macOS Catalina 10.15.1 AMD RX5700XT - OpenCL working?

[Metallus97]

I am plaining to getting a eGPU for my MBP to game and do some BOINC.

With the last macOS update AMD Navi support was added, therefore I want to get a 5700XT.

BUT I need OpenCL to work properly. Since this is a huge problem under Windows with this card, I fear it also not working on Mac.

Does anybody know more?

Thanks,

Metallus

[Master Disaster]

15 minutes ago, Metallus97 said:

I am plaining to getting a eGPU for my MBP to game and do some BOINC and F@H.

With the last macOS update AMD Navi support was added, therefore I want to get a 5700XT.

BUT I need OpenCL to work properly. Since this is a huge problem under Windows with this card, I fear it also not working on Mac.

Does anybody know more?

Thanks,

Metallus

OpenCL support on macOS is terrible anyway, Apple are using old versions of both OpenGL & OpenCL and since Mojave they said they won't be updating it again. Instead they're focusing on Metal.

 

See Here - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/macos-10-15-catalina-the-ars-technica-review/3/

Quote

OpenGL and OpenCL

OpenGL and OpenCL were officially deprecated in Mojave last year, though that's a little misleading since it implies that Apple had been actively maintaining and updating its support for those standards. In Catalina, as in every macOS version going all the way back to Mavericks, the macOS OpenGL implementation is stuck at version 4.1 (2010), and the OpenCL version is stuck at 1.2 (2011). This means that apps that still rely on those APIs on macOS will continue to run, provided they've been updated to meet the 64-bit-only requirement. But you shouldn't be developing new Mac apps that rely on OpenGL or CL for anything important.

 

Apple also isn't directly supporting newer replacement standards like Vulkan. Instead, the company is opting to direct developers toward its own proprietary Metal API for both graphics and GPU computing. But that doesn't mean there's no hope for cross-platform developers—the MoltenVK translation layer, which maps Vulkan API calls to Metal ones, is actively being used in several prominent apps, and the results are promising. In both Dota 2 and the Dolphin GameCube and Wii emulator, MoltenVK often performs significantly better than OpenGL while saving developers the trouble of adding and maintaining Metal support. It's not totally without bugs (and as those Dota 2 benchmarks from Phoronix show, still not quite as fast as Vulkan running on Linux or Windows 10), but MoltenVK is still a big improvement over OpenGL.

 

[Metallus97]

7 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

OpenCL support on macOS is terrible anyway, Apple are using old versions of both OpenGL & OpenCL and since Mojave they said they won't be updating it again. Instead they're focusing on Metal.

 

See Here - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/macos-10-15-catalina-the-ars-technica-review/3/

 

KK, thanks bro!

I guess we wont see anything using Metal for BOINC or F@H anytime soon.

 

But my main question still stands: Does it run or not? OpenCL 1.2 is fine for most BOINC projects

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Metallus97 said:

KK, thanks bro!

I guess we wont see anything using Metal for BOINC or F@H anytime soon.

 

But my main question still stands: Does it run or not? OpenCL 1.2 is fine for most BOINC projects

I can't say for sure but I would guess BOINC would support the card, unfortunately that still doesn't answer your question of whether macOS will support OpenCL on the card. The issue is Apple saying OpenCL is deprecated, that means if it doesn't work now it probably never will.

[hishnash]

On 11/10/2019 at 8:08 AM, Master Disaster said:

I can't say for sure but I would guess BOINC would support the card, unfortunately that still doesn't answer your question of whether macOS will support OpenCL on the card. The issue is Apple saying OpenCL is deprecated, that means if it doesn't work now it probably never will.

For BIONC runtime you can set up a linux VM and pass through the eGPU into that that will give you the best OpenCL support. Since macOS and Linux have very simple file system structures you can share a directory without the pain and performance hit you get on windows. This is quite a common workflow for devs of all types on macOS.

[Metallus97]

8 hours ago, hishnash said:

For BIONC runtime you can set up a linux VM and pass through the eGPU into that that will give you the best OpenCL support. Since macOS and Linux have very simple file system structures you can share a directory without the pain and performance hit you get on windows. This is quite a common workflow for devs of all types on macOS.

DAAAYM okkkkk! And that works without a perf los on the GPU side?

Wich VM program should I use? I have VMware Fusion. Does this work without perf los?

[Master Disaster]

10 hours ago, hishnash said:

For BIONC runtime you can set up a linux VM and pass through the eGPU into that that will give you the best OpenCL support. Since macOS and Linux have very simple file system structures you can share a directory without the pain and performance hit you get on windows. This is quite a common workflow for devs of all types on macOS.

Thats actually really clever.

[Metallus97]

12 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Thats actually really clever.

Ill def. give it a try and report how the performance is. But wont be able to do that before Christmas