GTX 550 Ti and OS X Mavericks (10.9)

[JRDN]

I thought that I’d update this post with a solution that worked for me.
I have an EVGA 550 Ti and I was having the same problem that Craigrox has. Drops in performance, high idle temps ~60 degrees C, my fps never got above 30 (I believe this is because OpenCL/gl wasn’t enabled)
I installed the Web Drivers for 10.9 found HERE:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/126146-nvidia-releases-alternate-graphics-drivers-10-9-2-331-01-01f01.html
I used 331.01.01f01

even though this specific driver doesn't mention support for 5xx series cards, I had better performance than the stock Mac driver


and I installed CUDA for Mac from the NVIDIA site
http://www.nvidia.com/object/mac-driver-archive.html


installed the graphics drivers following these instructions on a fresh install of 10.9 as to not have any conflicting drivers:
boot into Mavericks using nv_disable=1
download and install the drivers and reboot
boot Mavericks using nv_disable=1
select nVidia drivers from nav bar (nvidia logo) drop down menu


seems that these are for the system definitions Mac Pro 3.1-5.1
but I found a post to modify the installer for other definitions
http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/...ers-10-9-x-mavericks-found-13.html#post786335


Pictures show before and after. Before where temps would reach ~60C and hold and then after where the temperature rises with load and then drop back to a normal idle ~30C like it should.
Not sure what you guys are getting as scores, would be great if you could also test for comparison's sake.
LUXMARK 2.1 scores: 328
Cinebench Scores: OpenGL 51.89 fps/99.6% Ref. Match

Here is an example of temps BEFORE drivers installed
high ~60˚c idle load, wouldn't go down, no load.


Here is an example of the load AFTER I installed the nvidia drivers:
(Temp higher because it's under load from a game, not idle) but after it is quit, the temperatures go back to a normal idle temperature ~30˚



In recent news, I added a second monitor to my setup and have noticed the GPU idle temps are back to 60˚ idle temp. After some research, using two different monitors on the same fermi card causes it to run full speed. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039530372
fix for win7, unfortunately not mac
http://www.overclock.net/t/756283/guide-fermi-dual-screen-idle-temperatures-fix

This might have been the issue with the default mavericks drivers, forcing the card to run at full speed

 

[Akiritoegc]

Thanks for the info I have the same crazy vcard T_T EVGA GTX 550TI

 

[Craigrox]

JRDN, thank you very much for the reply! I am going to try this out after i've submitted some coursework tonight - don't want to mess up my system before uni deadline hah.

I'll report back with what I find, GPU is currently running at 70C at idle before the drivers are installed.
Note: 334.01.01f01 drivers released -> http://us.download.nvidia.com/Mac/Quadro_Certified/334.01.01f01/WebDriver-334.01.01f01.pkg

 

[woogmoog]

Sry for the noob question. But I've just installed Mavericks on my computer and I also have a GTX550Ti.
I've downloaded both, the web driver and CUDA, and installed the webdriver which is working fine.

My Maverick installation is new and I don't know where I have type to boot using the nv_disable=1
since my OS starts just like windows the only thing it shows differently is that when the boot is found I get a message on my screen boot0= done.

I'm very excited about getting my video card working on Maverick, everything else is working perfectly but my video. I'm missing only the graphic acceleration.

Thank you.

 

[chicago_mike]

You guys are doing WAY better than me!!!

I have both a 550Ti and a 630 and cannot get either to boot at all.

My cpu is an i3 with HD4400
Gigabyte Z87X-UD5H

If I type GraphicsEnabler = Yes...it says no GraphicsEnabler found.

What happens is after the apple screen....the screen goes black.

What can I do? The 4400 intel graphics...kind of work....but there is much flickering on the screen when I move a window around or use Safari.

 

[nutrapi]

I'm at a similar point. Native OS X drivers work great with my gtx 550 ti but nvidia web drivers for 10.9.4 causes black screen on boot (monitor goes to sleep after no "display" device for more than 10 seconds).

I'm trying the old drivers mentioned here right now (installed with pacifist since they won't install on 10.9.4 mavericks at this point) and I'll report back my findings in just a few minutes.

OS X native drivers work OK - just somewhat poor open GL performance (roughly 50% of what I see in Windows).

 

[nutrapi]

I'm at a similar point. Native OS X drivers work great with my gtx 550 ti but nvidia web drivers for 10.9.4 causes black screen on boot (monitor goes to sleep after no "display" device for more than 10 seconds).

I'm trying the old drivers mentioned here right now (installed with pacifist since they won't install on 10.9.4 mavericks at this point) and I'll report back my findings in just a few minutes.

OS X native drivers work OK - just somewhat poor open GL performance (roughly 50% of what I see in Windows).

Old drivers won't work either (with pacifist). New drivers cause no display and "black screen" for monitor to power off. OS X drivers give terrible performance in OpenGL intensive applications.

Sounds like the gtx 550 TI is a piece of crap in OS X these days. According to most benchmarks the gt 740 (gddr5 edition) is better than the gtx 550 ti, is fully supported in OS X according to tonymac's guides, and is at newegg for $99 (as of Aug 16th, 2014) so I may just switch to that.