3D Rendering on Apple Silicon, CPU&GPU

[singhs.apps]

Had exactly that problem; had a farm back in the day that was a mix of Intel and AMD machines and we got back different results. Turned out there was a FP difference in the seed calculation meaning that the fractal patterns were different between the two processor types. Which was fun, just before a deadline Oddly enough this was in lightwave.

It's always been one of the arguments against GPUs, that driver updates can change the look of the renderer and break features. Back in the day AMD was unable to display geometry correctly in the viewport, let along consistent results for GPU renders and Nvidia break their drivers now and then too.



I think Renderman was going for 1:1 for the whole xPU architecture and it looked like they were close. Arnold, Karma and Renderman all still seem to be recommending the xPU versions for lookdev, but final renders on the CPU due to lingering differences in feature sets or sampling. Although I think the next version of Renderman should bring production ready xPU (don't follow Renderman development much, so could be wrong). Impressed that VRay seems to have got there.



USD + MaterialX will be awesome, once it all works. It's getting there but still a fair way to go in terms of getting support across the various DCC Apps. Still probably a year out at least, but the idea is picking up steam.

Renderman 25 will be released this month and XPU is their top feature for v25 (+Llama)
Arnold, Sidefx and Renderman recommend XPUs for look dev and CPU for final renders but that's mainly due to some features missing in the GPU ... But me thinks that's also due to VRAM issues too because all three are supposed to be feature film class production renderers

 

[aytan]

Absolutely not Vray CPU and Vray GPU are supported as two separate engines, developers recommend to avoid switching in production between the two engines since results may differ significantly and the feature set is more limited on GPU.
One thing that you can do is to let the CPU run the GPU engine as a CUDA device, this way you will get 100% the same identical results obtained with a GPU, but of course this will be much slower than running the CPU using the native CPU engine.
This possibility is there for 3 main reason:
-if your graphic card runs out of VRAM you can still use your CPU to run the GPU engine and complete the job
-according to developers is easier to debug GPU engine issues running the code on the CPU
-if you have a very fast CPU (like a 64core Threadripper) it can help to complete the job faster using both CPU and GPU

As far as I know there is still no engine that can really provide efficiently pixel perfect results and identical feature set, the "hybrid" mode in Vray can do that but you are essentially giving up quite a bit of the performance of the CPU, so is not optimal, and if you have an average CPU it may even slow down the render when combined with an high end GPU.

Thanks for the info, this was what I have not figured out yet. However it works well on M1 Ultra as I can observed, I use it for a while and fells better than my 3070 PC. I am not intended final renders times here, more like IPR, overall user experience. How could this happen ? Maybe you could have something more about VRay.

 

[jujoje]

. All I experienced based on CPU usage. As I said whole system, lighting build up, materials and results were great only downside was quite long rendering times.

Yeah, always really liked how Renderman handles light and materials - gives really nice results off the bat. The main thing that put me off a bit was its volume support, particularly with motion blur. Last time I tested it it was 45min a frame vs 10 in Mantra (I think Renderman's motion blur is more correct, but doesn't look significantly better).

Literally just got an email from Pixar saying they're going to be showing off Renderman 25 at GTC; perhaps we'll get some news then .

 

[aytan]

Yeah, always really liked how Renderman handles light and materials - gives really nice results off the bat. The main thing that put me off a bit was its volume support, particularly with motion blur. Last time I tested it it was 45min a frame vs 10 in Mantra (I think Renderman's motion blur is more correct, but doesn't look significantly better).

Literally just got an email from Pixar saying they're going to be showing off Renderman 25 at GTC; perhaps we'll get some news then .

Same here got an email too, looks like Pixar tied down Renderman XPU only with Nvidia for next version. But still there is hope for AS. You are right about render times, it takes quite long.
Volumes + motion blur not easy to solve for most of the render engines. It is demanding too much compute power I guess.
I like Renderman or Arnold because of final render quality even with simple scenes and also for variety of tools/Shaders.

 

[innerproduct]

For your information: vray 6 (CPU) is now available in native ASi for Houdini 19.5. You need to be a customer with access to the nightly builds.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Literally just got an email from Pixar saying they're going to be showing off Renderman 25 at GTC; perhaps we'll get some news then .

