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iMac nvidia gpu anyone?

infected87infected87 Posts: 0
in New Users

Hello,

I've just got into daz3d and 3d art.

I would like to upgrade to a gpu nvidia card.

I know Mac don't support most of it but I know some older Mac versions do.

I'm currently on a iMac high Sierra 10.13.3

does anyone here know la what nvidia gpu would be compatible with it?
If there is any?

 

Any help is appreciated.

thanks in advance.

 

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,842

    My understanding is that the drivers available for those older MacOS versions are too old for the current version of Iray, so it isn't possible to use an nVidia GPU for Iray with any Mac.

  • jayleejaylee Posts: 5

    I currently run Daz 4.12 on MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6 with a GTX 980 ti, using nvidia Cuda Driver 440.89 and GPU Driver 387.10.10.10.40.135. These work for me and allow me to continue using Daz and to render using Iray. However, with this system I do not have access to the latest Daz features. 

    Any higher version of Mac OS and Daz and I believe Iray cuda support has been retired, so no upgrading the Daz app or MacOS for me. See the following log output

    Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.1   IRAY   rend info : Your NVIDIA driver supports CUDA version up to 10.2; iray requires CUDA version 10.2; all is good.
    Iray [WARNING] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.1   IRAY   rend warn : CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 980 Ti): compute capability 5.2: deprecated, iray will retire CUDA support on macOS in the next major release.
    Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.1   IRAY   rend info : Using iray plugin version 5.1, build 327300.3640 n, 30 Mar 2020, macosx-x86-64-clang900.
    Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.1   IRAY   rend info : CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 980 Ti): compute capability 5.2, 6.000 GiB total, 4909.730 MiB available

    One point to raise is that I am not using an iMac, but a MacPro and I'm unsure how you intend to install a nvidia gpu into your iMac. So I guess a couple of questions come to mind

    • What iMac are you running and which GPU does it already have?
    • Which GPU were you hoping to use?
    • Are you planning on using a eGPU, (I'm not sure if Daz supports these)?

    Also to note is that you cannot use the newer RTX cards. I believe the GTX 1080ti is the best card that MacOS cuda drivers will support, so if you planned anything newer I don't know how that would work. Maybe others would be able to offer advice here.

    On a personal level, I'm hoping that Daz follow the likes of Blender and Cinema4D in going towards native Apple silicon support in the future developement of Daz for MacOS

  • infected87infected87 Posts: 0

    Thanks very much for your replies guys,

     

     

    To answer to your questions Jaylee:

     

     - the processor is Imac 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7

    and then the gpu is just a AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB

    - Im honeslty kinda new to gpu, so thats why I was wondering if there was a nvidia version that you could install on a imac

    - Yeah I was hoping to find some egpu that would work but for example I saw razor x supports nvidia cards but im not sure if they are supported on macOS 

    (and now you are suggesting Daz might not support them)

     

    yeah hopefully it will, It seems like most of people just  end up switching to  a totally different processor and operating system at some point because of this reason.

    thanks a lot for your info btw

  • tsroemitsroemi Posts: 2,742
    edited May 2021

    Hi there, I hate to discourage you but the iMacs are not really meant to be opened and parts like the GPU replaced by the user. You'd need a special kit with tools and resealing strips and whatnot, and also some skills, so it's not something you should attempt if you're new to this type of thing. Your best bet would be to use an external GPU case, put the NVidia card inside and attach it to the iMac. This is also quite finicky and hit-and-miss, as only certain eGPUs are supported by the MacOS at all - and then, like's been written above, you'd have to find the perfect match of - outdated - DAZ Studio version and outdated NVidia driver because newer versions of DAZ studio require drivers which are not available for Mac. All is due to a conflict between Apple and NVidia, basically. 
    I've been through the whole thing already, tried for months to set up a functioning iMac rig for DAZ and finally gave up. It's just waaaaay too much hassle. So m advice would be: Just use the iMac to render with the CPU which is slow but works reasonably well, and then later get yourself a decent Windows system if you feel you want to stick with rendering in Iray. 
    Best of luck to you!

    Post edited by tsroemi on
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