Graphics Card

[GAS]

I am thinking of buying a Mac Pro for the simple reason that later on I can upgrade it with virtually everything. But I have been reading that I can't take any graphics card for a normal pc and put it in the Mac Pro. Is this true?

 

[Carrot007]

I am thinking of buying a Mac Pro for the simple reason that later on I can upgrade it with virtually everything. But I have been reading that I can't take any graphics card for a normal pc and put it in the Mac Pro. Is this true?

Well you can physically do it or course however to be of use it need drivers to work so yes you need a mac card.

 

[TBi]

You can put any card in but you can only use it in windows. Only Mac cards work in OSX.

 

[GAS]

Why aren't more cards supported in OSX?

 

[TBi]

Ask Apple.

Unlike windows which has support for almost every graphics card under the sun, OSX only supports a few and so can be more stable than windows. Less diversity means it's easier to keep things stable.

 

[mags631]

You can put any card in but you can only use it in windows. Only Mac cards work in OSX.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/291996/

This thread seems to provide some insight.

 

[dominicansrul93]

Maybe you can get a graphics card and download some homebrew drivers. I that is even possible.

 

[Kosh66]

Ask Apple.

Unlike windows which has support for almost every graphics card under the sun, OSX only supports a few and so can be more stable than windows. Less diversity means it's easier to keep things stable.

Ask the PC graphic card manufacturers. Any PC card manufacturer could write graphic card drivers for their cards and create a MacOS graphic card Bios for their cards. ATI does. Why don't they? They're just lazy.

 

[Kosh66]

Maybe you can get a graphics card and download some homebrew drivers. I that is even possible.

There is a home-brew driver called Titan http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Titan but I don't know if I would touch it with a 10 foot pole.

 

[tonyc1981]

Hi Everyone~
Does NVIDIA Quadro FX4500 fit with Mac Pro?
I check NVIDIA's official website, I found it has driver for "X86"
Does that mean if I bought a FX 4500 from internet, then I could DIY install the graphics card at home?

 

[Eric5h5]

Does NVIDIA Quadro FX4500 fit with Mac Pro?

Only if you buy the Mac version from Apple.

I check NVIDIA's official website, I found it has driver for "X86"

Sorry, Macs run OS X, not Solaris. x86 is the instruction set that most Intel and AMD chips use. (As opposed to Sparc, PPC, etc.)

Does that mean if I bought a FX 4500 from internet, then I could DIY install the graphics card at home?

No. Anyway that card is really expensive and actually gets worse performance in many games than the X1900. It's only for certain specialized apps.

--Eric

 

[tonyc1981]

Can anyone tell me "Does every ATI Radeon X1900 Series run with Mac and PC" or it just has some special series for Mac? I really need this information.
Thanx la

resource from: http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

 

[mustang_dvs]

From what I've been told, the retail X1900 for G5 will only work in PCI-E G5's and not in Mac Pro's, due to the lack of EFI support. (Plus it's only 256MB.)

I've read that it's possible to flash a PC X1900 XT (not crossfire) for use in a Mac Pro, but I've never done it -- my card is an Apple OEM.

You can also check eBay -- every week or so, there's usually an OEM x1900 512MB for Mac Pro for sale for around $200-250

 

[robbieduncan]

Can anyone tell me "Does every ATI Radeon X1900 Series run with Mac and PC" or it just has some special series for Mac? I really need this information.
Thanx la

Cards of ALL types built for "normal" PCs have BIOS boot rooms. Macs use EFI not BIOS so these cards do not get initialised in Mac OSX. Windows initialises the card are it is booting under BIOS emulation in EFI.

EFI is the modern up-to-date replacement for BIOS. Without it we would not have the Mac niceties of target disk mode, USB and Firewire booting with a nice graphical chooser etc.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Can anyone tell me "Does every ATI Radeon X1900 Series run with Mac and PC" or it just has some special series for Mac? I really need this information.
Thanx la

What you're asking, I think, is whether, because there is an X1900 For Mac card offered, will every X1900 card (for PCs) run on a Mac?

Answer that that is no.