Crossfire and Bootcamp, can it be done?

[fairlane]

Hi guys,

I'm wondering if you gentlemen can help with me getting Crossfire to work on my Mac pro (mid-2010) with two AMD 5770's. I have the two GPU's installed, 3gb of ram, windows 7 Enterprise x64 bit on Bootcamp, a Powercolor crossfire bridge (from newegg.com) and the latest Bootcamp drivers from AMD's website which can be found here:

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...camp-win7.aspx

After installing the 2nd card (in slot 2, each card slot is a pci-e x16 slot I believe) and booting into windows, I can log in fine, but launching the CCC and enabling Crossfire BSOD's my system. I can't figure out why.. I only have one monitor (Samsung SyncMaster P2770 connected to the slot 1 gpu using DVI) and Device Manager sees both gpu's, and CCC reports both a primary gpu, and a disabled gpu, (i'm assuming because crossfire isn't enabled). If I reboot the system after the BSOD, it will load windows fine and I can log in, but as soon as the CCC tries to load in the system tray the system BSOD's again. I have had to boot into safe mode, prevent CCC from starting when windows starts, reboot the system and windows logs on fine. I can then manually launch CCC and see that crossfire is of course not checked off. CCC also warns, when enabling Crossfire, to keep the Catalyst A.I. in the Standard position due to application and display corruption issues. I have left mine in the Standard position.

I have also tried totally uninstalling all of CCC's components and used the windows CCC package dated 11/15 (v11.11) as of this posting, but that didn't work either (same results).

I was able to ask Apple over the phone whether Apple "officially" supports Crossfire in a Bootcamp environment, otherwise I would be more than happy to either return the 2nd 5770 or use it as a back up if the primary one dies..
The tech did some research and emailed me a .pdf of Crossfire - but it was simply an explanation of what Crossfire was, no reference to it working in a Bootcamped system.

I've read other folks in a similar system setup (but not exactly like mine) have gotten crossfire to work but I can't seem to get it to.

What am I doing wrong?
Am I using the wrong bridge?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...color bridge

Any help would be appreciated.. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving

Philip

 

[UnknownSouljer]

I don't have any info to give you from personal experience, but I did find an old thead about it.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/6533853?messageID=6533853#6533853?messageID=6533853
So, it is possible. They make it seem like no additional hardware is required, but I don't know anything about it.

Edit: I found a more recent thread here with 4 series ATi cards. https://discussions.apple.com/message/9466543#9466543

 

[fairlane]

I don't have any info to give you from personal experience, but I did find an old thead about it.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/6533853?messageID=6533853#6533853?messageID=6533853
So, it is possible. They make it seem like no additional hardware is required, but I don't know anything about it.

Edit: I found a more recent thread here with 4 series ATi cards. https://discussions.apple.com/message/9466543#9466543

Thanks Unkown.

http://forums.amd.com/game/messagev...adid=148899&highlight_key=y&keyword1=bootcamp

A poster here on this thread claims Apple never supported Crossfire, and never will. Not sure how accurate his statement is, I'll read the posts you gave me, thanks a lot.

 

[fairlane]

Unknown,
I've seen both of those threads so thanks. There seems to be a lot of conflicting info on this topic, and in regards to each updated driver package AMD puts out, some claim Crossfire worked on say a 10.8 driver package but not on a later version, say 11.10 or 11.11. I wonder if windows or even certain apps like Steam, don't know that they are residing on Apple hardware, because AMD's support site has specific Bootcamp driver packages for it, and I'm assuming, for example, Steam will tell me there are updated drivers for my system (even the Catalyst program can autodetect your system, but I don't think it works right, because its confused?) You would think the programs would see that the system is a bootcamp partition and tell you your drivers are up to date. So at this point, I'm not even sure which is the correct package to use, the Jan '01 Bootcamp package, or the 11.11 Windows package. Still, Crossfire crashes in every instance, as the amd forum post I provided confirms..

Oh well...I wonder if there is someone else out there with a Mac Pro and two 5770's that has gotten it to work..

If Apple will never support crossfire, that is just a shame. They offer AMD's cards to configure with their hardware, and Apple allows Windows to reside on their hardware, (thus Bootcamp), so why not Crossfire technology?

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Well, it just hasn't been a priority for Apple. I'm actually more surprised by the lack of Crossfire/SLi in OSX. But bootcamp really is just a band-aid for those that want to dual-boot Windows. They are really only interested in supporting the least amount of features for the maximum amount of people. Most people who game aren't using SLi'd/Crossfire'd Mac Pros. You're really in a minority and they have no real reason to dedicate resources to help you out.

I hope you figure out a way to get it run, but honestly I think you're going to be spending a lot of time tweaking and trying driver releases over and over for minimal payoff as it isn't "officially supported". ATi and nVidia already have enough trouble getting their hardware to run properly on PC's... let alone Mac configurations...

