Participant

Question

eGPU on MacOS High Sierra for OpenCL acceleration support?

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
November 9, 2017
6 replies
10441 views

Hello,

I am experimenting with MacOS High Sierra's new (under the table) support for eGPUs.

It's quite amazing to see what I can do with this setup.

However, I did notice that my Premier and Media Encoder and not taking advantage of the eGPU enclosure and AMD RX 580 GPU for OpenCL Acceleration though.

Any ideas on how to switch from the internal GPU to the eGPU?

Anyone know if Adobe will eventually support doing so?

Thanks in advance!

Austin

This topic has been closed for replies.

damacguy

Participating Frequently

So, I've got a WX7100 in an Akitio Pro Node and I'm running Premiere Pro 2018. No effects or anything, just straight 1080i60 MXF files exporting to H264 and H265. Activity Monitor doesn't show exclusive use of the WX7100, but the same load on all three GPUs - integrated UHD 630, desecrate 560X, and eGPU WX7100. I've tried it in clamshell too. Is there a 'trick' to this? Or will the eGPU only pick up the load for certain effects? I'm puzzled...

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Premiere of course only uses a discrete GPU card (or now, eGPU) for things off the GPU Accelerated Effects List, and then only as the CPU/RAM get stuff of their own processed and send stuff to the discrete GPU. And not in general for basic exporting/playback.

On-board graphics are built to take certain tasks from the CPU on their own, and so function a bit to a lot differently.

So in your situation, that on-board is doing things the CPU/mobo/onboard are set up to do as a 'team', and Pr will be using the discrete GPU card and the eGPU unit as it has work for them to do. I'm not familiar yet with how they've wired the program to select what goes to what GPU.

Neil

GPU Accelerated Effects: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/effects.html

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

damacguy

Participating Frequently

Awesome. So, in other words, an eGPU is absolutely useless for my intended project. Thanks Adobe... :facepalm: (starts eying FCPX longingly again)

Regardless, thanks for the info R Neil Haugen!

A

allenm89490965

Participating Frequently

"InDesign - sees the WX 9100 and all 16GB and uses it for page rendering. No real benefit."

This is huge, to me. I create some pretty heavy vector and pixel art and I compose all of it (non-flattened, non-rasterized .ai / .psd, etc) in InDesign, going back and forth between PS/IL/INDD as I develop layouts. In order to really see what I'm doing in InDesign, I can't really work in any mode other than high-quality preview, which eats up a lot of processing power and gets very laggy right at times that I need to get lots of work done.

If I can really use the WX9100 for this, then there is a light at the end of the tunnel in regards to dealing with InDesign being sluggish - and this would translate to higher quality work and faster turnaround times. I really don't understand why there aren't other creatives actively discussing this anywhere online. (none that I can find)

D

designeRD1417

Participant

hey man, did you buy the WX9100? How are you doing with your programs? I'm thinking of the same setup with my rMBP m2012 15". I'm wondering if an eGPU could really help me with PS/AI/INDD or if I should get a late 2014 mac mini

A

allenm89490965

Participating Frequently

No I didn't - not yet.

I was going to buy a 2018 MBP so I could run eGPU (with WX9100) over a short thunderbolt 3 cable, but I decided to make my current MBP last another year when I found out that simtech sells an adaptor for M.2 hard drives that actually works in my mid 2014 (11,2)

So I upgraded the HDD to a Samsung 970 Evo m.2 (1TB) and it's been operating smoothly for one month now - buying me some time. Read/write speeds went up from around 600/400mbps to around 1350/1300mpbs. Recently I've done tons of post production work on a cosmetics shoot with huge multilayered images around 300mb-1200mb each, and the performance increase was VERY noticeable. Still, I need something that makes the vector rendering faster when I combine these with complex typographical and illustrative elements, as I still get into lag in those areas - as always.

