Birck Cox

Q: How do I find out which NVidia drivers are in el Capitan?

I'm trying to find the best combination of price and capability for a video/display card to go into a Mac Pro 5,1 running el Capitan. NVidia seems to be the best choice for my kind of work, but how do I find out if the NVidia drivers are built into el Cap? I know that there's a possibility of losing the bootscreen, but which video boards can run in a Mac Pro on  el Capitan?

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Jul 12, 2016 9:40 AM

Close

Q: How do I find out which NVidia drivers are in el Capitan?

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by lllaass,Helpful

    lllaass lllaass Jul 12, 2016 9:58 AM in response to Birck Cox
    Level 10 (188,724 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 12, 2016 9:58 AM in response to Birck Cox

    You can download Nvidia's drivers:

    http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/306535-nvidia-web-driver-updates-for-el-c apitan-update-01202016/

     

    A presence or absence of a boot screen depends upon the firmware on the card since during bootup no drivers are loaded. The boot screen depends upon the firmware on the card. A card flashed for a Mac has a bootscreen

  • by Birck Cox,

    Birck Cox Birck Cox Jul 12, 2016 9:58 AM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (147 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 12, 2016 9:58 AM in response to lllaass

    Thank you for the link. Will it work for any of the few hundred NVidia cards currently out there?

  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Jul 12, 2016 10:10 AM in response to Birck Cox
    Level 10 (188,724 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 12, 2016 10:10 AM in response to Birck Cox

    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1440150

    Frequently Asked Questions About NVIDIA PC (non-EFI) Graphics Cards - MacRumors Forums

  • by Birck Cox,

    Birck Cox Birck Cox Jul 12, 2016 10:46 AM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (147 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 12, 2016 10:46 AM in response to lllaass

    Thanks again. Sorry about all the handholding, but what's the trick to installing the driver? Here, it gets stuck on

    "verifying" and won't budge.

  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Jul 12, 2016 10:58 AM in response to Birck Cox
    Level 10 (188,724 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 12, 2016 10:58 AM in response to Birck Cox

    Just delete and try redownloading and installing.

    I had not problem installing them on my 2009 Mac Pro with 10.11.5

     

    You can also open the Console app and look for log entries at the time of hang. Post suspicious ones here.

  • by ElPapa,Helpful

    ElPapa ElPapa Jul 13, 2016 8:42 AM in response to Birck Cox
    Level 1 (22 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 13, 2016 8:42 AM in response to Birck Cox

    As an aside if you just want a 'plug it in and forget it' option you can get the Sapphire HD7950 while they're still available.

     

    https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sapphire/100352MAC2/

     

    I bought one and swapped out the stock card.  It's been a solid performer.

  • by John Lockwood,

    John Lockwood John Lockwood Jul 14, 2016 1:56 AM in response to ElPapa
    Level 6 (9,309 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 14, 2016 1:56 AM in response to ElPapa

    ElPapa wrote:

     

    As an aside if you just want a 'plug it in and forget it' option you can get the Sapphire HD7950 while they're still available.

     

    https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sapphire/100352MAC2/

     

    I bought one and swapped out the stock card.  It's been a solid performer.

     

    I upgraded to a HD7950 as well. It is officially supported via built-in drivers including support for the new Metal API. The only drawback is that Adobe software prefers Nvidia cards due to using CUDA. However apparently the very latest Adobe Creative Cloud updates do now support Metal, it is not yet clear i.e. I have seen no end-user reports as to how much of an improvement Metal support by Adobe delivers.

     

    A couple of other issues, the HD7950 is capable of doing 30bit colour i.e. 10bit color per pixel, this does indeed work in Windows 10 via Boot Camp but sadly Apple have not enabled it in OS X. Secondly the card is capable of sending audio via Displayport and HDMI, again this works in Windows but again Apple have not enabled it.

     

    There is a free third-party KEXT which can enable the audio but it is not signed so you have to turn off SIP to get it to work, there is no equivalent solution to enable 30bit color.

     

    It would be helpful if people could send feedback to Apple requesting these two features be supported.

     

    As a comparison a Nvidia GTX-680 does not support 30bit color even in Windows 10, and while I have so far only done very limited testing while audio again works in Windows 10 via Boot Camp I could not get it working even with the afore mentioned KEXT.