Mac Pro 5.1 Aug 2010 - broken out the box

10sep2010
The latest mac pro 5,1 - just about shipping -is currently broken out of the box- drivers for 5770/5870 are broken

10.6.4 is has huge problems too - its seems with ATI video cards- particularily the radeon 4870 - which was mostly broken for large texture uploads on 10.6.4-

Apple released a graphics update for 10.6.4 a couple of weeks ago- which made things better

but this doesnt work on latest mac pro- yet-

There are reports of other graphics cards working - nvidia cards seem to be working much better

10.6.5 isnt out yet.

10sep2010

Quote:

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Originally Posted by samsc

10sep2010
The latest mac pro 5,1 - just about shipping -is currently broken out of the box-

10.6.4 is has huge problems too - its seems with ATI video cards- particularily the radeon 4870 - which was mostly broken for large texture uploads on 10.6.4-

Apple released a graphics update for 10.6.4 a couple of weeks ago- which made things better

but this doesnt work on latest mac pro- yet-

There are reports of other graphics cards working - nvidia cards seem to be working much better

10.6.5 isnt out yet.

10sep2010

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just put a gt120
http://store.apple.com/uk/search?fin...mco=Nzc1MjMwNg
into a second slot - didnt remove 5870 ( it does barely 2 layers of 1080 )- it works much better than 5870 - 6-8 layers HD AIC - with a single 1080 monitor.
GT120 isnt a great performer with multiple hidef displays.
default shipping OS

texture upload to 5870 graphics card is broken on 10.6.4 in mac pro 5,1

12sep2010-
phoenix and LFG:

new 5,1 macs boot up in 64bit mode out of the box - so AS drivers dont work - phoenix and lfg - catalyst works in 64bit mode but it cant work with 32 bit drivers in 64bit mode.

they have to be rebooted in 32bit kernel by holding down '3' and '2' at startup

i cant find any software out there which does this properly right now - though there are some that claim to do this

the pieces of software and the information on the web didnt do the right thing.

all very confusing to everyone
12sep2010

apple technote on changing modes-

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3773

Quote:

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Method 1: Startup key combination (for current startup only)

If your Mac uses the 32-bit kernel by default, but supports the 64-bit kernel, you can start up using the 64-bit kernel by holding the 6 and 4 keys during startup.
If your Mac uses the 64-bit kernel by default, you can start up with the 32-bit kernel by holding the 3 and 2 keys during startup.
Your Mac will revert to the default kernel the next time you reboot it.


Method 2: On-disk setting (persistent)

To select the 64-bit kernel for the current startup disk, use the following command in Terminal:

sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64

To select the 32-bit kernel for the current startup disk, use the following command in Terminal:

sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture i386

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by samsc

apple technote on changing modes-

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3773

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The same holds true for the new Mac Minis.

gtx 285 back in uk applestore

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/TW387ZM/A

all ati cards currently broken on 10.6.4

10.6.5 out now. Will try when I get my 12 core back on Monday.

As it stands my brand new 12 core 2.93GHz with 5870 can only manage 66fps of ProRes. With a 285 in it can manage 166fps, more like it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by basicmonkey

10.6.5 out now. Will try when I get my 12 core back on Monday.

As it stands my brand new 12 core 2.93GHz with 5870 can only manage 66fps of ProRes. With a 285 in it can manage 166fps, more like it.

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the last developer build of 10.6.5 i tested this week was still broken

movie frame uploading to graphics cards is broken - takes 3x as long as it should - and there is a minimum threshold of around 10milliseconds per frame - something is very badly broken

its only broken on ATI cards 4870 5870 5770

even nVidia gt120 works better
gtx 285 is the best -

I need to use any special driver for the GTX285, like installing CUDA from NVidia

or is just plug and go ?

Thks

install drivers, then plug and go

Nev.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gian

I need to use any special driver for the GTX285, like installing CUDA from NVidia

or is just plug and go ?

Thks

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not sure about the question-

but you cant use pc models in macs - they dont have correct firmware-
you can only use mac models and they are all currently discontinued-

cuda is irrelevant - and you dont need to download and install any drivers - they are already in mac os

I just shoved a 285 into mine, borrowed from XL, and it worked, well! No drivers or anything.

And my frame rate went from an awful 66fps to 166fps!

I agreed with Apple Business that if 10.6.5 didn't fix my machine they can have it back. Not fit for purpose. I suggested that if they got me a 285 then I would keep it, even offered 50/50, but that wasn't an option. So they'd rather take a £4500 machine back than stump £150 for a graphics card.

Rubbish.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by basicmonkey

I just shoved a 285 into mine, borrowed from XL, and it worked, well! No drivers or anything.

And my frame rate went from an awful 66fps to 166fps!

I agreed with Apple Business that if 10.6.5 didn't fix my machine they can have it back. Not fit for purpose. I suggested that if they got me a 285 then I would keep it, even offered 50/50, but that wasn't an option. So they'd rather take a £4500 machine back than stump £150 for a graphics card.

Rubbish.

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get the nvidia 4800 in this case as an upgrade? - its more money but at least its likely to work

ATI stuff got broken in something around 10.6.3

I have 2 GTX 285 on 2 of our Catalysts now...

They look just fine, with no aditional drivers, but Googling I found some new drivers from NVidia as well CUDA apps. I did not installed any of them, and I can not see any problems, but I did not tested with any other software.

