The Mac FAQ

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  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979
    edited October 2016

    Yes..very helpful :) I like so much when conversation are inside the subject and the person knows what it says!!

    i have done that setting you refer Totte , but not so much difference...anyway  So if i understood well  this you saying is that Studio viewport using CPU and render using the GPU?¨

    If the viewport is in Iray mode (which is not anything you can work in unless you have a gazillion dollar GPU set so yes), always use textureshaded in viewport.

    Also i wanted to ask you as i saw before you said something for the terra... i bought it..i will have problems?

    Totte said:

    Thanks for the reply Dear Totte :) I Dont know why but its the first time that i didnt get a notification for the reply. Yes it looks like that but my old imac with amd card and less vram ( 512mb) was much better than my new one with nvidia and 4 gb vram..!! Strange yes? So i think that the problem is the OSX version...

    AMD cards cannot be used at all with Iray as HW, so it relies only on CPU (where CPU cores and RAM is the factor)

    4GB VRAM is the mimimum for using Iray, but should work.

    At my old imac i was able to do animations with studio too...but with old version (4.7) Now im stuck with new one.Anyway i trying to see what is going wrong.

    Of course big difference is when the cuda and web drivers are installed.The default nvidia drivers are very old and as i saw Apple still using same drivers since Yosemite...Maybe thats why Yosemite running better with studio..i dont know ! Ok the main problem is not the render..its the way that viewport working.

    The main issue is that Viewport (OpenGL), Windowserver Window backingstore and Iray is fighting in the same crowded 4GB space, but have you configured your new machine (Video settings) and enabled performance optimizations? This do a real difference.

     

    I dont want to go to windows after XP because of the bad inteface and the bad firewall they have.Also they have so many security holes due to so many applications for internet..and these are tottaly useless for working with studio...

    i guess you have the alu tower yes? This is good but for how long? As i was searching for this i found that the pci connector to these cannot accept new video cards like titan x  because new cards need pci 3.0 version....and old mac pro  they have till 1.0?

    If you put a 3.0 card in a PCI 2.0 or 1.0 slot it will step down. My son runs a GTX-960 (which says PCI 3.0) in his PCI 2.0 Mac Pro 2012 with no problems (the only issue is when playing games where the BUS speed limits the theoretical performance uploading stuff to the card, but that's about. I don't really think Titans are the best cards. The new 1080 does give a lot of bang for the buck with 8GB VRAM, but it's still unclear when they will be supported in Iray though, but according to the forums at nVidia it's happening, but no timeframe really yet.

     

    Totte said:

    So my only option is to put an external video card via thunderbolt and see the results...

    Sorry for long post just wanted to share my experience and maybe someone give an idea :) Thank you 

    I Wanted to add that it looks the 4.8 version of studio running better than 4.9 at mac. At least to me

     

    Not any Apple hardware with built in Graphics comes even close to what Iray needs. I use an old Mac Pro (2012) with nVidia card in as my render machine

     

     

    I hope this cleared something out.

     

     

    Post edited by Totte on
  • Angelheart77Angelheart77 Posts: 48
    edited October 2016

    "If the viewport is in Iray mode (which is not anything you can work in unless you have a gazillion dollar GPU set so yes), always use textureshaded in viewport."

    Dear Totte i didnt understand what you answered..

    I asked you , if you want , 2 questions 

    What is using Studio when at viewport and when render as a file the scene...it will help a lot

    i think you said that the viewport is using CPU unless the actual GPU is something exotic? :)and at render ?

    I asking this because with my old imac with Snow Leopard and the Amd card with 512mb and with i7, 3d delight renders was going like thunder and viewport was good enough.

    With Iray the last time i did with that imac (before 9 months i guess) it was ok! not so fast but ok .

    Since i bought this new imac with nvidia inbuilt card 4gb vram and i7 CPU too ,IS MUCH MUCH LESS SLOWER!!

    Most at viewport. i tested it with 3d delight too and again is slower than the old one.

    SO WHY These 2 almost identical models have so much difference ( the new much worst even if it have better video card!)

