Resolved GeForce GTX780Ti 3GB showing up as 'Nvidia Chip Model 128MB' - 10.11

[r6mile]

I've recently purchased a GeForce Kepler GTX780Ti 3GB for my Mac Pro 3,1. I chose this card because it is Kepler and therefore should be compatible with both Metal and El Capitan (which is supported on my 3,1, and I want to keep it just in case). The card works fine in Mojave. However, in El Capitan the native macOS drivers only see the card as 'nVidia Chip Model 128MB' - it works fine using the nVidia Webdrivers, but I wanted to avoid relying on them because things like nVRAM resets them back to the OSX drivers, and I want to avoid having to screen-share back into the Mac etc. I've re-installed El Capitan but no luck, same issue still.

Any idea why this Kepler card works fine natively in Mojave, but not El Capitan?

 

[h9826790]

I've recently purchased a GeForce Kepler GTX780Ti 3GB for my Mac Pro 3,1. I chose this card because it is Kepler and therefore should be compatible with both Metal and El Capitan (which is supported on my 3,1, and I want to keep it just in case). The card works fine in Mojave. However, in El Capitan the native macOS drivers only see the card as 'nVidia Chip Model 128MB' - it works fine using the nVidia Webdrivers, but I wanted to avoid relying on them because things like nVRAM resets them back to the OSX drivers, and I want to avoid having to screen-share back into the Mac etc. I've re-installed El Capitan but no luck, same issue still.

Any idea why this Kepler card works fine natively in Mojave, but not El Capitan?

Kepler has Rev A and Rev B, only Rev A works natively in older OSX.

Apple added Rev B support later in newer macOS.

 

[r6mile]

Kepler has Rev A and Rev B, only Rev A works natively in older OSX.

Apple added Rev B support later in newer macOS.

But the GTX 780Ti was released before El Capitan, and the card is listed as compatible with OS 10.9 in the GPU Compatibility list. Is it just my particular version of the 780Ti, or is it the model in general?

 

[tsialex]

GTX 780s were made from both Kepler A and B chip models, only the A ones work with older macOS releases.

A GTX 780 with Kepler A chip is extremely rare and very sought after since it can even became a Mac Edition GPU easily and work back to Snow Leopard via EFI drivers.

For supporting older macOS releases, get an eVGA GTX 680.

 

[r6mile]

Thank you - it definitely sounds like that's the way I should have gone from the start. Thankfully I can easily return my card.

 

[joevt]

GTX 780s were made from both Kepler A and B chip models, only the A ones work with older macOS releases.

A GTX 780 with Kepler A chip is extremely rare and very sought after since it can even became a Mac Edition GPU easily and work back to Snow Leopard via EFI drivers.

For supporting older macOS releases, get an eVGA GTX 680.

I have MacPro3,1, so
I can go back to Leopard 10.5.8 with my EVGA Nvidia GTX 680 Mac Edition card.
But need to remove NVDAResman.kext
And set maxmem=32768 (down from 64 GB).

For Snow Leopard 10.6.8, I can have maxmem=63488 (62 GB) if I have arch=x86_64

For Lion 10.7.5 and later, there's no problem (must use maxmem=63488 to avoid slowdown of 64 GB ram). Lion supports multiple resolutions and HiDPI even though support for the GTX 680 is only supposed to start with Mountain Lion 10.8.

If there's a RefindPlus or OpenCore or whatever solution for boot screen with newer cards (GOP instead of UGA) then can't older OSs use EFI driver with those? Radeon RX 580, etc.

Edited to note MacPro3,1 since MacPro5,1 can't boot earlier than Snow Leopard and doesn't have a slowdown with 64 GB RAM.

 

[tsialex]

I can go back to Leopard 10.5.8 with my EVGA Nvidia GTX 680 Mac Edition card.
But need to remove NVDAResman.kext
And set maxmem=32768 (down from 64 GB).

For Snow Leopard 10.6.8, I can have maxmem=63488 (62 GB) if I have arch=x86_64

For Lion 10.7.5 and later, there's no problem (must use maxmem=63488 to avoid slowdown of 64 GB ram). Lion supports multiple resolutions and HiDPI even though support for the GTX 680 is only supposed to start with Mountain Lion 10.8.

If there's a RefindPlus or OpenCore or whatever solution for boot screen with newer cards (GOP instead of UGA) then can't older OSs use EFI driver with those? Radeon RX 580, etc.

