Your probably right, but being that these cards are for Apple only, Apple may have opted for the 8 pin connector when having them built. I've read that the problem is that the new Mac Pro's are using UEFI 2.01, and the old ones are using UEFI 1.2 in which the new Mac Pro's have EFI64, and the old ones have EFI32.
I don't see Apple's OEM designing a new PCB for one low-volume graphics card buyer.
Anyway, the power connector issue is a moot point. You can plug a six-pin cable into a card with an eight-pin plug, it will work.
It doesn't matter, you're asking for apple to support SLI in OSX, which will never happen with apple using intel chipsets. Asking apple for this is like asking apple to get a nice big lawsuit from nVidia, it wont happen.
Maybe one day it will happen through a lot of hacking.
Please ask Apple to enable SLI in it's drivers, and sell an optional SLI bridge with the 8800 GT upgrade kit. Even if your not interested in SLI' it's important that Mac users have the same benefits that PC users have available to them.
If Apple sees that graphics are important to us there is also a chance of better graphics options in more machines than just the Mac Pro in the future.
If that's true, then there is something in Apple's drivers, either in the OS, or the card driver itself, that is not allowing it to work under OS X.
It proves the compatibility I was talking about.
If it's just the software, then Apple can fix it. Considering that Apple can fix it, the question becomes,why didn't they announce that, rather than simply stating that it wouldn't work, which gave it the feeling of finality?
#1 I didn't argue about what the standard required anywhere. I don't know where you get this crap.
I got it from the "crap" you wrote, which I quoted.
Quote:
And #2 I didn't say I know if it's every board, but there is only two boards in the last Mac Pro's AFAIK. The ones that have 3GHz Quad cores. and the ones that have Dual cores. What I do know is Apple is now put up a compatibility post saying that the upgrade kit requires Mac Pro's that have PCI-E 2.0. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...SLID?find=8800 That was it. No need to go all freakshow about it and start making shit up.
You first said very definitively, that it couldn't possibly work, because there were 8 power connectors on the new ones, and 6 on the old board. You were very definitive about that. We have it here in writing.
Why are you angry? I didn't make up what you said.
You only mentioned different boards when it was showed, not only by me, that what you were saying about backwards compatibility was wrong. You used that as your fallback position as it was shown that a few older boards weren't compatible, though bad design, or lack of interest at the time.
I speculated about the mobo, because at the time we had no info that the card worked on older machines at all, until "French Macuser" pointed out that it does indeed work in the old machines, but only under Bootcamp. I find it amusing that a board will work under Windows on a Mac, but not under the Mac's own OS. Show one thing I made up.
I'm not really interested in continuing this. You are.
We can end it right here, unless you want to continue it. If you do, don't blame me.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think adding SLI is as easy as making drivers and adding a bridge between the cards. You need the Northbridge to support it don't you? This is why you can NOT get SLI support on Intel Chipsets yet. Only nvidia chipsets. And why a lot of the Intel chipsets only have Crossfire. Am I missing something? Don't the cards still need to communicate through the Northbridge with SLI? I know that Crossfire is a little different. If it was that possible to add SLI, I believe a lot more people would be doing it on Crossfire boards.
As was pointed out earlier. That's not entirely true. Nvidia did release the Forceware driver that worked around the Northbridge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schut
It doesn't matter, you're asking for apple to support SLI in OSX, which will never happen with apple using intel chipsets. Asking apple for this is like asking apple to get a nice big lawsuit from nVidia, it wont happen.
Maybe one day it will happen through a lot of hacking.
Apple has a good relationship with Nvidia. Apple could ask. What would it hurt? They just need the source code for the ForceWare 85.96 drivers and the modification, and compile it for Leopard. End of story. Then we'd have damn near Platform parity with PC's in graphics.
Can you send a link about this? Everything I've read about SLI is the cards have to communicate through an nvidia northbridge, which the Mac Pros do not have.
