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Boot Camp on iMac Retina 5K?

I think that Apple states that Windows may be installed on the Retina 5K, but will there be a problem with drivers?

More importantly, will Windows drivers be in conflict with Apple's proprietary Timing Controller they've announced for this computer?

Posted on Oct 17, 2014 7:45 PM

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118 replies

Oct 18, 2014 10:58 AM in response to Loner T

The ifixit video was fascinating, but it had nothing to do with my question.


So, the Boot Camp partition contains video drivers other than those that the Windows installation contains??


As you say, if AMD would release a specific "IMac Retina 5K" driver, I'd not be worried, but, with neither an announcement nor an assurance of such a driver, I posted my still-answered question. And I'd still like to know if display drivers have to interact with the Timing Controller. I'm guessing they don't, at least on Windows.PCs, as the drivers released by the manufacturers, both nVidia and AMD, are hardware-independent other than in their "bitness." I'm therefore not very concerned about the TCon, but the other question is important as I don't think there are any video cards currently claiming to be capable of driving a 5120 x 2880 display, and before I spend $3,100, I'd love to know the answers to ALL these questions.

Oct 18, 2014 11:15 AM in response to milleron

milleron wrote:


So, the Boot Camp partition contains video drivers other than those that the Windows installation contains??

Yes. Available here - Apple - Support - Downloads.



As you say, if AMD would release a specific "IMac Retina 5K" driver, I'd not be worried, but, with neither an announcement nor an assurance of such a driver, I posted my still-answered question. And I'd still like to know if display drivers have to interact with the Timing Controller. I'm guessing they don't, at least on Windows.PCs, as the drivers released by the manufacturers, both nVidia and AMD, are hardware-independent other than in their "bitness." I'm therefore not very concerned about the TCon, but the other question is important as I don't think there are any video cards currently claiming to be capable of driving a 5120 x 2880 display, and before I spend $3,100, I'd love to know the answers to ALL these questions.

This http://www.anandtech.com/show/8623/hands-on-apples-imac-with-retina-display does not answer your question about a Windows driver


Much more interesting is how Apple is driving it. Since no one has a 5K timing controller (TCON) yet, Apple went and built their own.


This http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/latest-catalyst-windows-beta.aspx driver will support up to


Feature Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 14.6 RC Driver for Windows

Plants vs. Zombies (Direct3D performance improvements):

  • AMD Radeon R9 290X - 1920x1080 Ultra – improves up to 11%
  • AMD Radeon R9 290X - 2560x1600 Ultra – improves up to 15%
  • AMD Radeon R9 290X CrossFire configuration (3840x2160 Ultra) - 92% scaling

Oct 19, 2014 10:03 PM in response to milleron

I just successfully installed Windows 8.1 Update 1 on BootCamp on Mac OS X Yosemite. Here is a step by step I just wrote, hope it helps y'all:


How to successfully install Windows 8, or above, on Mac OS X Mavericks or above:


Requirements:

1- Windows OS ISO Image file

2- An 8GBs USB Flash Drive

3- A good Internet connection as you will need to download the Windows compatible drivers for your Mac


Steps:

1- Open up Disk Utility and create an additional partition for Windows formatted as ExFat. 100GBs, or above, is recommended as update to the operating system, as well as Apps requiere space on your HD or SSD [This step can be done during Mac OS X's installation process]

2- Open up BootCamp Assistant

3- Make sure only the 'Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk' is checked and your USB Flash Drive plugged in and click 'Continue'

4- Click 'Choose' and select your Windows ISO Image file

5- Select the USB Flash Drive you will be using during the installation process and click continue to confirm

6- Once done, restart your Mac and hold down the 'alt/option' key on your keyboard to bring up the Boot Menu

7- Select the USB Flash Drive named Windows, not the UEFI Boot

8- Install Windows as you normally would

* Remember to press and hold the 'alt/option' key, and select the Windows Partition, whenever the installation process requires your Mac to restart

* http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj945423.aspx

* http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/install-windows-on-mac

Oct 21, 2014 7:25 PM in response to milleron

I received a 5k retina iMac today and immediately setup Windows 8.1 using the built in Bootcamp process. NO snags installing, NO driver/exclamation marks, NO lockups. Audio, Bluetooth (kb/mouse) and Network (wired/wireless) works in Win 8.1.


BOTH operating systems have the same HUGE (for me!) issue. **No 5k resolution option, so I cannot maximize the real estate**


OSX:


Windows: Allows for a native resolution setting of 4k 3840x2160.


