Nvidia on Its Lack of macOS Mojave Drivers for Newer Graphics Cards: 'It's Up to Apple to Approve Them'

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Nearly six weeks after the release of macOS Mojave, web drivers for Nvidia graphics cards released in 2014 and later remain unavailable for the latest operating system, resulting in compatibility issues. This includes Nvidia graphics cards based on its Maxwell, Pascal, and Turing architecture.

nvidia mojave
While some customers have expressed frustration towards Nvidia, a spokesperson for the company informed MacRumors that "while we post the drivers, it's up to Apple to approve them," and suggested that we contact Apple. We followed that advice, but Apple has yet to respond to multiple requests for comment.

As a result of the lack of web drivers, external GPUs with an Nvidia graphics card released in 2014 or later have compatibility issues with any Mac running macOS Mojave. Likewise, any Mid 2010 or Mid 2012 Mac Pro upgraded with 2014-or-newer Nvidia graphics is incompatible with the operating system.

Nvidia warns that affected customers who upgrade to macOS Mojave may experience degraded rendering and performance on that version, according to discussions on the Nvidia Developers Forums and MacRumors Forums.

macOS Mojave requires a graphics card that supports Apple's graphics framework Metal, but until updated web drivers are released, many newer Nvidia graphics cards such as the GeForce GTX 1080 are incompatible with the operating system. In the meantime, some users have downgraded back to macOS High Sierra.

Nvidia's Quadro K5000 and GeForce GTX 680 are already Metal-capable and compatible with macOS Mojave, according to an Apple support document.

macOS Mojave is compatible with any MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, iMac Pro, Mac mini, and Mac Pro released in 2012 or later, in addition to Mid 2010-Mid 2012 models of the Mac Pro with a Metal-capable graphics card.

Nvidia graphics cards based on Kepler architecture, which Apple offered in various Macs between 2012 and 2014, are fully compatible with macOS Mojave. Apple has since switched to AMD as its dedicated graphics card provider.

There is some debate as to whether Apple, Nvidia, or both companies are to blame for the lack of web drivers, which are usually released within a few days after a major macOS release. If we learn any new information, we'll share it.

Tags: Metal, Nvidia
Related Forum: macOS Mojave

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Top Rated Comments

nerdAFK Avatar
nerdAFK
80 months ago
Typical Apple dick move.
We know what customers don’t even know they want.
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
i_love_polt_havemybabies Avatar
i_love_polt_havemybabies
80 months ago
Literally dozens of Hackintoshers are also waiting with bated breath for these!
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
4jasontv Avatar
4jasontv
80 months ago
No. Nope. Sorry, but no. Blaming another company for why your product isn’t compatible with their system is lazy and disrespectful to your customers. I spent $4000 on a gpu. You contact Apple and make sure it works for every - single - update.

Or stop claiming your hardware supports Macs.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Tapiture Avatar
Tapiture
80 months ago
Nvidia cards are generally superior to AMD, I don't understand why Apple keeps using AMD GPUs and seems completely unsupportive of Nvidia.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sbarton Avatar
sbarton
80 months ago
Why are you all surprised? This is the same company that now releases 3.6gb OS updates with absolutely no release notes. This is Apple post SJ and pretty much the same death spiral of QC, lack of innovation and customer focus that almost killed them in the mid 90's.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tmpkn Avatar
tmpkn
80 months ago
This is a huge problem. AMD GPUs are mostly useless when it comes to certain tasks like AI (keras/tensorflow/etc.). Many professional tools only work with CUDA & nvidia cards (for instance: vray). I remember being able to build and run pgstrom experiments on my mac with GTX cards 2 years ago.

I understand that Apple is pushing their own commercial APIs, but I doubt the scientific community will ever adopt them.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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