    The only difference between them is the video card which is much better on new one but no use, the studio version ( at the old one when i last use it i was running the 4.8) and the version of OSX.

    So the result is that something is wrong with OSX version or studio version(that i dont think) 

    -------

    The other one question i believe you said yes...if not good Gpu...?

    This thread is very good! Please keep it! :)

    i read some lines from before..im daz user for a long time and i didnt expected that such thread for Mac's could exist..

    i saw somewhere before an utility for installing content but i cant download the manual to see what is doing. do you have any link for pdf?

    http://4eyes.code66.se/?page_id=7463

    Redo install 1.2.1

     

    Post edited by Angelheart77 on
  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

    I have an updated version here: http://4eyes.code66.se/?p=7775#more-7775

     

  •  The requested URL /wp-content/uploads/2015/03/RendoInstall-2.0-Manual.pdf was not found on this server.

    Totte said:

    I have an updated version here: http://4eyes.code66.se/?p=7775#more-7775

     

     

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

     

    What is using Studio when at viewport and when render as a file the scene...it will help a lot

    i think you said that the viewport is using CPU unless the actual GPU is something exotic? :)and at render ?

    Viewport uses OpenGL (which is using GPU), but there are many modes, Texture Shaded (OpenGL) and Iray (which is Iray, and GPU usage depends on Iray card capabilities and lots of things).

    If you go to the Render Settings Tab -> Advanced and set Engine -> Iray, do you see your GPU listed or is that only showing CPU?

     

    I asking this because with my old imac with Snow Leopard and the Amd card with 512mb and with i7, 3d delight renders was going like thunder and viewport was good enough.

    With Iray the last time i did with that imac (before 9 months i guess) it was ok! not so fast but ok .

    Since i bought this new imac with nvidia inbuilt card 4gb vram and i7 CPU too ,IS MUCH MUCH LESS SLOWER!!

    Most at viewport. i tested it with 3d delight too and again is slower than the old one.

    SO WHY These 2 almost identical models have so much difference ( the new much worst even if it have better video card!)

    This is strange, but it can be so much, like RAM for example. I saw you used the nVidia WebDriver, but what CUDA version have you downloaded? 

    The only difference between them is the video card which is much better on new one but no use, the studio version ( at the old one when i last use it i was running the 4.8) and the version of OSX.

    So the result is that something is wrong with OSX version or studio version(that i dont think) 

    -------

    The other one question i believe you said yes...if not good Gpu...?

    This thread is very good! Please keep it! :)

    i read some lines from before..im daz user for a long time and i didnt expected that such thread for Mac's could exist..

    i saw somewhere before an utility for installing content but i cant download the manual to see what is doing. do you have any link for pdf?

    http://4eyes.code66.se/?page_id=7463

    Redo install 1.2.1

     

     

  • Thank you Totte ..

    So as i thought...Something is wrong with versions of osx and cannot handle well as old versions the CPU and GPU recources...I strongly believe this and Yes , you are right ..there are so many involved... 

    "If you go to the Render Settings Tab -> Advanced and set Engine -> Iray, do you see your GPU listed or is that only showing CPU?"

    Yes if i remember well the unbuilt GPU was appearing there..

    "This is strange, but it can be so much, like RAM for example. I saw you used the nVidia WebDriver, but what CUDA version have you downloaded? "

    The last time i did it..because now i dont have any Studio..was the latest for El Capitan...and no good...Also i was testing it with Yosemite was much better but i said lets try El capitan when public released till 10.11.6 and till now because of this OSX update i screwed everything :)

    Anyway soon i will install studio again to both my macs...

    Just an advice for people that using imac with Studio... It's very easy to do damage from temperature! The imacs does not have good airflow  and must have a program to monitor the temps. 

    At my late 2013 imac when i first bought it  i saw GPU and CPU reaching 100c and i had crashes because of this reason. Anyway i made a mod to run cooler and this problem solved.

     

    Do you know any way  how to make Studio viewport to work with external GPU via thundebolt?

    the egpu appears at display and graphiks and to render settings to studio  but it looks like studio not using it at viewport...

    How to test this??

