3D Rendering on Apple Silicon, CPU&GPU

[komuh]

Yeah, investing in big games is great, but Cyberpunk and especially Control are incredibly old games. We got Mac/iOS ports about 3/4 years after their release. I’m not sure if this is considered a significant achievement.

If I want to play a new game, I have to turn on my Windows or console. I feel like a much bigger move would be investing in a few medium-sized studios to create first-party games for Apple platforms (for example, from the billions of USD spent on trashy Hollywood TV shows).

 

[thenewperson]

Not sure why the gaming discussion is going on in the 3D rendering thread.

 

[M4pro]

Excuse our irrational exuberance. Because we actually still have hope that these 3-D rendered games will ship - as opposed to a renderer from OTOY which somehow manages to never arrive in the way it was promised… 😆

 

[jujoje]

Yeah, investing in big games is great, but Cyberpunk and especially Control are incredibly old games. We got Mac/iOS ports about 3/4 years after their release. I’m not sure if this is considered a significant achievement.

At least as far as Control goes, it means that the Northlight engine now runs on AS, which hopefully means the future Remedy games will get Mac ports. Plus Control is a great game and still one of the best examples of raytracing being used well. Cyberpunk is kind of neat as it's pretty much a poster boy for path tracing, frame generation and fancy graphics, so pretty curious to see how that runs (plus is free if you already own it). Been playing both games under Whisky and they run pretty great; curious to see how well the native port runs.

It must be a thankless task though, working in the game side of Apple; no matter what you do gamers will whine incessantly about it (although to be fair gamers whine incessantly about most things). Starting a AAA game studio would be a significantly greater money sink than their Apple TV+ efforts, and most gamers are ideologically biased against Apple anyway, so would probably be a lot of cost with little reward.

Not sure why the gaming discussion is going on in the 3D rendering thread.

Looking at the benchmarks on rendering, seems like the new Macs aren't much of an upgrade over the M3 versions. A shade faster, but looks like the GPU is essentially unchanged, which is a bit disappointing. I guess we'll have to wait until WWDC and the new Studio/Pro to see some advances on the rendering front.

 

[jujoje]

Maybe because we actually still have hope that these 3-D rendered games will ship - as opposed to a renderer from OTOY which somehow manages to never arrive in the way it was promised…?

Much as Otoy have traditionally messed up their MacOS support, I thought it was pretty much on track these days? Tried it a while back and it seemed fine; what've they done now?

Wasn't particularly taken with Octane; you can get some nice renders, but always felt a bit finicky and fragile (getting the correct version installed and setting up the environment was a pain and probably biased me against it a bit). The iPad app is pretty nice though.

 

[ader42]

It won't be even close to NV if you want upgrade wait for 5000 series, if it is something extra and you just like macOS upgrade if you feel like 1.9x performance is worth 5k USD.

I’m considering it myself, but I’d sell my existing M1 Max (64gb/2tb) so the actual cost of the upgrade would be circa 2.5k which I think is ok seeing as I’d get a brand new machine and 1.9x (basically twice the machine power and new for much less than the original outlay).

Over how many years do businesses tend to depreciate kit nowadays?

Then again, I might just get a new iPad Pro for ZBrush on the sofa

 

[M4pro]

Much as Otoy have traditionally messed up their MacOS support, I thought it was pretty much on track these days? Tried it a while back and it seemed fine; what've they done now?

Wasn't particularly taken with Octane; you can get some nice renders, but always felt a bit finicky and fragile (getting the correct version installed and setting up the environment was a pain and probably biased me against it a bit). The iPad app is pretty nice though.

It’s never felt close to being finished to me (and I can understand why Apple has avoided mentioning them with new Macs as of late)

Their user support thread reads like an SNL skit.

“Hey this feature doesn’t work.”

“Yeah, not yet - that will be included in a later version”.

Six months later:
“Hey this feature doesn’t work.”

“Oh yeah, we’ll have that ready later”.

Then some more of the same.

Until the user’s patience runs out.

 

[StellarVixen]

Should be in the ballpark of RTX 4070/RTX 3090 (both desktop versions). Depends on what you want to use it for. Larger Nvidia GPUs (4080/4090) will obviously be better, the Mac would work better on very large scenes (but if you work with that kind of stuff you probably want a completely different setup anyway).

