NVIDIA Releases Alternate Graphics Drivers for macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 (387.10.10.10.30)

[izo1]

I continue to experience lag on latest Nvidia web driver, newest Lilu (1.23) and NvidiaGraphicsFixUp (1.25) kexts. My config has i8700k, 1050Ti, 16 GB memory, on MSI Z370-A Pro Motherboard. I even deleted the old kexts in Library/Extension folder as the terminal command "kextstat | grep -i nvidia" told me. After I rebooted, the UI was still laggy.

What should I check? Any configurations changes I need to make? Thank you for all you do!

Known issues with nVidia.

I'm not trying to be a salesperson for AMD, but if you want no lag try buying a RX560 4GB card locally and see how it works. It will work natively in 10.13.4 without any kexts like WhateverGreen and Lilu.

Try to avoid XFX though (It needs a vBIOS update to work, which you can do from DOS or Windows only). Go with Sapphire Pulse OC version if you can.

 

[apple pic]

Speculation, maybe its something to do with the dual cards?

It was the dual cards! Took the second one out and everything works (water test and Cinebench OpenGL).
Glad to finally figure out what the problem was, but sad I can't use both cards 'cause I use all the CUDA cores for rendering purposes
Here are the OpenGL Extensions Viewer test results before and after:

DUAL CARDS

SINGLE CARD

 

[vulgo]

Well, I could install driver 387.10.10.10.30.103 and using latest Lilu and NvidiaFix texts with no issues. But now, seems if I try to boot with SIP enabled (0x00), it hangs ,showing the rotating circle and not starting MacOS. Do you know if I can install CUDA driver with SIP disabled?

Install the drivers with SIP enabled (use the NVIDIA installer), or boot with SIP enabled and do 'touch /Library/Extensions' + reboot.

On 10.13.x extensions are loaded differently when SIP is enabled and macOS does not stage third-party GPU bundles except during driver installation when SIP is enabled (or rebuilding caches with SIP enabled + rebooting with SIP still enabled). webdriver.sh has workarounds based on previous configuration (i.e. will update bundles if they already exist, or always updates them when STAGE_BUNDLES=1 is set in settings.conf).

• nvidia-update breaks driver use with SIP enabled if you use it when SIP is disabled.
• NVIDIA's installer breaks driver use with SIP enabled or can break booting altogether if you use it when SIP is enabled/disabled.

Maybe running 'kextcache -clear-staging', deleting the contents of '/Library/GPUBundles' and always using the same SIP setting (disabled) is easier.

macOS ignores staged bundles when SIP is disabled but the NVIDIA driver seems hardcoded to use the staged path if the files exist for some unknown purpose.

Apple sources: kext_tools-502.30.2.tar.gz

 

[vulgo]

It was the dual cards! Took the second one out and everything works (water test and Cinebench OpenGL).
Glad to finally figure out what the problem was, but sad I can't use both cards 'cause I use all the CUDA cores for rendering purposes

Apple broke (or sabotaged) eGPU support for NVIDIA in 10.13.4 - could be related to that. If it works on dual cards WITHOUT NvidiaGraphicsFixup (but with lag) could be related to v1.2.5 changes.

 

[AZPro]

Known issues with nVidia.

I'm not trying to be a salesperson for AMD, but if you want no lag try buying a RX560 4GB card locally and see how it works. It will work natively in 10.13.4 without any kexts like WhateverGreen and Lilu.

Try to avoid XFX though (It needs a vBIOS update to work, which you can do from DOS or Windows only). Go with Sapphire Pulse OC version if you can.

This does not answer my question; I do not intend to buy AMD GPU. I can simply revert back to .106 version, but I want to understand how other people no longer experience lag while I do...even with similar configurations. My gut says it has something to do with kexts, config.plist file or my method of getting the drivers via the Benjamin.dobell nvidia-update script. Suggestions are greatly appreciated, thank you.

 

[armut2]

You need maybe to check S/L/E and L/E folders. Could be that there are some old previous kexts which are blocking new kexts...

 

[AZPro]

I might... I see many kexts in Library/Extensions folder. May I ask what kexts might override newer ones? I don’t have Lilu or NvidiaGraphicsFixUp in the folder, only in EFI.

 

[armut2]

As far I know, SLE and LE has higher priority than kexts other folder. If nvidiagraphicsfixup 1.2.4 is in SLE or LE, system will grep this kext instead of 1.2.5 in others folder.

 

[AZPro]

I believe so, that’s what Terminal says with grep command. I’ll check later and share the list of kexts I have. Thank you for the suggestions!

 

[vulgo]

As far I know, SLE and LE has higher priority than kexts other folder. If nvidiagraphicsfixup 1.2.4 is in SLE or LE, system will grep this kext instead of 1.2.5 in others folder.

S/L/E is for Apple's kext. Kexts are prioritised by version number for inclusion in the cache. You shouldn't being injecting kexts that are already in the cache.