Mac support for external Nvidia GPU available now through TinyGPU
Posted by zdy132@reddit | LocalLLaMA | View on Reddit | 29 comments
Posted by zdy132@reddit | LocalLLaMA | View on Reddit | 29 comments
zdy132@reddit (OP)
The Twitter (X) post.
Glad to see Nvidia support on Mac. The Tinygrad people are doing great works.
waiting_for_zban@reddit
This is really really good. I genuinely do not understand why Apple didn't make this supported natively on their MacOS. It's a killer feature that would boost their sales for this specific part of the market. Not to mention gamers. Imagine sporting a Mac Studio Ultra with 512GB (RIP) of RAM + RTX 6000 Pro over thunderbolt 5. Yes it might be nearly 18k, but it would be a beast of an inference machine without draining the energy socket.
amemingfullife@reddit
Because NVIDIA actively removed it. They didn’t like that Apple was competing with them. NVIDIA was supported on Mac until fairly recently.
3D_TOPO@reddit
If 2018 was "fairly recently", then sure.
amemingfullife@reddit
I guess I’m just old. The point is that it’s an NVIDIA thing, not really Apple’s fault.
3D_TOPO@reddit
Naw, the drivers were functioning perfectly when Apple pulled support.
droptableadventures@reddit
Yes, NVIDIA used to make the "web driver" for Mac OS X which you could download and install, and it'd be used instead of the built-in one.
NVIDIA stopped doing that.
3D_TOPO@reddit
Actually, the web driver was fully functional when Apple pulled support for it in Mojave 10.14
ThankGodImBipolar@reddit
Have you heard of Bumpgate???
That ship has sailed unfortunately; Mac Pro is discontinued with no plans to replace it as of last week.
waiting_for_zban@reddit
TIL. Honestly I don't care much about Nvidia itself, I just think the ability to add external hardware (even an 7900 XTX) to the mix, might be interesting to speed up PP. While apple has been great with bandwidth, it sucks when it comes to PP. Adding a GPU would help.
amemingfullife@reddit
It’s not up to Apple, it’s up to NVIDIA.
steepleton@reddit
nvida crippled a whole generation of macs back in the day with a faulty gpu, cost them millions.
droptableadventures@reddit
I owned one of those, and it died almost exactly 4 years after I bought it.
My Dad's died after 5 and a half, I argued due to the chip being faulty, it was actually defective from the day it was built so the 4 year time limit on repairs shouldn't apply. They accepted my argument and fixed it under warranty!
I also remember a few people with Acer/Dell laptops and the same problem - both of those had the strategy of "your laptop's 3 years old, it's worthless. We'll replace it with a netbook."
Spir4Lz@reddit
Can someone clarify if this would also allow to run IsaacSim on a Mac?
gadgetb0y@reddit
Mac minis will soon be even harder to get. They're already on back order.
proxedised@reddit
Does that mean hackintosh is back for Nvidia gpu?
TheAstralGoth@reddit
no this is not what that means. this is simply for AI
proxedised@reddit
Shame
TheHFIC@reddit
Go take a look at the date on that twitter post.
BikerBoyRoy123@reddit
Don't forget your external power supply, it's a whooper. Have fun and don't electrocute yourself.
fallingdowndizzyvr@reddit
It's a computer PSU. That's so common as to be boring.
_hephaestus@reddit
This is dope, does it take advantage of the unified memory at all or is it an alternative?
zdy132@reddit (OP)
Unfortunately not. It would behave similar to PC ram + GPU Vram.
GroundbreakingMall54@reddit
wait this actually works? mac users have been stuck with mlx and metal for so long that i kinda gave up on cuda for my macbook. if this runs stable with a thunderbolt enclosure thats a game changer for local inference
droptableadventures@reddit
It's not going to allow Cuda. It's supported in TinyGrad - a framework for performing the calculations kind-of like PyTorch or MLX. It talks to the GPU directly with its own very minimal driver that lets you do compute on it (not full graphics support).
a_beautiful_rhind@reddit
That's sorta what we need tho. Depending on how well it works.
zdy132@reddit (OP)
Yeah it works. Someone got a 5050 working with their mac mini
The twitter post was on April 1st, so many people assumed it was a prank. But apprantly it's real!
seppe0815@reddit
...
inaem@reddit
Hold up what