BlackMagic eGPU not just for HDMI and Thunderbolt 3 displays, but also for any USB-C monit...

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• Reply 1 of 19

  wreighven Posts: 71member

  July 19, 2018 3:34PM

  Can't wait to pick mine up on Friday!
  

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• Reply 2 of 19

  maciekskontakt Posts: 1,169member

  July 19, 2018 3:37PM

  Sure, but professionals expressed disappointment with the unit. While interesting let's be careful with hype.

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• Reply 3 of 19

  eric_wvgg Posts: 975member

  July 19, 2018 3:59PM

  The size of these enclosures is just incredible. That thing is bigger than a trashcan Mac Pro. At least they're not cheating by leaving the power supply outside the unit…

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• Reply 4 of 19

  mike wuerthele Posts: 7,008administrator

  July 19, 2018 4:05PM

  maciekskontakt said:

  Sure, but professionals expressed disappointment with the unit. While interesting let's be careful with hype.

  I'm not even sure what you're talking about regarding hype. We've been talking about eGPUs for three years here.
  
  

  We got loads of questions about it from professionals who aren't disappointed, so we answered them.

  edited July 2018

  

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• Reply 5 of 19

  strangedays Posts: 13,165member

  July 19, 2018 5:40PM

  maciekskontakt said:

  Sure, but professionals expressed disappointment with the unit. While interesting let's be careful with hype.

  Must...express...disappointment...must...express...

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• Reply 6 of 19

  txsbaker75 Posts: 54member

  July 19, 2018 7:15PM

  Any news on whether the eGPU can be used to run software/app-based processing like rendering with FCPX or Compressor? Running an external display is great, but many GPUs are used for offloading processes, too. How does the round trip through TB3 affect that?

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• Reply 7 of 19

  mike wuerthele Posts: 7,008administrator

  July 19, 2018 7:22PM

  txsbaker75 said:

  Any news on whether the eGPU can be used to run software/app-based processing like rendering with FCPX or Compressor? Running an external display is great, but many GPUs are used for offloading processes, too. How does the round trip through TB3 affect that?

  It can. FCPX support isn't as good as it could be right now, but I'm expecting that to change.
  
  The round trip with calculations isn't really an issue.

  

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• Reply 8 of 19

  cgwerks Posts: 2,952member

  July 20, 2018 1:43AM

  Any feedback on sound levels (or descriptions of the sound quality/tone, etc.) when it is under full load? I notice the website says 'as low as' 18db.

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• Reply 9 of 19

  mike wuerthele Posts: 7,008administrator

  July 20, 2018 1:58AM

  cgWerks said:

  Any feedback on sound levels (or descriptions of the sound quality/tone, etc.) when it is under full load? I notice the website says 'as low as' 18db.

  It is very, very quiet even when you're beating on it.

  
  

  Much quieter than every other eGPU enclosure we've used.

  

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• Reply 10 of 19

  cgwerks Posts: 2,952member

  July 20, 2018 2:35AM

  Mike Wuerthele said:

  cgWerks said:

  Any feedback on sound levels (or descriptions of the sound quality/tone, etc.) when it is under full load? I notice the website says 'as low as' 18db.

  It is very, very quiet even when you're beating on it.

  
  

  Much quieter than every other eGPU enclosure we've used.

  Thanks Mike. If you happen to be testing it with a 13" 2018 MBP, I'd be curious about the impact on how much the fans run on the MBP or the impact it has on that.
  
  In another forum where this (vs other eGPUs) was being discussed, someone said you can get pretty quiet on one like the Mantiz too if you replace the fan and pick a GPU card with 3 fans, etc. But, I'm guessing that is still going to be way more noisy than Blackmagic... especially in light of your feedback here.
  
  Quiet is really important to me in what I pick. My dilemma now is whether to go with something like the 13" MBP and this eGPU, or a 2013 MP, or maybe wait if I can and see if I could do an updated Mini + this eGPU (supposing they actually update the Mini to be similar to the 2013 MBP). The latter would be my preference if it isn't too noisy, but who knows if they will do such an update. The 2013 MP is powerful and quiet, but I'm just concerned about how out of date it is.
  

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• Reply 11 of 19

  ascii Posts: 5,936member

  July 20, 2018 10:22AM

  I got one, works great, have been playing Rise of the Tomb Raider at much nicer detail than my internal GPU.

  
  

  If you close the laptop into clamshell mode then it kind of "shuts off" the internal GPU, and "About this Mac" now says you've got a Radeon 580, and even games that don't explicitly support eGPU (such as Civ VI) start to use it, simply because the external monitor is the only one available.

  
  

  I hoping though that Mojave will have more options with respect to the internal display. I'd rather use the internal display and have the eGPU render on there, despite the performance drop from a Thunderbolt round-trip, simply because I really like the built in screen on the MBP.

  

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• Reply 12 of 19

  mike wuerthele Posts: 7,008administrator

  July 20, 2018 11:35AM

  ascii said:

  I got one, works great, have been playing Rise of the Tomb Raider at much nicer detail than my internal GPU.

