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Have a M2 Max machine with 96 GB here. Rendering speed is unfortunately still far behind a PC with a decent GPU.
Is OK for my purpose and I think at least dForce is a bit faster than it used to be.
Still once iRay or Studio would provide Metal-support things could be way faster I assume.
Studio will in the future most probably support Metal for viewport (replacing OpenGL) and for Filament (uses Metal on macOS) , but Iray is nVidia's baby and wont support any other GPU hardware, ever.
On apple.com, you can select "Contact us" And under McIntosh Pro, You can add a "Feature request." I suggested to Apple that they could make more money by allowing an Nvidia card to be placed in the next generation of McIntosh pros, or By providing a container for an Nvidia card that could be hooked up to the Mac studio or Macintosh Pro. I'm wondering whether more people making the same kind of suggestion would influence Apple to actually do that. If you think so, perhaps you could also make such a suggestion.
I pointed out to Apple that there are online sites where McIntosh users could pay to use Nvidia to render 3-D scenes. I said why should those sites get all that money? If Apple did what I've suggested above, sure iNvidia video would get some of the money, but Apple could also charge for adding this feature, and Apple would make more money also. I also mentioned being a DAZ Studio User. Anyway, that's my feature request to Apple, And I'm hoping Apple Will do this.
I think the grudge goes deeper than that. Apple are still pissed off that they asked nVidia to develop a custom graphics chip for the iPhone, then sold the same chip to Samsung.
And Apple has for many years told developers that they will only need one API, Metal, but there is no Metal support what I know of for nVidia, and also, having GPUs from different vendors in the same machine is something you just do not wanna support, it's just asking for weird crashes.
Iray Server (your own or rent-by-the-minute) is what you will need to to, but you can render quite a lof of hours on a rent-by-the-minute for what you have to shell out for a new nVidia card, and you can always grab a bigger if your scene requires that, and use smaller ones if you do not need an A6000 48GB VRAM monster.
OK, well maybe that is the way to go then, especially if I could switch between a smaller and larger video card as the need arises. Too bad that Apple and nVidia can't make up, though.
I did purchase a low end gaming PC a couple of years ago. Tried to use it for DAZ Studio (and some Photoshop.)
The nVidia RTX 3060 (12GB VRAM) was awesome for the type of renders I do. Less than 20-30 seconds per render.
HOWEVER, Windows 11 is not working out well for me. A number of months ago, the PC would boot into a black screen. I would have to force the PC into safe mode and uninstall/reinstall the nVidia drivers to get the display working properly. This happens every few days and I've given up on the PC. I don't have the time nor patience to spend 30-45 minutes trying to turn on the PC. The card works fine during initial boot up, but when it's just getting to the desktop it's all black. I've messed around with this one PC more than every single Apple/Mac I've owned over the past 30+ years. Combined.
Once upon a time, one of my minor duties as an aerospace software engineer was managing a Windows NT cluster (and developing business related software on them.) I have no desire to go back to the near constant care that Windows requires to keep it running. :)
The PC feels like a needy child and the Mac feels like a faithful companion. I just turn the Mac on and it works.
That said, it would be nice for Apple to allow the use of e-GPUs on the new Macs. Or for them to give the DAZ team assistance on getting DS updated for current Macs.
To recap: the HP Omen desktop PC I got was cheap ($1300-ish), I added a 4TB NVME SSD and 32GB more RAM on top of that. So if you are more willing and PC-savvy, a PC will go a long way to improving Iray rendering for not a lot of money. Windows is a bit bothersome and I suspect there's a conflict with the more recent nVidia drivers, the PC, Windows 11, and/or the RTX 3060 that cause the black screen boot up. Oh, and I had no trouble duplicating the Mac's content library, etc. over to the PC. It's too bad that I don't have a usable/stable PC platform for accelerated Iray rendering.
I've wanted to throw that PC out the window so many times! LOL!
I love my Macs and even without super fast rendering on the PC, would welcome performance improvements brought by the newest Apple Silicon chips. But only if DAZ releases a better version of DS than what we have now. Filament and Filatoon looked great on the PC the last time it booted up. Filament on the Mac would be great. Too bad the older Qt development system can't support Filament on the Mac. Hopefully, IF Daz releases DAZ Studio built from a newer version of Qt, Filament, stability, UI fixes, and maybe more feature pairty with the PC will come along - and not be put behind a subscription paywall. Not holding my breath on any of it. They had Filament running on the Mac 3 or 4 years ago per the DS 5 forum post from way back.
Anyway, I'll continue to refrain from purchasing much here until we get something acceptable for Mac. It's been tempting to dive in and buy stuff, but the future of DS on Mac is unknown and uncertain. The wait has been long and my interest in waiting any more is waning.
Lee
I hear what you're saying Lee. By the way, I'm still noticing and appreciating your figures that you post on a particular site.