Do you mean this talk?
Advances in Data-Parallel Production Rendering at Scale

NVIDIA #GTC2025 Conference Session Catalog

Experience GTC 2025 In-Person and Online March 17-20, San Jose.

www.nvidia.com

There are a couple of more interesting talks:
The Future of GPU Ray Tracing

NVIDIA #GTC2025 Conference Session Catalog

Experience GTC 2025 In-Person and Online March 17-20, San Jose.

www.nvidia.com

Production Rendering on GPU with Arnold

NVIDIA #GTC2025 Conference Session Catalog

Experience GTC 2025 In-Person and Online March 17-20, San Jose.

www.nvidia.com

Better Real-Time Strand-Based Hair Rendering with Ray Tracing

NVIDIA #GTC2025 Conference Session Catalog

Experience GTC 2025 In-Person and Online March 17-20, San Jose.

www.nvidia.com

 

[dmccloud]

It's always been one of the arguments against GPUs, that driver updates can change the look of the renderer and break features. Back in the day AMD was unable to display geometry correctly in the viewport, let along consistent results for GPU renders and Nvidia break their drivers now and then too.

With both nVidia and AMD now having separate driver packages for gaming and non-gaming purposes, haven't a lot of those quirks been reduced (if not outright eliminated)?

 

[jujoje]

Renderman 25 will be released this month and XPU is their top feature for v25 (+Llama)
Arnold, Sidefx and Renderman recommend XPUs for look dev and CPU for final renders but that's mainly due to some features missing in the GPU ... But me thinks that's also due to VRAM issues too because all three are supposed to be feature film class production renderers

Pushing it for lookdev makes sense, to my mind, saves artist time and final renders/shots go to the CPU farm. In which case minor differences are fine. It would be great to be able to load an entire shot, particularly for final lighting; the two most annoying things I've found with GPU rendering is fitting the data on the GPU and copying the data to the GPU, both of which should be an advantage for AS...

As a side note, tried rendering the Alabs test scene in Octane and it did not go well; it seems that it loads the scene into memory and then loads that into gpu memory when you press render, so on AS using twice the memory it should, or in my case got the beachball of doom... (also looked like loading was single threaded which probably didn't help).

Absolutely not Vray CPU and Vray GPU are supported as two separate engines, developers recommend to avoid switching in production between the two engines since results may differ significantly and the feature set is more limited on GPU.

Ah that's disappointing; seems Renderman are the main ones pushing for identical results (or 'perceptually identical'). Curious to see how thing are looking at GTC. Hopefully they show more complex scenes then walking teapots

Do you mean this talk?

Clicking the link from the email just takes me to that list of all the talks with Pixar presenters, so I guess so (the email sounded a lot more specific).

 

[jujoje]

With both nVidia and AMD now having separate driver packages for gaming and non-gaming purposes, haven't a lot of those quirks been reduced (if not outright eliminated)?

The whole AMD driver issue was iirc for their Pro cards (this was back in the ATi days). I'm sure their drivers are much more stable these days, I remember them having a big push to overhaul them, but there's always been that lingering question over them, probably unfairly.

I was going to say that every time a new Nvidia card comes out or a new Houdini version something breaks with the Nvidia drivers. But thinking about it, Sidefx recommends gaming cards, so I guess it's on them

 

[sirio76]

GPU engines drivers issues are always there, no matter what the engine is and if you use gaming or studio drivers.
Vray developers for example recommend to not upgrade to latest drivers, and to stitch to drivers they know work well.

 

[quarkysg]

GPU engines drivers issues are always there, no matter what the engine is and if you use gaming or studio drivers.
Vray developers for example recommend to not upgrade to latest drivers, and to stitch to drivers they know work well.

Looks like an issue with putting too much hacks into the GPU drivers to extract every ounce of performance for games. I suppose Apple's Metal driver should not have such issues as it should be relatively light weight.

 

[diamond.g]

Looks like an issue with putting too much hacks into the GPU drivers to extract every ounce of performance for games. I suppose Apple's Metal driver should not have such issues as it should be relatively light weight.

