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Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

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Re: Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

#241

Post by fg137 »

2III7 wrote: post #240
fg137 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until there is official support for Mac coming from nvidia, I don't think anything will happen. > the hardware wasn't usable on macOS This eGPU thing is from a third-party if I understand correctly. I don't see why nvidia would get excited about that. If they cared about the platform, they would have released something already.

The eGPU "thing" should work on anything that supports thunderbolt as it has native support for pcie.

The point is that if nvidia cared about Mac platform they would have done something to make eGPU usable on Mac a long time ago.

Even on Intel Macs using eGPU with nvidia cards was near impossible. nvidia just doesn't care about it after the breakdown of the two companies' relationship.

Whether a third party has created a signed driver or not doesn't matter much until there is more interest from the GPU maker. This barely moves the needle.

Re: Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

#242

Post by fg137 »

TheDong wrote: post #58
deepsun wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't purchase? I don't own any Apple devices, everything works fine.

Unfortunately, Apple still won't release iMessage for Android or Linux (unlike every other messenger platform, like whatsapp, telegram, wechat, microsoft teams, etc, which are all cross-platform). Because of that, you need an apple device around to be able to deal with iMessage users.

> to be able to deal with iMessage users.

I have been an Android user for the past 15 years, and somehow iMessage has never been a problem. Most of the time I don't even know if someone uses iMessage or not.

Re: Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

#243

Post by MuffinFlavored »

999900000999 wrote: post #22
arjie wrote: post #9

Woah, this is exciting. I'm traveling but I have a 5090 lying around at home. I'm eager to give it a go. Docs are here: https://docs.tinygrad.org/tinygpu/ I hope it'll work on an M4 Mac Mini. Does anyone know what hardware to get? You'll need a full ATX PSU to supply power, right? And then tinygrad can do LLM inference on it?

You can buy a cheap GPU enclosure for about 100$ off ali express. Takes a standard PSU. However, Mac Minis don't have occulink. So you might be a bit limited by whatever USB C can do. Now if Intel can get there Arc drivers in order we'll see some real budget fun. https://www.newegg.com/intel-arc-pro-b70-32gb-graphics-card/... 32 GB of VRAM for 1000$. Plus a 500$ Mac Mini.

How big of a handicap on performance is the external enclosure for something like an RTX5090?

Re: Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

#244

Post by nxobject »

ajdegol wrote: post #206

I think that metal isn’t double precision; so that limits some serious physics simming; but if you’re doing that I guess you just rent a gpu somewhere. I would definitely be into this if adding an egpu was first class supported.

It'll be interesting to see whether this is price-competitive versus remoting into a cluster. Might be for smaller orgs/consultants.

Re: Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

#245

Post by nxobject »

curt15 wrote: post #153
embedding-shape wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does Apple need to make the drivers in a walled garden? Isn't that the whole point of the walled garden, that they approve things? How could they aim and realize a walled garden without making things like that have to pass through them?

I think the OP is asking why Apple is enclosing macs in a walled garden when that concept is generally associated with iPhones, not general-purpose computers.

TFA is a little unclear, but I think it might be a (userspace) driver signing situation?

Re: Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

#246

Post by AnthonyMouse »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #223
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also hasn't stopped users from installing Chrome and/or Firefox on their Macs, and millions of ordinary users have. You seem to be ignoring the part where you can't install the Chome and/or Firefox browser engines on iOS and the apps with those names on that platform are just skins over Safari. Notice in particular that the iOS version of "Firefox" can't support extensions.

And that has nothing to do with the Mac…

Here's the post the GP responded to:

> Let me know how I can unbundle Safari from macOS or iOS.

> Go ahead, I'll wait.

You can't get even macOS from the store without Safari, which is the thing Microsoft was doing, but what Apple does on iOS is far worse than what Microsoft was doing and talking about only macOS is kind of burying the lede.

Re: Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

#247

Post by AnthonyMouse »

scott_w wrote: post #218
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The crucially important subtlety here is that Apple requiring developers to use the App Store doesn't leverage an existing monopoly (like what Microsoft had with Windows). Copyright (e.g. over iOS) and patent (e.g. over iPhone hardware) are explicitly government-granted monopolies. Having that monopoly is allowed on purpose, but that isn't the same as it not existing, and having a government-granted monopoly and le…

There’s no such thing as “having a monopoly on iPhone” in law. You have to have a monopoly in a market, of which iPhone is part of the “smartphone” market. It is not a monopoly in the smartphone market, to the best of my knowledge.

> You have to have a monopoly in a market, of which iPhone is part of the “smartphone” market.

Products and markets are not a one to one mapping. For example, if you sell low-background steel, that's part of the broader "steel" market because anyone who needs ordinary steel could buy it from you and use it for the same purposes as ordinary steel. But low-background steel is also its own market, because the people who need that can't use ordinary steel. Likewise for sellers of products with higher purity levels, products that satisfy particular standards or regulatory requirements, etc. It's only the same market if it's the same thing. Clorox bleach is the same as other bleach; Microsoft Windows is not the same as MacOS.

And iOS is not the same as Android. I mean this really isn't that hard: Are they substitutes for each other? If you have a GE washing machine, can you use any brand of bleach? You can, so they're in the same market. If you have an app that exists for iOS and not Android, can you use an Android device? No, so they're not in the same market. Likewise, if you've written a mobile app and need to distribute it to your customers who have iOS devices, can you use Google Play? Again no, which is what makes them different markets. They're not substitutes, any more than a retailer in Texas is a substitute for a retailer in California when you have customers in both states -- or only have customers in California.

Re: Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

#248

Post by sheiyei »

trueno wrote: post #227
mrpippy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence that NVIDIA has even been trying? My understanding is that Apple didn’t allow 3rd parties to write graphics drivers past 10.13, but they could’ve done a non-graphics driver like this.

i emailed jen sen huang at the very tail end of the maxwell era and p much begged for maxwell support on macos. i didnt expect a reply, especially since i guessed his email based on some "how to find ceo emails" google search result. he actually did reply weeks later and said "i didnt realize people wanted this, my team has added them. go check now". pretty sure that was the last time nvidia drivers came to macos. th…

Imagine 2026 Jensen "OpenClaw is the greatest software ever" Huang responding to emails from mere mortals

Re: Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

#249

Post by ProllyInfamous »

bigyabai wrote: post #182
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If unfamiliar: it is a big deal that AAPL & NVDA again have an official relationship. For well over the previous decade Apple has not allowed newer nVidia GPUs (by not allowing drivers). A seven year old GPU (e.g. VEGA64, RTX1080Ti) can still process more tokens/second than most Apple Silicon (particularly the lower-ends). As discussed elsewhere, Apple MAX/Ultra processors are best-suited for huge models (but are not…

This is not an official relationship, this is a third-party effort by tiny corp with no Nvidia involvement.

From headline title:

>>Apple approves...

This is a big deal.

Re: Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

#250

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #246
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that has nothing to do with the Mac…

Here's the post the GP responded to: > Let me know how I can unbundle Safari from macOS or iOS. > Go ahead, I'll wait. You can't get even macOS from the store without Safari, which is the thing Microsoft was doing, but what Apple does on iOS is far worse than what Microsoft was doing and talking about only macOS is kind of burying the lede.

For MacOS this is just as dumb of an argument as it was for Windows. The web engine is used to render system dialogs. You can easily choose a doffeeent browser on Macs. Chrome has quite a large market share on Macs

What next? Do you want to unbundle the built in drivers?

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