5 ms·

Pardon my ignorance, but do I need an external monitor to use this, or can I just plug this into my MacBook Pro and have improved graphics performance on the bu

Pardon my ignorance, but do I need an external monitor to use this, or can I just plug this into my MacBook Pro and have improved graphics performance on the built-in display?

saagarjha 8y ago
It works without an external display as well.
- rvanmil 8y ago
  Thanks, I investigated a bit more since this doesn't seem obvious (to me) reading the egpu product pages or reviews. This is what I found: https://github.com/mayankk2308/set-egpu https://github.com/mayankk2308/set-egpu so it doesn't look like things currently just work out of the box?
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    I was basing my response on a friend who has a setup like this working. He’s probably using a tool like this one; I’ll ask him.
- nottorp 8y ago
  Does it? Because i remember it worked during the betas but then Apple disabled support for the internal display... which made the GPU somewhat useless. Did they fix that lately? Note: it works if you install Windows is also useless to me. Does it work with the internal display with OS X?
- fcarraldo 8y ago
  This is false. You can hack support for internal display acceleration, but it requires using a "Phantom" display dongle adapter and results in significantly worse performance because of the limited bandwidth available.
  - mikhailt 8y ago
    This is false as well. The problem is, games and apps have to opt-in for eGPU support. That's been clear since the original eGPU support in macOS 10.13.4. There is no universal eGPU support in macOS, it doesn't start acceleration on its own. I believe Tomb Raider is one of the first games that support eGPU: https://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/headlines4083.html https://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/headlines4083.html DaVinci Resolve support it as well as mentioned in this video: https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/19/macos-egpu-performance-test-davinci-resolve-video/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/19/macos-egpu-performance-test-d...
gargravarr 8y ago
This is the #1 question that has been bothering me since I heard about eGPUs.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mikhailt 8y ago
eGPU support is opt-in on macOS. Games and apps must enable support for eGPU to use it, regardless of external or internal display. Here's a video of it in action with one of the first software that supports eGPU acceleration, DaVinci Resolve: https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/19/macos-egpu-performance-test-davinci-resolve-video/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/19/macos-egpu-performance-test-d...

Pardon my ignorance, but do I need an external monitor to use this, or can I just plug this into my MacBook Pro and have improved graphics performance on the built-in display?

saagarjha 8y ago

It works without an external display as well.

rvanmil 8y ago
Thanks, I investigated a bit more since this doesn't seem obvious (to me) reading the egpu product pages or reviews. This is what I found: https://github.com/mayankk2308/set-egpu https://github.com/mayankk2308/set-egpu so it doesn't look like things currently just work out of the box?
- saagarjha 8y ago
  I was basing my response on a friend who has a setup like this working. He’s probably using a tool like this one; I’ll ask him.
nottorp 8y ago
Does it? Because i remember it worked during the betas but then Apple disabled support for the internal display... which made the GPU somewhat useless. Did they fix that lately? Note: it works if you install Windows is also useless to me. Does it work with the internal display with OS X?
fcarraldo 8y ago
This is false. You can hack support for internal display acceleration, but it requires using a "Phantom" display dongle adapter and results in significantly worse performance because of the limited bandwidth available.
- mikhailt 8y ago
  This is false as well. The problem is, games and apps have to opt-in for eGPU support. That's been clear since the original eGPU support in macOS 10.13.4. There is no universal eGPU support in macOS, it doesn't start acceleration on its own. I believe Tomb Raider is one of the first games that support eGPU: https://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/headlines4083.html https://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/headlines4083.html DaVinci Resolve support it as well as mentioned in this video: https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/19/macos-egpu-performance-test-davinci-resolve-video/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/19/macos-egpu-performance-test-d...

gargravarr 8y ago

This is the #1 question that has been bothering me since I heard about eGPUs.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

mikhailt 8y ago

eGPU support is opt-in on macOS. Games and apps must enable support for eGPU to use it, regardless of external or internal display. Here's a video of it in action with one of the first software that supports eGPU acceleration, DaVinci Resolve: https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/19/macos-egpu-performance-test-davinci-resolve-video/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/19/macos-egpu-performance-test-d...