 

[fairlane]

*sobs uncontrollably*

 

[fairlane]

You are right of course..I am in the process of building a system in my basement (mancave ) and have the Corsair Obsidian 800D as my case. I am waiting for the intel Ivy Bridge to be released and paired with (hopefully) an Asus board, at least 12gigs of ram, and either three eyefinity displays or possibly one 30" (Dell?) monitor.. who knows what gpus' will be available by the time I'm ready to jump in...So, yeah, thanks for the ego stroking I'm not that concerned about my Apple situation, it just sucks, but you're right, I'm such a minority and frankly am pissed that I didn't research it further before purchasing that second gpu.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Wow, you have a lot of cash to toss around! Well, I would consider it is an ideal setup to have a Mac for productivity and a PC to game on.

I wouldn't give up entirely on the Mac setup per-say. But it definitely will be a trial to get it all going.

 

[Terpfen]

I'm actually more surprised by the lack of Crossfire/SLi in OSX.

Why? The iMac is a closed box. It doesn’t even have vents. Apple has to keep everything as low-power and efficient as possible to avoid overheating. That means no SLI/Crossfire. Goes double for notebooks, where Apple is more concerned with minimizing chip footprint to create thinner designs with larger batteries than they are with raw GPU performance.

Besides, the GPU parts they ship are enough to handle OpenCL-enabled apps, 3D environments (AutoCAD), and the 2+ year old games that publishers deign to shovel onto OS X.

Now, if you can come up with a single chip solution for SLI or Crossfire that works universally for every 3D app without requiring, say, driver updates or profiles (aka “just works&#8221 and has a very minimal TDP increase, then Apple might consider using them. But so far, Nvidia and AMD don’t seem to have any interest in cannibalizing their product lines by creating that sort of GPU.

And while the OP is primarily concerned with the Mac Pro, the fact is that Apple hasn’t updated it in a long time, and is probably on the verge of canceling the line.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Apple has offered multi-GPU solutions for a while on Mac Pros. The parallel processing could at least be handy for CUDA (nVidia) or just rendering in general could be useful professionals in those industries. That doesn't apply to most people, but then again the Mac Pro doesn't apply to most people either. So, I just question not having SLi/Crossfire at all seeing that they've offered multi-GPU as a selectable option for a while. At one point they even allowed 4 nVidia GT 120's (IIRC) as a selectable option.

Cancellation of the line has been rumored about, but I'm not exactly sure what Apple's strategy is. I personally think it would be a mistake. Even if they are making Mac Pro's at a loss, I think they are important to maintain in-so-far-as having a Halo product that high end producers use. Although they might migrate to it, I can't see the Coen Brothers (as an example) moving to iMac's to replace their Mac Pro's for movie creation. There has also been rumors of creating a high end multi-CPU Xeon based iMac, but I don't think it's thermally feasible.

I'm hoping that they are simply waiting for Ivy Bridge and they come out with a new machine to "astound us". As excessive as Mac Pro's have always been, I've always dreamed of owning one someday.

Why? The iMac is a closed box. It doesn’t even have vents. Apple has to keep everything as low-power and efficient as possible to avoid overheating. That means no SLI/Crossfire. Goes double for notebooks, where Apple is more concerned with minimizing chip footprint to create thinner designs with larger batteries than they are with raw GPU performance.

Besides, the GPU parts they ship are enough to handle OpenCL-enabled apps, 3D environments (AutoCAD), and the 2+ year old games that publishers deign to shovel onto OS X.

Now, if you can come up with a single chip solution for SLI or Crossfire that works universally for every 3D app without requiring, say, driver updates or profiles (aka “just works”) and has a very minimal TDP increase, then Apple might consider using them. But so far, Nvidia and AMD don’t seem to have any interest in cannibalizing their product lines by creating that sort of GPU.

And while the OP is primarily concerned with the Mac Pro, the fact is that Apple hasn’t updated it in a long time, and is probably on the verge of canceling the line.

 

[Terpfen]

I'm hoping that they are simply waiting for Ivy Bridge and they come out with a new machine to "astound us". As excessive as Mac Pro's have always been, I've always dreamed of owning one someday.

They’ve supposedly had an update to the Mac Pro ready to go and simply haven’t released it because they’re considering canceling the line. Ivy Bridge doesn’t really have anything to do with it: Sandy Bridge already constitutes a worthy performance upgrade over the current Westmere offering.

So, yeah, Apple has no use for multi-GPU configurations on the products they’re most concerned about improving; the MacBook Air/Pro and the iPhone/iPad.

 

[PurduEE]

Wow, you have a lot of cash to toss around! Well, I would consider it is an ideal setup to have a Mac for productivity and a PC to game on.

I wouldn't give up entirely on the Mac setup per-say. But it definitely will be a trial to get it all going.

Here's my solution for this problem:

1. Sell Mac Pro
2. Purchase Macbook Pro with proceeds
3. Invest remaining funds from Mac Pro sale into Windows desktop with CrossfireX/SLI.

(that's what I did).