Nvidia GTX 980 Ti + MacOS Mojave on MacPro 5,1

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Level 1

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Nvidia GTX 980 Ti + MacOS Mojave on MacPro 5,1

Hello,

I have a MacPro 5,1 that I was using with the stock Nvidia GT 210 and then with a GTX 1050 Ti and it was working fine with the Nvidia web drivers on 10.13.X.

Now, I got a GTX 980 Ti that has been flashed to show the boot screen on MacPro's and I'm trying to install Mac OS Mojave and it won't install because it says that the card is not Metal compatible, which, I can understand. So I decided to install High Sierra again and once I did, I installed the Nvidia web drivers(387.10.10.10.40.105) and once I rebooted I found out that MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6 will not switch to the new driver even though the installer was successful and I can even see the Nvidia driver manager in my top bar. Here's what I've tried:

1. Reinstall High Sierra from scratch with the GT 210, install Web drivers, swap to the GTX 980 Ti

2. Same as #1 but I fellback to the GTX 1050 Ti, and now, not boot screen and no OS either :-(

I checked on a few forums for a solution but apparently everyone else but me built a hackintosh and their solutions don't really apply to an actual Mac

Anyways, I'm now set on getting the following done:

1. Install Mac OS Mojave with this card(even if the drivers don't work fine initially. This thread has someone claiming the GTX 980 Ti is Metal compatible: metal 2 video card for MP 5,1)

2. Find a way to get the drivers to work unless I really have to wait for an official release from Nvidia(I think it can be done as some people have claimed to do it with Nvidia cards older than mine)

If anyone has any idea on how to point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. Please don't suggest buying a Radeon, that's not what I want to do and it's not the point of asking for help on this forum.

Thanks,

Mac Pro

Posted on Oct 3, 2018 11:21 PM

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Answer 1

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Jaycmeza Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 4, 2018 6:51 PM in response to Geotrax

Hi,

Thank for replying, I've solved my issue now. I'm not using Mojave because I have to wait for the official drivers to be released, it appears that my Card is Metal capable after all:

What I did to get High Sierra was:

1. Reset the NVRAM by booting with CMD+OPT+P+R pressed.

2. Completely reformatted my hard drive and installed a fresh copy of High Sierra while using the graphics card that came with the mac, the Nvidia GT120

3. With High Sierra up and running, I installed the Nvidia Web Driver 387.10.10.10.40.105 because that one matched my Mac OS build version.

4. Once the driver was installed successfully, I shut down completely and replaced the GT 210 with the 980 Ti.

5. Reboot and voila, my 4 monitors work beautifully with the Nvidia drivers and my 980 Ti.

Hope this helps anyone.

Thanks,

Jay

[Edited by Host]

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Answer 2

Geotrax

Level 3

567 points

Oct 4, 2018 6:36 PM in response to Jaycmeza

Hi Jaycmeza! Can you open the System Report for your video card and see if it reports as Metal compatible? To do this click the Apple logo in the upper right, and then "About this Mac". Then click on "System Report". On the left column, click on "Graphics/Displays". Can you post a screenshot of this page? For an example of what it should look like, here is mine with my GTX 960.

While I haven't tried to install Mojave yet, I'd imagine it won't work without the latest Nvidia web drivers. It took them around 3-4 months to come out with the High Sierra ones, I'd imagine the same will be true with Mojave.

EDIT:updated picture

Hope it helps!

-Geotrax

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Nvidia GTX 980 Ti + MacOS Mojave on MacPro 5,1

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