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Loved this post. But I'd recommend to not try this at home. You'll end up spending way too much money, and wasting way too much time. Just grab a PC or console

Loved this post. But I'd recommend to not try this at home. You'll end up spending way too much money, and wasting way too much time. Just grab a PC or console for gaming. Trying to game on a Mac is just swimming upstream, without the payoff. Apple does not want you.

pifuoweiuf983 7y ago
Not really. Apple supports EGPU's natively, and they also have native drivers for AMD cards. Literally plug and play on MacOS. On Windows, depending on which Mac you have it ranges from plug and play (update drivers) to basically what the author wrote here.
- Shivetya 7y ago
  If you do not mind being locked into AMD cards only I suppose it is a good solution. The eGPU solution was probably the only way to save face with Apple's fixation on slimness limiting their choice of onboard GPUs. If you look at the situation Apple design locked themselves into, the inability to swap out components and for many models you cannot even upgrade the memory, has forced users to rely on external boxes for storage and graphics which pretty much brings back in worse form all those boxes Apple was "designing away". I like my current Apple computer but I am discouraged from every buying another first for their support of manufacturing in China and for the fact that every time I hit some limit imposed by their fixation the sycophants chant "just use external" and I am back to square one.
- vincnetas 7y ago
  Yes, but most of the games are on win, and egpu's on bootcamp are not so P&P. Been there, done that. Lots of wasted time :( [edit] especialy enoying "Error 12". As article mentions: There is a really good chance, however, that you'll see a yellow exclamation point over the GPU's icon, and instead of "This device is working properly", you'll be greeted by "Error 12" and a message that the device doesn't have sufficient resources (read: either memory addressing or bandwidth) to be used. If you see this, your GPU won't engage at all, and you'll have to troubleshoot it. There are a bunch of ideas in this thread, but what will work for you depends on a combination of factors.
shmerl 7y ago
Just build a PC and run Linux on it. A lot more games will be playable that way, thanks to Wine, dxvk and vkd3d which macOS can't run well due to Apple sabotaging Vulkan support.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  Due to Apple sabotaging Vulkan support Correct me if I'm wrong here: wasn't Vulkan one of Apple's major talking points at a WWDC or a keynote? What happened?
  - shmerl 7y ago
    Was it? Do you have some links about that? I meant the fact that after several years since Vulkan was launched, Apple still doesn't support it on macOS / iOS.
  - hbosch 7y ago
    Perhaps you are thinking of Apple's Metal instead of Vulkan. As far as I know, Apple has been quite staunchly against Vulkan. I too would love a link to any WWDC where Apple has discussed bringing it into macOS, that would be great news!
m_mueller 7y ago
It's also a matter of cost alone. I'm currently in the market of building a Gefore 1660 based light gaming environment. Building a Desktop PC the cheapest way possible using that card plus a Ryzen 1200 comes out at only ~70$ more (~550USD, 16GB RAM, not including SSD) than buying the cheapest eGPU enclosure plus the card. For that 70$ I get considerably better performance (since my laptop is ultralight) and less hassle. I don't see how eGPU is worth it except for very narrow usecases, like doing some light 3D modelling and wanting to use an already available Mac (since buying the appropriate integrated Mac hardware is way too expensive in comparison).

pifuoweiuf983 7y ago

Not really. Apple supports EGPU's natively, and they also have native drivers for AMD cards. Literally plug and play on MacOS. On Windows, depending on which Mac you have it ranges from plug and play (update drivers) to basically what the author wrote here.

Shivetya 7y ago
If you do not mind being locked into AMD cards only I suppose it is a good solution. The eGPU solution was probably the only way to save face with Apple's fixation on slimness limiting their choice of onboard GPUs. If you look at the situation Apple design locked themselves into, the inability to swap out components and for many models you cannot even upgrade the memory, has forced users to rely on external boxes for storage and graphics which pretty much brings back in worse form all those boxes Apple was "designing away". I like my current Apple computer but I am discouraged from every buying another first for their support of manufacturing in China and for the fact that every time I hit some limit imposed by their fixation the sycophants chant "just use external" and I am back to square one.
vincnetas 7y ago
Yes, but most of the games are on win, and egpu's on bootcamp are not so P&P. Been there, done that. Lots of wasted time :( [edit] especialy enoying "Error 12". As article mentions: There is a really good chance, however, that you'll see a yellow exclamation point over the GPU's icon, and instead of "This device is working properly", you'll be greeted by "Error 12" and a message that the device doesn't have sufficient resources (read: either memory addressing or bandwidth) to be used. If you see this, your GPU won't engage at all, and you'll have to troubleshoot it. There are a bunch of ideas in this thread, but what will work for you depends on a combination of factors.

shmerl 7y ago

Just build a PC and run Linux on it. A lot more games will be playable that way, thanks to Wine, dxvk and vkd3d which macOS can't run well due to Apple sabotaging Vulkan support.

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
Due to Apple sabotaging Vulkan support Correct me if I'm wrong here: wasn't Vulkan one of Apple's major talking points at a WWDC or a keynote? What happened?
- shmerl 7y ago
  Was it? Do you have some links about that? I meant the fact that after several years since Vulkan was launched, Apple still doesn't support it on macOS / iOS.
- hbosch 7y ago
  Perhaps you are thinking of Apple's Metal instead of Vulkan. As far as I know, Apple has been quite staunchly against Vulkan. I too would love a link to any WWDC where Apple has discussed bringing it into macOS, that would be great news!

m_mueller 7y ago

It's also a matter of cost alone. I'm currently in the market of building a Gefore 1660 based light gaming environment. Building a Desktop PC the cheapest way possible using that card plus a Ryzen 1200 comes out at only ~70$ more (~550USD, 16GB RAM, not including SSD) than buying the cheapest eGPU enclosure plus the card. For that 70$ I get considerably better performance (since my laptop is ultralight) and less hassle. I don't see how eGPU is worth it except for very narrow usecases, like doing some light 3D modelling and wanting to use an already available Mac (since buying the appropriate integrated Mac hardware is way too expensive in comparison).