100 % Passive cooled Custom Mac

[xmark]

you can install the web drivers in Mojave, Apple doesn’t stop it the problem is they don’t work.

Agree. When I said "because they can ... prevent installation" I didn't mean they actually do ... it was more like they have the power to do various things, including legal actions which I assume they haven't taken either.

in all likelihood it rather looks as if an agreement or licence has ended after a period of time

Fair comment. I can't quite see why Nvidia would fail to secure whatever agreement is necessary because they only lose if they can't sell to any Apple/Hackintosh customers. So it seems Apple asked too much or in some other way is punishing Nvidia. Blaming Nvida solely for this situation seems wrong to me. Blaming Apple OTOH feels natural

 

[Adrian B]

Apple does have drivers for some Nvidia hardware in macOS, these have had updates over a prolonged period. Apple make the hardware and the OS. This isn't the same for PC hardware and Linux/Microsoft where driver support is the sole responsibility of GPU manufacturers.

Apple do have a closed OS where more and more is regulated by Apple and must conform to Apple/macOS requirements for security, but that doesn't prevent Nvidia from participating in the Apple Developer program and presenting Nvidia drivers to Apple. Perhaps if they did engage with the process then users might get to use Nvidia hardware...

 

[pastrychef]

Fair comment. I can't quite see why Nvidia would fail to secure whatever agreement is necessary because they only lose if they can't sell to any Apple/Hackintosh customers. So it seems Apple asked too much or in some other way is punishing Nvidia. Blaming Nvida solely for this situation seems wrong to me. Blaming Apple OTOH feels natural

Nvidia doesn't have to secure any agreement or contract to release web drivers on their own.

An agreement only needs to be reached for Apple to include Nvidia drivers with macOS as standard.

Why does blaming Apple feel natural?

Apple has never released web drivers. That has always been Nvidia. Now they've stopped. What does Apple have to do with that?

 

[xmark]

That has always been Nvidia. No they've stopped.

Why did they stop then?

 

[pastrychef]

Why did they stop then?

My best guess is that they haven't been able to produce reliable Metal compliant drivers. They still release High Sierra drivers. But those drivers just aren't good enough for Mojave. If you've ever tried to force the High Sierra web drivers to load in Mojave, you know how poorly Mojave runs with them.

 

[xmark]

My best guess is that they haven't been able to produce reliable Metal compliant drivers.

Are you sure? We're talking about a company whose core business is graphics cards whose market cap is 115 US Billion which is 4xAMD's. AMD can write drivers for Mojave but your guess is that Nvidia cannot?

Seems to me the eGpu business is huge and Nvidia would not want to lose that. So the cost of compliance with Apple would have to be enormous to make it not worth Nvidia's time to get the drivers right. I don't really think so.

I personally think Apple is executing a corporate grievance against Nvidia for previous failures. Apple is not a normal company, pretty much everyone agrees that.

I have no evidence, but the accounts I've already linked make that seem plausible. Far more plausible than saying a 115 US Billion graphics company can't write drivers. Not saying you are wrong, but I've read no narrative anywhere supporting your thesis.

 

[pastrychef]

Are you sure? We're talking about a company whose core business is graphics cards whose market cap is 115 US Billion which is 4xAMD's. AMD can write drivers from Mojave but your guess is that Nvidia cannot?

Seems to me the eGpu business is huge and Nvidia would not want to lose that. So the cost of compliance with Apple would have to be enormous to make it not worth Nvidia's time to get the drivers right. I don't really think so.

I personally think Apple is executing a corporate grievance against Nvidia for previous failures. Apple is not a normal company, pretty much everyone agrees that.

I have no evidence, but the accounts I've already linked make that seem plausible. Far more plausible than saying a 115 US Billion graphics company can't write drivers. Not saying you are wrong, but I've read no narrative anywhere supporting your thesis.

Well, the $115B market cap Nvidia has also not been able to produce 7nm GPUs while AMD, which is 4x smaller, can...

I don't see how not releasing Mojave drivers will help Nvidia with eGPU.

I don't doubt that Apple has grievances with Nvidia but that still doesn't give Apple any influence over what Nvidia does. For Ford hated Goodyear, does that stop Goodyear from selling tires that will work on Fords?

Last time I checked, Nvidia was still trying to hire coders for macOS drivers...

 

[Adrian B]

Are you sure? We're talking about a company whose core business is graphics cards whose market cap is 115 US Billion which is 4xAMD's. AMD can write drivers for Mojave but your guess is that Nvidia cannot?

