maarten Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 Hi everyone, (I posted this in the sticky thread on enabling Iris Pro's, but since that thread seems a bit dead, I decided to open another. Please let me know if this is inapropriate.) I am interested in running an eGPU on my Macbook Pro 15 with 750M dGPU and 5200 iGPU. I want to run this in Windows 10 to play games. I am looking at the following hardware setup: Retina Macbook Pro 15 - Late 2013, 16GB RAM, Geforce 750M, Iris Pro Akitio Thunder 2 EVGA Geforce 760 - 2GB Silverstone SFX 450W PSU, fully modular Powered PCI-e riser (I know the barrel-molex adapter is recommended, but I am not comfortable soldering or messing with the wires) Software is as follows: Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.3 Windows 10 x64 The hardware side of things is pretty clear to me at this point, but not the software. I am reading a lot of things about having to disable my 750M to get the eGPU running correctly in Windows. For Windows 10: If I follow everything in this forum, my Macbook will work only for external displays on windows, but not with the internal LCD using Optimus. If I am not mistaken, the install process for Windows would be as follows: - Install rEFInd from OSX using the rEFInd install script (my Bootcamp OS X and Windows 10 seem to be installed via "GPT", not UEFI. can I just install rEFInd over this existing Bootcamp installation?) - Set apple_set_os with rEFInd to enable the iGPU in Windows - Boot into windows 10 and use the gpu-switch from Github to set it to the 5200 iGPU: https://github.com/0xbb/gpu-switch - Reboot? - Disable the dGPU in device manager? (is this necessary to be able to use the eGPU?) - Reboot with eGPU hooked up to external display? Is this how it would work? Or am I missing something? For OS X: Just install this Script via Terminal? https://github.com/goalque/automate-eGPU/blob/master/automate-eGPU.sh Just plug the eGPU into external display? Can I use Optimus and internal Display with my 750M Macbook in OS X? This thread seems to point only to Iris Pro ONLY macbooks: Please advise if I am headed in the right direction on this install process, or am I missing something important? Thank you very much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dschijn Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 Hardware and OSX is correct. Maybe consider a ITX case to put everything in? For Windows I am not sure if it is really that complicated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarten Posted January 27, 2016 Author Share Posted January 27, 2016 Thank you for the quick reply. I am thinking of building my own case for it. 15 hours ago, Dschijn said: For Windows I am not sure if it is really that complicated. Could you explain a bit more? Which steps do you think are not necessary? I read on the forums here that the Macbooks with 750M need to disable the 750M to allow for the eGPU to work properly, due to freeing up PCI-e bandwidth or something. In this case I would disable the 750M and enable the Iris Pro iGPU with the combination of rEFInd (to enable Iris Pro on boot) and Gpu-Switch (to switch to Iris Pro and disable 750M). Is this not necessary? Will it work without these steps? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dschijn Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 I would say you just have to install Windows via Bootcamp, install the Bootcamp driver, reboot and turn on eGPU for the first time, stay with the specific boot order (time to switch on the eGPU), boot into Windows and install the latest Nvidia driver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarten Posted January 27, 2016 Author Share Posted January 27, 2016 1 hour ago, Dschijn said: I would say you just have to install Windows via Bootcamp, install the Bootcamp driver, reboot and turn on eGPU for the first time, stay with the specific boot order (time to switch on the eGPU), boot into Windows and install the latest Nvidia driver. Alright, thanks for your advice. I will try this way first before I start messing with rEFInd and such. Danke schön! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarten Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Hi guys, I have successfully gotten my setup to work with OS X El Capitan, thanks to the Automate_eGPU script. Everything works on external display. I have also successfully gotten the eGPU to work under windows 10 with the latest Nvidia drivers, with external display. (Just by reinstalling Windows 10, installing all bootcamp drivers, and installing the latest Nvidia driver with the eGPU plugged in). Now the last thing I want to do is to enable Optimus with Windows 10, so I can use the internal Macbook display. I have not gotten this to work yet, even with the latest Nvidia Drivers 361.91. - I have installed rEFInd to use the spoof_osx command to enable my Iris 5200 iGPU. - I have installed the latest Intel drivers. Somehow now the display brightness of my internal LCD is stuck in Windows, cannot change it by pressing the buttons on the keyboard. When I try to use GPU-switch to switch to the Iris Pro 5200, I get the following error: "The program can't start because MSVCR120.