The first thing I read on requirements is SLI Motherboard. I don't see how drivers can make up for a hardware loss in configuration...
As was pointed out earlier. That's not entirely true. Nvidia did release the Forceware driver that worked around the Northbridge.
I thought the requirement was about getting people to buy boards with nVidia chipsets or to get board makers to pay money to nVidia for SLI capability, as in, it was an artificial software/driver restriction, not a technological one.
Quote:
Apple has a good relationship with Nvidia. Apple could ask. What would it hurt? They just need the source code for the ForceWare 85.96 drivers and the modification, and compile it for Leopard. End of story. Then we'd have damn near Platform parity with PC's in graphics.
It would be nice, but the different OSs go about their business in different ways, I don't think it's that easy of a task. I would think that it would have to be done eventually anyway, that makes the delay seem silly.
As was pointed out earlier. That's not entirely true. Nvidia did release the Forceware driver that worked around the Northbridge.
Do you have proof that it worked, or worked in a useful manner?
I can see a very heavy hack working, but it won't work properly, and performance will suck real bad.
That's always what happens when software is used to do something that should be done in hardware, and particularly when it must work around chipsets that can't do anything like it.
Quote:
Apple has a good relationship with Nvidia. Apple could ask. What would it hurt? They just need the source code for the ForceWare 85.96 drivers and the modification, and compile it for Leopard. End of story. Then we'd have damn near Platform parity with PC's in graphics.
Apple has had good relationships with ATI as well, but we don't have Crossfire, which some Intel chipsets DO support.
No that's not correct. Start reading the information provided in the links in the posts.
I guess we have to define what the word "works" means.
Assuming that there were hacks that allowed two cards to work in an SLI configuration, what would it have to do to be considered to be "working"?
Would it just have to run, but so poorly that it was essentially unusable?
Would that qualify?
Or would it have to run so that it gave a significant performance enhancement over one card?
I find it to be very amusing that the PC industry, which has 99% of the demand for graphics cards these days, can't get SLI to work on machines without the correct chipsets. And Crossfire can't be gotten to work on machines without the proper chipsets for that, but there is a claim that SLI will work on a Mac Pro which doesn't use Nvidia chipsets.
What possible advantage could Nvidia have for putting so much work into a project that would gain them nothing, yet, not put that same amount of effort into the PC world, where they could sell a lot more chips if successful?
And if this were true, with all the interest, why wasn't it common knowledge, blasted across all the rumors sites, as well as the gamers sites, and other tech sites?
Do you have proof that it worked, or worked in a useful manner?
Yes it was fully supported, but Nvidia decided to update the driver because they decided they wanted full control over SLI, so now it's locked out of anything that isn't an Nvidia chipset.
I guess we have to define what the word "works" means.
...........
You tell me. Do these numbers look like it worked?
This is in the Mac Pro.
Quote:
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.
Did a quick test after installing XP and the drivers from bootcamp (no other tweaks yet)
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:
Yes it was fully supported, but Nvidia decided to update the driver because they decided they wanted full control over SLI, so now it's locked out of anything that isn't an Nvidia chipset.
Comments
HAHA
Damn right baby.
After that: Look at this.
This is where I saw it, but look at the google search first. I was like holly shit!
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...threadid=66134
Your probably right, but being that these cards are for Apple only, Apple may have opted for the 8 pin connector when having them built. I've read that the problem is that the new Mac Pro's are using UEFI 2.01, and the old ones are using UEFI 1.2 in which the new Mac Pro's have EFI64, and the old ones have EFI32.
I don't see Apple's OEM designing a new PCB for one low-volume graphics card buyer.
Anyway, the power connector issue is a moot point. You can plug a six-pin cable into a card with an eight-pin plug, it will work.
Damn right baby.
After that: Look at this.
This is where I saw it, but look at the google search first. I was like holly shit!
