[Success] AMD RX6000 Series working in macOS

[pastrychef]

it seems it's a different story with AMD drivers isn't it ?

Nvidia has never released AMD drivers.

AMD has never released AMD drivers outside of what's included with macOS.

 

[oli.mathieu]

Nvidia has never released AMD drivers.

Obviously

AMD has never released AMD drivers outside of what's included with macOS.

Could AMD start releasing drivers outside macOS. Nothing is stopping them to do so, isn't it ?

 

[pastrychef]

Could AMD start releasing drivers outside macOS. Nothing is stopping them to do so, isn't it ?

Of course not. It's just something they've never done in the past...

 

[dehjomz]

The GPU in the M1 SoC is already a custom Apple design.

Apple used to use Imagination Technologies GPUs in their iPhones and moved to GPUs of their own design years ago.

Agreed.

There's no way Apple can prevent Nvidia from releasing drivers. Apple doesn't sign the drivers. Nvidia just needs a developer account and they sign their own drivers.

If Apple told Nvidia they can't release drivers, would Nvidia say okay and walk away or would they sue Apple for everything they are worth for anti-competition practices?

Does Nvidia need approval from Microsoft to release Windows drivers? Does Nvidia need approval from Linus Torvalds to release Linus drivers?

Only Nvidia can stop Nvidia from releasing drivers.

Why would nvidia sue Apple when Apple doesn’t release any new macs with nvidia cards? There’s not enough benefit to be gained from winning the lawsuit to overcome the costs of lawyers etc.

yes there’s a small market for people who run macOS and want nvidia cards, but nvidia is busy making so many billions of dollars without macOS support, that what’s the point of suing Apple?

 

[pastrychef]

Why would nvidia sue Apple when Apple doesn’t release any new macs with nvidia cards? There’s not enough benefit to be gained from winning the lawsuit to overcome the costs of lawyers etc.

Well, they certainly didn't stop releasing drivers because Apple told them not to. That's just a stupid premise.

 

[dehjomz]

Well, they certainly didn't stop releasing drivers because Apple told them not to. That's just a stupid premise.

Not sure what premise you’re referring to. Obviously if nvidia wanted to create and release graphics kexts for Mojave and Catalina it could...

But I don’t know how distributing the drivers (outside of Apple) would work however with Big Sur, given that the system partition is cryptographically sealed. Could be nvidia just figured that macOS support wasn’t worth the effort, Apple wasn’t going to use any nvidia products in new macs, and it just moved on. It’s still making billions of dollars regardless.

 

[pastrychef]

Not sure what premise you’re referring to. Obviously if nvidia wanted to create and release graphics kexts for Mojave and Catalina it could...

This.

But I don’t know how distributing the drivers (outside of Apple) would work however with Big Sur, given that the system partition is cryptographically sealed. Could be nvidia just figured that macOS support wasn’t worth the effort, Apple wasn’t going to use any nvidia products in new macs, and it just moved on. It’s still making billions of dollars regardless.

Nvidia released their web drivers that supported Maxwell based cards, something that was never included with any Macs. Then, without any explanation, they just stopped releasing drivers when Mojave was released. Nvidia abandoned users who bought their cards for use with macOS. Mojave didn't have any of the changes to kexts that are now in Big Sur.

 

[dehjomz]

This.





Nvidia released their web drivers that supported Maxwell based cards, something that was never included with any Macs. Then, without any explanation, they just stopped releasing drivers when Mojave was released. Nvidia abandoned users who bought their cards for use with macOS. Mojave didn't have any of the changes to kexts that are now in Big Sur.

Pascal too. I still have maxwell and pascal cards that stopped working after 10.13.6.

 

[dehjomz]

Unfortunately, dealing with Apple means that we unfortunately have to expect hardware that still technically works to no longer be supported.

For instance, support for mid 2009 MacBook Pros was abandoned after 10.13.6. However, there are patchers that exist that allowed these “unsupported” devices to boot 10.14 and 10.15. Apple abandoned support, yet the hardware still works with the newer OSes. It’s a frustrating quirk of Apple. This doesn’t happen (with recent hardware) on Windows or Linux.

 

[pastrychef]

Pascal too. I still have maxwell and pascal cards that stopped working after 10.13.6.

I'm still bitter towards Nvidia for the unexplained end of support for my old GTX 1080. I was forced to buy an AMD video card at the height of the previous mining craze.