Now I'm reading about thunderbolt 5. I have thunderbolt 2 on my Macintosh Pro, late 2013 edition. With connectors, I should be able to connect to a current Mac with thunderbolt 4, so that I could transfer my files over.
if I don't buy a Mac until there's one with thunderbolt 5, and if there isn't a connector to go from thunderbolt 2 to thunderbolt 5, would there be a service to copy my files over for me, or to transfer my files onto a drive that is thunderbolt 5 compatible? Would an outfit like Best Buy be able to do this? What would be the best way to accomplish this, or whom would I contact?
has anyone had experience with this issue before?
Thunderbolt 5 is compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and 4. The Apple Thunderbolt 2 -> 3 adapter can connect the drivers to the tunderbolt 5 port.
@Totte: Ah, wonderful! Thanks so much for that information.
Support for macOS is improving, maybe not as fast as you would like. It doesn't help that Apple seems to throw a few spanners in the works with each OS update, but I wouldn't lose interest.
Thank you for the encouragement, Doctorjellybean.
Sadly, I have just now come to the conclusion that I'm out for good with DAZ.
Just back from the ER with my 90 year mother. Today was the 3rd ER/911 call in the past 9 days. Her needs have outpaced my ability to care for her after the last 6 years of my 24/7/365 caregiving.
Thank you to everyone for welcoming me into the DAZ fold (as a Poser user from the beginning.) It really has been a pleasure to pursue my 3D hobbies, both with software I've written and through Poser and finally DAZ.
Take care!
Lee
p.s. Hug someone you love or let them know you love them.
Lee, hold on.
very important : You must take care of yourself in order to take care of your Mother .
I lost my spouse about a year and eight months ago, and I dropped out of DAZ For a while. I know what Grief can do to you, because it's done it to me, and I'm still not over it. I'll send you an email so we don't block up this forum. You probably need contact in a group more than ever, even if a lot of your time is going to be taken up with your mother. If you've changed your email, let me know so that I can reach you. I hope others in this forum reach out to you also. Believe me, I do know how you feel. I had to take my spouse to emergency rooms over and over again, for years. The worry and the grief can be devastating. I only wish I had seen this yesterday as soon as you posted it.
I just sent you a couple of emails, Lee. If you've changed your email, please let me know so that I can get through to you. Please, please do not isolate.
Again, very important: You must take care of yourself in order to take care of your mother. Dropping out of things is not a way to take care of yourself. Please believe me.
Lee, please let me join Inquire in offering you all of my solace and support. Sadly, I've had experiences that make me understand how you're feeling, so believe me when i say I know and comprehend your difficulties and pain. Sincerely, feel free to reach out to us when you need to talk to somebody who may not be able to do much practically, but at least would listen with an open heart. I agree with Inquire in suggesting you don't isolate yourserlf; also, if there are support groups where you live go and join them. In the while, please accept an enourmus hug from Italy
Did Lee Moon delete his Forum on Lee's Men, Muscles, Morphs, or some such name? I received an email that he had commented in that Forum, but when I clicked on the link, I got the message "No such page available." If anyone has a link, could you please post it?
Yes, removed the images and we removed the thread.
I need to clarify this... I did delete the images, marked the thread closed, and asked for moderators to delete the thread. It was all at my request. Thank you, Richard for honoring that request. :)
I'll keep my friends up to date privately in the next day or so. Don't want to clutter the forums with this. Thank you to all for the concern!!! :)
Lee
I've been waiting over 4 years to run Filament on my Macs, and Filitoon only makes me want it more. Sadly, though, they can improve the MacOS support ten times over and it doesn't make any difference to me until DAZ Studio 5 comes out.
On the plus side, I saved hundreds of dollars on Filatoon products over the last couple of weeks and since I've stopped my usual spending while I wait to see what DAZ Studio 5 will do, I've saved a few thousand dollars (at least).
On the same boat here. Filatoon stuff is kind of flooding the store. And as a Mac Premier Member I still feel kind of left out from the party.
Hey.
OK, now that the M4's are out, I'm looking into upgrading my very old imac (12 years). For DAZ, as it's going.. is it hitting the GPU or CPU more? Is DS, rendering, even viewpoint working these days on Mac? (I've been out of it for a few years, so starting back up)...
Really appreciate any buying advice people with some knoweldge can give me (other places I've asked just have PC users speculating on things they know nothing about). (I'm probably looking at a Mini Pro)
(and hi to folks I used to chat with!)..
Edit: Wow, lots of clean up on the signature is needed.
First off, no nVidia GPU rendering on macOS (a too long story to write again, but that's just it). CPU rendering works well, but not as fast as GPU, specially for large scenes it suffers from the unified memory architecture where you RAM is used by DS to hold the scene data, by graphics card to display the scene in viewport, and Iray for rendering the scene so a scene uses 2-3 times the memory which stacks up fast. My 32GB RAM on my M1Max macStudio is way to small for larger scenes, even when rendering on external servers (like BoostForDaz), the way Iray works is it still setup the scene in Iray memory beside studio memory.
That said, Studio works ok now on macOS 11+, still some quirks here and there, specially with UI rendering (due to Qt 4.8 not being compatible at all with macOS never graphics models but DAZ team has at least got it to work.
What can we expect in the future? DS 5.0 will be based on Qt 6+ and support macOS much better, so better GUI handling and filament drawing mode will come.
