Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.4 contains eGPU support; any chance DAZ Studio'll work with it?

CypherFOX

Greetings,

So I saw a fascinating thing in the OS update list today; Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.4 'Adds support for external graphics processors (eGPUs)'.  Now I have a nice 2017 Macbook Pro, with all the bells and whistles, including 4 USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports, and I'd LOVE to be able to do faster renders from it.

I took a look at egpu.io and they talk about downloading nVidia drivers, and some other things, but they're mostly using them for gaming.  Before I drop basically a grand on getting an external box and a video card for it, I'd love to know if DAZ Studio will support this for Iray and (maybe even?) dForce?  (I'd probably also do some Machine Learning with it, which would take advantage of the CUDA capabilities.)

I saw that someone on egpu.io had used a Thunderbolt 2 <-> Thunderbolt 3 adapter and DAZ with a pre-10.13 version of MacOS, and it apparently worked, but there were some issues, and they weren't completely clear, and they hadn't posted that I could tell since 10.13.

I know DAZ themselves have a test lab, and I'd love to know if they've tried this combination out, or if they have any guidance on this, but folks who've used eGPUs with DAZ Studio would also be really helpful!  Or pointers to other folks who've done it.

--  Morgan

 

nemesis10

CypherFOX said:

Greetings,

So I saw a fascinating thing in the OS update list today; Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.4 'Adds support for external graphics processors (eGPUs)'.  Now I have a nice 2017 Macbook Pro, with all the bells and whistles, including 4 USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports, and I'd LOVE to be able to do faster renders from it.

I took a look at egpu.io and they talk about downloading nVidia drivers, and some other things, but they're mostly using them for gaming.  Before I drop basically a grand on getting an external box and a video card for it, I'd love to know if DAZ Studio will support this for Iray and (maybe even?) dForce?  (I'd probably also do some Machine Learning with it, which would take advantage of the CUDA capabilities.)

I saw that someone on egpu.io had used a Thunderbolt 2 <-> Thunderbolt 3 adapter and DAZ with a pre-10.13 version of MacOS, and it apparently worked, but there were some issues, and they weren't completely clear, and they hadn't posted that I could tell since 10.13.

I know DAZ themselves have a test lab, and I'd love to know if they've tried this combination out, or if they have any guidance on this, but folks who've used eGPUs with DAZ Studio would also be really helpful!  Or pointers to other folks who've done it.

--  Morgan

 

Not easily...  the update is for non Nvidia drivers so you will still have to a fair amount of hocus pocus to get Nvdia drivers and cards to work.  Here is some data: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/03/30/apple-egpu-support-document/