cascascas

Hey man, 

 

Your OS is still too old for Kepler. You need Yosemite (10.9) or Mavericks (10.10).

@Dschijn UPDATE: I upgraded to Windows 10 and I have zero issues with lag / freezing. Smooth for the last 2 hours. I'm guessing it was win 8.1 background process of some sort causing this hiccup.

@Dschijn -- ok, it must be the GPU since the CPU seems very stable and fans are not maxed out. I'll monitor and see where things are getting hung up.

It's such a bizarre hang-up -- because neither AI or other player freeze up! I'll report back with more info.

Thanks @Dschijn -- turns out, I was under-volting with custom values rather than choosing from the dropdown (which I'm assuming are processor preferred voltages). No crashing with choosing a preset voltage from the dropdown!

I played last night @30x (down from 36x) and -55 voltage. The hiccups were fewer and not as bad but they still happened. I'm going to try 28x and -75 voltage tonight and see if it's better.

UPDATE: The lower settings seems to cause worse lag / input spikes. It's a mystery!

@Dschijn

Well, I've just recently started to play Star Wars Battlefront and I'm getting that same weird hiccup! Even throttled down to max 3ghz (30x) with Intel XTU it's causing issues. Almost no matter what voltage I try Windows locks up almost instantly or shortly after adjusting so I have not messed with voltage.

It's so weird in Battlefront / Battlefield because it's only my own character that gets "stuck" or frozen. It's like lag teleport but I can't move from my spot for about 15 seconds. I can turn the mouse 360 and shoot but not move. All other multiplayer characters are all moving perfectly --- it's not the entire game that hiccups just my character / vehicle.

Thoughts?

Almost as if the keyboard driver is wigging out but that seems far-fetched.

@Dschijn Lowering my CPU boost clock to 3ghz with Intel XTU solved the hiccups. Great suggestion! Seems a little silly that this would not be solved by intel. In 2015 seems the CPU should be smart enough to clock itself down if it's lagging!

Lowering the voltage, however, made my system unstable (had some lockups). But simple under clocking worked a charm and I notice zero performance lag whatsoever. Also the laptop fans stay a bit quieter

Thanks Again!

reptilianbrain said:

Hi, wanted to check in - how is the build?

@Dschijn

Here's my update:

I've halted OS X efforts because it's my work environment and, although it does mostly work, it's still too experimental for me. On Windows, I'm still rocking the 980 Ti and it's been great. However (and I'm still investigating this), lately I've been getting huge lag spikes maybe...every 10minutes while gaming. It seems to happen more when I'm playing something that very taxing on the GPU (Battlefront Beta, Battlefield 4 etc). I'll get these hangups for about 20 seconds (not completely frozen, I'm just unable to walk / act but I can see other players moving freely). My hunch is this is due to an updated NVIDIA driver causing a weird graphics and networking hang.

Has anyone else had these kinds of issues on TB2 (rMBP)? Hoping it's driver related.

Wanted to update the thread:

For the last few weeks using the eGPU setup I've had almost 100% stability. I can boot back and forth between Win 8.1 and OX 10.10.4 mostly seamlessly (sometimes stuck at black boot). But once I'm inside an OS It's pretty amazing. Every once in a while on Win 8.1 I get an NVIDIA driver fail but it recovers in a second or two. But this is rare and only under extremely heavy load, perhaps?

Aside from the minor quirks it's insanely awesome and I now am regularly on eGPU even in OS X. The GPU boost in pro apps is especially noticeable. Adobe and Apple pro apps fly. And of course games in both OS is night and day.

Thanks for the crew in this thread for all the advice.

Although some like to game on OS X, I prefer to have work / play totally separate. I run various design / 3D / video post apps on OS X and them game on the dark side (win). It's currently working out really well with your script @goalque. I need more data to give accurate success rates for automatic boot while plugged but I would say right now it feels like 50% success to not hang at boot. Which is 100% better than 0% chance I was having while plugged in before - but once I'm past boot screen it's 100% success rate for OS X to be seamless on eGPU with total stability.

Really amazing to have this 980 Ti screaming on the MacBook Pro. Hopefully TB3 will have more support from various parties.

Cheers!

UPDATE 4: Using mirroring as a solution seems to cut performance down by 30-40% and causing external display to run at 30hz instead of 60hz (just guessing by the lag in UI render). I suppose I'll have to live with the laptop display being on and extended even though I sits behind my external display.

I think i'm learning some of the lessons others already have on this forum

UPDATE 3: booting eGPU to OS X with macbook lid closed (means internal LCD never posts or never recognized) is causing the crashing and hangups in all my pro apps and games. It's like they are all confused about what to do But they run fine if internal LCD posts as an extended screen.

Since I primarily want to work in single display mode (I mount my MBP behind the 30" Apple Display) my solution is to leave the macbook lid open slightly and change OS X display prefs to mirroring both displays. No more stray UI elements and wasted GPU resources.