I've been considering getting an external GPU housing that runs over thunderbolt 2 so I can use a card like the WX9100, but like I said in my last post, there seems to be ZERO creatives who work in INDD/PS/ILL who are doing this and talking about it online. I'm a bit wary of spending all the money if it's not going to give me a real advantage. I've explored the possibility of building a PC, but I rely on the sense of 'flow' the mac OS enables for me. I've done plenty of creative in PC environments, and I could do it again, but it just feels better on mac. I think I'm just going to have to wait until I get the latest MBP and then run eGPU through thunderbolt 3.

Still, I'd like to see real world examples of other creatives using this solution - regardless of whether it's tb2 or tb3. Guess I need to try another tact, but not sure where I would go - maybe some other forum or social media environment where I could find creatives who might have tried this? I think it's odd that the majority of high performance computing discussion is all related to PC and gaming. Professionals of all kinds - not just creatives - need more power if we want to work as fast as our minds can go. I miss out on so many permutations / possibilities due to hardware limitations, and with the iPadPro (adobe draw / affinity / astropad) allowing me to create complex vector art and do post-production on photography even faster, I'll need this kind of power as I push the boundaries of what I can create.

I wonder if there's a proven adapter for the mac mini you referred to. The one I got is the first M.2 adapter proven to not cause issues when adapting a standard M.2 to a mid-2014 macbook pro, but I think the mac mini 2014 requires apple-only blade-type SSD. (I think this would be the bottleneck that you would want to attend to before attempting to run eGPU if you go that route.)

For your current MBP, apparently you can increase speed and storage a bit with this adapter:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-860-mSATA-Internal-MZ-M6E1T0BW/dp/B0781VNJVJ

and this drive:

https://www.amazon.com/QNINE-Adapter-MacBook-Replacement-Converter/dp/B01LXLU3A9/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1549393030&sr=1-3&keywords=macbook+pro+2012+retina+ssd+adapter

However, modifications like this can be a bit difficult. I'd look for youtube videos. Again, for that machine, hard drive speed is the bottleneck in performance you should address before considering eGPU. Get a hard drive performance test app and compare the results to projected speeds - you can get an idea of what kind of advantage you'd get by reading the amazon reviews for the adapter. (first of the two links above)

Chris Newcombe

Participant

I took delivery of my Blackmagic eGPU today.

After a few teething issues (Resolve just crashed every time I tried to run anything - updated to latest Public Beta and it's now fine) I managed to get her up and running. The cable that comes with it is ridiculously short - thankfully my LG UltraFine 5K display has a 2m TB3 cable supplied so I can run off that, and run the screen through the eGPU using the shorter cable. Why can't you find decent TB3 cables online that are longer than 0.8m? I also had a few issues plugging in peripherals - they seemed happier going into the monitor than the eGPU (especially hard drives). Bandwidth issue?

First off I ran out a 30s clip in Resolve with Noise Reduction:

'Job 1' is using the eGPU, 'Job 2' is using the built in Radeon Pro 460 (4Gb) and 'Job 3' is using both cards simultaneously. It would appear to offer a ~ 150% increase when side-stepping the built-in GPU, and a 200% increase when using both together. Playback within the app is also much improved - I can now playback in near realtime with multiple nodes switched on plus Noise Reduction, which I haven't been able to do before.

I have since played out a few longer edits which also have Noise Reduction, and I am seeing roughly a 3x speed increase across the board. Renders that took 3m45s are now taking 1m15s. It really is a remarkable jump in performance. If you are colouring longer form content (most of my work is for social media platforms) I would imagine the time saving would be fantastic. Please note that running in 'Metal' over 'OpenCL' seems to result in a very slight performance increase.

Premiere and AME are a different story however. Whilst I can see the eGPU working in Activity Monitor (I run my laptop in clamshell mode anyway) the performance was slightly lower than when using the Radeon Pro 460 on a three-cam Multicam edit, with me getting dropped frame indications in full-res in HD whereas before I got none. I do however get a slight bump in render times through AME, but it's about 10 - 15%. I can also see in the Activity Monitor that the eGPU is being side-stepped significantly, and that the CPU and the Intel Graphics 530 ( ! ) are doing most of the donkey work! Madness.

