Can Windows Bootcamp use a Nvidia RTX?

[Macintosh IIcx]

Ok, a bit of a specialized question, but here goes:

I’m fully aware that the Nvidia RTX series are not supported in any way on the macOS. But let’s say you need to do some work in Windows via Bootcamp. Is it possible to plug the RTX 2080 card in a secondary PCIe slot and install the Windows Nvidia drivers to make it work?

We are assuming that we boot with a macOS supported card like a AMD. So the Nvidia card is the secondary card in the Mac Pro.

So the question is more whether booting macOS is going to freak out about the presence of an unsupported PCIe card and whether it will be recognized and work in the Windows environment with the proper windows drivers?

 

[orph]

windows will be able to use it, when you boot windows your macpro is just a computer with windows on.

i have no idea what will happen in osx

asume your only problem will be what the second card is and if it needs power how to power it, i think the RTX 2080 uses more than 1 8-pin?

edit RTX 2080 uses 8+6pin so power may be a problem ?
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/rtx-2080/

edit 2 i did not read the topic, my answer was for a mac pro 5.1 not the new ones

 

[h9826790]

Can

But in Windows, you should manually disable the AMD card to avoid driver issue.

In macOS, the driverless Nvidia card is pretty much ignored by the system.

However, without proper drive, the card may not able to get into low power mode properly. Even though nothing to do, it may still consume quite a bit of power, and the GPU may stay warm.

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

windows will be able to use it, when you boot windows your macpro is just a computer with windows on.

i have no idea what will happen in osx

asume your only problem will be what the second card is and if it needs power how to power it, i think the RTX 2080 uses more than 1 8-pin?

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/rtx-2080/
8+6 pin

Thanks for your quick reply.

Yes, I’m not sure whether the Mac Pro 2019 will support 8+6 pin, not totally clear to me yet.

I guess this could turn out to be a small project on the side if I get the Mac Pro 2019. I’m only asking because I already have the card, but maybe it is better to sell it and put the money towards a more native solution.
[doublepost=1563541316][/doublepost]

Can

But in Windows, you should manually disable the AMD card to avoid driver issue.

In macOS, the driverless Nvidia card is pretty much ignored by the system. However, without proper drive, the card may not able to get into low power mode properly. Even though nothing to do, it may still consume quite a bit of power, and the GPU may stay warm.

Excellent info, thanks!

 

[orph]

ah sorry i did not look, i assume the mac pro 7.1 will be able to power it.


sorry i was thinking of the 5.1 which has much less power options, i relay need to read the titles better on posts my bad.

edit
one option is to put the card in a eGPU box so it's only pluged in when needed?

 

[Spacedust]

Does sleep mode work with RTX when Windows is installed in UEFI mode? Normal unflashed cards have no sleep which is very annoying.

 

[Jamesjprice]

I read all the rtx threads and tried my own experiment. Coming from a flashed 1080ti. Mac Pro 5,1. High Sierra and win 10 on separate boot drives. Boot runner also. Zotac rtx 2070. Dual mini 6 pin power to single 8 pin cable.

On boot I get the apple boot screen. I get boot runner. I can boot to windows and have latest Nvidia driver so all good. Can boot to OS X and get no graphics acceleration of course because no rtx driver. The driver I have installed is latest for high Sierra.

 

[Spacedust]

So I ask again, is sleep working under Windows UEFI mode or not? Normally unflashed card can't sleep in Windows UEFI mode.

 

[Supersoberguy]

I finally was able to do this project - RTX in a Bootcamp. I found out that the information for this topic is somewhat spread all over internet and decided to post here my way of how to do it so that it may come in handy for others who may face some problems during this process.