Most likely the background process hasn't done its job ready when you booted again. The automatic mode is still experimental and not ready. You can always disable that -a mode by executing the script with -m parameter. Then switch back to -a mode if you like to get it working on OS X. If you run with -m and -a again, does it work? When the OS X gives the login screen, does it appear on the internal or external screen?

Yes, running -m and -a again works. It loads the login screen on the External screen. To my surprise, the internal screen is active as a second display (extended). Before your script I would get a frozen, distorted image with OS X load bar and the internal screen was locked (but still powered on) not recognized by OS X. Now It's active but sometimes goes black when I try to run, say, Unigen Heaven on internal. And comes back a live after I close unigen heaven. trying to figure out what's actually powering the internal screen - - total mystery. I can, however detect (with gfxcardstatus) the macbook GPU's switching when certain apps are opened etc.

Also interesting, when closing the macbook pro lid the internal LCD powers off but OS X still recognizes it as active and app windows can still be moved over. It's probably addressed in this forum somewhere (actively looking) but I'm trying to find a way to disable the internal screen when lid is closed.

Right now it seems like -m is the most stable (as you stated) way for me to boot into both OS X and Win 8.1 but I have just successfully done both!

Attaching some screens in case they are helpful.

Thank you sir!

- - - Updated - - -

I'm going to keep trying thing to repair internal LCD at minimum.

quick update: this fixed itself. I'd really like to find out why this was happening (it's happened two times now on two different installs of 10.10.4 and the first time I couldn't get it to go away). So in case it happens again I have a way to repair it.

- - - Updated - - -

quick update: Simple and stupid: just boot with lid closed and internal LCD never posts. Problem solved.

Ok - mixed news!

First time I ran script with -a parameter it was magic:

- restarted with plugged, went straight to OSX and external display with eGPU insta-good.

- I shutdown

- booted plugged again

- no chime, just black screen (cpu fans maxed)

- I booted again, plugged, (hold option) selected Yosemite

- froze on boot select (cpu fans maxed)

- Booted again (not plugged) just to get back to OS X

- Unplugged: starting halfway through load bar, everything gets 50% scale and runs reeeeeaaly slow like no GPU acceleration at all. Screen refrseshes are laggy and performance is unbearable... like 6-10 fps constant. You can see my previous reply in this thread where I explain this problem in more detail. OSX thinks the internal LCD is a 47-inch TV

Also, since running in -a mode I can't boot into Win 8.1 any more

I'm going to keep trying thing to repair internal LCD at minimum.

Agreed - The driver seems to switch back to default after a series of hard power-downs on the MBP when it hangs at boot.

Yes, my apologies, all credit to you as the script creator and I had only found out about the script because Netstor sent it to me (last week). Now I will channel everything through you. I've sent back the NA211TB and only working from the Akitio. There were too many boot problems with the multi-slot device.

Here's the output when i run latest script with -skipdriver

[FONT=Menlo]Current OS X[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo] 10.10.4 14E46[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo]Previous OS X[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo] [not found][/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo]Latest installed web driver[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo] Version: 346.01.03f01[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo] Source: 3rd Party[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo] Install Date: 7/18/15, 8:52 AM[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo]Checking IOPCITunnelCompatible keys...[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo]IOPCITunnelCompatible mods are valid.[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo]Mac board-id found.[/FONT]
[FONT=Menlo]All ready. Please restart the Mac.[/FONT]

- - - Updated - - -

Quote

Something is wrong if you have to manually switch. Netstor's guide doesn't work for you as you have the 750M model. You also have to run the script with [-a]

Ahhhh. I don't know how to do this, but currently reading your Main script thread right now! Again, many thanks for all your effort on this! Once I'm less-ignorant on this topic I would love to offer any help testing 750m further.

*Sometimes* (maybe 10% of the time) I can get OS X to post and I get video on both the external display from Akitio AND internal LCD display. It loads OS X to login screen briefly, then locks up and all goes black and hangs before I can do anything.

All very odd behavior but I sense it's the gmux trying to sort things out and then gives up.

Yes, I realize I can't run default OS X driver, was just trying to troubleshoot. Often times it seems OS X returns itself to the default driver and I have to manually switch it back to web driver.

Here's the script instructions I've been using with Version 0.9.3 (netstor actually provided this to me when I was using the NA211TB previously)

Automatic eGPU Configuration Guide.pdf

@Dschijn - Yes, detects in OS X when plugging after boot (screenshots). And this is with NVIDIA web driver enabled.

And, I have no problems booting into windows.

@goalque @Dschijn I'm having a very bizarre situation where I can't even get the macbook pro (750m model) to boot to OS X. No matter what order I boot in I get a complete hangup on boot and the "no chime" issue. If I remove the eGPU TB cable i start getting Kernel Panics until i PRAM reset....but still cannot boot with eGPU in OS X!

Tried researching the forums but can't find anything specific.

@Dschijn Yessir - display connected to eGPU (DVI) and I get active display. Internal LCD is disabled (actually has a permanent OS load bar that's frozen, but I think this is normal).

