Apple doesn't release anything to allow 3rd party development of drivers that integrate into accelerated pipeline (afaik you can do basic frame buffers but that's it).
nVidia coasted on having been used in some of the mac hardware thus having access to at least some versions of the APIs, but it seems that what they have no longer works with Mojave.
I find this feud odd (unless Nvidia is being unreasonable--which hasn't been shown). I really feel like Apple would benefit more than Nvidia by the partnership. Because of things like CUDA, there are whole domains people can only use Win/Linux for.
I'm curious what professional GPU use cases you have in mind? I'm not as familiar, but ML has a pretty good lead with Nvidia/CUDA. I work in VFX. Nvidia Quadro cards have been fairly standard for more than a decade and didn't have a lock-in like CUDA (outside of the Linux driver support). In the past couple years Redshift has been the only prominent GPU renderer and it uses CUDA.
Honestly, those are the only professional use-cases for multiple GPUs I'm aware of. CAD uses GPUs, but not multiple and I don't see AMD having any lead over Nvidia. Same with other uses like GPU acceleration in things like Photoshop or video editing--1 decently fast consumer grade GPU is enough. I don't see farms and 4+ cards per box.
There's Octane, too, which afaict is used a little more than Redshift, at least in my circles.
Adobe Media Encoder (and by extension Premiere and AE) can do multi-GPU rendering as well, which starts to matter when you have huge comps. I've worked with 2D animators who need to turn around footage really quickly and a bunch of them are on multi-GPU rigs.
What are your circles? Is it arch vis, tv cartoons, commercials, or something? I'm trying to figure out from their reel why I haven't seen much of Octane in production. Octane does appear to be CUDA only.
Adobe Media Encoder does seem to support OpenCL and CUDA, but the GPU acceleration only looks like it works with certain transforms and filters, not with encoding. So I can see it helping 2d animators, but much less so for video editors--especially with multiple GPUs.
I feel like GPU rendering has been teased for like 10+ years now. Only within the past few years am I seeing studios upgrade their render farm in earnest to accommodate GPUs.
Architecture/immersive media previz seems to be all C4D + Octane, and I've seen lots of the same in 3D motion graphics as well (although I'm less familiar with the field).
If I'm not mistaken they mentioned Quadro cards being used in the Mac Pro by one of the early testers. If this is true, it would likely mean the return of native latest-generation nVidia drivers.
I fear this will mean kexts (kernel extensions) will be impossible in the near future, further limiting users' abilities and tightening Apple's control. :(
I don't think so - I can't imagine Apple caring much about Hackintoshes, which are already a pain to install, when the main draws of Apple laptops are their trackpads and cases, and the tight integration between hardware and software.
I agree with your first point, but strongly disagree with your remaining ones.
For me at least, the process of putting together a hackintosh isn't very hard at all.
First I research hardware that is compatible that I can source at a good price. This is the key step since non-compatible hardware is a world of misery. I'd say in the order of 50% of motherboards and 75% of graphic cards have this attribute. This is the hardest step and the community could make life easier for everyone if it maintained a database of such parts but sadly it's mostly geared toward people getting the hardware they already have to work.
Second I get a flash drive of some variety, format it and run the Clover installer on it, then I drag the EFI folder from the standard archive from olarila.com onto the EFI partition of this boot drive. The Hackintosh is now bootable as a vanilla Mac. The boot drive remains attached at all times to enable this.
Finally I install macOS as it was a real Mac, from an installer flash drive, booting through the Clover boot loader on the boot drive of course.
The reason I use macOS (and always have, previously on Apple hardware) is because it delivers a superior user experience. The OS software is far and away more usable than Windows and Linux machines. There is no sign either of them are catching up.
As someone who built a hackintosh (on 10.12) with what were widely considered to be 'compatible parts' (I did a lot of research), I think you're downplaying how easy it is and how often issues can arise. I didn't have much trouble doing the initial install after following steps/guides online, but there were a lot of small niggling issues and problems that can arise that make me hesitant to recommend it (like for example, getting imessage/facetime activated was a huge hassle). There may be better tooling now, but it's still not for the feint of heart.
That said, I've switched to an eGPU setup with a Radeon Rx580 and my 15" mbp, and it largely gets me to where I wanted to be with my hackintosh. Using an eGPU with macos is surprisingly easy.
All you really have to do is check that someone has already used a particular set of hardware with the level of support you desire, and you're golden.
The software has improved a lot recently. Plugins like WhateverGreen and VirtualSMC means there is broader hardware support out of the box without fiddling with settings.
But yeah if you are happy with Mac hardware then Hackintoshes are entirely pointless. Laptop Hackintoshes are also more challenging without really competing with comparable Mac hardware.
