SLI in Mac Pro. It's True Onlooker!!
It has happened:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....12359&tstart=0
http://hardmac.com/news/2006-08-24/
"Got my Mac Pro with 2x NVidia 7300 cards today. Used the PCI Express bandwidth config app in OS X to set slots 1 and 2 to 8x mode then I tested SLI in WinXP using the modified ForceWare 85.96 drivers (modified to work on any chipset). The drivers recognized the cards straight away and offered to enable SLI mode and it appears to work without any problems."
OMFG.
Edit: SLI only in Bootcamp WinXP2. OSX still separate video cards, no SLI.
Also very interesting, someone installed a nVidia 7950 GX2 in the Mac Pro, reportedly works in Bootcamp WinXP2.
Looks like SLI, and *your* choice of video card is working in Mac Pro Bootcamp WinXP2??
Given that nVidia and ATI cards are offered with the Mac Pro, then Bootcamp nVidia and ATI drivers
will mean you can use almost any other card???
But you have to take the non-standard card *out* when booting into Mac OS... Hmmm
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....12359&tstart=0
http://hardmac.com/news/2006-08-24/
"Got my Mac Pro with 2x NVidia 7300 cards today. Used the PCI Express bandwidth config app in OS X to set slots 1 and 2 to 8x mode then I tested SLI in WinXP using the modified ForceWare 85.96 drivers (modified to work on any chipset). The drivers recognized the cards straight away and offered to enable SLI mode and it appears to work without any problems."
OMFG.
Edit: SLI only in Bootcamp WinXP2. OSX still separate video cards, no SLI.
Also very interesting, someone installed a nVidia 7950 GX2 in the Mac Pro, reportedly works in Bootcamp WinXP2.
Looks like SLI, and *your* choice of video card is working in Mac Pro Bootcamp WinXP2??
Given that nVidia and ATI cards are offered with the Mac Pro, then Bootcamp nVidia and ATI drivers
will mean you can use almost any other card???
But you have to take the non-standard card *out* when booting into Mac OS... Hmmm
Comments
Given that nVidia and ATI cards are offered with the Mac Pro, then Bootcamp nVidia and ATI drivers will mean you can use almost any other card???
But you have to take the non-standard card *out* when booting into Mac OS... Hmmm
Does anyone know why Mac GPUs have different firmware? I could have understood that with the PPC machines but the Intel Macs should be made to run with any GPU under OS X. The fact that it Just Works with Windows is a little ironic.
It has happened:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....12359&tstart=0
http://hardmac.com/news/2006-08-24/
"Got my Mac Pro with 2x NVidia 7300 cards today. Used the PCI Express bandwidth config app in OS X to set slots 1 and 2 to 8x mode then I tested SLI in WinXP using the modified ForceWare 85.96 drivers (modified to work on any chipset). The drivers recognized the cards straight away and offered to enable SLI mode and it appears to work without any problems."
OMFG.
Edit: SLI only in Bootcamp WinXP2. OSX still separate video cards, no SLI.
Also very interesting, someone installed a nVidia 7950 GX2 in the Mac Pro, reportedly works in Bootcamp WinXP2.
Looks like SLI, and *your* choice of video card is working in Mac Pro Bootcamp WinXP2??
Given that nVidia and ATI cards are offered with the Mac Pro, then Bootcamp nVidia and ATI drivers
will mean you can use almost any other card???
But you have to take the non-standard card *out* when booting into Mac OS... Hmmm
how much faster is a real sli chip set with 2 slots in x8 mode?
Can't wait for the 64 pipeline DX10 ATI cards to come out...
It has happened:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....12359&tstart=0
http://hardmac.com/news/2006-08-24/
"Got my Mac Pro with 2x NVidia 7300 cards today. Used the PCI Express bandwidth config app in OS X to set slots 1 and 2 to 8x mode then I tested SLI in WinXP using the modified ForceWare 85.96 drivers (modified to work on any chipset). The drivers recognized the cards straight away and offered to enable SLI mode and it appears to work without any problems."
OMFG.
Edit: SLI only in Bootcamp WinXP2. OSX still separate video cards, no SLI.
Also very interesting, someone installed a nVidia 7950 GX2 in the Mac Pro, reportedly works in Bootcamp WinXP2.
Looks like SLI, and *your* choice of video card is working in Mac Pro Bootcamp WinXP2??
