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Better stick to 60Hz. Nvidia says it’s BETA support for dGPU Macs. I’ve noticed sluggishness especially on the screen edge area. “Displays have separate spaces” setting may help. Apple is making changes in core animation, it will be all Metal graphics.

The information under displays tab may be incorrect, especially when you hot-plug the eGPU monitor. Set the external monitor as primary and type “system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType” to see up-to-date graphics/displays. Note that it depends on the app how compatible it is with your eGPU.

Interesting information: Thunderbolt external graphics (e-GFX) policies - e-GFX must support hot plug & surprise removal - Expansion chassis certification does not equal e-GFX validation - Initially, e-GFX must be certified & validated with target computers - e-GFX support for horizontal solutions is planned, but still under investigation https://thunderbolttechnology.net/developers/training-tb3

The only danger is malicious software if you keep it disabled. It’s your choice if you want to re-enable the SIP after running the script. You can always check the status by typing “csrutil status”. To enable/disable SIP, you must start your Mac from recovery (Command+R).

Yes, the System Integrity Protection must be disabled in order to run the script. It’s Apple’s security layer and recommended to keep enabled. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204899 Not even “sudo touch” is permitted in the /System directory. Fortunately, the modified kexts will be loaded with signature validation errors even if SIP is re-enabled, and those 3rd party kexts that are signed by NVIDIA can be modified in SIP enabled mode. When I find time, I’ll investigate possibilities for more simplified installation procedure on OS X El Capitan.

AMD drivers are built-in. Fiji architecture support in OS X is not yet ready. More powerful PSU is not necessary. The included 300W PSU with two 8-pins is enough for even a 30cm triple-fan R9 390. The power consumption stays below 250W in OS X Valley benchmark. One drawback is that R9 390 doesn’t fully support display hot swapping on OS X (a bit flickering screen), but ok if connected at startup.

@anilpani also reported earlier that EVGA GTX 750 Ti does not work properly with the AKiTiO for some reason. I own a Gigabyte model with a 6-pin power connector and it was stable with the ATX PSU, so maybe it’s due to the fact that your model counts on only the slot power (electrically x4). The standard is 75W and AKiTiO can handle that: [Thunder2 PCIe Box] What's the maximum power output through the PCIe slot? | AKiTiO but GTX 750Ti’s power peaks may exceed 75W without the 6-pin and result in instability. This is my best guess.

Not a script issue. We’ve seen instability with that GPU (here, here and here). I suppose 10.11.1. Uninstall, run the v0.9.6 and let me know if still the same. Yes.

Builds 15C27e and 15C31f confirmed. Use -url option.

@level5wizard: Version 0.9.6 is not changed, it’s the same link. I updated the first post.

The BootROM firmware I was talking about is inside the Mac, on the logic board. You can see the EFI boot screen through the built-in GPU only, such as the HD 3000 of the 2011 Mac mini. The startup manager will appear via the built-in HDMI interface, and the second eGPU (any interface) monitor will stay black until the login screen appears. If you use your MBP in clamshell mode with an external monitor which is connected to the built-in display interface, restart the Mac, keep external keyboard's Option key down, you will see the boot screen as well. The eGPU monitor stays black at an early stage. Nothing to do with whether it is pre-2013 or not. Apple provides firmware updates once in a while, meaning that the BootROM will be overwritten with a newer version. I just wanted to point out that it’s possible in theory to have a boot screen on the eGPU monitor without flashing the eGPU, but not in a way that “startup manager” part of the boot screen would appear when you keep Option key down (or the EFI program has to trigger that somehow).