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem. " So GPU-switch will not run, and I thus can't enable my internal GPU. Does anyone know what could be causing this? Thanks! Edited February 25, 2016 by maarten Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tre87 Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 MSVCR120.dll is a part of the Visual C++ Redistributable 2013. Download it here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784 -> You might need to install both x86 and x64 Try installing those and run the gpu-switch again, then report back to me with the results :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarten Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 12 hours ago, tre87 said: MSVCR120.dll is a part of the Visual C++ Redistributable 2013. Download it here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784 -> You might need to install both x86 and x64 Try installing those and run the gpu-switch again, then report back to me with the results :-) Hi there. That worked! Thank you so much for the suggestion. I did have to install both x86 and x64! Now I am still wondering how to get Optimus and the eGPU working on the internal LCD... - When I switch to the internal GPU (Iris Pro), the rendering on the internal LCD is done by the internal GPU - When I switch to dedicated GPU (750M), the rendering on the LCD is done by that one. How do I get the rendering to be done by the eGPU (GTX 760) on the internal LCD? Do I need to disable the dedicated GPU (750m) in device manager after enabling the internal GPU (Iris pro)? Last time I disabled the dedicated GPU, windows refused to boot. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pizzacat Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) here are the basic steps: reFit/apple_set_os.efi to enable Iris gpu-switch (integrated.bat) to select the iGPU / reboot install the iGPU drivers and run integrated.bat / shutdown -- connect eGPU and boot you should have 3 devices in Device Manager, with the eGPU showing an error icon disable the dGPU in Device Manager and run integrated.bat / shutdown boot with the eGPU connected, check Device Manager for 2 enabled GPUs open Task Manager, there should be a constant 10-15% CPU load from the System process Hibernate (a fix to remove the CPU load) Reboot and the CPU load will be gone, eGPU will work with Optimus! How to shutdown (this is important!) Enable dGPU in device manager gpu-switch dedicated.bat If you get a black screen on reboot, at any point, you probably used gpu-switch and selected a disabled GPU reboot into windows safe mode to fix this Edited February 26, 2016 by pizzacat 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tre87 Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 1 hour ago, maarten said: Hi there. That worked! Thank you so much for the suggestion. I did have to install both x86 and x64! Now I am still wondering how to get Optimus and the eGPU working on the internal LCD... - When I switch to the internal GPU (Iris Pro), the rendering on the internal LCD is done by the internal GPU - When I switch to dedicated GPU (750M), the rendering on the LCD is done by that one. How do I get the rendering to be done by the eGPU (GTX 760) on the internal LCD? Do I need to disable the dedicated GPU (750m) in device manager after enabling the internal GPU (Iris pro)? Last time I disabled the dedicated GPU, windows refused to boot. Thanks! Try disabling the dGPU for starters. Create a restore point before you do it. So that if it fails, you can either boot in to safe mode or use that restore point to recover As I haven't messed around with Optimus alot, I don't know if you can choose the Optimus device within the nvidia settings? Maybe someone else can answer this Did running the the integrated.bat for the gpu-switch fix the problem you had changing the brightness? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarten Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 16 hours ago, pizzacat said: here are the basic steps: reFit/apple_set_os.efi to enable Iris gpu-switch (integrated.bat) to select the iGPU / reboot install the iGPU drivers and run integrated.bat / shutdown -- connect eGPU and boot you should have 3 devices in Device Manager, with the eGPU showing an error icon disable the dGPU in Device Manager and run integrated.bat / shutdown boot with the eGPU connected, check Device Manager for 2 enabled GPUs open Task Manager, there should be a constant 10-15% CPU load from the System process Hibernate (a fix to remove the CPU load) Reboot and the CPU load will be gone, eGPU will work with Optimus! How to shutdown (this is important!) Enable dGPU in device manager gpu-switch dedicated.bat If you get a black screen on reboot, at any