Radeon Pro 555

Post requests to add new GPUs to the official whitelist here.

Moderators: Site Moderators, FAHC Science Team

Post Reply
mendel3
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Nov 03, 2018 8:03 pm

Radeon Pro 555

Post by mendel3 »

Can you please add the Radeon Pro 555 found in the 2017 MacBook Pro? I'm not sure how to find out the ID, so just let me know if you need anything to add it.

Thanks!
Joe_H
Site Admin
Posts: 7857
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:41 pm
Hardware configuration: Mac Pro 2.8 quad 12 GB smp4
MacBook Pro 2.9 i7 8 GB smp2
Location: W. MA

Re: Radeon Pro 555

Post by Joe_H »

Welcome to the folding support forum.

Information on the GPUs.txt file and how to get the necessary information to provide for getting a new GPU added to it is provided in this topic - viewtopic.php?f=83&t=26208#p262892. However, unless you boot your MacBook Pro into Windows or Linux, adding it to the file will not be enough to allow you to fold using the GPU in it. Currently GPU folding is not available or supported on macOS.
Image

iMac 2.8 i7 12 GB smp8, Mac Pro 2.8 quad 12 GB smp6
MacBook Pro 2.9 i7 8 GB smp3
mendel3
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Nov 03, 2018 8:03 pm

Re: Radeon Pro 555

Post by mendel3 »

How much of a performance hit would I take if I ran Folding@Home on WINE?
Joe_H
Site Admin
Posts: 7857
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:41 pm
Hardware configuration: Mac Pro 2.8 quad 12 GB smp4
MacBook Pro 2.9 i7 8 GB smp2
Location: W. MA

Re: Radeon Pro 555

Post by Joe_H »

The usual virtualization software such as WINE does not give processes running under them direct access to the GPU hardware. Because of that folding on a GPU does not work with them. Someone last year was looking into using a different virtualization app to do GPU folding on a server's VM, but I do not recall the details and whether it worked.
Image

iMac 2.8 i7 12 GB smp8, Mac Pro 2.8 quad 12 GB smp6
MacBook Pro 2.9 i7 8 GB smp3
bruce
Posts: 20910
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:13 pm
Location: So. Cal.

Re: Radeon Pro 555

Post by bruce »

The Radeon Pro 555 is a respectable GPU and if you can figure out a way to fold on it, would provide a sizable boost in performance, but Joe_H has explained the situation. Another detail is that OpenCL support is required and OS-X has provided a number of buggy versions of OpenCL. This may or may not have been resolved. For that reason, FAH has not ported the required FAHCore_21 to OS-X so even if a bug-free version of OpenCL were available, you still wouldn't be able to fold on your GPU.
Joe_H
Site Admin
Posts: 7857
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:41 pm
Hardware configuration: Mac Pro 2.8 quad 12 GB smp4
MacBook Pro 2.9 i7 8 GB smp2
Location: W. MA

Re: Radeon Pro 555

Post by Joe_H »

From information posted on the OpenMM site, Apple issued a bug fix to their OpenCL implementation about 2-3 years ago. I would have to look up which version of the OS that first appeared on. As Bruce mentioned, because of the bug a GPU folding core was not ported and released for OS X.

Apple's change in what GPU's they were supplying in most systems to the IGPU that is part of the Intel CPU's is another reason. Their recent use of more advanced GPU's such as the Pro 555 and support for eGPU setups may change the situation going forward, but nothing has been announced.
Image

iMac 2.8 i7 12 GB smp8, Mac Pro 2.8 quad 12 GB smp6
MacBook Pro 2.9 i7 8 GB smp3
Post Reply