I have an iMac thats having issues with Adobe Illustrator and was asked by Adobe support to make sure the graphics drivers are up to date. I have an AMD Radeon R9 M290X 2 GB installed, but there is no drivers listed for he MAC OS. Is this supported or does MAC take care of the driver updates with the MAC OS versions?
Ati Radeon Drivers For Mac Os
Mac OS includes drivers for any Graphics that came with your mac. The exception is if you added an external option, that may need a third part driver. Even with Bootcamp the drives still a certified and distributed by APPLE the ones listed on the AMD site are here as a courtesy and are identical to the ones from APPLE. If you are having any issue with the drivers they need to be reported to APPLE SUPPORT.
Anyone knows when Apple will release new drivers? or I am even trying to upgrade to Bigsur on my macbook pro 2010 in case those drivers are in there already, but on the Macbook pro 17" 2010 i am not able to instal kext of Bigsur !
This release of the RADEON drivers for Mac OS X currently supports versions 10.1 to 10.1.5 of the operating system. If you are running a version of Mac OS X newer than 10.1.5, you should obtain updated drivers from the ATI web site.The latest updates and fixes apply to versions 10.1.3 through to 10.1.5 of Mac OS X. It is strongly recommended that everyone update to one of these OS versions. Please see the Apple web site for details.
Installing a new graphics card for the first time.If possible, please run the installer before plugging your new card into your computer. This ensures that you will have a complete set of compatible ATI software once your card is installed and that no conflicts will be caused by any old components.This procedure is especially important with the RADEON 7000 for Mac OS 9. You may not be able to boot your system normally if older extensions are present in your system. If you are not able to install the drivers prior to installing the graphics card, follow the steps below:
Installer Password RequestThe RADEON Mac Software Installer for Mac OS X will prompt you for a System Administrator password during the installation process. Only someone with system administrator privileges should be installing device drivers under Mac OS X. This password verification ensures security for these actions and allows the installer to access your System folder.
Misc. Game NotesThis release of RADEON and Rage 128 drivers address some issues and provide performance improvements with some existing games, as well as new games just made available or about to be released. Please be aware that some games will require that these newest ATI drivers be installed if they are to be run at all.
This release of the RADEON drivers for Mac OS X currently supports versions 10.1.3 to 10.2.1 Jaguar (Update) of the operating system.The latest updates and fixes apply to versions 10.1.5 and 10.2.1 of Mac OS X. It is strongly recommended that you update to either of these OS versions if you are currently running something older. Please see the Apple web site for details.
Misc. Game NotesThis release of RADEON and Rage 128 drivers address issues and provide performance improvements with some existing games, as well as new games just made available or about to be released. Please be aware that some games will require that these newest ATI drivers be installed if they are to be run at all.
This release of the RADEON drivers for Mac OS X currently supports versions 10.1.3 to 10.2.2 Jaguar (Update) of the operating system.The latest updates and fixes apply to versions 10.1.5 and 10.2.2 of Mac OS X. It is strongly recommended that you update to either of these OS versions if you are currently running something older. Please see the Apple web site for details.
Installing a new graphics card for the first time.If possible, please run the installer before plugging your new card into your computer. This ensures that you will have a complete set of compatible ATI software once your card is installed and that no conflicts will be caused by old components.This procedure is especially important with the RADEON 9000 Pro and OS 10.1.3 to 10.1.5 (if you have not previously used the September 2002 Update). It is also required with the RADEON 7000 for Mac OS 9 if you have older extensions installed. You may not be able to boot your system normally if older extensions are present in your system.For RADEON 7000 and Mac OS 9, if you are not able to install the drivers prior to installing the graphics card, follow the steps below:
This release of the RADEON drivers for Mac OS X currently supports (Jaguar) versions 10.2.8 and newer of the operating system only. These files will not install on older versions of Mac OS X. This installer will install core drivers only on Mac OS X 10.2.8 and 10.3.3 - for newer versions of the OS, only ATI Displays and its support files will be installed. Newer versions of Mac OS X ship with RADEON 9200 support pre-installed. Please check the ATI.COM web site for retail software updates.
Installer Password RequestThe RADEON 9200 Mac Edition software installer for Mac OS X will prompt you for a System Administrator password during the installation process. Only someone with system administrator privileges should be installing device drivers under Mac OS X. This password verification ensures security for these actions and allows the installer to access your System folder.
The end result, though, is that there are rarely issues with Apple graphics drivers & regular software or games; again speculation, but for games I imagine they write to a pre-defined rule-set, rather than try to constantly be pushing the boundaries.
Apple provides core drivers, currently up to OpenGL 4.1 or 3.3 - depending on your card, of course - plus legacy drivers for OGL 2.1 compatibility. Which one you get to use in any particular game etc is up to the writers of that game.
To hazard an educated guess, I would say that driver updates are most likely rolled into Mac OS X version upgrades and point updates. If you're concerned about the updates available for your particular card, (especially if it is not original to the Mac you're using,) it behooves you to visit the manufacturer's respective web sites to check. You mentioned NVIDIA: here's the link to the drivers available for download. Looks like plenty of options for many operating systems. (Mac OS X NVIDIA drivers are only available for Quadro-series boards, tho'.)
Nvidia's graphics drivers for OS X can be downloaded straight from their website, and as such they're sometimes called Nvidia Web Drivers. They're somewhat hard to find if you just go through Nvidia's driver search feature, but they're an easy find if you just Google "Nvidia driver OS X" + your OS X version (e.g. 10.11.2).
Note that I don't recommend installing Nvidia's drivers (especially beta ones) unless you know what you're doing, and you have a good reason to switch from the default (Apple-provided) ones that come with OS X. The default drivers are probably more thoroughly tested and stable, less likely to break your Mac, and are supported officially by Apple. If you do install the Nvidia driver, though, you'll always have the option to switch back to the default driver or even uninstall the Nvidia driver via System Preferences. You'll also be able to update the driver from there.
A good reason to try out Nvidia's driver might be if you use your Mac for gaming, or you run any other apps that use OpenGL. On my MacBook Pro with OS X 10.11.2 and an Nvidia GT 650m card, Cinebench's OpenGL test gives a very slight edge to Nvidia's drivers (52 fps) vs. Apple's (49 fps).
I only realized all this because I had massive performance issues after the upgrade to High Sierra (with its brand new graphics subsystem, Metal2), so basically I wondered the same thing, "Do I need to update the drivers?". With the drivers from Nvidia it's now a lot smoother.
Mac hardware and GPU software drivers have always been deeply integrated into the system. This design fuels the visually rich and graphical macOS experience as well as many deeper platform compute and graphics features. These include accelerating the user interface, providing support for advanced display features, rendering 3D graphics for pro software and games, processing photos and videos, driving powerful GPU compute features, and accelerating machine learning tasks. This deep integration also enables optimal battery life while providing for greater system performance and stability. 2ff7e9595c
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