Updating the ATI catalyst software pack from the version shipped to the latest October beta had no effect.


User uploaded file


User uploaded file

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Oct 21, 2014 7:45 PM in response to y2kpc

y2kpc wrote:


I received a 5k retina iMac today and immediately setup Windows 8.1 using the built in Bootcamp process. NO snags installing, NO driver/exclamation marks, NO lockups. Audio, Bluetooth (kb/mouse) and Network (wired/wireless) works in Win 8.1.


Can I ask you to look at More boot camp problems new 5k imac 3 tera fusion drive?


y2kpc wrote:


BOTH operating systems have the same HUGE (for me!) issue. **No 5k resolution option, so I cannot maximize the real estate**


OSX:


Windows: Allows for a native resolution setting of 4k 3840x2160.


This contradicts what AnandTech link says

"At 5120x2880 pixels, the new Retina 5K Display is precisely 4x the pixels of the 2560x1440 panel in last year’s model."

Oct 21, 2014 8:17 PM in response to Loner T

There's no contradiction. The resolution of the display is, indeed, 5120 x 2880. It's just that the Windows OS, & certainly the latest Catalyst drivers, max out at 4K. As I suspected when I posted the original question, there is a problem with the display drivers in Windows under Boot Camp. Fortunately, that problem turns out to be almost trivial. We'll have to be satisfied with Boot Camp Windows at 4K rather than the monitor's native resolution of"5K." I feared that there would be no Windows driver that could cope with the 5K display at all. That turns out not to be the case. As yet, there's not a driver that can utilize the full capabilities of the hardware, but I can't imagine anyone having a problem with Windows at 4K (unless the display looks strange at a resolution litter than its native one).

Oct 21, 2014 8:38 PM in response to Loner T

Loner T wrote:

Can I ask you to look at More boot camp problems new 5k imac 3 tera fusion drive?

I did not have to use any partition utilities. I just opened Boot Camp assistant in finder/launcher (upper right corner of OSX), and that did everything for me. It defauled to a 10GB parition size for Bootcamp/Windows which was obviously not enough. I then clicked the "Split Partition in half" option which on my 1TB fusion drive gave me about 500gb for Windows and 500gb for OSX. It launched Windows setup from my ISO, and when setup was nearly complete, Windows invoked bootcamp setup.


I have never touched a mac system before today, so I was happy the bootcamp setup was so seamless. It took less than an hour start to finish.


Loner T wrote:

This contradicts what AnandTech link says

"At 5120x2880 pixels, the new Retina 5K Display is precisely 4x the pixels of the 2560x1440 panel in last year’s model."


While I agree that the monitor itself physically contains 5120x2880 (14.7 Million) pixels, neither OS gives let me use true 1:1 pixel map scaling.


The maximum resolution slider shows 3840x2160 in Windows . 75% of what I feel each horizontal/vertical setting "should be" (5120x2880)

The maximum resolution scaling is even less!! 3200x1800 in OSX .... 62.5% of what I feel it "should be" (5120x2880)


User uploaded file


This is the first time I've bought into a display that I could not use the full resolution. 😮


With VGA monitors you could always set the resolution to 640x480

With 720P HDTVs you could always set the resolution to 1280x720 (or 1280x768)

With 1080P HDTV/Monitors I could always set the resolution to 1920x1080

With the 4K TVs/Monitors I used (Seiki, Dell P2815), I could always set the resolution to 3840x2160


With the Retina 5K apple product I am missing the 5120x2880 resolution that I had wanted.



On the plus side, one other test I did was power consumption. Using my Kill-a-watt meter, the all-in-one 27" Retina 5K iMac with Fusion drive uses:

34 watts in Windows 8.1 at minimum brightness,

48 watts at maximum brightness at idle/web browsing.

Oct 21, 2014 8:32 PM in response to Loner T

Yeah, I certainly didn't expect the Yosemite resolution to be less than 5K. I'd have thought that Apple would have had to truthfully disclose the fact that even the machine's native OS couldn't deliver the advertised, claimed spec if that were true -- i.e., I suspect that OS X Yosemite can, in fact, display at 5120 x 2880. I think it's more likely that there's a glitch in y2kpc's setup. He was kind enough to include Windows screenshots, but I see none from the Mac yet. I remain unconvinced that Yosemite's resolution can't get to 5K.

Boot Camp on iMac Retina 5K?

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