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Been making AI images between my 14 inch MBP and my gaming PC. My findings:

Spaceboi Scaphandre

Spaceboi Scaphandre

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Jun 8, 2022
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So yesterday I started playing around with AI Image Generation (and in turn also became an enemy to all artists everywhere.) 🥴

So I have two AI generators using Stable Diffusion: NMKD on my gaming PC, and DiffusionBee on my 14 inch Macbook Pro. My gaming PC has a 9th gen i7 and an RTX 3060, and my Macbook Pro is a base spec M1 Pro.

So DiffusionBee has a much nicer gui but NMKD has more options and can use more models and weights, while DiffusionBee is only using the common Stable Diffusion weights that are coming with each major update, so can't use teaching tools or added elements like Waifu Diffusion.

That being said...my god, doing AI generation on my Macbook Pro is so much better than on my PC. On the Mac DiffusionBee rendered images a lot faster than on my x86 machine, so I could just queue more and more images in batches. It felt so good to actually use my pro Mac chip on something actually professional for a change. I hope DiffusionBee's developer can get the program updated to be on par with NMKD so I can start using more weights and better image refinement.

In fact, doing AI image creation caused my Macbook Pro to do something it rarely ever does: Activate the fans past idle state. And even then, the fans weren't that loud, only audible if you're up close to the laptop, and it got cooled quickly. Meanwhile on my PC, it was so loud as the RTX 3060's fans had to kick into overdrive as if it was running Cyberpunk 2077.

After all that, man I wish Apple wasn't out of touch with the game industry, because if the Mac had the same games my PC has I'd be able to ditch Windows for good and just go fulltime for Mac for everything. With how good that Macbook Pro was I'd happily trade my PC for a Mac Studio and have that be a new gaming rig if it had access to my library.
 
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Here’s a sample of some of the images I generated on my M1 Pro Macbook Pro

05AE2807-0F64-42B5-8CE9-B5B2989432FC.png54348D6F-535A-4C2B-A5E1-FFDED3B6E52E.pngF5EE5D14-0A53-4E8E-A572-D9762A1A9D74.png264BA6AF-59E4-4751-876F-CCBD6806EEDC.png

Yeah I'm living up to my name. Well hey it's not my fault the AI is really good at making what I like. 😅
 
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Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
After all that, man I wish Apple wasn't out of touch with the game industry, because if the Mac had the same games my PC has I'd be able to ditch Windows for good and just go fulltime for Mac for everything. With how good that Macbook Pro was I'd happily trade my PC for a Mac Studio and have that be a new gaming rig if it had access to my library.
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It's not about Apple being out of touch with the gaming industry. It's about Windows is the current standard and game developers have no motivation to develop for a platform that very few gamers use. It's kind of like what came first the chicken or the egg. Perhaps if game developers made more games for macOS then people would play them but people aren't playing them because game developers aren't making them.

Also you have the social aspect of how super nerdy PC gamers feel about Apple products. Even if tomorrow Apple can figure out how to play existing Windows PC games on macOS you wouldn't see a bunch of gamers running to the Apple Store to buy MacBooks. They want colorful lit up computers that they can tinker with as a hobby. This is the opposite of what Apple sells.

Apple has made a niche market with certain professionals and the occasional college student. The reason why they like students is because if someone uses a MacBook in college then they'll likely not want to use a PC later in life. That's a long term customer.
 
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I find your results very surprising. Do you have CUDA property installed and configured? The 3060 should run circles around M1 Pro on this workload.
 
russell_314 said:
It's not about Apple being out of touch with the gaming industry. It's about Windows is the current standard and game developers have no motivation to develop for a platform that very few gamers use. It's kind of like what came first the chicken or the egg. Perhaps if game developers made more games for macOS then people would play them but people aren't playing them because game developers aren't making them.
Click to expand...