  
  

  If you close the laptop into clamshell mode then it kind of "shuts off" the internal GPU, and "About this Mac" now says you've got a Radeon 580, and even games that don't explicitly support eGPU (such as Civ VI) start to use it, simply because the external monitor is the only one available.

  
  

  I hoping though that Mojave will have more options with respect to the internal display. I'd rather use the internal display and have the eGPU render on there, despite the performance drop from a Thunderbolt round-trip, simply because I really like the built in screen on the MBP.

  Developers can "opt in" to looping back to the MBP display under Mojave on an app-by-app basis.

  

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• Reply 13 of 19

  ascii Posts: 5,936member

  July 20, 2018 11:39AM

  Mike Wuerthele said:

  ascii said:

  I got one, works great, have been playing Rise of the Tomb Raider at much nicer detail than my internal GPU.

  
  

  If you close the laptop into clamshell mode then it kind of "shuts off" the internal GPU, and "About this Mac" now says you've got a Radeon 580, and even games that don't explicitly support eGPU (such as Civ VI) start to use it, simply because the external monitor is the only one available.

  
  

  I hoping though that Mojave will have more options with respect to the internal display. I'd rather use the internal display and have the eGPU render on there, despite the performance drop from a Thunderbolt round-trip, simply because I really like the built in screen on the MBP.

  Developers can "opt in" to looping back to the MBP display under Mojave on an app-by-app basis.

  Thanks for the info! I hope Feral, Aspyr etc. will opt-in.

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• Reply 14 of 19

  ians Posts: 50member

  July 20, 2018 12:58PM

  Now if an updated MacBook would get a Thunderbolt port instead of USB-C. It would make it the ultimate light portable that could still get a big performance gain.

  

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• Reply 15 of 19

  wreighven Posts: 71member

  July 21, 2018 1:07AM

  I picked mine up yesterday.  Works great right out of the box!
  
  I plugged in the power cable, the short thunderbolt 3 cable from my 13” 2016 MBP (left port) to the eGPU, and the display’s thunderbolt 3 cable from the eGPU to the LG UltraFine 5K.  Everything just worked.  Video card icon displayed on the monitor.  About this Mac showed the Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB RAM for the video card driving the 5K display.  Everything you’d expect.
  
  I turned the graphics on World of Warcraft from all the way down at 5K (which was still a bit laggy; the 2016 13” MBP just struggles driving that many pixels) to halfway up (there’s a 5 setting out10 that sets a bunch of lighting, details and other levels to “good” as well as some anti-aliasing) and it was buttery smooth at 5K!
  
  Also did some testing with iMovie editing and playing a bunch of 4K 60 FPS video and there was a huge difference in how smooth all of that video played back.  Photos was the same story, scanning through a massive photo library.  Also OS animations such as switching desktops, etc. all showed marked improvement.
  
  Super happy with the purchase!  I highly recommend it especially if you have a 13” 2016 MacBook Pro.  It’ll give that system so much more oomph while docked at a desk.
  
  
  

  edited July 2018

  

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• Reply 16 of 19

  ascii Posts: 5,936member

  July 21, 2018 1:17AM

  One new thing I have learned: to get the eGPU to "replace" the internal discrete GPU and become the default, you don't actually have to clamshell the laptop, you just have to open Display Preferences, Arrangement tab, and drag the little white menu bar on to the monitor that is connected to the eGPU.

  

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• Reply 17 of 19

  wreighven Posts: 71member

  July 21, 2018 1:24AM

  That is correct, and important.  Have the workload you want accelerated on the “main” external display by moving the white bars to that display.   That way applications will by default open there (games, for instance).

  edited July 2018

  

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• Reply 18 of 19

  ascii Posts: 5,936member

  July 21, 2018 6:41PM

  I discovered you can make some games use the eGPU to render on the internal display using a terminal command, e.g.
  

  
  defaults write -app "Rise of the Tomb Raider" GPUSelectionPolicy -string preferRemovable

  
  Gives me exactly the setup I want, a normal laptop using its normal screen, just with a graphics accelerator plugged in.

  

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• Reply 19 of 19

  ascii Posts: 5,936member

  July 22, 2018 10:29PM

  Here are some more games that work well with Blackmagic eGPU + internal screen:

  
  

  defaults write -app "Rise of the Tomb Raider" GPUSelectionPolicy -string preferRemovable

  defaults write -app "Bioshock3" GPUSelectionPolicy -string preferRemovable

  defaults write -app "Batman Arkham Asylum" GPUSelectionPolicy -string preferRemovable

  defaults write -app "COD_MW3" GPUSelectionPolicy -string preferRemovable

  
  

  The change in Modern Warfare 3 is most noticeable, that game has some very high res graphics I had never seen before. Rise of the Tomb Raider also improves lighting effects very nicely. Bioshock3 is the app bundle name of Bioshock Infinite.

  
  

  These games work but I didn't notice much difference, I think my internal Radeon 560 was already powerful enough at 1440x900 (the res I play at on the internal screen):

  defaults write -app "Bioshock Remastered" GPUSelectionPolicy -string preferRemovable

  defaults write -app "Thief - Shadow Edition" GPUSelectionPolicy -string preferRemovable

  
  

  The only game I have found so far that doesn't work is Civilisation VI, it seems to reset it's defaults with each launch.

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