC video cards, I would expect them to do it when they announce the new Mac Pros, whenever that is.
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mkerr64  (op)
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Aug 11, 2011, 11:00 AM
 
Originally Posted by Don Pickett View Post
Windows uses BIOS, OS X uses EFI.

That said: Mac OS X may natively support "PC" Radeon graphics cards

If Apple is set to announce support for PC video cards, I would expect them to do it when they announce the new Mac Pros, whenever that is.
Awesome, Thanks for the link
I guess i will wait for the next MP to come out and see what my option are then.
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Don Pickett
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Aug 11, 2011, 12:17 PM
 
Originally Posted by mkerr64 View Post
Awesome, Thanks for the link
I guess i will wait for the next MP to come out and see what my option are then.
Look at the last page in the The processor in the next Mac Pro thread: apparently people are already using PC GPUs in Mac Pros.
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angelmb
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Aug 11, 2011, 01:04 PM
 
Look at the last page in the The processor in the next Mac Pro thread: apparently people are already using PC GPUs in Mac Pros.
Not mine, but a friend's.

Mac Pro Mid 2010, Mac OS X Lion 10.7
GPU is PC-ish XFX Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition.

     
angelmb
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Aug 11, 2011, 01:09 PM
 
     
angelmb
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Aug 14, 2011, 10:09 AM
 
Stop the presses !! Further testing shows OS X DVD Player doesn't work with this card.
     
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Aug 14, 2011, 11:41 AM
 
Originally Posted by angelmb View Post
Stop the presses !! Further testing shows OS X DVD Player doesn't work with this card.
Who uses "presses" these days?
     
mkerr64  (op)
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Sep 18, 2011, 04:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by angelmb View Post
Not mine, but a friend's.

Mac Pro Mid 2010, Mac OS X Lion 10.7
GPU is PC-ish XFX Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition.

Would it also work with a "early 2009" Mac Pro 2.66 Quad core?
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Don Pickett
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Sep 18, 2011, 06:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by cgc View Post
Who uses "presses" these days?
Lots of people.
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angelmb
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Sep 19, 2011, 08:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by mkerr64 View Post
Would it also work with a "early 2009" Mac Pro 2.66 Quad core?
I haven't tried it myself so I have no way to say either if it would or if it wouldn't but please note my friend sold that PC GPU and got the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition (from Apple Store) instead. I think the ATI 5770 is good enough (and much more affordable) for most purposes and I can assert that one even works on my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1
     
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Sep 24, 2011, 06:18 PM
 
This argument used to make less sense. The iMac was a low end Mac and the PowerMac was a high end Mac. But now the iMac is high end and the Mac Pro is what I would call super high end. Both in price and in power. But the mini is still low/medium end. So what to do when someone wants a high end Mac? Well yes, get an iMac. Especially with thunderbolt, they are a great machine. But they have one catch that is a deal breaker to about 50% of the people out there...

Yes, lets not just turn this into a mini-mac-pro discussion, lets also turn it into a glossy-screens-suck discussion.
     
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Sep 24, 2011, 07:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by l008com View Post
This argument used to make less sense. The iMac was a low end Mac and the PowerMac was a high end Mac. But now the iMac is high end and the Mac Pro is what I would call super high end. Both in price and in power. But the mini is still low/medium end. So what to do when someone wants a high end Mac? Well yes, get an iMac. Especially with thunderbolt, they are a great machine. But they have one catch that is a deal breaker to about 50% of the people out there...

Yes, lets not just turn this into a mini-mac-pro discussion, lets also turn it into a glossy-screens-suck discussion.
Somehow I suspect your 50% figure is a little over the top, perhaps you should start a poll?

One of the major drawbacks with Mac Pros in recent years is that they just don't get updated quick enough. Given the price of them, they should be second to nothing on the market in terms of raw power but a current Mac Mini quad core would probably outpace a low end Pro at the moment and it will do so for less than half the price while using 10% of the juice. Apple really ought to address this but somehow I suspect their answer would be to just dump the Mac Pro line altogether.

I'm wondering how Apple will implement Thunderbolt on any new Mac Pro. Presumably its going to have to run through the PCI-E based GPU. Is that going to work? Or will they simply put one or two PCI-E slots in there and provide a TB port or two in addition to the ones on the cards? Or will the ones on the cards just be MDP? Maybe a PCI-E GPU will be able to feed back through the board to a TB port? (This would make it impossible to use non-Mac cards I'd guess) However it works, I think the next Mac Pros are going to be quite different from the current ones. If they happen at all.

While I'm blathering on about graphics, it hadn't occurred to me that a TB display could actually have the GPU built-in now. Will Apple do this for the benefit of MacBook Air and Mac Mini owners on the next generation of Cinema Display? Will nVidia and AMD/ATI release their own displays? Should make things interesting. And keep you glossy haters happy.
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