Open Radar

 
Area:
Something not on this list

Summary:
macOS High Sierra announced support for external GPU (henceforth called eGPU) devices that enable significantly more powerful graphics processors to be attached to a Mac via the Thunderbolt 3 port. This is a really exciting concept and will allow for vastly increased productivity in apps that can take advantage of GPU-based computations.

At the same time, it would be excellent if eGPU support could be enabled in Windows via Boot Camp on Mac hardware as well. At the moment, it seems that the Mac firmware is limiting the ability to enable eGPU devices when running Windows on a Mac. While the functionality can be enabled at present, it is both time-consuming, and relatively risky for the Mac.

Steps to Reproduce:
1) Install Windows 10 via Boot Camp on a Mac.
2) Attach an eGPU via Thunderbolt 3. (I used a Razer Core with an nVidia GTX 1080 Ti)
3) Install the drivers for the eGPU and the video card in it.
4) Reboot the Mac back into Boot Camp

Expected Results:
The Mac will successfully boot into Boot Camp and the eGPU will be a mounted device ready for us.

Observed Results:
If the eGPU is plugged into the Mac when Boot Camp is booting up, the Mac will hang and will need to be force-restarted.

If the eGPU is plugged into the Mac once Windows has finished loading, it will appear in the Windows Device Manager list, but will be reporting 'Error Code 12' in that the necessary system resources were unable to be allocated to it.

Version:
macOS Sierra 10.12.4
Boot Camp
Windows 10 (Latest version at time of writing)

Notes:


Configuration:
This occurs when running Windows 10 via Boot Camp on a Mac, and an eGPU device is attached via Thunderbolt 3.