[Working] El Cap. 6700k dual 980ti z170x ud5 th dual boot

[Mushroomushup]

Hello there,

6 months long lurker, but since is community is so awesome, I thought I had to share the work.

Long story short. I needed a max powerful station working in video diffusion (mapping etc.). Lot of power, a great lot of video output for the osx software exclusives (millumin, modul8, madmapper, coge etc..) and windows to render using SLI, and other windows software exclusives (Smode synth, VVVV, GrandMa on pc, Resolume etc.)

So here is the complete rig :

Gigabyte z170x UD5 TH
i7 6700k (not oc but maybe soon enough)
32Go DDR4 RAM (the low budget ones. Got it for 100€ )
2 GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 980Ti 6GB G1 GAMING OC EDITION in SLI (but working as it is in osx)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZJP9DMC/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

2x 1to Crucial MX200 SSD (one for mac, one for windows)
2to WD Green for continuous Time machine
H80i v2 water Cooling
Corsair hx1200i 1200W

Wifi + bluetooth OOB : BCM94360CD
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B00MBP25UK/?tag=tonymacx8607-21

Fan doubler : Noctua NA-SYC1
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B00KG8K5CY/?tag=tonymacx8607-21

Hard Drive Reader for both SSD
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B00LBSBNTC/?tag=tonymacx8607-21

Hard drive reader
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B008I36K2I/?tag=tonymacx8607-21

DP HDMI
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B01AHZGW40/?tag=tonymacx8607-21

DP VGA
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B00Z08TZNU/?tag=tonymacx8607-21

Fans : Noiseblocker XR1 x2, ARCTIC F12 - 120 mm x2 for Watercooling (the corsair ones are aweful)
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B0083A7Y8A/?tag=tonymacx8607-21
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B002KTVFTE/?tag=tonymacx8607-21

I also wanted everything to be "carryable" and very protected to go to work in rave parties or dusty festivals, so I built the rig in a 19' rack and put it in a plastic rack stand with little wheels (this set up is awfully heavy). I'll post pictures at the end.

Rack Case : https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B007PDRZ76/?tag=tonymacx8607-21
This one is pretty cool, because my graphic card connection appear in the front of my computer

Rack holder with wheels :
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B001LNO9Q6/?tag=tonymacx8607-21

Total cost, approximately 3000€+.


INSTALLATION

I most of the time referred to tony's how to's and to Jerivalu's post : https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...0k-intel-hd-530-thunderbolt-dual-boot.191292/
By the way, THANK YOU SO MUCH. Most of the problems where solved by theses wonderful people. I got multiple other sources, but everything in that forum, and some hints on ******. All done by simple research and testing solution one by one. Don't hesitate to ask for a particular problem from a similar hardware.

As Jerivalu, i needed to update the bios to f5, because it wouldn't do anything. Then I installed everything without any cards plugged in. I installed nvdia webdrivers, used inject nvidia, and cuda drivers. The second card wouldn't work until i used the AGDP fix.

First, I used imac 17, but I ran onto a lot of errors, getting stop sign at boot sometimes 10 times in a row before osx would boot correctly, and I found a lot of people saying 14,2 was more stable. I still have this boot problem, but I saw a better. (never sure it's better before 2 weeks of daily use anyway :s ) and ran into this video : youtube.com/watch?v=7DdAY7DbqCo (don't look at it entirely, is 11 minutes to say "use mac pro 5,1") but it didn't work at all. It was interesting because I still got this stutter problem in Final cut pro X 10.2, and so does the guy in the video. But the system wouldn't boot at all with this SMBIOS.
On the other end, I think this : https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...aptiofix2drv-64-and-osxaptiofixdrv-64.189103/ helped a little more. I still need to try this : https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...ed-sign-couldnt-allocate-runtime-area.194452/ because it's the exact message I get on verbose boot.