I’ll explain in a nutshell, @Dschijn’s answer is mostly correct. Generally GPU has to be EFI flashed in order to get a boot screen. Apple calls it a “Startup Manager”, which is built into the BootROM firmware. When you turn on the Mac, the BootROM initializes hardware and also checks if startup keys have been pressed. Boot.efi is not yet loaded at this first stage. Instead, the system is in the EFI runtime environment, and within this state, it’s possible to access hardware and run EFI programs. When you see the logo of Apple, it means that boot.efi is activated and OS X will be loaded. The daemon process of the automate-eGPU.sh starts its job just before you see the login screen. You can’t do anything earlier by the script or any other app in the OS X. The choice that remains is an EFI program. Apple’s boot loader is a good example of EFI binary. EFI is a very rich environment and documented by Intel. However, the bad news is that EFI development kits are not easy to install on OS X platform, but it's possible to build programs on the Linux. Would it be possible to have a screen output with a regular PC eGPU before the OS X has been loaded? Yes, but not an easy task. However, as Startup Manager is programmed into BootROM, I guess the only way to get that visible on the eGPU monitor is to flash the eGPU. This is not documented and requires reverse engineering approach. Since all the Thunderbolt Macs show up the boot screen through the iGPU/dGPU, there is no real need to flash eGPUs.

@anilpani: See my post here. A couple of useful commands for troubleshooting. Warning! Googling some Lenovo’s 120W AC adapters, I saw 19.5V. If that’s true, power off your system immediately. AKiTiO accepts only 12V input. Your setup might be damaged.

The best contribution comes from the small things. It’s your input. I greatly enjoy doing external GPU research on the Mac platform - a fervor which rewards itself

A bunch more balls... https://metalgl.com

I tested Metal with a GTX 780 on OS X 10.11.1 and built-in Nvidia drivers (-skipdriver option) The device is in the list, but debugging supportsFeatureSet(MTLFeatureSet.OSX_GPUFamily1_v1) gives EXC_BAD_ACCESS… with the web driver it works.

Error code 43: “This circumstance can occur if the device hardware fails or if the device driver fails.” and something about the NVDA: rmStart failed https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3720583?start=0&tstart=0 You may have a faulty GPU. I would confirm functionality on the PC. If works, your last options are NVRAM reset and erase + reinstall.

Thanks. Does your eGPU work on Windows? That would rule out a faulty GPU and power issue. Any difference if you start the Mac without an external monitor? Driver "NVDAStartup" needs "IOPCITunnelCompatible" key in plist message is ok, since you are on El Capitan. rmStart function in NVDAResmanWeb.kext failed. Interestingly, correct kexts are loaded.

@chrise: Thanks for the details. How is your eGPU powered? “NVIDIA Chip Model” is detected so your “Graphics/Displays” screenshot is not up to date. Press Command + R to refresh the view. To see what has happened since the previous startup (eGPU plugged), type the following: syslog -B -F '$Time $(Sender): $Message' | grep NVDA and if the kexts are loaded or not: kextstat -l | grep NVDA

Weird. Did you try the [-a] mode? It looks like you have no eGPU connected at all after restart. You can run the script, but no eGPU visible. Let’s see if it’s a hardware issue… can you give the output of these Terminal commands (eGPU connected): system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType system_profiler SPThunderboltDataType

No need to wear out TB ports if you read my previous post. Maybe it can be automated on Windows side as well. If you happen to have a stable AMD card, you won’t see ACPI BIOS errors on Windows 10. Windows 10 has built-in AMD drivers which are very eGPU friendly. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence.

@oogie: I will repeat my question, did you get better success rate than 60% on Windows by using the method I described? Since with 2015 MBPs it should work nearly 100%.

@Micetromatic: sudo ./automate-eGPU.sh -a and restart.

I guess the final support comes along with the new Mac hardware. R9 already gives screen output 3440x1440@60Hz, look here. No new news regarding OpenGL acceleration, but you can test if Metal is supported: curl -o ~/Desktop/metaltest.swift https://raw.githubusercontent.com/goalque/automate-eGPU/master/metaltest.swift cd ~/Desktop xcrun swiftc -o metaltest metaltest.swift ./metaltest And OpenCL, sudo ./automate-eGPU.sh -clpeak

@thekobi: Happened to me too a couple of times. Check your Internet connection and try again. I should add url existence check there.