     

     

     

     

     

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

     The requested URL /wp-content/uploads/2015/03/RendoInstall-2.0-Manual.pdf was not found on this server.

    Totte said:

    I have an updated version here: http://4eyes.code66.se/?p=7775#more-7775

     

     

    Opps, looks like those links didn't survive the servercrash a few months back, fixed now.

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

     

    Do you know any way  how to make Studio viewport to work with external GPU via thundebolt?

    the egpu appears at display and graphiks and to render settings to studio  but it looks like studio not using it at viewport...

    How to test this??

    I know some people have done that - but most external GPU boxes is weak when it comes to powersupply. I know one guy who had an external cabinet and fried two GTX-980 when something broke...

    But that "should work".

    And yes, rendering on non-server built machines is risky.

     

     

  • "Opps, looks like those links didn't survive the servercrash a few months back, fixed now."

    Ok the link for the pdf working i downloaded it.Thank you. 

    I downloaded also the 1.2.1 version to see how it works :)

    Totte...the purpose of this is to install the zip files dowloaded manually from store? instead of IM?

     

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

    "Opps, looks like those links didn't survive the servercrash a few months back, fixed now."

    Ok the link for the pdf working i downloaded it.Thank you. 

    I downloaded also the 1.2.1 version to see how it works :)

    Totte...the purpose of this is to install the zip files dowloaded manually from store? instead of IM?

     

    Really no, if something can be installed with DIM, do it. It's for installing third party stuff and freebees and such that comes in zip files.

     

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

    Version 2 is much much better, version 2 was more targeted to Poser content

  •  Ok Thank you for all your answers Totte! Actually to run eGpu setup needs a very powerful Gpu because of the loss of not be connected directly to pci...i think...and for instance Titan X needs for sure 300w power supply itself... They selling many egpu boxes outhere but very few are capable to run high end GPU'S

    i know one but i dont want to do advertise here..i dont know if allowed.

    But Totte is there any way with such set up to make Studio working as with unbuilt GPU?

    I tested it and i dont know why it looks like no difference...iewport work like cannot see it.. (: At render... ok is working.Big difference.

    About the Redo install utility it will be useful to me because i have some content bought out of the store..

     

    Totte said:

    Version 2 is much much better, version 2 was more targeted to Poser content

     

     

  • Angelheart77Angelheart77 Posts: 48
    edited October 2016
    Totte said:

    Version 2 is much much better, version 2 was more targeted to Poser content

     

    Post edited by Angelheart77 on
  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

     But Totte is there any way with such set up to make Studio working as with unbuilt GPU?

     

    If the GPU is accessible by the system, Studio will find it, there is no magic for studio, just correct drivers and cuda. 

  • Hello Dear Totte..i read everything at this discussion and is quite interesting at some points :)

    I guess many people here find things that cannot found somewhere else even at Apple support :)

    Ok  as you last said GPU is assesible by the system studio finds it..but like black magic it looks that the egpu does not take part at viewport only at render

    and this can be easily seen with istat pro watching the GPU prossecors  and their memories.

    Why this happening? Maybe because studio see the low unbuilt GPU and ignores the good one(titanx)?

    Is there any trick to force this? any plist editing or i dont know...

    Also if at render settings at iray disabling the unbuilt(dicrete?) and allow only the CPU and external then again viewport using only CPU which result to much lower performance because does not using at all any GPU....Why this??

    Totte said:

     But Totte is there any way with such set up to make Studio working as with unbuilt GPU?

     

    If the GPU is accessible by the system, Studio will find it, there is no magic for studio, just correct drivers and cuda. 

     

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

    Can be, but I I always avoid using the same card for render and viewport, and viewport (OpenGL) + windowmanager takes a lot of VRAM that you rather use for rendering.

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

    Does the card show up in the list of Iray hardware?

  • Angelheart77Angelheart77 Posts: 48
    edited October 2016

    Does the card show up in the list of Iray hardware?

    YES

     How to do that with imac ? :) To choose?

