HT202889: Use multiple displays with Windows on your Mac Pro (Late 2013)

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tijmen22

Q: 2 Dell 4k displays on MacPro late 2013 appear connected to one AMD700 instead of separated?

I understand there are 6 TB ports connected to 3 different busses. I presume it's best to have each display on a separate video card? In system info both dell monitors appear to be connected to just one AMD 700 graphics card using system report.

 

I use the system for video editing with Premiere Pro CC.

 

I wonder if my system really makes the most out of the hardware. Premiere is really lagging when editing with just a few effects added.

 

So first i try to see if my two 4K screens are setup properly. Both monitors have MST enabled.

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1), 2 4k dell monitors

Posted on Oct 28, 2015 6:39 AM

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Q: 2 Dell 4k displays on MacPro late 2013 appear connected to one AMD700 instead of separated?

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  • by lllaass,Helpful

    lllaass lllaass Oct 28, 2015 6:50 AM in response to tijmen22
    Level 10 (189,430 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 28, 2015 6:50 AM in response to tijmen22

    Apple configured the 2013 Mac Pro to use one graphics card for all video output processing and the other card for interfacing with all monitors.

    Adobe has not optimized their apps to make full use of the GPUs in the 2013 Mac Pro

  • by tijmen22,

    tijmen22 tijmen22 Oct 28, 2015 6:55 AM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 28, 2015 6:55 AM in response to lllaass

    Thanks! There are just a little to much issues with premiere now. Cursors is really buggy and lumetri color doesn't work like it's supposed to. Turning off mercury doesn't seem like a real solution. I just did the new update for el capitan, now my USB keyboard doesnt work directly in connection with macpro, Can only use it via an TB hub

  • by John Lockwood,

    John Lockwood John Lockwood Oct 28, 2015 9:38 AM in response to tijmen22
    Level 6 (9,349 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Oct 28, 2015 9:38 AM in response to tijmen22

    I cannot add anything regarding your keyboard issue, you could try speaking to an Apple Store genius about that.

     

    With regards to Adobe and your Mac Pro I can provide some information. Adobe have historically and still do write their software to be optimised for using Nvidia's CUDA software. This allows off-loading processing to the Nvidia video cards. CUDA however is as mentioned Nvidia software and hence does not work on AMD video cards. As the new Mac Pro which you have has only AMD video cards and these cannot be swapped this means Adobe software is not optimised for your Mac Pro.

     

    As a comparison Apple's Final Cut Pro X software is optimised to use OpenCL and OpenGL, these work on both AMD and Nvidia cards but Apple have again optimised it specifically for the two AMD cards fitted in your new Mac Pro.

     

    As a result of the above currently it could well be the case that if you bought or had a 'classic' Mac Pro which allows you to swap the video card, you could fit an Nvidia GTX 980 card in it and Adobe Premier would probably be faster than the new supposedly faster Mac Pro you currently have.

     

    For the future things might change for the better. As mentioned Nvidia and Adobe use CUDA which only works on Nvidia cards, and Apple used OpenCL and Open GL which works best on AMD cards although they do work on Nvidia as well. The future possible improvement is that Apple have with El Capitan added a new alternative software system called 'Metal'. This does similar functions as CUDA/OpenCL/OpenGL but is designed to work on all sorts of video cards including AMD and Nvidia and Intel. If/when Adobe re-write their software to use 'Metal' then it should be significantly faster even on AMD video cards and Adobe have already done some impressive demonstrations of the potential of this.

     

    See https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1864891

    and http://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/05/adobe-backpedals-metal-after-effects/