Do the Studio/Pro drivers have fixes for games in them? I don't understand why folks that are not using their rig for gaming would update drivers once they get a set that works well for their applications. And even the gamers don't actually have to update drivers all that often (again unless it is to fix a bug or to gain performance in a new game they are playing).

 

[quarkysg]

Do the Studio/Pro drivers have fixes for games in them? I don't understand why folks that are not using their rig for gaming would update drivers once they get a set that works well for their applications. And even the gamers don't actually have to update drivers all that often (again unless it is to fix a bug or to gain performance in a new game they are playing).

I guess pro card drivers are less bloated, but if the design philosophy is the same as the gaming cards, the pro card drivers should also have app specific optimisations. So when we have more code, we get more bugs and less stability.

 

[diamond.g]

I guess pro card drivers are less bloated, but if the design philosophy is the same as the gaming cards, the pro card drivers should also have app specific optimisations. So when we have more code, we get more bugs and less stability.

Well isn't this interesting. Nvidia studio drivers do include fixed for game issues. It isn't clear to me if they do just a monthly studio driver or if every game ready driver has a studio equivalent.

NVIDIA Studio Drivers provide artists, creators, and 3D developers the best performance and reliability when working with creative applications. To achieve the highest level of reliability, Studio Drivers undergo extensive testing against multi-app creator workflows and multiple revisions of the top creative applications from Adobe to Autodesk and beyond.

Applications

The March NVIDIA Studio Driver provides optimal support for the latest new creative applications and updates announced at NVIDIA GTC including NVIDIA Canvas 1.4 and a myriad of new functionality for NVIDIA Omniverse. In addition, this NVIDIA Studio Driver also introduces support for the new RTX Video Super Resolution for GeForce RTX 40 and 30 Series GPUs.

Fixed Bugs

• Adobe application stability issues using 531.18 [4008751]
• Enscape crash at startup with 531.18 [4008190]
• Beamr - Issue with AV1 encoding in PTD=0 mode [3981172]
• Derivative TouchDesigner - NVAR: crash when using multi-person tracking [3808674]
• [Forza Horizon 5] Rainbow like artifacts in game after driver update [3839021]
• [Portal with RTX] "Background application max frame rate" setting is getting engaged while game is in focus [3897352]
• Disable Horizon Zero Dawn Resizable Bar profile on Intel platforms [3759681]

It is cool Apple doesn't have to deal with all this, leaving issues to have to be fixed by the developers is probably the right thing to do.

 

[galad]

It depends where the issue is, if it's actually a driver bug, the fix will have to be in the driver.

 

[sirio76]

AutoCAD have a native AS version, looks like Fusion is the next

 

[Standard]

Maya 2024 is now shipping with full AS support and other improvements!

Help

help.autodesk.com

 

[jujoje]

That's an unexpected surprise! Had kind of given up on Maya. Wonder what the performance uplift is like.

Not too shabby an update for Maya either (not sure wtf they're doing with the time line, but maybe it'll make sense in action). LookdevX seems pretty neat though.

 

[Standard]

That's an unexpected surprise! Had kind of given up on Maya. Wonder what the performance uplift is like.

Not too shabby an update for Maya either (not sure wtf they're doing with the time line, but maybe it'll make sense in action). LookdevX seems pretty neat though.

Yes, it’s great! I wish they would update Mudbox or roll it into Maya at this point.

I’m looking forward to testing Maya 2024 on my M2 Air. Still holding out on the Mac Pro and Studio announcement.

 

[aytan]

Yes, it’s great! I wish they would update Mudbox or roll it into Maya at this point.

I’m looking forward to testing Maya 2024 on my M2 Air. Still holding out on the Mac Pro and Studio announcement.

Going to try Arnold 2024 on C4D. First iteration of Arnold did not work well on Studio Ultra, hope this time it will be better

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Hopefully more and more software will be fully adapted to Apple Silicon soon. For example, Blender 3.5 has been released today with a Metal backend for viewport.