Windows domination is not a valid excuse anymore thanks to the blowout success of the Steam Deck and it pushing Linux into the mainstream. Pretty much every big PC game is Deck Verified now, and that number is only gonna grow once SteamOS's installer releases in the next couple of months

Game developers abandoned the Mac with the releases of macOS Mojave and Catalina respectively killing OpenGL and 32 bit app support. Combined with forcing Metal for everything, the refusal to adopt Vulkan, and Apple's comments during Apple vs Epic, and game developers do not want to touch the platform anymore. Doesn't matter how many controller types Apple adds support for in macOS when they've made the OS an absolute nightmare to make games on and refuse to listen to what developers want.

russell_314 said:
Also you have the social aspect of how super nerdy PC gamers feel about Apple products. Even if tomorrow Apple can figure out how to play existing Windows PC games on macOS you wouldn't see a bunch of gamers running to the Apple Store to buy MacBooks. They want colorful lit up computers that they can tinker with as a hobby. This is the opposite of what Apple sells.
Click to expand...

I mean hey I switched and I used to hate Macs with a passion during the Mac vs PC days. The #1 reason PC gamers won't switch is because there's no games. Give them a reason to want to switch, which is games.

russell_314 said:
Apple has made a niche market with certain professionals and the occasional college student. The reason why they like students is because if someone uses a MacBook in college then they'll likely not want to use a PC later in life. That's a long term customer.
Click to expand...

Dunno if we can really call the Mac a niche market anymore with how much the ARM machines have been kicking ass in the laptop market. Hell it's been outselling the iPad for two years now.
 
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leman said:
I find your results very surprising. Do you have CUDA property installed and configured? The 3060 should run circles around M1 Pro on this workload.
Click to expand...

I don't have CUDA installed. I'll try again with it installed later today
 
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leman said:
Ah well. Make sure you have properly installed and set up the tool. Right now you are probably not using the GPU at all.
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Though I doubt it would be a big difference for me as even if it is faster, I'd rather render through my Macbook Pro just for the comfort factor with how a lot quieter it is.

Kinda reminds me of that Mac Address video of testing the Mac Studio in the "real world" where they had a CLO 3D showdown between the M1 Max Mac Studio and a PC of similar spec to mine but better. The results were the PC was faster but janky with clipping issues while the Mac was slower but simulation was a lot more stable. If the ARM Macs could get GPU acceleration soon we could see even faster results from the Macs.

 
Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
Windows domination is not a valid excuse anymore thanks to the blowout success of the Steam Deck and it pushing Linux into the mainstream. Pretty much every big PC game is Deck Verified now, and that number is only gonna grow once SteamOS's installer releases in the next couple of months
Click to expand...
That's not really a fair comparison because Steam has this huge library of games they could modify to make work with their platform. Apple does not have such a huge library they just modify. I guess they could throw a huge chunk of money at it but I don't think they see it as feasible.

Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
Game developers abandoned the Mac with the releases of macOS Mojave and Catalina respectively killing OpenGL and 32 bit app support. Combined with forcing Metal for everything, the refusal to adopt Vulkan, and Apple's comments during Apple vs Epic, and game developers do not want to touch the platform anymore. Doesn't matter how many controller types Apple adds support for in macOS when they've made the OS an absolute nightmare to make games on and refuse to listen to what developers want.
Click to expand...
Even before Apple Silicon and Mojave gaming on the Mac wasn't really a thing. That might've been the final nail in the coffin but it was on life-support already. Don't give me wrong I would love to see gaming on the Mac. I think what would work is some sort of cross platform like Electron. I'm no programmer so if that sounded crazy that's why. I just mean some way to write one code that would work for both macOS and Windows. Obviously it's not that simple or someone would have done it already.

Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
I mean hey I switched and I used to hate Macs with a passion during the Mac vs PC days. The #1 reason PC gamers won't switch is because there's no games. Give them a reason to want to switch, which is games.
Click to expand...
Do you really think all those proud PC gamers would do the walk of shame to the Apple Store if the MacBook could play their games just as good or better? I'm not so sure about that 🤣

Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
Dunno if we can really call the Mac a niche market anymore with how much the ARM machines have been kicking ass in the laptop market. Hell it's been outselling the iPad for two years now.
Click to expand...
I guess it's getting more popular but I don't think it's mainstream. My normal friends who just want a computer to check their email and do some basic tasks aren't going to buy a MacBook. Even at $999 that's probably three times the price of the Windows PC they would buy. I couldn't imagine trying to tell my friends "hey you need to buy this one because it's better even though it's three times as expensive".
 
Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
So I have two AI generators using Stable Diffusion: NMKD on my gaming PC, and DiffusionBee on my 14 inch Macbook Pro.
Click to expand...

What input parameters did you use for image generation on both devices? Laptop 3060 is ~11x faster than M1 MBA so surprised desktop 3060 is that slow.
 
mi7chy said:
What input parameters did you use for image generation on both devices? Laptop 3060 is ~11x faster than M1 MBA so surprised desktop 3060 is that slow.
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Not really a fair comparison. The M1 MBA doesn't have a fan and it's GPU only has 7 cores compared to the M2 or M1 Pro. Of course the RTX 3060M is gonna be faster lmao.
 
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Could you post some performance numbers? It looks like 3000-series cards should produce an image with 50 steps in less than 10 seconds when things are working properly. From some older posts I saw, it looked like M1 Max might take 10-15 seconds to do the same.

Also, how much VRAM does your 3060 have? If it's too small (and the repo you're using doesn't have any of the VRAM-lowering optimizations enabled), then you're going to end up thrashing RAM and killing performance.
 
Cool stuff. It's always fun to see the interesting ways Apple Silicon's "extra silicon" can be utilized!
Not going to wade into the gaming debate too much (I'm always hoping but never banking on Mac gaming getting better), but I do think that, in general, Apple was pretty serious when they outlined how they expected Apple Silicon to perform vs PCs with Nvidia GPUs and we'll see that play out as software gets better optimized
 
russell_314 said:
That's not really a fair comparison because Steam has this huge library of games they could modify to make work with their platform. Apple does not have such a huge library they just modify. I guess they could throw a huge chunk of money at it but I don't think they see it as feasible.
Click to expand...

Bare minimum just add a compatibility layer. Linux has Wine and Proton which is why it's caught the mainstream eye now with the Steam Deck and SteamOS. On Mac, all we have is CrossOver (which while it has a great compatibility list it pales in comparison to Proton, and it's paid.) If there was one program that should get Sherlocked, it's CrossOver.

russell_314 said:
Even before Apple Silicon and Mojave gaming on the Mac wasn't really a thing. That might've been the final nail in the coffin but it was on life-support already. Don't give me wrong I would love to see gaming on the Mac. I think what would work is some sort of cross platform like Electron. I'm no programmer so if that sounded crazy that's why. I just mean some way to write one code that would work for both macOS and Windows. Obviously it's not that simple or someone would have done it already.


Do you really think all those proud PC gamers would do the walk of shame to the Apple Store if the MacBook could play their games just as good or better? I'm not so sure about that 🤣
Click to expand...

People go where the games are. Simple as. There's a reason PS4 has dominated the 8th console gen because it had the games everyone wanted, while Xbox One and Wii U didn't. And now Nintendo Switch has the games people want which is why it's now outselling Playstation. So many PC gamers have Nintendo Switches for this reason. So, just get the games lmao.

russell_314 said:
I guess it's getting more popular but I don't think it's mainstream. My normal friends who just want a computer to check their email and do some basic tasks aren't going to buy a MacBook. Even at $999 that's probably three times the price of the Windows PC they would buy. I couldn't imagine trying to tell my friends "hey you need to buy this one because it's better even though it's three times as expensive".
Click to expand...