Over-all then, Adobe CC18 does appear to work with the new eGPUs - but don't expect a massive performance boost just yet. I am sure now that Apple have weighed in that Adobe will think about optimising, but for the time being the major improvements are in Resolve. If you use APP, AME and Resolve a lot (like I do) it still makes sense, as your Adobe apps will run the same (kinda) but when you come to colour your projects you will reap the benefits.

xxmrexx

Participant

there are active 2m tb3 cables, for example belkin tb3 around retail/web stores (apple store, amazon...).

have you tried running a script to enable all application for using egpu (and even internal display) maybe to get better results with adobe products?

for all application

https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/potentially-accelerate-all-applications-on-egpu-macos-10-13-4/

for the internal display

GitHub - mayankk2308/set-egpu: Display-agnostic acceleration of macOS applications using external GPUs.

G

Gelert

Participating Frequently

Back again. I've done some testing...

MacBook Pro 2017 3.1GHz i7 16GB 1TB SSD with 4xTB3 + Sonnet eGPU with Radeon Pro WX 9100 16GB.

Adobe CC latest version as of today.

macOS 10.13.6 fully up to date.

Setup: Laptop in clamshell mode.

Apple 30 inch Cinema connected directly to the WX 9100 so fully seen by macOS as the main GPU.

Use GPU History to see usage and About this Mac to see which GPU is listed as the main Display.

Photoshop - sees the WX 9100 and all 16GB and says accelerated for OpenGL. Makes very little use of the GPU at all - only specific plug-ins do though.

InDesign - sees the WX 9100 and all 16GB and uses it for page rendering. No real benefit.

Illustrator - same story. Sees it, uses it for display. No real benefit.

Premier Pro CC - it sees and uses the WX 9100 properly - using 4k footage with a Project set to use Metal. I setup some colour correction on all the clips. It plays back ok - not amazing - but better than the Laptop only. Then I went to export it and look at the screenshot. It went and used the Intel HD GPU on it's own. You can see the other two more powerful GPUs are barely being used during the export. So I think there's some work to be done.

I have also used DaVinci Resolve and that sees both eGPUs and uses them for everything. It is very impressive. Premier needs to step up and soon.

It is definitely worth buying an eGPU setup now. Apple's collaboration with Blackmagic on the eGPU released yesterday looks great and it has a Radeon Pro 580 (same as a RX 580). That is the best bang for buck available by far.

I won't be changing my Sonnet eGPUs for one though because I can run a high powered card like the WX 9100 but I like that the new eGPU is taking the outputs from the GPU and sending them out via Thunderbolt 3 so in theory if you could change the GPU inside the new eGPU you'd get TB3 output from a different GPU... depending on exactly what's inside. I expect this to be how the modular Mac Pro is setup. You'll stick any old GPU in it but the Display will be connected via TB3.

I have little dongles for everything on mine to get the Dual DVI up and running from the Cinema Display but it still works great.

After Effects works as well but again it's not using the WX 9100 effectively and seems to also want to use the Pro 560. My experience in Blender has been that when Metal wants to use two or more GPUs they need to be equally powered. So when I run the RX 580 + WX 9100 I get double the performance but if I add in the Pro 560 I get overall slower performance because they fight over the workload. There's an overhead of passing around the work. So you're best when you can manually select which GPUs you want active for a task and I'd always choose 1 super powerful one over the two built in ones on the Laptop. It's all down to software though as Apple has provided the means. Paying Adobe Tax isn't getting us the support we need right now. I wish I didn't need Adobe CC but I have used Adobe software since the Mac II so I just keep foolishly paying for it.

