Apple's new Mac Pro can't do THIS!

[TannerMcCoolman]

 

Gaming on a Mac leaves something to be desired in 2023. But was it always so hard? Could Apple's final server ACTUALLY be a good gaming PC with the right tweaks?

[ToboRobot]

Dear YouTube, why isn't there a way to run a poll in videos.  Don't you like data?

[Rarity]

one thing though , was the gpu used in the video one with a mac firmware , or a normal one off the shelf ? 

[filpo]

18 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

Dear YouTube, why isn't there a way to run a poll in videos.  Don't you like data?

Dislike counter removal is typing...

[ahuckphin]

I feel like the duration of the video could have been cut in half with the cut out footage instead being a floatplane exclusive. 

 

 

[Ashleyyyy]

this video was a fail imo.

an XServe 3,1 under the hood is effectively a Mac Pro 3,1 in server form. i own a 3,1 Mac Pro, and there's a LOT more that it can do than y'all showed.

for a start, 10.11 is the latest supported macOS version but it'll run all the way up to the latest release with patchers. with an nvidia card you'd want the High Sierra patcher, to install that, since that's the latest macOS that runs nvidia cards.

i actually had a 1030 working in mine on High Sierra, so theoretically it'll take any 10-series card.

furthermore you can very easily boot and install Linux on 3,1 Mac's so you could have done that. all the hardware in my 3,1 Mac Pro works on Linux so i don't see why an XServe would be a problem.

[FuchsFuchs1]

My gaming rig is a MacPro4,1... when it still was on mac os steam worked completely fine, also i had a card wich said it was a GT 120... it ran most games and steam ui worked completely. You could easely install windows on it... just insert a windows install disc and install it, the biggest problem i had was that any mac edition cards wont work propperly wich can be bypassed with a normal graphics card. I would go as faar as to say that i have the strongest MacPro4,1 with everything maxxed out and running windows 10 enterprise. It runs every game i toss at it. Also something i noticed when upgrading to windows from mac os is that the mac runs faster on windows. If anyone is intressted i can post some specs and some pictures of the mac...

[Sousuke]

I still own a MacPro 3,1 but it's not in use anymore due to slowly failing RAM (These used to run really hot and are still commanding quite a premium on the used market) so would like to use it again but with me using an M1 Pro MacBook Pro and a Gaming Laptop I don't really have any need to tinker with the MacPro. 

 

Do miss the old days though when I did spend allot of time tinkering with Mac OS and gaming. Still remember that the original Halo was supposed to be a Mac only game but Microsoft bought out Bungie. 

[danwat1234]

Would love to see a part 3! Did you remove the MXM GPU when you ribboned up the 9 series desktop card? Would the stock 'BIOS' accept anything other than the stock CPU? Knowing Apple they might make a specific BIOS for each SKU

Don't suppose it could become a Folding@home target server or something to run indefinitely. 

Also, what was the Steam solution, downgrade and somehow the cloud servers still were cool with it? 

Perhaps there is a way to bypass this countdown..

Edited July 3, 2023 by danwat1234
Last 2 sentences

[r00tb33r]

Heh, my X58 system I've been using for 12 years now is from a time I was building Hackintoshes.  Architecturally that machine is similar to that Xserve.  Amusingly I use a Titan Black in my machine as well, and 24GB of RAM.

 

On Windows the gaming experience is still quite alright.  It's just that Mac genuinely sucks at gaming.  It's not the hardware at fault here.

[Ashleyyyy]

12 hours ago, Rarity said:

one thing though , was the gpu used in the video one with a mac firmware , or a normal one off the shelf ? 

that does not matter other than getting a boot screen. when the OS/drivers load it behaves like any card. i own a 3,1 Mac Pro and i've had a pc 1030 working in it.

[r00tb33r]

1 minute ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

that does not matter other than getting a boot screen. when the OS/drivers load it behaves like any card. i own a 3,1 Mac Pro and i've had a pc 1030 working in it.

I was wondering the same thing, since I was in Mac card business at one point.  I don't believe there was an EFI firmware for Maxwell cards.

 

It's been many years, I do not remember if Macs boot without an EFI display.

[maplepants]

I love seeing this old Xserve used and abused.

 

One aspect of the gaming story here is 32bit support. They're running macOS 10.11.6 but 32bit support in macOS was dropped with High Sierra (10.13.4).

 

So on my Mac Studio, I can run Arkham City but can't run 32bit games like Arkham Asylum. 

 

And the macOS support story on Steam is much better than other storefronts. A little over a quarter of my Steam library includes a 64bit macOS version. They've also got loads of cross platform saves in games like Dead Cells or Stardew Valley.

 

Apple claims to have over 200 games in Apple Arcade, but I've already got 150 on Steam and none of those are ports of mobile games. Pro Snooker & Pool 2023+ just doesn't make your platform a gaming platform in the way that Wasteland 3, Spiritfarer, or Dead Cells do.

[Ashleyyyy]

34 minutes ago, r00tb33r said:

I was wondering the same thing, since I was in Mac card business at one point.  I don't believe there was an EFI firmware for Maxwell cards.

 

It's been many years, I do not remember if Macs boot without an EFI display.

they do boot without a mac firmware card, you just don't get a display output until the OS/gpu driver load.

[Rarity]

10 hours ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

that does not matter other than getting a boot screen. when the OS/drivers load it behaves like any card. i own a 3,1 Mac Pro and i've had a pc 1030 working in it.

thats interesting , cause them used mac pro`s and used working xserves are going for pretty decent  prices nowadays ..

 

[FuchsFuchs1]

10 hours ago, maplepants said:

I love seeing this old Xserve used and abused.

 

One aspect of the gaming story here is 32bit support. They're running macOS 10.11.6 but 32bit support in macOS was dropped with High Sierra (10.13.4).

 

So on my Mac Studio, I can run Arkham City but can't run 32bit games like Arkham Asylum. 

 

And the macOS support story on Steam is much better than other storefronts. A little over a quarter of my Steam library includes a 64bit macOS version. They've also got loads of cross platform saves in games like Dead Cells or Stardew Valley.

 

Apple claims to have over 200 games in Apple Arcade, but I've already got 150 on Steam and none of those are ports of mobile games. Pro Snooker & Pool 2023+ just doesn't make your platform a gaming platform in the way that Wasteland 3, Spiritfarer, or Dead Cells do.

32bit works in high sierra
mojave was the last version to support 32bit

[maplepants]

12 hours ago, FuchsFuchs1 said:

32bit works in high sierra
mojave was the last version to support 32bit

True! It was even in the article I linked, hahaha. High Sierra is the version where it started nagging users about 32 bit software, and making it feel like that stuff was out of support. 

[Ashleyyyy]

15 hours ago, Rarity said:

thats interesting , cause them used mac pro`s and used working xserves are going for pretty decent  prices nowadays ..

 

yes they do. i would recommend against the 3,1 though, ideally get a 4,1 or 5,1 since those use DDR3 ECC ram. much easier to get a hold of these days than DDR2 ECC.