I agree with others who advise to wait for the 5000 series and see what it delivers.

4070 performance with fraction of a power consumption is crazy.

 

[Homy]

Yeah, investing in big games is great, but Cyberpunk and especially Control are incredibly old games. We got Mac/iOS ports about 3/4 years after their release. I’m not sure if this is considered a significant achievement.

If I want to play a new game, I have to turn on my Windows or console. I feel like a much bigger move would be investing in a few medium-sized studios to create first-party games for Apple platforms (for example, from the billions of USD spent on trashy Hollywood TV shows).

My last post on the subject to avoid going more off-topic. You’re forgetting quite a few details and facts about gaming in general and Cyberpunk 2077 particularly. This argument about ”old” games coming to Mac is not only irrational but also incredibly older than the ported games themselves. You’re talking about your gaming habits and make a generalization about the whole gaming community. Games, movies, books or other forms of entertainment are only old if you’ve already experienced them. Even then many want to experience the joy and thrill again. There are millions of people who still haven’t played the games or never buy and play games on the release date. In fact even many PC gamers nowadays wait several months to buy because of all the buggy and bad PC releases in the recent years or the higher prices.

Cyberpunk has literally been used (alongside Elden Ring and RDR2) not only here but everywhere on the internet as an example of top PC games unavailable for Mac to trash talk Mac gaming. Now that it finally comes to Mac it’s suddenly not a big deal? People have been screaming about wanting the game on Mac. Besides CP 2077 despite being almost 4 years old wasn’t good enough despite all patches until patch 2 with Phantom Liberty last year. Google ”Cyberpunk finally good” and you find many articles about it. Even CD Projekt Red confirmed that. So the game and especially the DLC is only a year old. It took also three years and 540,000 reviews to get ”Very positive” on Steam.

Right now there are 5 games on Steam Top 10 Most Played Games that are 6 to 12 years old. It’s Counter-Strike, Dota 2, GTA 5, PUBG and Rust. CP 2077, RDR2 and Elden Ring have also the same number of players in-game as Black Myth: Wukong or more right now. CP is also so good that many people have done several playthroughs of the game and are saying they will play it again on Mac. So for those who like to play games on day one and then forget about it such releases may not be interesting but for many others they are. We’ve had several day-and-date releases on Mac too like Lies of P, Frostpunk 2 and almost BG 3 but as usual it’s unrealistic to expect all PC games to have simultaneous release on Mac with 1.29% of the Steam market. Still it’s quite an achievement to get about 25% of the games despite such a small market share.

 

[komuh]

My last post on the subject to avoid going more off-topic. You’re forgetting quite a few details and facts about gaming in general and Cyberpunk 2077 particularly. This argument about ”old” games coming to Mac is not only irrational but also incredibly older than the ported games themselves. You’re talking about your gaming habits and make a generalization about the whole gaming community. Games, movies, books or other forms of entertainment are only old if you’ve already experienced them. Even then many want to experience the joy and thrill again. There are millions of people who still haven’t played the games or never buy and play games on the release date. In fact even many PC gamers nowadays wait several months to buy because of all the buggy and bad PC releases in the recent years or the higher prices.

Cyberpunk has literally been used (alongside Elden Ring and RDR2) not only here but everywhere on the internet as an example of top PC games unavailable for Mac to trash talk Mac gaming. Now that it finally comes to Mac it’s suddenly not a big deal? People have been screaming about wanting the game on Mac. Besides CP 2077 despite being almost 4 years old wasn’t good enough despite all patches until patch 2 with Phantom Liberty last year. Google ”Cyberpunk finally good” and you find many articles about it. Even CD Projekt Red confirmed that. So the game and especially the DLC is only a year old. It took also three years and 540,000 reviews to get ”Very positive” on Steam.

