Native OS X support for PC graphics cards

[IAN SUN]

Hope springs eternal.

arstechnica.com/apple

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Lets hope some support for PC NVIDIA cards are also released.

 

[Tom.Wong]

quadro 5800 please!

or lots of gtx 470's for all those yummy cuda cores

 

[PatrickW]

I don't know if it would seem to justify the effort to support any video card, when the only system it applies to is the Mac Pro which moves the least volume.

 

[IAN SUN]

From the article: does not support Nvidia.

With Thunderbolt this could be a low cost way to extend graphic capabilities to an iMac, Mini or MBP with cards hosted in external chasis.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

What most people don't realize is that video card support falls squarely on video card makers these days. It's no longer an Apple-controlled issue. In the past, Apple insisted that they write all their own video drivers and/or have some sort of say in them. That is no longer the case for well over a year now (coming up on 2 years). To me, this just says that Apple is pushing more toward support of off-the-shelf cards on their end rather than waiting for the manufacturers to do it.

Personally, I don't see any reason what so ever that nVidia and ATI don't support their full line on the Mac. They both have universal driver models these days and always have a couple cards operating on OSX as it is. It seems to me that the added efforts to flesh out the universal driver in full as it is on Windows and Linux would be easily justified. In addition to the onboard BIOS, most Mac video cards incorporate EFI support so that the card will visibly post and offer basic display functionality without loading a specific driver -- you get the Apple logo when booting, for example. Adding EFI support is trivial and would be welcome in the PC world too -- BIOS is something that needs to die a swift death. Then again, I also question why Microsoft bothers to maintain a 32bit OS base with Windows 7. Time to move on... Windows 7 has pretty good EFI support and so do many of the new motherboards from ASUS, Tyan, SuperMicro and others.

The only thing holding back GPU choices for Mac owners is the GPU manufacturers themselves. nVidia and EVGA gave us the GTX285 -- now discontinued. And now nVidia, via PNY, gives us the Quadro 4000. At least Apple is taking another step to encourage more card options with the latest inclusions in 10.6.7. But this is not a solution. I hate to say it, but it seems almost a cry for help. Apple trying to increase support from their end so GPU manufacturers will take notice. I can't believe nVidia doesn't see the opportunity here. Lots of nVidia CUDA support in the professional Mac apps sector already. They made the Quadro 4000 MSRP the same as the PC version after luke-warm sales. But since then, it's selling like crazy. ...I think they underestimate how many Mac owners would run out and buy a GTX480 or GTX580 if it were available to them and they didn't price-gouge. All they have to do is supply the drivers... EFI support would be a bonus and that's pretty easy (relatively speaking).

 

[L. Langer]

What most people don't realize is that video card support falls squarely on video card makers these days. It's no longer an Apple-controlled issue. In the past, Apple insisted that they write all their own video drivers and/or have some sort of say in them. That is no longer the case for well over a year now (coming up on 2 years). To me, this just says that Apple is pushing more toward support of off-the-shelf cards on their end rather than waiting for the manufacturers to do it.

Apple has a team of engineers known as "The Graphics Engineering Team". They develop the graphics drivers with support from the GPU makers and choose graphics hardware for potential use in Apple's computers based on the internal testing that they do.