Next steps I did on my last hackintosh were install Clover Configurator to mount the hackintosh EFI, back it up, and update it with the functioning one from your boot flash drive. I still keep it just in case an update breaks the bootloader.
Yeah I have numerous copies. They're useful if the first one fails of course but also to try out updates of bootloader software or settings tweaks.
But I really don't understand why people make their OS drive their boot drive. Besides the potential for catastrophe it also means you can't move the OS drive between machines or do OS drive backups freely.
Hopefully they will understand that they’re hurting their own users. I use a MacBook Pro for a laptop but hackintosh for the desktop. If I start having to split my time between two oses (mac and Linux) then I may just switch completely to the latter.
As someone who previously built a hackintosh (last used it seriously on 10.12), I've moved over to using an eGPU setup and it's pretty great. Last I heard, there weren't up to date Nvidia drivers, but most modern AMD cards are plug and play, and you can even get them working in bootcamp for gaming. I'm using an RX580 now, and looking forward to the next wave of AMD video cards.
It's the long march of making all apple products only allow app store software, and to get complete control of who is allowed to create software for their 'platform'.
No. As long as Apple continues to use first party kernel extensions, Hackintosh users will be able to install their own. Hackintosh users don't particularly care about SIP ;)
There's also always the ability to recompile the Darwin kernel, as AMD Hackintosh users do. This does have the downside of making updates annoying.
> In #SOTU, Apple just announced that "in a future #macOS release", KEXTs targeting driver categories covered by #DriverKit will no longer work and encouraged developers to adopt #DriverKit now. #WWDC19
A nice nod to NEXTSTEP :) (in name, and I suppose somewhat in the original and largely unrealized microkernel philosophy of having more things in user space)
32 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 67.7 ms ] threadnVidia coasted on having been used in some of the mac hardware thus having access to at least some versions of the APIs, but it seems that what they have no longer works with Mojave.
Pretty tiny domains, though.
Honestly, those are the only professional use-cases for multiple GPUs I'm aware of. CAD uses GPUs, but not multiple and I don't see AMD having any lead over Nvidia. Same with other uses like GPU acceleration in things like Photoshop or video editing--1 decently fast consumer grade GPU is enough. I don't see farms and 4+ cards per box.
Adobe Media Encoder (and by extension Premiere and AE) can do multi-GPU rendering as well, which starts to matter when you have huge comps. I've worked with 2D animators who need to turn around footage really quickly and a bunch of them are on multi-GPU rigs.
Adobe Media Encoder does seem to support OpenCL and CUDA, but the GPU acceleration only looks like it works with certain transforms and filters, not with encoding. So I can see it helping 2d animators, but much less so for video editors--especially with multiple GPUs.
I feel like GPU rendering has been teased for like 10+ years now. Only within the past few years am I seeing studios upgrade their render farm in earnest to accommodate GPUs.
For me at least, the process of putting together a hackintosh isn't very hard at all.
First I research hardware that is compatible that I can source at a good price. This is the key step since non-compatible hardware is a world of misery. I'd say in the order of 50% of motherboards and 75% of graphic cards have this attribute. This is the hardest step and the community could make life easier for everyone if it maintained a database of such parts but sadly it's mostly geared toward people getting the hardware they already have to work.
Second I get a flash drive of some variety, format it and run the Clover installer on it, then I drag the EFI folder from the standard archive from olarila.com onto the EFI partition of this boot drive. The Hackintosh is now bootable as a vanilla Mac. The boot drive remains attached at all times to enable this.
Finally I install macOS as it was a real Mac, from an installer flash drive, booting through the Clover boot loader on the boot drive of course.
The reason I use macOS (and always have, previously on Apple hardware) is because it delivers a superior user experience. The OS software is far and away more usable than Windows and Linux machines. There is no sign either of them are catching up.
That said, I've switched to an eGPU setup with a Radeon Rx580 and my 15" mbp, and it largely gets me to where I wanted to be with my hackintosh. Using an eGPU with macos is surprisingly easy.
The software has improved a lot recently. Plugins like WhateverGreen and VirtualSMC means there is broader hardware support out of the box without fiddling with settings.
But yeah if you are happy with Mac hardware then Hackintoshes are entirely pointless. Laptop Hackintoshes are also more challenging without really competing with comparable Mac hardware.
But I really don't understand why people make their OS drive their boot drive. Besides the potential for catastrophe it also means you can't move the OS drive between machines or do OS drive backups freely.
There's also always the ability to recompile the Darwin kernel, as AMD Hackintosh users do. This does have the downside of making updates annoying.
https://twitter.com/felix_schwarz/status/1135672295941427200
http://www.nextop.de/NeXTstep_3.3_Developer_Documentation/