Thks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by samsc

get the nvidia 4800 in this case as an upgrade? - its more money but at least its likely to work

ATI stuff got broken in something around 10.6.3

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It's a lot of money, especially after forking out for the machine. And I don't see it as right to have to spend that amount of money to solve Apple's mistake.

How does 4800 sit amongst the rest of the cards?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gian

I have 2 GTX 285 on 2 of our Catalysts now...

They look just fine, with no aditional drivers, but Googling I found some new drivers from NVidia as well CUDA apps. I did not installed any of them, and I can not see any problems, but I did not tested with any other software.

Thks

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i wouldnt install any drivers from nvidia... they might be older than shipping ones
cuda irrelevant

Quote:

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Originally Posted by basicmonkey

It's a lot of money, especially after forking out for the machine. And I don't see it as right to have to spend that amount of money to solve Apple's mistake.

How does 4800 sit amongst the rest of the cards?

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im sure its better or same as gtx285 - but i dont have one

there arent any alternative right now

gt120 is fine for doing simple things - but chokes on triple heads and hidef

gtx 285 on ebay:

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_kw=gtx&_kw=mac

couple of questions:

any idea whether the latest mac os update helps improve things?

and secondly, do macs check for video card drivers when running software updates or do i manually need to check with graphics card manufactuer?

thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brianstorm

couple of questions:

any idea whether the latest mac os update helps improve things?

and secondly, do macs check for video card drivers when running software updates or do i manually need to check with graphics card manufactuer?

thanks

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i dont think 10.6.6 addresses ati 5870/5770 performance with hidef playback on more than 1 layer

almost always drivers are addressed by apple os updates - except there seems to be some confusion as to the shipping driver version in 10.6.6 for nvidia quadro 4000

thanks as ever for your prompt reply...

it seems that returning the ati radeon hd5770 card and replacing it with something else would be a sensible option? unless there is an imminent danger of apple actually fixing this problem...

would you agree? and which graphics card would you choose? we don't want to spend £1000s (if we can avoid it) but we need this system to work and play hd video as it was designed.... we have the 32 later/16 mix catalyst running on a 64 bit 8 core macpro workstation...

at the moment we can play one layer of hd video without dropping frames...


if you need any more info please let me know..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brianstorm

thanks as ever for your prompt reply...

it seems that returning the ati radeon hd5770 card and replacing it with something else would be a sensible option? unless there is an imminent danger of apple actually fixing this problem...

would you agree? and which graphics card would you choose? we don't want to spend £1000s (if we can avoid it) but we need this system to work and play hd video as it was designed.... we have the 32 later/16 mix catalyst running on a 64 bit 8 core macpro workstation...

at the moment we can play one layer of hd video without dropping frames...


if you need any more info please let me know..

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you want it to work - today - you have to get nVidia card
gt120 cheap - doesnt have hidef playback problem - not good with triple heads - big screens
quadro 4000 - very new - 800GBP to 800USD - too new to have much info - but doesnt have hidef problem
gtx 285 for mac - from eBay at your own risk

Quadro 4000 has one Displayport output :-(

H

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spam Butterfly

Quadro 4000 has one Displayport output :-(

H

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it has adaptors to mini display port in the box -

it seems that it would be a leap of faith then, once again...

do you think that apple will ever get round to fixing the problems with the ATI RADEON HD5770?

is it possible to fit two graphics cards? not sure that that would really help.. i'd be less than keen on spending £800 on a graphics card to find that it had other problems, we'd definitely need to be able to use triple heads

anyone out there using the quadro 4000?

leap of faith - no

its a practical problem - something doesnt work - we need an immediate fix-

when things dont work - we have to use and try alternatives- immediately-
we need solutions that work right now-

stuff doesnt work all the time - the systems we use are incredibly complex- stuff gets broken constantly

happens across the board with every aspect of technology we have to use-

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all technology has problems and issues- there is never an unambiguously perfect solution-

the gt120 works as long as you arent using triple heads and lots of hi-def movies-

quadro 4000 is just too new to have any kindof angle on it- it turned up on 19th dec 2010 - in low quantites in retail

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brianstorm

it seems that it would be a leap of faith then, once again...

do you think that apple will ever get round to fixing the problems with the ATI RADEON HD5770?

is it possible to fit two graphics cards? not sure that that would really help.. i'd be less than keen on spending £800 on a graphics card to find that it had other problems, we'd definitely need to be able to use triple heads

anyone out there using the quadro 4000?

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do you think that apple will fix the problem with the ati radeon drivers? do they even care? is there anything that we can do to suggest they might want to look at fixing the problem?

it seems that that would be the ideal solution, but i don't have much experience of macs and how they work... thanks for the time again.. your advice is very much apprecciated

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brianstorm

do you think that apple will fix the problem with the ati radeon drivers? do they even care? is there anything that we can do to suggest they might want to look at fixing the problem?

it seems that that would be the ideal solution, but i don't have much experience of macs and how they work... thanks for the time again.. your advice is very much apprecciated

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This is a performance thing which is only noticeable when you need more than 2 1080p movies at the same time.
Gt120 gtx 285 quadro 4000 will play close to 6 hidef movies on current mac pro
ati 5770 5870 only manage 2 and they are glitchy.

As this is a very unlikely requirement for normal users even those doing games
I would say it's not a high priority problem for apple to find locate or fix
If they even see it as a problem - and not the byproduct of a design decision
related to ati cards

I would not wait for a fix but buy a gt120 as interim solution- but the gt120 does not have great overall performance

You can plug a gt120 in at the same time as 5770/5870
But you can't use them both in catalyst

Thanks!