@goalque

After a fresh re-install of Yosemite (10.10.4) I ran your most excellent script, installed CUDA and bam, everything booted perfectly. I realized I had a lot of weird system file changes on the older OS from running various development servers locally. Almost no way to trace the problem but it was surely my system.

However, it seems as though most apps that use GPU acceleration (or maybe Core Animation?) in OS X are having a hard time opening and running with the new GPU. Almost all of these apps have the same way (by never full opening, hanging at start with beachball, or totally locking up): Photos app, Photoshop, After Affects, Premier, Final Cut Pro X, Even Unigen Heaven beachballs when i try to run the bench.

Any experience with this?

Solutions I've already tried:

• repair disk permissions

• restart / shutdown / reboot

OS X is certainly running off the eGPU, 6Gb NVIDIA Graphics device detected and posting video to my 30" Cinema Display.

Thanks and hope you are having a great weekend!

@goalque :I think i'll give it another shot over the weekend once I have a nice clean backup image of my system before I do it!

@goalque

I've already modded my Akitio (opened it etc) so I'm pretty locked in. Unsure what was diff about my system. Thank you for the offer to help! Really appreciated.

I ended up having to re-install OS X because of the issue I was having and, for now, deciding to only eGPU on windows for gaming. Though, in the future I'd love to use it in all my pro apps on OS X.

@Dschijn

10988 Firestrike (not overclocked) It's a reference design from MSI.

- - - Updated - - -

@goalque

I saw that you had a solution for OS X but I also need to have it working for Windows 8.1 as well. The Akitio is working on both at the moment so I think I'm going to send the NA211TB back and build a small case for the akitio setup. I could do a few tests for you before I send it back if you'd like. Let me know.

- - - Updated - - -

Hmm... can anyone help me with this weird issue:

I booted up the rMBP (not plugged into the Akitio, just by itself) into OS X and during the load bar it all of a sudden shrinks by 2x (very small) and the whole OS loads extremely slowly and is 2x scaled down. Really really laggy and unusable. I've tried all of the following with no changes results:

- repair permissions (both from recovery volume and from boot volume)

- reset PRAM

- reset SMC

- changed video driver back and forth from OSX to NVIDIA web driver via the web driver tool.

OS X is virtually unusable this way. And it won't push signal to any external display.

Interestingly, OS X thinks my primary display (laptop display) is a 47-inch screen: https://www.dropbox.com/s/i4dx7l76npvj5kx/Screenshot%202015-07-13%2012.32.11.png?dl=0

Also, laptop will not go to sleep when the lid is closed. Display stays active.

I wanted to add myself to the list of successful eGPU users. Also, I haven't yet seen any GTX 980 Ti reports! Thank you to all who have committed to posting helpful info and helping other users on this forum. I've been running the 980 Ti on my Akitio Thunder2 for the last 48 hours and it's been nearly flawless and INSANE performance above my 750m, as expected.

 

Notebook

 

2013 15" Macbook Pro GT750M

i7-4960HQ @ 2.6Ghz

16GB RAM,  1TB SSD

Win8.1 + OSX 10.10

 

eGPU gear

 

Akitio Thunder2 eGPU enclosure

MSI GTX980 Ti reference

 

 

Also, in terms of my physical setup, I have some pictures (still in progress cleaning it up). I ended up putting the whole rig inside a built in cabinet in our home office. I used a Noctua fan and installed it into the cabinet to keep constant airflow. I also house a 5-drive RAID in this cabinet so it keeps everything cool. A nice out of sight setup with just the thunderbolt cable and a hidden DVI cable. Need to paint and clean up some but it's working out well. I'd say I can boot with the card successfully about 75% of the time.. 25% of the time I get stuck at black screen. A mild inconvenience.

 

 

The short version is that I tried the NA211TB because of the all-in-one solution and it's really nice design. But I could never get it to operate because the 750m rMBP doesn't play well with chassis that have multiple slots (PCIe multiplexer conflicts with Macbook's firmware). Would just boot to black and never POST with either OS (yes I've used goalque's awesome, amazing latest script but alas...)

 

Here's 3DMark benches (no overclock on the card)

 

Firestrike, 980 Ti vs 750m : http://i.imgur.com/QcKOoH0.png

Sky Diver, 980 Ti vs 750m : http://i.imgur.com/GTOq71A.png

 

3dmark13-FS.GPU=15687

 

ps. small issues I've had:

 

- on a fresh startup I have wait until boot to boot select screen to plug into the Akitio. Wait 10 seconds before plugging in TB cable then quickly select an OS (if I wait too long it locks up)

 

- on Win 8.1 occasionally (probably only after 2 hours of straight gaming) I'll get a very brief display lockup and windows tells me the driver had failed and then almost immediately recovered (is this a dirty power issue? Or drivers? I'm using latest NVIDIA drivers) I'm running a CX600 Power supply but I don't have amazing soldering skills!

 

- first few times I booted into OS X nearly all pro apps would hang and not successfully open (using latest web driver) But that since has been resolved and everything is good. No change to the system (?)