About the water cooling, (I know it is most of the time not that efficient, but i needed to deport the heatsink the the back of the rig since I had very little space to work in the set up) I had to disconnect the usb used to control it. I think it helped a lot with the shutdown problem. BTW, I plugged the pump on CPU_FAN, both of the H80i fans on the CPU_OPT with a fan doubler. Thought it would help for it to work best.

I still have some random error that disappear as fast as they come out, but the errors are not stable enough to work on it. (funny isn't it?)

So to conclude, I'm veeery happy with the machine, it run like a unicorn in the sky, but sometimes, the unicorn take a wall at full speed in the face without any hint. The sad part is I wanted other people to operate it, but I need to be there every time by fear it will crash, and me not being there would have been disastrous most of the time.

BUT, 10 full HD output without any problem, plugging, unplugging video projectors, rebooting them, like a charm. I did a festival in septembre where I operated 5 11k lumens + 2 control screen for 3 days without problems.
Performance in millumin and madmapper are just crazy (modul8 is still a pain in the a** because it is old as muck, and the beta of the new one just freeze my rig so I have to press THAT button for 5 seconds and I cri evrey tmie..). I also ran 150 HAP video layers simultaneously in millumin, on 3 projectors, Two 16k lumens being soft edged with madmapper getting video streams from millumin via syphon, one 20k lumens with direct millumin output, millumin getting a real time video stream by TCPSyphon with the ethernet port from a pc with TCP SPOUT (also tried tcp spout from Resolume 5). Also tried Newtek NDI as a stream protocol, works too, and better since it's UDP. It hold for a show of 1 and a half hour for a show at light festival in Lyon France.
I also tried playing two H264 4K sources and one Prores 5k source with 200+ pixel of blur each on Millumin at the same time on 5 displays, one in DVI (the monitor), 4 in HDMI (the full screen outputs), and that hold for a night long.
I should add that in my office, I'm running a 1440p dell display OOB on DP output. So I would think 4k display would not be a problem at all.

I just did bruce X test with the new [for me] smbios 14,2, (got ±30 sec with the 17) and then holy ...! less than 14 sec. Three times no previous automatic render.

What works :
-Thunderbolt 3, after waking it in windows, tried with an acquisition card (blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder), works flawlessly with the apple adapter Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderblot 2, on OSX and window 10 64bit (got it for 35 euros, still in discount for selling overprice laptop with only connections from 2025)
-10 video outputs (didn't try the HDMI sound, won't ever use it) in DP, hdmi, DP to hdmi, DVI, DVI to HDMI, DVI to VGA, DP to VGA. (don't mind the second DVI port on the 980ti, it won't add a 6th output. It's disconnected when you use more than one DP output. And it's not working at all in OSX)
-Sound, no problem on Mobo outputs. (but I don't know why, it emits a load of interference in my old electric installation in my flat, outputting sound by USB and analog output, I had to change all my cables to parallel cables. No problem since.)
-Wifi, OOB. Smooth.
-USB3- front, rear, adapters, etc
-ram full speed OOB
-integrated graphics acceleration, shows full 2x6000mb memory
-networking
-Shutdown, resolved by the same technique as Jerivalu

What doesn't :
-sleep, but I don't really bother. I forced the mac to never go to sleep. I shut it down when I don't need it.
-Final cut pro stuttering. This is way more annoying. And it's just playback. Exports and render are fast and steady. Once, my second 980ti went off the mobo. It went back after a while and a lot of sweating, but while it was off, final cut pro ran really smooth. But since the access to my mobo is very painful once in the rack, I stick on editing videos on my macbook and rendering on hackintosh. I'll wait, maybe a fix will come out working anytime soon?
-Starting the computer always come with a prayer, since I sometime have to restart the war machine half a dozen time. But when it starts, it all good. By the way, sometime boot time is 30 seconds, sometime it is 3 minutes, randomly. Don't know how to troubleshoot that.. But i'll guess it's the SSD's fault.
-Disk utility stopped working for some reason, no idea why. I mean that I can't tell precisely at what change I did it stopped working. Will work on that.