To have a RTX card working in Bootcamp on a cMP you have to have the following:

• It is essential to upgrade boot ROM version to 144.0.0.0.0
  • To do this you have to have boot ROM version MP51.089.B00, “metal” supported card and upgrade your firmware via Mojave Installation (you don't nned to actually install Mojave)
    • List of metal supported cards can be found all over internet. AMD’s RX 500 series are supported, as well as nVidia cards of 600, 700, 900 series are metal supported. I bought ZOTAC 710 GT for just 30 USD and upgraded the firmware. This card does not require additional power, it is one slotted and works perfectly in High Sierra (or even lower macOS, did not check that)
    • I had a problem with firmware upgrade, when I clicked "Shut Down" button for the firmware to be installed and my cMP to be shut off - nothing happened. The problem is that my drive was not partitioned in APFS. I just clean installed High Sierra onto APFS partition drive, downloaded Mojave Installation from App Store and was only then able to upgrade firmware. Otherwise the firmware would not upgrade.
• After you upgrade your firmware, you can proceed with Windows 10 installation in UEFI mode. You don’t need to do the Legacy mode, only UEFI via USB installation, otherwise RTX would not work.
• After you install Windows 10, install Bootcamp drivers.
  • After Bootcamp drivers installation is finished, you may encounter a problem of freezes at the Windows 10 login. It happens because of the "MacHALDriver.sys" that had to be renamed or deleted for the freezes to go away. The path to the folder would be in windows/system32/drivers.
• Plug in your RTX and install the drivers.
  • I found a workaround when the display is blank but the system is running. i installed Teamviewer prior to this and was able to login into Windows even with the screen being blank.
• RTX card supports boot screen, therefore there should be no problem switching the OS with alt key. Or, the other scheme should be choosing the macOS from within the Bootcamp control panel and switching the cable to nVidia 710 and booting to Bootcamp via RTX from bootscreen and alt key.

This way we have a working RTX card in Bootcamp. I am hoping that someday the drivers for RTX would be released for the macOS so that we will have a great card with boot screen working perfectly in Bootcamp and macOS. Let's just hope for it.

 

[satcomer]

Well if your using a Thunderbolt 3 box for video card Mac OS drivers do exists if you willing MacVideoCards.com Nvidia drivers page should hold the latest drivers that might help you!

 

[felrobert]

I finally was able to do this project - RTX in a Bootcamp. I found out that the information for this topic is somewhat spread all over internet and decided to post here my way of how to do it so that it may come in handy for others who may face some problems during this process.

To have a RTX card working in Bootcamp on a cMP you have to have the following:

• It is essential to upgrade boot ROM version to 144.0.0.0.0
  • To do this you have to have boot ROM version MP51.089.B00, “metal” supported card and upgrade your firmware via Mojave Installation (you don't nned to actually install Mojave)
    • List of metal supported cards can be found all over internet. AMD’s RX 500 series are supported, as well as nVidia cards of 600, 700, 900 series are metal supported. I bought ZOTAC 710 GT for just 30 USD and upgraded the firmware. This card does not require additional power, it is one slotted and works perfectly in High Sierra (or even lower macOS, did not check that)
    • I had a problem with firmware upgrade, when I clicked "Shut Down" button for the firmware to be installed and my cMP to be shut off - nothing happened. The problem is that my drive was not partitioned in APFS. I just clean installed High Sierra onto APFS partition drive, downloaded Mojave Installation from App Store and was only then able to upgrade firmware. Otherwise the firmware would not upgrade.
• After you upgrade your firmware, you can proceed with Windows 10 installation in UEFI mode. You don’t need to do the Legacy mode, only UEFI via USB installation, otherwise RTX would not work.
• After you install Windows 10, install Bootcamp drivers.
  • After Bootcamp drivers installation is finished, you may encounter a problem of freezes at the Windows 10 login. It happens because of the "MacHALDriver.sys" that had to be renamed or deleted for the freezes to go away. The path to the folder would be in windows/system32/drivers.
• Plug in your RTX and install the drivers.
  • I found a workaround when the display is blank but the system is running. i installed Teamviewer prior to this and was able to login into Windows even with the screen being blank.
• RTX card supports boot screen, therefore there should be no problem switching the OS with alt key. Or, the other scheme should be choosing the macOS from within the Bootcamp control panel and switching the cable to nVidia 710 and booting to Bootcamp via RTX from bootscreen and alt key. This way we have a working RTX card in Bootcamp. I am hoping that someday the drivers for RTX would be released for the macOS so that we will have a great card with boot screen working perfectly in Bootcamp and macOS. Let's just hope for it.