Given that nVidia and ATI cards are offered with the Mac Pro, then Bootcamp nVidia and ATI drivers
will mean you can use almost any other card???
But you have to take the non-standard card *out* when booting into Mac OS... Hmmm
XP Pro SP2, or XP64? 64 won't boot will it? would it? would it be faster than Pro SP2?
OMFG is right.
XP Pro SP2, or XP64? 64 won't boot will it? would it? would it be faster than Pro SP2?
OMFG is right.
I don't think XP 64 will play games if that is what your thinking. (I'm not sure though) I heard there only a few apps that actually run on it. Mostly 64-bit 3D apps, and some rendering engines like Mental Ray.
I don't think XP 64 will play games if that is what your thinking. (I'm not sure though) I heard there only a few apps that actually run on it. Mostly 64-bit 3D apps, and some rendering engines like Mental Ray.
I had WinXP 64bit on my Asus-SLI-normal, AMD64 machine for a while. For most games, backward compatibility with 32bit was okay. I took it off after a while though and just went WinXP2 Pro... nVidia graphic and chipset support for WinXP 64bit is excellent, just to mention.
I don't keep up with video game stuff, but does this mean that the SLI driver installer that checks for the nVidia chipset is just an unnecessary lock-out?
No, I don't think it's unnecessary, I think it's a "Apple-esque quality control" kind of thing. You want a good, verified SLI chipset so that you get good SLI performance and compatibility. At the same time, yeah, it's a lock out of some sort so that you only use nVidia nForce chipsets
XP Pro SP2, or XP64? 64 won't boot will it? would it? would it be faster than Pro SP2?
OMFG is right.
AFAIK only WinXP2 Pro will work with Bootcamp on Macs. Win 64bit is out of the question on all shipping Macs except the Mac Pro anyway. (All 32bit Intel CPUs except Xeon in Mac Pros)
you can't somehow disable the slot in OS X to avoid physically removing the card every time? I mean, to have to shut down, open the box, add a card, close the box, restart into XP, all before playing a game seems an awful lot to ask. I'll keep my x1900xt
Yeah, I don't know about that... I just found the thread on Apple forums and thought I'd do a quick linky from here. It would be bloody annoying to have to remove and plug in the extra card each time...!
how much faster is a real sli chip set with 2 slots in x8 mode?
The preliminary data given is looking at 3DMark2006:
3dmark2006 (free edition) results for one card:
3DMark Score 1642 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 595 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 551 Marks
cpu 3861
3dmark2006 (free edition) results with SLI enabled:
3DMark Score 3091 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 1162 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 1046 Marks
cpu 3861
So I think (guess) it compares okay with x8 x8 SLI chipsets, though one should check the results in the Search feature of futuremark.com. The 7300GT is pretty new as well so I'm not sure how exactly it does on performance.
Apple has not compiled the SLI driver in their drivers. This is the only explanation I can think of. I would love to see them do it though. Get on it apple! I want to use a Single slot QuadroX2.
SLI'ed TWO QuadroX2s
You know, Quad GPU to go with Quad CPU.
But you have to take the non-standard card *out* when booting into Mac OS... Hmmm
I wonder if it's possible to use two 7300s, one stock and one that's a standard Windows board, if they will both work in OS X. The EFI stuff might only be important to boot-up. I am just speculating that maybe only one needs to be EFI compatible just so that the system firmware has a screen to attach to before the OS is up and running, then the OS might recognize the chip.
The preliminary data given is looking at 3DMark2006:
3dmark2006 (free edition) results for one card:
3DMark Score 1642 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 595 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 551 Marks
cpu 3861
3dmark2006 (free edition) results with SLI enabled:
3DMark Score 3091 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 1162 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 1046 Marks
cpu 3861
So I think (guess) it compares okay with x8 x8 SLI chipsets, though one should check the results in the Search feature of futuremark.com. The 7300GT is pretty new as well so I'm not sure how exactly it does on performance.
That sounds about right. It's just that the 7300GT is a shitty graphics card.
That sounds about right. It's just that the 7300GT is a shitty graphics card.
Gamer, gamer!!!! buy a console!!!! defiant, defiant Apple user!!!!, blasphemy, blasphemy!!!! Woooowwwww that was close, we almost had a situation here, no worries, I solved it by preemptively shouting out everything that could be said beforehand. Continue ...... nothing to see here.