Actually check out what Nvidia does in 2019 - it isn't the same as what they were doing in 2009

The following are all big business for Nvidia and far more profitable than the gaming sector alone;
Autonomous machines
Deep Learning & AI
Healthcare
Self Driving Cars
https://www.nvidia.com

Seems to me the eGpu business is huge and Nvidia would not want to lose that. So the cost of compliance with Apple would have to be enormous to make it not worth Nvidia's time to get the drivers right. I don't really think so.

eGPU is still very niche. Phones and tablets have been the biggest growth market for years. Intel are short of 14NM silicon for processors and even AMD is having problems getting enough 7NM

I personally think Apple is executing a corporate grievance against Nvidia for previous failures. Apple is not a normal company, pretty much everyone agrees that.

I don't doubt that there is still some bad blood. Business is very people focused - Wind up the wrong folk and it isn't going to be easy to sort out without concerted efforts. I don't think that many Tech giants are normal companies. Google, facebook, Microsoft, Nvidia, add in a few internet suppliers for good measure!

I have no evidence, but the accounts I've already linked make that seem plausible. Far more plausible than saying a 115 US Billion graphics company can't write drivers. Not saying you are wrong, but I've read no narrative anywhere supporting your thesis.

Yet we have never seen the great Nvidia media and marketing machine talk about, show off or promote Nvidia products using Metal or Metal 2 - If you can find anything positive here, I would love to see it because Nvidia has remained very tight lipped about any Metal support at all.

I wonder if Nvidia have more than two people that write/change existing drivers to conform to new build version of macOS Sierra/High Sierra now. There isn't any work for them to do so they probably get pulled off other projects for 5-10 minutes to make some quick 'update' changes.

 

[xmark]

Well, the $115B market cap Nvidia has also not been able to produce 7nm GPUs while AMD, which is 4x smaller, can...

Because it doesn't need to, apparently. But it needs to release 10.14 drivers or it loses money & goodwill.

Say Ford hated Goodyear, does that stop Goodyear from selling tires that will work on Fords?

Incorrect analogy. We're talking about components that require integration with the host system not chunks of rubber.

Choose a better analogy, maybe Ford's ECU (MacOS) and an EFI component supplier (Nvidia). I have no idea if open systems in ECU but for the analogy to be valid we can assume closed system. That is the whole point. Apple (Ford) has the keys to the car here, no one else.

Last time I checked, Nvidia was still trying to hire coders for macOS drivers...

No idea. Either way I personally don't think a 100B company would lie on its corporate website blaming another company for its own failings. If staff shortage is the problem, the website would say "drivers are coming". It doesn't though.

The following are all big business for Nvidia and far more profitable than the gaming sector alone

Okay, interesting. Given the size of the company I think it can still maintain its core competencies, but maybe not. In which case, the website message is a lie. I don't think so, myself.

I wonder if Nvidia have more than two people that write/change existing drivers to conform to new build version of macOS Sierra/High Sierra now. There isn't any work for them to do so they probably get pulled off other projects for 5-10 minutes to make some quick 'update' changes.

Maybe. More speculation though. What is not speculation is the message on the website and the lack of drivers for Mojave.

Fortunately for me, I use the igpu. Why am I even arguing? I have zero investment in the outcome!

 

[pastrychef]

Because it doesn't need to, apparently. But it needs to release 10.14 drivers or it loses money & goodwill.



Incorrect analogy. We're talking about components that require integration with the host system not chunks of rubber.

Choose a better analogy, maybe Ford's ECU (MacOS) and an EFI component supplier (Nvidia). I have no idea if open systems in ECU but for the analogy to be valid we can assume closed system. That is the whole point. Apple (Ford) has the keys to the car here, no one else.



No idea. Either way I personally don't think a 100B company would lie on its corporate website blaming another company for its own failings. If staff shortage is the problem, the website would say "drivers are coming". It doesn't though.



Okay, interesting. Given the size of the company I think it can still maintain its core competencies, but maybe not. In which case, the website message is a lie. I don't think so, myself.



Maybe. More speculation though. What is not speculation is the message on the website and the lack of drivers for Mojave.

Fortunately for me, I use the igpu. Why am I even arguing? I have zero investment in the outcome!

Doesn't need to?!? I guess they don't need to release Mojave drivers either. Everyone needs to shrink die sizes. The only reason why Nvidia hasn't done so yet is because they haven't been able to. The same goes for Intel.

Fine, Ford can't stop someone like Edelbrock from releasing an aftermarket fuel injection system any more than Apple can stop Nvidia from releasing video cards (and drivers) for Macs. Any attempt to do so would be anti-competitive.

Well, if you are going to base what you believe on how high each company's market cap is, the $937B Apple said:


Core competencies? The $110B Nvidia couldn't fix a UI lag that was introduced with their web drivers for macOS 10.13.0 until 10.13.3 was released. Even then, the UI was never as smooth when using Nvidia cards when compared to IGPU or AMD GPUs. I would not be surprised at all if it turns out that all of this was indeed due to them not having Metal drivers ready. They have a history of failure when it comes to macOS drivers.