How to get the latest Nvidia GPU drivers for your Mac

[benjosnow]

Hi,
anybody has a running setup with blender on a Macbook (16" 2020) + Razor Core X in Big Sur?
I tried my best over days. Can't figure out how to get the eGPU workin in choosable in the preferences.
Just can render on CPU.
I appriciate every hint you guys can give.

[bepeg4d]

Hi,
firstly, to check that everything is working correctly, please download and install Standalone OctaneX from App Store.

Then open Standalone, right click anywhere in the node graph panel, and choose Materials/Metallic, to create the material node.
Now right click on the node and choose Render.
If you see the Material Ball scene rendering, everything is working correctly.

I'm not a Blender user, but you should need to go to preferences/add-ons, and check that OctaneX is selected as render engine.
Then go to the Scene attributes, and change the render engine to OctaneX.

ciao Beppe

[Chamerli]

Hi Martin, it sounds like the scene itself is probably fine since the final render works correctly. I’d check the Octane viewport settings, GPU selection, and whether both 1070 Ti cards are being detected properly. The black interactive window could also be related to the specific R20/Octane version or driver combination.

[HackerM1979]

Hi,
anybody has a running setup with blender on a Macbook (16" 2020) + Razor Core X in Big Sur?
I tried my best over days. Can't figure out how to get the eGPU workin in choosable in the preferences.
Just can render on CPU.
I appriciate every hint you guys can give.

I remember this being a bit confusing with eGPUs on Big Sur. The first thing I'd check is the GPU inside the Razer Core X, because Blender's available render backends depend heavily on the actual card.

If you're using an AMD card, make sure the eGPU is actually visible to macOS first. Apple supports compatible AMD eGPUs over Thunderbolt 3, and an external display connected directly to the eGPU can also make a difference because macOS will tend to use the GPU associated with the display.

Then in Blender check Preferences → System → Cycles Render Devices. If the appropriate GPU backend/device isn't listed there, Blender isn't going to use the eGPU for Cycles just because macOS detects it. The scene itself also needs Render Properties → Device → GPU Compute selected.

One other thing: don't use the current Blender documentation as a direct guide for a Big Sur-era installation. GPU support has changed considerably since then. For an old Intel Mac + Big Sur setup, I'd stick with a Blender version known to support that OS and GPU rather than installing the newest release and assuming the same options should appear.

If macOS sees the eGPU but Blender doesn't, I'd check the exact Radeon model and Blender version next. Those two details usually explain why the GPU isn't appearing in Cycles.