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...threadid=66134
It doesn't matter, you're asking for apple to support SLI in OSX, which will never happen with apple using intel chipsets. Asking apple for this is like asking apple to get a nice big lawsuit from nVidia, it wont happen.
Maybe one day it will happen through a lot of hacking.
Please ask Apple to enable SLI in it's drivers, and sell an optional SLI bridge with the 8800 GT upgrade kit. Even if your not interested in SLI' it's important that Mac users have the same benefits that PC users have available to them.
If Apple sees that graphics are important to us there is also a chance of better graphics options in more machines than just the Mac Pro in the future.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
It has to be implemented in the chipset. Without that support, drivers won't help. I don't know exactly what's in the Intel chipset Apple uses.
PC 8800GTs work on old Mac Pros under bootcamp.
If that's true, then there is something in Apple's drivers, either in the OS, or the card driver itself, that is not allowing it to work under OS X.
It proves the compatibility I was talking about.
If it's just the software, then Apple can fix it. Considering that Apple can fix it, the question becomes,why didn't they announce that, rather than simply stating that it wouldn't work, which gave it the feeling of finality?
#1 I didn't argue about what the standard required anywhere. I don't know where you get this crap.
I got it from the "crap" you wrote, which I quoted.
And #2 I didn't say I know if it's every board, but there is only two boards in the last Mac Pro's AFAIK. The ones that have 3GHz Quad cores. and the ones that have Dual cores. What I do know is Apple is now put up a compatibility post saying that the upgrade kit requires Mac Pro's that have PCI-E 2.0. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...SLID?find=8800 That was it. No need to go all freakshow about it and start making shit up.
You first said very definitively, that it couldn't possibly work, because there were 8 power connectors on the new ones, and 6 on the old board. You were very definitive about that. We have it here in writing.
Why are you angry? I didn't make up what you said.
You only mentioned different boards when it was showed, not only by me, that what you were saying about backwards compatibility was wrong. You used that as your fallback position as it was shown that a few older boards weren't compatible, though bad design, or lack of interest at the time.
I speculated about the mobo, because at the time we had no info that the card worked on older machines at all, until "French Macuser" pointed out that it does indeed work in the old machines, but only under Bootcamp. I find it amusing that a board will work under Windows on a Mac, but not under the Mac's own OS. Show one thing I made up.
I'm not really interested in continuing this. You are.
We can end it right here, unless you want to continue it. If you do, don't blame me.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think adding SLI is as easy as making drivers and adding a bridge between the cards. You need the Northbridge to support it don't you? This is why you can NOT get SLI support on Intel Chipsets yet. Only nvidia chipsets. And why a lot of the Intel chipsets only have Crossfire. Am I missing something? Don't the cards still need to communicate through the Northbridge with SLI? I know that Crossfire is a little different. If it was that possible to add SLI, I believe a lot more people would be doing it on Crossfire boards.
Correct.
Correct.
As was pointed out earlier. That's not entirely true. Nvidia did release the Forceware driver that worked around the Northbridge.
It doesn't matter, you're asking for apple to support SLI in OSX, which will never happen with apple using intel chipsets. Asking apple for this is like asking apple to get a nice big lawsuit from nVidia, it wont happen.
Maybe one day it will happen through a lot of hacking.
Apple has a good relationship with Nvidia. Apple could ask. What would it hurt? They just need the source code for the ForceWare 85.96 drivers and the modification, and compile it for Leopard. End of story. Then we'd have damn near Platform parity with PC's in graphics.
Can you send a link about this? Everything I've read about SLI is the cards have to communicate through an nvidia northbridge, which the Mac Pros do not have.
The first thing I read on requirements is SLI Motherboard. I don't see how drivers can make up for a hardware loss in configuration...
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2284&p=3
Don't bother pasting this thread. These guys don't know what they are talking about
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....2359&tstart=50
This is off of wikipedia:
So someone is seriously mistaken here as the Mac Pro motherboard DOES NOT have those chipsets.
Correct.