If you need a specific test doing let me know. At the moment... an iMac Pro would be the Mac to have for Adobe CC and Apple themselves admit that you'll need an eGPU on the iMac Pro to "upgrade" it in the future. However, hopefully with proper eGPU support from Adobe things will be almost as good on MacBook Pros soon. We can hope, right? We pay enough.

Blender 3D and AMD ProRender are totally free and that works great!!

M

mmedibu

Participant

This is very informative. Thank you! I've been digging for some insight like this for quite a while and my interest immediately sparked up again yesterday after seeing the Blackmagic solution. Needless to say it's ordered now. ;-)

ADOBE PLEASE ADD SUPPORT! This would make everyone's lives easier (except maybe Apple and iMac Pro sales).

C

charleshull

Participating Frequently

Let us know how you get on with the Blackmagic eGPU and good luck.

I got the Blackmagic eGPU yesterday, and installed it on a 2017 13 inch Macbook Pro. My hope is this will run Premiere CC. So far there is no improvement over the built in Intel Graphics 650. I can't play the timeline smoothly (it is really jerky), and there is no improvement with the Radeon Pro 580 eGPU, either in OpenCL or Metal. The Activity Monitor shows the eGPU is working in OpenCL and Metal, but it's not helping Premiere CC's performance.

But FCPX now screams. (FCPX screams on any new Mac, but now it REALLY screams.) And of course Blackmagic Resolve now runs really well on this computer, where it wouldn't run before. Again, I hope Adobe gets this going with Premiere CC.

G

Gelert

Participating Frequently

I have an update to this. Adobe CC apps are picky about your exact eGPU connection setups!

I have been generally using the eGPUs as "compute assist" devices. So my Laptop has been powering the main display and the eGPUs are added without screens to add OpenCL or Metal computing power. This works perfectly in some applications like Blender 3D but none of the Adobe CC apps recognise the eGPU.

I now have a Radeon Pro WX 9100 inside a Sonnet 650 eGPU and my original Sapphire RX 580 inside a Sonnet 350 eGPU.

I've been doing some experimenting and the setup of the eGPU and screen within in macOS is critical to any of the Adobe apps "seeing" and using the eGPU.

Photoshop will only see it if the laptop is in Clamshell mode and the eGPU is powering the main screen.

Premier will see the eGPU and use it if the eGPU is powering the main screen but the laptop doesn't have to be in clamshell mode.

Using Activity Monitor > Window > GPU History you can see which GPU is being used by the apps when you use an accelerated function in macOS 10.13.4.

Blender 3D doesn't care... just set the rendering engine to use all the eGPUs and it'll suck all the compute it can from them.

UncleDAC

Participant

Is this still the case? What is the recommended eGPU to get now for an iMac 5k to improve the Adobe Premier rendering performance of UHD videos?

J

Joel2018

Participant

I am very curious what the answer is, as well. I'm very surprised to find so little online about this groundbreaking support from Apple. My MBP has the potential to be far more of a powerhouse, now, but it's difficult to find information on best setups and current stability.

Does this work yet or have official support apart from Apple? Anyone know? Adobe?

A

Anonymous

I have been having the same issues. Even though High Sierra 10.13.4 brought native support for eGPUs and Radeon cards, Adobe hasn't updated their programs to officially support them.

G

Gelert

Participating Frequently

I'm in exactly the same situation. I have the full eGPU RX 580 for 10.13.4 and not a single Adobe CC app (even the latest update) on macOS recognises it at all. I've been working with AMD on ProRender for Blender on macOS with the eGPU and that is working amazingly well now. But no Adobe CC acceleration.

I read that the AMD WX9100 Radeon Pro GPU is optimised for Adobe Premier CC the other day but I'm assuming it's on Windows not macOS. Hopefully that will happen soon as that GPU is certified by Apple and AMD for eGPU use on macOS.

If I get the eGPU to work with Adobe CC apps I will come back here and update. But so far... no joy.

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