Right now there are 5 games on Steam Top 10 Most Played Games that are 6 to 12 years old. It’s Counter-Strike, Dota 2, GTA 5, PUBG and Rust. CP 2077, RDR2 and Elden Ring have also the same number of players in-game as Black Myth: Wukong or more right now. CP is also so good that many people have done several playthroughs of the game and are saying they will play it again on Mac. So for those who like to play games on day one and then forget about it such releases may not be interesting but for many others they are. We’ve had several day-and-date releases on Mac too like Lies of P, Frostpunk 2 and almost BG 3 but as usual it’s unrealistic to expect all PC games to have simultaneous release on Mac with 1.29% of the Steam market. Still it’s quite an achievement to get about 25% of the games despite such a small market share.

I’m not going to stray from the topic anymore. CP 2077 is indeed a great game, and it’s wonderful to have the option to play it on macOS. However, as this and the entire 3D rendering topic suggest, most people simply use Linux or Windows for 3D-related tasks, including gaming. Investing in porting old games can be a strategic move, but comparing single-player games to multiplayer monsters for your thesis is, in my opinion, useless without a significant cultural shift in software that allows us to utilize powerful hardware.

 

[jujoje]

It’s never felt close to being a finished product to me (and I can understand why Apple has avoided mentioning them with new Macs as of late)

Their user forum thread reads like an SNL skit.

“Hey this feature doesn’t work.”

“Oh that only works in the Windows version. The Mac won’t get that until later.”

Six months later:
“Hey this feature doesn’t work.”

“Oh that only works in the Windows version. The Mac won’t get that until later.”

Repeat until the clock runs out.

That’s the OTOY I know and love

I think the last time I tried it was when they’d just updated the Mac version, so it had something approaching parity with the Windows one. I guess that didn’t last long. The way things were run it always felt like a hobbyist render engine rather than a professional product.They’ve always been helpful when I've contacted them, but the instability, delays and broken promises (particularly on the Mac side) really have taken their toll on my confidence in them and, judging but the forums, everyone else's faith in them. It's a shame as the actual rendered produces nice images (personally preferred its look to Redshift).

 

[sirio76]

most people simply use Linux or Windows for 3D-related tasks

There are tons of people happily using MacOS for 3D tasks. While not always the best solution or the best performing platform for everything, you can do very well.

Like I always say, today any decent modern system (Mac or PC) can produce great results. The fastest system in the world won’t transform a poor artist in a great artist, it will only help him to produce crap a bit faster. Is far more helpful to improve your skills rather than your hardware speed.

Gaming is totally unrelated from this topic, but yes gamers prefer other solutions, not because you can not game on MacOS but because there are far more titles and much more optimized, this is because historically people use consolle or Windows systems.

Are you working in 3D and if yes what do you do? Sorry if I always ask, but here a lot of the people that like to sentence about Mac and 3D, don’t even work in this field or are just hobbyists playing with Blender or other freeware, or gamers.

 

[innerproduct]

Macs are fine for 3d right now. There was a significant problem for quite some time from when apple dropped nvidia support and until apps where available with metal support. These days redshift,octane and blender works fine. My m3max is about as fast as mid tier nvidia but with more vram. For final rendering there are better solutions but for now I do not feel limited. Would I like even better performance? Yes, but that would be more like a treat than a necessity.

 

[leman]

Yeah, investing in big games is great, but Cyberpunk and especially Control are incredibly old games.

Cyberpunk Ultimate Edition was released last year. And it's still a game used as a reference point for many things, including benchmarks. I think it is good for the gaming on the Mac to get it, only if as a symbol.

What are some of the big titles that came out after Cyberpunk that you'd like to see on Mac?

 

[ader42]

ZBrush works great on the M4 iPad Pro, so it’s going to be brilliant on the M4 Pro/Max.

 

[komuh]

Cyberpunk Ultimate Edition was released last year. And it's still a game used as a reference point for many things, including benchmarks. I think it is good for the gaming on the Mac to get it, only if as a symbol.

What are some of the big titles that came out after Cyberpunk that you'd like to see on Mac?

Black Myth Wukong or Monster Hunter, for instance, but I don’t care about the games released; I want them to be available on my Mac as soon as Windows or even Linux versions are available. As a gamer, I prefer playing new games close to their release date, which is the preference of about 90% of the gaming community at least looking at steam charts.

I love using the iPad as a gaming platform for simpler games, and MacOS could benefit from some cool integration with it. However, most iOS games are not compatible with Mac.