Why do you need Teamviewer? Is it to install RTX drivers? Or can I just install a none powered gpu together with 2080 to log in Windows 10 and install Nvidia RTX drivers from there? Perform a reset and plugged in RTX 2080 to your screen and from there should Windows 10 boot up deleting "MacHALDriver.sys" prior to the reset?

 

[saltarob]

I finally was able to do this project - RTX in a Bootcamp. I found out that the information for this topic is somewhat spread all over internet and decided to post here my way of how to do it so that it may come in handy for others who may face some problems during this process.

To have a RTX card working in Bootcamp on a cMP you have to have the following:

• It is essential to upgrade boot ROM version to 144.0.0.0.0
  • To do this you have to have boot ROM version MP51.089.B00, “metal” supported card and upgrade your firmware via Mojave Installation (you don't nned to actually install Mojave)
    • List of metal supported cards can be found all over internet. AMD’s RX 500 series are supported, as well as nVidia cards of 600, 700, 900 series are metal supported. I bought ZOTAC 710 GT for just 30 USD and upgraded the firmware. This card does not require additional power, it is one slotted and works perfectly in High Sierra (or even lower macOS, did not check that)
    • I had a problem with firmware upgrade, when I clicked "Shut Down" button for the firmware to be installed and my cMP to be shut off - nothing happened. The problem is that my drive was not partitioned in APFS. I just clean installed High Sierra onto APFS partition drive, downloaded Mojave Installation from App Store and was only then able to upgrade firmware. Otherwise the firmware would not upgrade.
• After you upgrade your firmware, you can proceed with Windows 10 installation in UEFI mode. You don’t need to do the Legacy mode, only UEFI via USB installation, otherwise RTX would not work.
• After you install Windows 10, install Bootcamp drivers.
  • After Bootcamp drivers installation is finished, you may encounter a problem of freezes at the Windows 10 login. It happens because of the "MacHALDriver.sys" that had to be renamed or deleted for the freezes to go away. The path to the folder would be in windows/system32/drivers.
• Plug in your RTX and install the drivers.
  • I found a workaround when the display is blank but the system is running. i installed Teamviewer prior to this and was able to login into Windows even with the screen being blank.
• RTX card supports boot screen, therefore there should be no problem switching the OS with alt key. Or, the other scheme should be choosing the macOS from within the Bootcamp control panel and switching the cable to nVidia 710 and booting to Bootcamp via RTX from bootscreen and alt key.

This way we have a working RTX card in Bootcamp. I am hoping that someday the drivers for RTX would be released for the macOS so that we will have a great card with boot screen working perfectly in Bootcamp and macOS. Let's just hope for it.

Amazing. Thank you for sharing this.

I try to do the same with a RTX 3070 but the Mac Pro 5,1 is not even booting. It gets stuck in a boot chime loop. Is it only working with a RTX 2070?

My boot ROM version is 144.0.0.0.0. I use the native Apple EFI and Windows 11 is installed in UEFI mode. With my AMD RX 5700 everything is working fine.

Any ideas?

Thank you.

 

[ZXRyuu]

I was able to use dosdude1's ROMTool and DXEInject, as well as OpenCore's EnableGop.ffs file to get past the GPU Firmware block on a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming X 8GB, reference: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/manually-configured-opencore-on-the-mac-pro.2207814/

Appendix section on Native Bootscreen Support

I used Mac OS X Mavericks to backup the stock firmware and Flash the GopFirmware back to the MX25L3205D chip on my motherboard.

That will get you past the Mac Pro POST and will load Windows where the latest drivers can then be installed.