    Totte said:

    Can be, but I I always avoid using the same card for render and viewport, and viewport (OpenGL) + windowmanager takes a lot of VRAM that you rather use for rendering.

     

     

    Post edited by Angelheart77 on
  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

    Does the card show up in the list of Iray hardware?

    YES

     How to do that with imac ? :) To choose?

    Totte said:

    Can be, but I I always avoid using the same card for render and viewport, and viewport (OpenGL) + windowmanager takes a lot of VRAM that you rather use for rendering.

     

     

    In DAZ Studio, check the card in the advanced render settings for both preview and photoreal. (can screenshot when the render running is done)

  • If you read carefully my previous today comment i said that i ahve done this..but in some way it looks that not working and this can be seen with istat menu...

    Studio viewport ignores the egpu completely even if it see it. But in render using it...!!! 

    Totte said:

    Does the card show up in the list of Iray hardware?

    YES

     How to do that with imac ? :) To choose?

    Totte said:

    Can be, but I I always avoid using the same card for render and viewport, and viewport (OpenGL) + windowmanager takes a lot of VRAM that you rather use for rendering.

     

     

    In DAZ Studio, check the card in the advanced render settings for both preview and photoreal. (can screenshot when the render running is done)

     

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

    OK, then it might be a video driver issue (I don't have any iMacs or EGPU so I cannot play). If you look under System information, what does it say for Video card? 
    Apple Menu -> About this Mac -> Video and Graphics?

  • Yes i understand...Ok when i will install again and have issues i will find you :) Maybe then we can find what's going wrong...

    Can i get your advice on some things?

    With Snow leopard is better to install Valentina or Postgre?

    Which version of studio will work better? 4.7 4.8 or latest?

    I had the 4.8 last time at my old mac and was good. 

    Totte said:

    OK, then it might be a video driver issue (I don't have any iMacs or EGPU so I cannot play). If you look under System information, what does it say for Video card? 
    Apple Menu -> About this Mac -> Video and Graphics?

     

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

    - Postres as one of the reasons Valentina was dropped was a bug I found when I evaluated Valentina that also effected DAZ Studio causing it to crash.
    - DAZ Studio 4.9 if it works on 10.6 (don't rmember right now but snow leopard is very old) or 4.8. 4.7 doesn't have Iray. If you can't upgrade beyond snowleopard, does that mean you have a CoreDuo (32 bit) and not a Core2Duo (64bit) processor?

     

  • So this you saying is to install Postgre at SL? Not valentina?

    I have 2 imacs... i dont want my old to upgrade.I Can but i dont want because i have many programs that work only with SL. It have i7 and amd(512mb).And it is 64bit. i was running studio at this and also the first iray and was good. If i remember well i had the 4.8... So this i asking you ..to go same? or better to install the latest? with valentina.

    i dont want to use daz connect.it have problems when you are offline... 

    Totte said:

    - Postres as one of the reasons Valentina was dropped was a bug I found when I evaluated Valentina that also effected DAZ Studio causing it to crash.
    - DAZ Studio 4.9 if it works on 10.6 (don't rmember right now but snow leopard is very old) or 4.8. 4.7 doesn't have Iray. If you can't upgrade beyond snowleopard, does that mean you have a CoreDuo (32 bit) and not a Core2Duo (64bit) processor?

     

     

  • I'm hoping that someone can help me, happy to open a new thread if that is more appropriate but it seems like this thread has the Mac expertise watching. :-)

    I recently moved my (sizeable) library to an external drive to save on disk space. Everything worked before and now all hell has broken loose. Although my smart content is populated, doubling clicking anything there gives me a "file does not exist" error and no products or files have icons. Browsing the content library looks fine, until I try to add something to a scene and then I get not found errors for textures and other assets.

    Things I have tried:

    • Resetting the database and then re-importing meta data.
    • Completely uninstalling DAZ3D and reinstalling.
    • Completely removing DAZ3D and every indication I could find of CMS (/Library/DAZ 3D, ~/Library/DAZ 3D, /Applications/DAZ 3D).
    • Uninstalling and reinstalling all assets with the install manager.

