No respite in sight for creative pros trying to get NVIDIA GPUs to work on macOS Mojave

It's been over a couple of months since Apple's latest OS, macOS Mojave 10.14, was released but if you are rocking a latest generation NVIDIA GPU, you won't be able to use it with the new OS. Many creative professionals prefer using NVIDIA GPUs to take advantage of CUDA acceleration and other proprietary development tools. They were able to do so till macOS High Sierra 10.13, but not any more. Apple has restrictions on what GPUs are compatible with macOS Mojave 10.14 and only the ageing Quadro K5000 for Mac and GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition are listed from the NVIDIA camp as supported GPUs.

In a forum post, NVIDIA said,

Developers using Macs with NVIDIA graphics cards are reporting that after upgrading from 10.13 to 10.14 (Mojave) they are experiencing rendering regressions and slow performance.
Apple fully controls drivers for Mac OS. Unfortunately, NVIDIA currently cannot release a driver unless it is approved by Apple.
Our hardware works on OS 10.13 which supports up to (and including) Pascal.
Apple has published a help topic that includes a list of supported hardware for OS 10.14 Mojave. They suggest directing additional inquiries here.

This means you won't be able to use most NVIDIA cards, including the latest Turing-based GPUs, unless Apple specifically approves NVIDIA drivers for macOS Mojave. NVIDIA is said to be working with Apple for Mojave driver support but we do not know of any timelines yet. It is also being learnt that Apple also did not provide pre-release OS versions and access to low-level APIs in Mojave for NVIDIA to create GPU drivers for the platform.

Understandably, this inaction of Apple's part has miffed professionals who prefer using NVIDIA GPUs on their Macs. Emmy award-winning producer and editor Jason Diamond took to social media urging users to sign the petition on Change.org. In a Facebook post, Jarred Land, President of RED Digital Cinema, said,

Not allowing NVIDIA to put out drivers for OSX 10.14 hurts my business. We depend on NVIDIA drivers to keep our Macs flying through apps like Creative Cloud, Resolve and RED Workflows. We NEED these drivers to keep our pipelines from impacting our clients."

The exact reasons as to why Apple is not allowing NVIDIA drivers on macOS Mojave is not yet known. If you are a creative professional who needs to use NVIDIA GPUs or eGPUs, we'd suggest you stick with macOS High Sierra 10.13 for now. Hopefully, Apple and NVIDIA work to resolve this issue in the interest of the creative community.

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