Platform	Scene	Blender	Playback (FPS)	Render time (seconds)
Mac Studio - Ultra	Wanderer	3.4.1 / OpenGL	16.8	6.5
		3.5 / OpenGL	17.0	5.7
		3.5 / Metal	45.0	5.3
	Amy	3.4.1 / OpenGL	12.7	12.2
		3.5 / OpenGL	17.7	9.8
		3.5 / Metal	34	8.8
Mac Mini - Intel i5	Wanderer	3.4.1 / OpenGL	5.4*	17.5*
		3.5 / OpenGL	5.9*	16.9*
		3.5 / Metal	6.8	20.4
	Amy	3.4.1 / OpenGL	6.3	65
		3.5 / OpenGL	6.5	64
		3.5 / Metal	9.7	55

(*) = Fails to compile certain materials at the moment.

Scenes tested are Wanderer and "Hi, my name is Amy".

 

[leman]

Hopefully more and more software will be fully adapted to Apple Silicon soon. For example, Blender 3.5 will be released today with a Metal backend for viewport.

Platform	Scene	Blender	Playback (FPS)	Render time (seconds)
Mac Studio - Ultra	Wanderer	3.4.1 / OpenGL	16.8	6.5
		3.5 / OpenGL	17.0	5.7
		3.5 / Metal	45.0	5.3
	Amy	3.4.1 / OpenGL	12.7	12.2
		3.5 / OpenGL	17.7	9.8
		3.5 / Metal	34	8.8
Mac Mini - Intel i5	Wanderer	3.4.1 / OpenGL	5.4*	17.5*
		3.5 / OpenGL	5.9*	16.9*
		3.5 / Metal	6.8	20.4
	Amy	3.4.1 / OpenGL	6.3	65
		3.5 / OpenGL	6.5	64
		3.5 / Metal	9.7	55

(*) = Fails to compile certain materials at the moment.

Scenes tested are Wanderer and "Hi, my name is Amy".

Would have much more been interesting to see it agains a more powerful Intel Mac (one with a dGPU) or agains a fast PC.

P.S. The Blender 3.5 page seems to suggest that these benchmarks were done by Apple. That they chose these particular models almost suggest that the performance is really bad...

 

[galad]

There was some progress to fix some Metal viewport performance issues on AMD GPUs, I don't know if they landed them in time for 3.5, or if it requires more work.

 

[vinegarshots]

Hopefully more and more software will be fully adapted to Apple Silicon soon. For example, Blender 3.5 has been released today with a Metal backend for viewport.

Platform	Scene	Blender	Playback (FPS)	Render time (seconds)
Mac Studio - Ultra	Wanderer	3.4.1 / OpenGL	16.8	6.5
		3.5 / OpenGL	17.0	5.7
		3.5 / Metal	45.0	5.3

(*) = Fails to compile certain materials at the moment.

Scenes tested are Wanderer and "Hi, my name is Amy".

At first glance this seems pretty impressive for the Mac.

On my 4090 in Wanderer, Playback is around 26FPS and Render Time is about 1.7 seconds.

Thats a little confusing to me, though, as I'm not sure how the Mac is almost twice as fast in viewport playback, but almost 2/3 slower in render time (since it is using the same engine). Something seems a little weird there.

 

[aytan]

Hopefully more and more software will be fully adapted to Apple Silicon soon. For example, Blender 3.5 has been released today with a Metal backend for viewport.

View attachment 2180755

Platform	Scene	Blender	Playback (FPS)	Render time (seconds)
Mac Studio - Ultra	Wanderer	3.4.1 / OpenGL	16.8	6.5
		3.5 / OpenGL	17.0	5.7
		3.5 / Metal	45.0	5.3
	Amy	3.4.1 / OpenGL	12.7	12.2
		3.5 / OpenGL	17.7	9.8
		3.5 / Metal	34	8.8
Mac Mini - Intel i5	Wanderer	3.4.1 / OpenGL	5.4*	17.5*
		3.5 / OpenGL	5.9*	16.9*
		3.5 / Metal	6.8	20.4
	Amy	3.4.1 / OpenGL	6.3	65
		3.5 / OpenGL	6.5	64
		3.5 / Metal	9.7	55

(*) = Fails to compile certain materials at the moment.

Scenes tested are Wanderer and "Hi, my name is Amy".

Just try 3.5.0. There is %10-15 progress with even with Cycles between 3.4.0 to 3.5.0 at final render times. Overall looks like works 3.5.0 better than 3.4.0, compiling works faster and correct. Viewport with Evee works better and faster. Guess we could call it as slow progress over time.