PS :
Be very careful if you use multiple cards working on a lot of displays like me, I think I can tell that the best manner is to put the software window on a screen hooked up to the first card (mac os define what card will power the soft depending on what display shows the soft, and to what card this display is hooked up). If you have two monitor screens, each one hooked up to a different cars, the soft will automatically crash. No way around. So I would say load in priority the first cars, and once you got 5 display working, begin to load the HDMI, the DVI or the closest DP from the HDMI port.
PS2 :
I will post plist file is anyone's interested.

That's all folks. Sorry for the langage mistakes, make it an opportunity to make fun of french people
And community, thanks again, you are all great people.

 

[KineticRit]

Have you had any issue with Framerate dropping?
I have a very similar build with (2) 980TI. In Millumin when I have three outputs it is rock solid at 60 FPS as soon as I add the 4th monitor the FPS dumps to 30? Any issues with this?

 

[Mushroomushup]

Hello there,

Actually when I had that much output in my project, I had a lot going on so 30fps was not out of limits.
First make sur you have the latest version, because I talked a lot with the dev and he solved a lot of problem concerning framerate drop. At first my biggest project got down to 10fps witch was a great problem, but it was a decoding problem in the end, and was resolved in the version 2.17k (we are on "p" version right now)
Also, make sur you use HAP codec with your videos, it's twice as efficient as PHOTO-JPEG codec, and it's graphically accelerated.
If it still doesn't solve your problem, then send a message to Philippe, the Millumin dev. He will be very happy to solve that problem, and he generally answers within a day.

 

[KineticRit]

Thanks. I dont think that it is a Millumin Problem as I run very large outputs through my trashcans with no issues. I think that it is the 980Tis in the rig, did you have to do anything outside of the Nvidia web drivers and Cuda to get them working with all your outputs at 60FPS? Did you do the pixel patch?

Also Phillipe is awesome we chat with him occasionally and is super responsive, His and his Anome teams support is one of the best parts about using millumin.

 

[Mushroomushup]

I think the SMBIOS changes a lot of things like I said in my post. Try something else. I have heard that mac pro 5.1 is okay (didn't work for me), imac 17 (works ok) and imac 14,2 (works best for me). Try that before anything. I have also done the AGPD fix, but the mac wouldn't boot with the second card plugged without that. Never heard of pixel patch though. What is it?

Yes he is, and I agree it is the best part using Millumin.

 

[KineticRit]

The pixel Patch opens removes the pixel clock limit in OSX
https://github.com/Floris497/mac-pixel-clock-patch-V2

I will play around with the BIOS a little more. I switch from 14,2 to 5,1 and back.I have been trying to flop the NV settings in the clover settings as well. Both cards work and out put but with the framerate limitation, but I may try the AGPD fix that you recommend.

I wanted to rule Millumin out as the source so I scaled quicktime HAP movies across all monitors and as soon as there was motion on the fourth display the framerate plummeted to 30 so I know that it has to be an NVIDIA, or Driver issue.

 

[Mushroomushup]

Pretty strange. I think I can't help you without trying some stuff around myself. hope you get it done!
I would like to know why you want to output more than 30fps from millumin, is that very important?
And I also wanted so see what you do with that setup, it's not that common around where I live do you have a crew name or something?

 

[KineticRit]

I do large corporate events and projection mapping projects. While it is not very important when it drops down there is noticeable stutter in some of the movement that I would rather not see. We also do gigantic edge butted seamless widescreen resolutions, ala 9600x1200. PM me if your interested and I can show you some of our work, I am actually fascinated by some of the stuff you say that you do as well.

 

[Mushroomushup]

Yes I'm really interested indeed! Though I did't find any way to MP you, neither on your profile page or anywhere else, but i'd like really much to share some work, this kind of work and knowledge is rare enough to be kept to ourselves

 

[Mushroomushup]

So, I think I don't have enough post to MP you, but if you have facebook, we can eventually share FB names.