marnovo/macOS-eGPU-CUDA-guide

Update to macOS High Sierra 10.13.4

loretoparisi opened this issue · 8 comments

Please update the tutorial to latest version of High Sierra, since current scripts can break your mac when installed, after the Apple upgrade that unlock the e-gpu support for the AMD GPU cards. I have followed the instructions, and I had to force remove the extensions since when the e-gpu was detected, the mac crashed.

Hi @loretoparisi, thanks for the warning.

I haven't yet updated macOS to 10.13.4 myself because I still felt the methods available were few, flaky and not broadly applicable. Also there's the whole "version dependency tree" regarding OS, NVIDIA, CUDA, cuDNN and ML libraries...

This is why I haven't yet felt confident so far to come up with a broadly applicable and detailed step-by-step guide for this version until a couple of weeks ago. Anyway I will add a warning in the guide until I do further research and update it accordingly.

@marnovo thank you. At this time I have tried the macOS 10.13.4 / Thunderbolt 3 Akitio Node / Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 / Nvidia Driver 387.10.10.10.30.106 / CUDA 387.178 and on this configuration it does not work, but I have seen working the same configuration on macOS Sierra 😆

@loretoparisi as an update, there is now a "pre-alpha" (a.k.a. still unreliable) script to support 10.13.4: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/script-fr34ks-macos-egpu-sh-one-script-all-solutions-fully-automated/paged/1/

@marnovo thank you. Also as for today macOS update I get a new update from the Nvidia Driver 387.10.10.10.30.107 as well. Are you aware of specific Nvidia Cards that card that should work? In my findings with the 10.13 the GTX 1080 should, while the GTX 960 I was not sure of... thank you.

@loretoparisi tonymacx86's post reports it should support GTX 960, even though there's a long discussion on performance issues, compatibility issues with the current CUDA, etc. https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/nvidia-releases-alternate-graphics-drivers-for-macos-high-sierra-10-13-4-387-10-10-10-30.249039/

Just as an update on this issue:

I was able to successfully apply the patch above on my system, however not without its issues. Only very recently, for example, NVIDIA was able to fix the UI lag issues recently introduced.

The patch is still in the same alpha stage for two months, and the last update was more than a month ago. The thread mentioned above is still the best source for Q&A and bug fixes for the (even more adventurous).

It is also unclear so far if the near introduction of the next macOS v10.13.5 will break this patch partially or completely.

@marnovo thanks for the update. By the way that thread it is still not up to date at Mar 31, 2018. After that we had as you says macOS v10.13.5 and further issues can exists. In my case I suggest to not try anything on a machine that it is not a testbed only, before an update on that thread related to 10.13.5, since in my case my macOS was not rebooting and every time I connected the eGPU it immediately get frozen...

The macOS eGPU script was updated a couple of days ago to v0.2α, providing experimental support for macOS v10.13.5 (since there seems to be no meaningful changes between .4 and .5 in terms of eGPU support) and introducing more bug fixes and instructions. I will be about a month abroad and away from my eGPU, so more testing from my side will have to wait…