Do I still recommend a mac? Everyday of the week! If you are used to it, Windows will get in your way and eating your productivity. I use both macOS and Windows daily (but not for DS), but my productivity is like 3 times higher on macOS no matter what I'm doing.
I basically know very little about this, but what I've heard from Totte Is that the more RAM the better for DAZ Studio rendering. Probably you would do better with a Mac Studio Or a Macintosh Pro than one of the smaller Macs.
The M4 Chips, however, are not yet on these larger models. That probably won't happen until sometime in 2025. So if you're going to buy now, than maybe you should buy a smaller model with an M4 chip, and with as much RAM, as you can get or can afford.
The other day I had to reboot my iMac, a late 2012, 32 GB, GTX 660M 512 MB macOS Catalina v 10.15.7 and it took forever to open Finder and my browser and the files... I keep all my personal/administrative files on an external hard drive after a crash in 2017 that wiped out everything and required a full reinstall of the OS and Daz Studio was never reinstalled after that. I put D|S on a Windows laptop until I had a desktop built for me. The iMac has been limping along for two years and I am at the point I need to replace it.
I looked at the new M4 offerings and started to get confused by the Mac Minis, Mac Pros, and iMacs. I still have my MacBookPro M1 but don't use it for business/editing work. I don't want a computer that can be picked up and stolen easily. The Mac Minis start at a low price but one reviewer noted that each upgrade adds $200.00 to its price tag. I would also have to get another monitor, and I love the quality of my iMac's screen.
If I bought an M4, I am not sure I would install Daz Studio, but for non-Art work, what are the pros and cons of the three styles of each of the new M4s: Mac Mini, Mac Pro, iMac? Any issues I should consider?
Mary
Does the viewport mode...that's what it called? the kind of pseudo render while you're working? work? (That should date about where I fell out of being active)..or does that require NVIDA? Is Iray still needing everything loading in ram before it renders? (yeah, I know iray/cuda/no mac because they hate each other etc). Can you define "larger scenes"?
I mean, I've been using Apple products since 1980, so not really gonna switch off now for main use. I have a PC with nvidia card..older now (1070ti) and it's mainly for gaming...
Well, the Mac Mini has both the M4 and M4 Pro available.
The iMac only has the m4 currently. They haven't done iMac Pro's since the apple silcon processors came about. Obviously it has a monitor and comes with keyboard and mouse.
The Mac Pro is their super mega "if you have to ask, you can't afford" system. It's currently using top versions of the M2 line (the Ultra). I don't think it comes with keyboard and mouse or monitor, but if you can afford one, you don't care about that kind of thing.
There's also the Mac Studio which is somewhere between the Mini Pro and Mac Pro...it's like a double decker mini (previous version). It's also still with the M2's (Max or Ultra). Again, no keyboard/mouse/monitor.
You mentioned not liking the idea of a machine that can be picked up and taken away.. Other than the iMac, they're all rather small (the new mini is like the size of two soda cans next to each other..IF that). Obviously, they'd be cabled to thing, but that's that.
Thank you @Scavenger.
The keyboard and mouse are not a problem, I use a Logi MX Keys keyboard and MX Master mouse due to ergo issues with the tiny size of the Apple design.
My desk has two hp monitors on either side of the iMac, one now tethered to the MacBook Pro so I can see what I am doing on it. So I will just have to buy a new monitor or if I go with a new iMac, use it. I am lucky that there is an Apple store within walking distance of my home and I can go over and see what they have for monitors (I like the resolution of my old iMac for my older eyes), or drive to a MicroCenter and check out other options.
I appreciate your input before I got hit by a salesperson with a mission to sell.
Mary
MacOS is only missing support for Filament (and therefore, Filatoon too, because it is using Filament) among the various render engines Daz Studio can use.
You'll get access to Iray, either for a render or the Iray preview mode for the viewport. I think some features of Iray do require a Nvidia GPU so some won't work on MacOS, but at the end of the day, the biggest difference between doing an Iray render on Mac OS with the CPU and doing the same render on a computer with a Nvidia GPU is the rendering speed.
As for memory, I wouldn't worry too much about it: MacOS is able to use SSD storage to get way over the real amount of Ram installed in your computer (my record was Affinity Publisher using something close to 300 GB of virtual memory, on top of using every bit of real RAM I had in my computer, while failing to open a very heavy PDF file). It'll be slower of course because even very fast SSD as the ones used by Apple are many time slower than modern day memory (especially at the beginning of the render, when Daz Studio is preparing everything it needs to render a scene, loading textures, geometry and so on in your computer RAM), but you won't get an out of memory error.
So, does Apple Silicon use the CPU cores for the rendering ? Like, obviously it doesn't have Nvidia CUDA/GPU...but does iRay or other renderers stick to the CPU cores or the GPU ones?
Iray uses both. If it runs out of GPU memory, then it switches to CPU. In the case of Apple, it is CPU only.
Iray will be CPU only, Filament on the other hand will be GPU as Filament is built on top of Vulcan which sits on top of Metal.