Are you working in 3D and if yes what do you do? Sorry if I always ask, but here a lot of the people that like to sentence about Mac and 3D, don’t even work in this field or are just hobbyists playing with Blender or other freeware, or gamers.

Yes, I’m working in a field related to 3D and effects, also my company is mostly focused on macOS, but I’m not a 3D engineer; I’m an ML guy, so I have no experience other than talking to people who do this job and writing GPU/CPU/NPU optimizations. (Even in our company, whose profit is from the Apple ecosystem for like 95% of our products, we still use Nvidia GPUs for 3D stuff Blender etc.)

Which doesn't mean Apple platform is bad. I never said that. I just said that it is unpopular, and most work is done on other platforms with beefy GPUs or even server farms.

 

[aytan]

ZBrush works great on the M4 iPad Pro, so it’s going to be brilliant on the M4 Pro/Max.

It even works on third generation 2018 iPad Pro, and the thing is, there is not much performance difference with M2 iPad Pro v.s. 2018 iPad Pro on the go. Sure there will be differences while high poly texture painting or while sculpting. Maybe there could be other Zbrush restrictions for older models but at least it works on 3rd generation intel base iPad Pros.

 

[vinegarshots]

It even works on third generation 2018 iPad Pro, and the thing is, there is not much performance difference with M2 iPad Pro v.s. 2018 iPad Pro on the go. Sure there will be differences while high poly texture painting or while sculpting. Maybe there could be other Zbrush restrictions for older models but at least it works on 3rd generation intel base iPad Pros.

There has never been an intel chip in any ipad

 

[aytan]

There has never been an intel chip in any ipad

Sure, my fault. Take as unfortunate typing. Anyway you get what I have been point out.

 

[mi7chy]

Clever way of saying M4 is ~8% faster than M3 on Blender?

"Testing conducted by Apple August through October 2024 using preproduction 14-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and 32GB of RAM, production 14-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M3, 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and 24GB of RAM, production 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, and 16GB of RAM, and production 1.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645 and 16GB of RAM, all configured with 2TB SSD. Prerelease Blender 4.2.2 tested by rendering a 403.9 MB 3D scene utilizing hardware-accelerated ray tracing on systems with M4 and M3. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro."

 

[novagamer]

Now do Cinema4d / Octane.

Why is it so difficult to find benchmarks for those tools? They are major, and the latest information I can find does not paint Apple Silicon in great light but I would love to find some newer results and tests. Does anyone have them or know where I can find some?

It’s never felt close to being finished to me (and I can understand why Apple has avoided mentioning them with new Macs as of late)

Their user support thread reads like an SNL skit.

“Hey this feature doesn’t work.”

“Yeah, not yet - that will be included in a later version”.

Six months later:
“Hey this feature doesn’t work.”

“Oh yeah, we’ll have that ready later”.

Then some more of the same.

Until the user’s patience runs out.

It’s exactly the same situation with Unreal Engine. There are major issues with Unreal Editor, even the latest just released version (like, this week) still has incomplete or missing Nanite support and raytracing. I don’t understand why major 3d software is lagging so far behind.

 

[komuh]

It’s exactly the same situation with Unreal Engine. There are major issues with Unreal Editor, even the latest just released version (like, this week) still has incomplete or missing Nanite support and raytracing. I don’t understand why major 3d software is lagging so far behind.

Because mac's are tiny portion of userbase and they are tiny portion of user base cause software is lagging and we are in this weird loop.

 

[Homy]

New benchmarks, 20% faster in Blender and Cinebench!

 

[vinegarshots]

New benchmarks, 20% faster in Blender and Cinebench!

View attachment 2448249 View attachment 2448250 View attachment 2448251

Huh....152 seconds to render Junk Shop in Blender? My 4090 renders Junk Shop in 10 seconds, so that's still really not great. I was expecting a lot better

 

[dmr727]

Huh....152 seconds to render Junk Shop in Blender? My 4090 renders Junk Shop in 10 seconds, so that's still really not great. I was expecting a lot better

Those must not be seconds - the M3 Max shows 125. Not sure what the scores could be though?