point, you probably used gpu-switch and selected a disabled GPU reboot into windows safe mode to fix this I tried the steps you mentioned above, and everything went fine. However, the Iris Pro is still doing the rendering on the internal LCD, instead of the eGPU. The eGPU is connected and seems to run fine. I can't figure out why it is not using Optimus and the eGPU. This is what my device manager looks like: 16 hours ago, tre87 said: Try disabling the dGPU for starters. Create a restore point before you do it. So that if it fails, you can either boot in to safe mode or use that restore point to recover As I haven't messed around with Optimus alot, I don't know if you can choose the Optimus device within the nvidia settings? Maybe someone else can answer this Did running the the integrated.bat for the gpu-switch fix the problem you had changing the brightness? I cannot see any settings in the Nvidia control panel that would allow enabling optimus. Yes, the brightness problem seems to have disappeared when using the gpu-switch. I can now use the keyboard buttons again to change brightness. Thanks for the help guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarten Posted February 29, 2016 Author Share Posted February 29, 2016 There is one setting in Nvidia Control panel called "Multi-display/Mixed-GPU Acceleration" When I turn this to "single display performance mode", it does NOT enable Optimus for me (which I thought it might because of the name). It does seem to use the internal GPU for rendering on the external display hooked up to the eGPU though (which is the OPPOSITE of what you would want). When I turn it on "Multi display performance mode", it renders the external monitor with the eGPU, so that is what I set it on. Does anyone know if/how this setting influences Optimus? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SignatureInferno Posted March 27, 2016 Share Posted March 27, 2016 I have exactly the same setup. However, I am having issues with windows 10. the script in OSX is super helpful I wish they had the same in win10 how do you do this part ? - Install rEFInd from OSX using the rEFInd install script (my Bootcamp OS X and Windows 10 seem to be installed via "GPT", not UEFI. can I just install rEFInd over this existing Bootcamp installation?) - Set apple_set_os with rEFInd to enable the iGPU in Windows If anyone who has done this can share screenshots of the procedure that would be great ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarten Posted March 27, 2016 Author Share Posted March 27, 2016 (edited) 6 hours ago, SignatureInferno said: I have exactly the same setup. However, I am having issues with windows 10. the script in OSX is super helpful I wish they had the same in win10 how do you do this part ? - Install rEFInd from OSX using the rEFInd install script (my Bootcamp OS X and Windows 10 seem to be installed via "GPT", not UEFI. can I just install rEFInd over this existing Bootcamp installation?) - Set apple_set_os with rEFInd to enable the iGPU in Windows If anyone who has done this can share screenshots of the procedure that would be great ! 1. No, You cannot install rEFInd with a Bootcamp installation. This is because rEFInd uses EFI boot mode, but Bootcamp installs Windows via a type of BIOS emulation mode. If you look at MSinfo32 in Windows, you will likely see it is installed via BIOS/LEGACY mode instead of UEFI. You will need to do a clean install of Windows following these instructions: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/3e2ylm/install_windows_81_in_uefi_mode_on_a_mac/ (This works, I have followed these steps myself) 2. Install Refind with the Mac OS install script. http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html#installsh (you also need to disable SIP to be able to install this) http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/sip.html#disable 3. You need to edit the refind.conf file on the EFI partition to set the spoof_osx command for rEFInd. Type the following in Terminal in Mac OS X: - mkdir /Volumes/esp - sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/esp (it will ask for your Mac OS password, 'disk0s1' should be the EFI partition. Type "Diskutil list" in Terminal to see a list of partitions, and identify your EFI partition) - Now you will see the EFI partition on your OSX desktop. Open it in finder. - Go to the folder EFI/refind/refind.conf (edit this file by dragging it to the text editor) - Find the line "spoof_osx_version 10.9" and delete the "#" in front of it (making it active) - Save the refind.conf file - Reboot into Windows through rEFInd. - You will now see your Iris Pro 5200 gpu in Windows. - Install the latest Intel drivers for the Iris Pro. Reboot. 4. Use gpu-switch to activate internal Iris pro GPU on next reboot. Reboot. https://github.com/0xbb/gpu-switch Good luck! Edited March 27, 2016 by maarten Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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