Probably, I think was @h9826790 that got a working display with AHT/ASD with VII + OpenCore with a MP5,1. I never tested it personally, but should be enough for an unaccelerated working display with Snow Leopard.

Just remember that for a MP5,1 you can’t boot anything earlier than 10.6.4 and the PCIe slowdown with more than 62GB is only for MP3,1.

 

[flowrider]

GTX 780s were made from both Kepler A and B chip models, only the A ones work with older macOS releases.

A GTX 780 with Kepler A chip is extremely rare and very sought after since it can even became a Mac Edition GPU easily and work back to Snow Leopard via EFI drivers.

For supporting older macOS releases, get an eVGA GTX 680.

I have an "A" flashed card sitting in my closet.

Lou

 

[r6mile]

GTX 780s were made from both Kepler A and B chip models, only the A ones work with older macOS releases.

A GTX 780 with Kepler A chip is extremely rare and very sought after since it can even became a Mac Edition GPU easily and work back to Snow Leopard via EFI drivers.

For supporting older macOS releases, get an eVGA GTX 680.

Many thanks again for this. Is there much of an advantage, performance or otherwise, in getting the 4GB version of the card? I understand some models are flashable as well? For reference, I will be driving two 20" aluminium Apple Cinema Displays over DVI, 1650x1050.

(Unfortunately the second-hand retailer I am using in the UK, CeX, does not show pictures of the card when you order, so it is a bit hit-and-miss which brand of card you will receive). For reference, the 2GB card costs £45 and the 4GB one £65.

 

[tsialex]

Many thanks again for this. Is there much of an advantage, performance or otherwise, in getting the 4GB version of the card? I understand some models are flashable as well? For reference, I will be driving two 20" aluminium Apple Cinema Displays over DVI, 1650x1050.

(Unfortunately the second-hand retailer I am using in the UK, CeX, does not show pictures of the card when you order, so it is a bit hit-and-miss which brand of card you will receive). For reference, the 2GB card costs £45 and the 4GB one £65.

4GB cards are a little better at some benchmarks and work better with 4K displays, but do not forget that it’s a 2012-ish GPU and have serious limitations today. No support for hardware assisted vídeo compression or decompression, no support for DRM with Safari, no suppprt for Netflix/Prime/etc.

While is nice to have a Mac Edition GPU on hand to have pre-boot configuration support when needed, a modern one brings your Mac Pro resources not available to anything earlier than iMac Pro.

The only scenario today that makes sense spending money on such and old GPU is if you constantly have to boot early macOS releases with GPU acceleration.

 

[r6mile]

4GB cards are a little better at some benchmarks and work better with 4K displays, but do not forget that it’s a 2012-ish GPU and have serious limitations today. No support for hardware assisted vídeo compression or decompression, no support for DRM with Safari, no suppprt for Netflix/Prime/etc.

While is nice to have a Mac Edition GPU on hand to have pre-boot configuration support when needed, a modern one brings your Mac Pro resources not available to anything earlier than iMac Pro.

The only scenario today that makes sense spending money on such and old GPU is if you constantly have to boot early macOS releases with GPU acceleration.

Thank you, I would be open to getting a mode modern GPU of course, ie an AMD card with the features you describe, the RX580 for example costs 2.5x the price of the GTX 680 (even a RX560 would cost me more), and given its an old computer that would seriously bottleneck that card I'm not sure it's worth it. Especially considering the other downsides ie no boot screen, no El Capitan (which I want as it's supported on the 3,1), need to use SSE emulator etc.

If I had a 5,1 of course it would be a different story...

 

[r6mile]

So I purchased an EVGA GTX680 2GB from a second-hand electronics retailer, but:
- I cannot get any picture out of any OS, Mac or Windows. Using screen-sharing I can see that Mojave sees the card but as 'Nvidia Chip Model 128MB', but no picture.
- Windows does see the card as GTX680, however no picture. I thought I would see what happens if I try to flash the card using nvflash anyway, but I cannot even backup the existing ROM - I get an error along the lines of 'EEPROM not detected'.

I assume this card is dead?

 

[tsialex]

So I purchased an EVGA GTX680 2GB from a second-hand electronics retailer, but:
- I cannot get any picture out of any OS, Mac or Windows. Using screen-sharing I can see that Mojave sees the card but as 'Nvidia Chip Model 128MB', but no picture.
- Windows does see the card as GTX680, however no picture. I thought I would see what happens if I try to flash the card using nvflash anyway, but I cannot even backup the existing ROM - I get an error along the lines of 'EEPROM not detected'.

I assume this card is dead?

Most likely.