It has to be implemented in the chipset. Without that support, drivers won't help. I don't know exactly what's in the Intel chipset Apple uses.
I believe it supports Crossfire. You could run dual Radeon 3870's... in Windows.
Correct.
No that's not correct. Start reading the information provided in the links in the posts.
As was pointed out earlier. That's not entirely true. Nvidia did release the Forceware driver that worked around the Northbridge.
I thought the requirement was about getting people to buy boards with nVidia chipsets or to get board makers to pay money to nVidia for SLI capability, as in, it was an artificial software/driver restriction, not a technological one.
Apple has a good relationship with Nvidia. Apple could ask. What would it hurt? They just need the source code for the ForceWare 85.96 drivers and the modification, and compile it for Leopard. End of story. Then we'd have damn near Platform parity with PC's in graphics.
It would be nice, but the different OSs go about their business in different ways, I don't think it's that easy of a task. I would think that it would have to be done eventually anyway, that makes the delay seem silly.
As was pointed out earlier. That's not entirely true. Nvidia did release the Forceware driver that worked around the Northbridge.
Do you have proof that it worked, or worked in a useful manner?
I can see a very heavy hack working, but it won't work properly, and performance will suck real bad.
That's always what happens when software is used to do something that should be done in hardware, and particularly when it must work around chipsets that can't do anything like it.
Apple has a good relationship with Nvidia. Apple could ask. What would it hurt? They just need the source code for the ForceWare 85.96 drivers and the modification, and compile it for Leopard. End of story. Then we'd have damn near Platform parity with PC's in graphics.
Apple has had good relationships with ATI as well, but we don't have Crossfire, which some Intel chipsets DO support.
I believe it supports Crossfire. You could run dual Radeon 3870's... in Windows.
Do you know this, or are you just guessing?
No that's not correct. Start reading the information provided in the links in the posts.
I guess we have to define what the word "works" means.
Assuming that there were hacks that allowed two cards to work in an SLI configuration, what would it have to do to be considered to be "working"?
Would it just have to run, but so poorly that it was essentially unusable?
Would that qualify?
Or would it have to run so that it gave a significant performance enhancement over one card?
I find it to be very amusing that the PC industry, which has 99% of the demand for graphics cards these days, can't get SLI to work on machines without the correct chipsets. And Crossfire can't be gotten to work on machines without the proper chipsets for that, but there is a claim that SLI will work on a Mac Pro which doesn't use Nvidia chipsets.
What possible advantage could Nvidia have for putting so much work into a project that would gain them nothing, yet, not put that same amount of effort into the PC world, where they could sell a lot more chips if successful?
And if this were true, with all the interest, why wasn't it common knowledge, blasted across all the rumors sites, as well as the gamers sites, and other tech sites?
Do you have proof that it worked, or worked in a useful manner?
Yes it was fully supported, but Nvidia decided to update the driver because they decided they wanted full control over SLI, so now it's locked out of anything that isn't an Nvidia chipset.
I think this was the first mod that worked after they disabled it, and I think it's the same one that was used on the Mac Pro. ForceWare 85.96 Mod for SLi on any Chipset?
I guess we have to define what the word "works" means.
...........
You tell me. Do these numbers look like it worked?
This is in the Mac Pro.
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.
Did a quick test after installing XP and the drivers from bootcamp (no other tweaks yet)
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
Will do more tests when I get a chance
That's pretty much 2X the speed.
Yes it was fully supported, but Nvidia decided to update the driver because they decided they wanted full control over SLI, so now it's locked out of anything that isn't an Nvidia chipset.
I think this was the first mod that worked after they disabled it, and I think it's the same one that was used on the Mac Pro. ForceWare 85.96 Mod for SLi on any Chipset?
This isn't, from what I can see, anything that Nvidia did. The link is to a Russian site that has nothing but 404 on any link.
You tell me. Do these numbers look like it worked?
This is in the Mac Pro.
That's pretty much 2X the speed.
Who are you quoting?