    Notice that when I try to import an asset, I get the error shown in the third image. I don't know if this is relevant (probably not), but the missing asset paths are all lower case (although directories are not) and relative (don't include the content directory). I'm hoping that's normal.

    The strangest part of this is that after I removed /Library/DAZ 3D, reinstalls (both 32-bit and 64-bit) have not restored the Content Management service. I have tried installing via both the installation manager and from the downloadable DAZ Studio installers themselves. Nothing I've tried has brought back /Library/DAZ 3D, or let me see a content management process running in the activity monitor. I can see the postgres processes, and they start and stop properly when I use the start/stop cms controls in DAZ. 

    Any theories as to where I went wrong? I'm pretty discouraged that even with as clean as an uninstall as I could manage, I still seem to have a broken asset library. I'm at a real loss as to what might be going on. Keep in mind that the problem is bigger than the smart content pane; even loading assets from the library yields path errors, which makes me think I've got several problems going on. It's like DAZ doesn't see paths the same was as the Mac operating system. Any guidance would be greaetly appreciated.

     

    DAZStudioScreenSnapz001.png
    510 x 255 - 35K
    DAZ3DIMScreenSnapz001.png
    553 x 536 - 85K
    DAZStudioScreenSnapz002.png
    510 x 255 - 37K
  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

    I'm hoping that someone can help me, happy to open a new thread if that is more appropriate but it seems like this thread has the Mac expertise watching. :-)

    Good call, as I will get notified when someone posts here, otherwise some of the Mods will have to ping me.

    I recently moved my (sizeable) library to an external drive to save on disk space. Everything worked before and now all hell has broken loose. Although my smart content is populated, doubling clicking anything there gives me a "file does not exist" error and no products or files have icons. Browsing the content library looks fine, until I try to add something to a scene and then I get not found errors for textures and other assets.

    Things I have tried:

    • Resetting the database and then re-importing meta data.
    • Completely uninstalling DAZ3D and reinstalling.
    • Completely removing DAZ3D and every indication I could find of CMS (/Library/DAZ 3D, ~/Library/DAZ 3D, /Applications/DAZ 3D).
    • Uninstalling and reinstalling all assets with the install manager.

    Notice that when I try to import an asset, I get the error shown in the third image. I don't know if this is relevant (probably not), but the missing asset paths are all lower case (although directories are not) and relative (don't include the content directory). I'm hoping that's normal.

    The strangest part of this is that after I removed /Library/DAZ 3D, reinstalls (both 32-bit and 64-bit) have not restored the Content Management service. I have tried installing via both the installation manager and from the downloadable DAZ Studio installers themselves. Nothing I've tried has brought back /Library/DAZ 3D, or let me see a content management process running in the activity monitor. I can see the postgres processes, and they start and stop properly when I use the start/stop cms controls in DAZ. 

    Any theories as to where I went wrong? I'm pretty discouraged that even with as clean as an uninstall as I could manage, I still seem to have a broken asset library. I'm at a real loss as to what might be going on. Keep in mind that the problem is bigger than the smart content pane; even loading assets from the library yields path errors, which makes me think I've got several problems going on. It's like DAZ doesn't see paths the same was as the Mac operating system. Any guidance would be greaetly appreciated.

     

    This can be a multitude of problems, but there are a few that tend to stick out.

    You did reset database, so that shouldn't be the problem, but you never know, is that the CMS that is running?

    Does it work if you reboot the machine but breaks after a while (system sleep for example)? This would be due to the fact that when  the machine goes to sleep or disk is lost for a while and the disk comes back it will be mounted at a new mountpoint under /Volumes.  If the disk is named L1, after reboot you will have /Volumes/L1, but after a nap, it will be be seen in Finder still as L1, but the true path will be /Volumes/L1_1, while the config in DS points at /Volumes/L1. This is a long shot, but I solved this by having a crontab script running every minute touching a file on my remote disk, even though Thunderbolt (and firewire) handles this much better than USB or remote network devices just to prevent disk sleep.

    When you have assigned a new destination in DIM, remove the old one (you cannot remove it until you create a new) just to be sure DIM installs to the correct location.

    Start out there and tell us how it works!


     

  • Angelheart77Angelheart77 Posts: 48
    edited October 2016

    Ok dear Totte.As i found at Daz site it looks that the first public release with Iray was at the 4.8.0.59 version.

    With this version also appears the PostgreSql

    So i guess if i want to install an older version than this to my Snow Leopard i have to go Valentina.

    BuT as i was reading the change log  does not look good idea to go to older version than 4.8 public..

    Daz tech amazing guys did many improvements...So PostgreSql will fit better..

    Anyway thank you for all your help here..When problems solved with site and content i will start to install :)  

    Totte said:

    - Postres as one of the reasons Valentina was dropped was a bug I found when I evaluated Valentina that also effected DAZ Studio causing it to crash.
    - DAZ Studio 4.9 if it works on 10.6 (don't rmember right now but snow leopard is very old) or 4.8. 4.7 doesn't have Iray. If you can't upgrade beyond snowleopard, does that mean you have a CoreDuo (32 bit) and not a Core2Duo (64bit) processor?

     

     

    Post edited by Angelheart77 on
  • Thank you Totte, those suggestions would seem the usual suspects. I should have dug a bit deeper, and the case of the names should have tipped me off. Once I started opening assets in the install manager and examining the installed file paths (they're nicely clickable there to open Finder), I realized something was off.

    It turns out that I had configured the external drive in question as a case sensitive HFS+ filesystem. And somehow (probably when moving assets around manually, dunno) duplicate directories had gotten created, so I had a "Textures" and a "textures", a "data" and a "Data", and so on. A real mess! I reformatted the drive do not be case sensitive, merged these directories and moved them over. Everything is now peachy keen.

    My advice if somebody encounters another headscratcher (tried everything else) is to just dig in to an asset with missing files via install manager. In my case, install manager was finding the right files, but DAZ was not, since it was defaulting to the lower case version of a directory. Moral of this story: Don't try and use case sensitive file systems! I ran into this problem once with Adobe products, too. Didn't learn a thing.

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,979

    Thank you Totte, those suggestions would seem the usual suspects. I should have dug a bit deeper, and the case of the names should have tipped me off. Once I started opening assets in the install manager and examining the installed file paths (they're nicely clickable there to open Finder), I realized something was off.

    It turns out that I had configured the external drive in question as a case sensitive HFS+ filesystem. And somehow (probably when moving assets around manually, dunno) duplicate directories had gotten created, so I had a "Textures" and a "textures", a "data" and a "Data", and so on. A real mess! I reformatted the drive do not be case sensitive, merged these directories and moved them over. Everything is now peachy keen.

    My advice if somebody encounters another headscratcher (tried everything else) is to just dig in to an asset with missing files via install manager. In my case, install manager was finding the right files, but DAZ was not, since it was defaulting to the lower case version of a directory. Moral of this story: Don't try and use case sensitive file systems! I ran into this problem once with Adobe products, too. Didn't learn a thing.

    Yes, DAZ Studio requires case insensitive file-systems, as content may differ in case when it comes to paths inside files. That was a good catch, you get a cookie!

     

  • Question regarding Content Library:

    I have upgraded from DS4.6 to 4.9 this week (embarrassed pause) to fing the Content Library mysteriously populated as follows: DAZ and Poser Formats all in order, Products appear fine, but the Categories which used to have multiple user-created sections, as well as a "default" categorization before, now has exactly two dragon mat files and nothing else.

    Here's what I tried after searching forums:

    1. Re-imported meta data from my previously exported Userdata files (working for 15+ minutes: no effect)

    2. Reset database + above (same result)

    3. Uninstalled Postgre, reinstalled, stopped, started, checked if running properly, etc. (same result)

    4. Rechecked paths for librairies, reinstalled cms (same result)

    I don't anyone with quite the same problem as I have. Is it that the Valentina db I exported under 4.6 cannot be reimported using Postgre? Am I missing something? The Categories I set up were very detailed and contained 5k+ products with all their separate items sorted. Recreating these is a deal breaker at this point.

    Any advice appreciated.

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