Well with the M1 Macbook Air being $850 refurbished it's an easier pill to swallow, or a M1 Mac Mini for $589 if they would be cool with a desktop. Go cheaper than that, and that's not a laptop, that's a Chromebook or a landmine they're buying lol. Those cheap laptops don't have heatsinks and are purposefully badly engineered to trick people who want something cheap so it'll overheat after a few years and then they'll need to buy another laptop, then another, then another.
 
The M1 GPU is an integrated GPU with the CPU and I therefore do not think it is going to beat a intel 9th gen CPU desktop which has a dedicated GTX 3060 GPU because if it did then in my opinion every graphics artist, designer, movie maker, video maker would be dropping their widows machines and purchasing M1 macbooks but somehow i do not think that is happening.
 
laptech said:
The M1 GPU is an integrated GPU with the CPU and I therefore do not think it is going to beat a intel 9th gen CPU desktop which has a dedicated GTX 3060 GPU because if it did then in my opinion every graphics artist, designer, movie maker, video maker would be dropping their widows machines and purchasing M1 macbooks but somehow i do not think that is happening.
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I'm not denying that, but I find it interesting that my M1 Pro was rendering AI images faster than my RTX 3060 dedicated GPU. The comfort factor of rendering on the M1 Pro versus the dGPU is also there as the 3060 had to kick it's fans to overdrive while the fans in the M1 Pro were barely audible unless you had your ear close to the keyboard.

The new Mac vs PC war's gonna be x86 vs ARM64. The raw but unstable power of x86 vs the efficiency and human comfort of ARM. The hammer vs the scalpel.
 
Adreitz said:
Could you post some performance numbers? It looks like 3000-series cards should produce an image with 50 steps in less than 10 seconds when things are working properly. From some older posts I saw, it looked like M1 Max might take 10-15 seconds to do the same.

Also, how much VRAM does your 3060 have? If it's too small (and the repo you're using doesn't have any of the VRAM-lowering optimizations enabled), then you're going to end up thrashing RAM and killing performance.
Click to expand...


His images are 512x512 so fit within 6GB VRAM while desktop 3060 has 12GB VRAM. Laptop 3060 6GB generates a 512x512 30 step image in ~6 secs so over 3x faster than M1 Max. The difference in performance he's seeing could be down to different step settings with Diffusion Bee defaulting to 25 steps while PC forks default to 50 steps so more work.

1665504794761.png
 
mi7chy said:
His images are 512x512 so fit within 6GB VRAM while desktop 3060 has 12GB VRAM. Laptop 3060 6GB generates a 512x512 30 step image in ~6 secs so over 3x faster than M1 Max. The difference in performance he's seeing could be down to different step settings with Diffusion Bee defaulting to 25 steps while PC forks default to 50 steps so more work.

View attachment 2092851
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I set my steps to 40-50 on Bee as that seems to be the Goldilocks area for SD. Anything higher and you get some really weird stuff.

Also what GUI is that?
 
laptech said:
The M1 GPU is an integrated GPU with the CPU
Click to expand...

Who cares whether it’s integrated or not? That has nothing to do with performance. Of course, OP is not getting nearly close to the performance they should experience with a 3060 but that’s a different matter entirely.
 
Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
Windows domination is not a valid excuse anymore thanks to the blowout success of the Steam Deck and it pushing Linux into the mainstream. Pretty much every big PC game is Deck Verified now, and that number is only gonna grow once SteamOS's installer releases in the next couple of months.
Click to expand...

You’ll have to define “blowout”? Last month was the first time since the Deck has shipped that the Linux user base has fallen. As of September, it’s 1.23% between all versions of Linux and hardware. macOS sits at 2.37% for September. This is all on Steam’s web page. Strange thing this month, they left off total number of users was based on. Last month was 26 million users and it was in the first paragraph, but not this month.


I’m a Deck owner and I want to see Linux make a dent in PC gaming, but until SteamOS 3 finds its way to PC hardware (X64 and Arm alike), it’s a small percentage of the Steam store’s base. Windows 10 is the most popular version (68.49%) and it’s still unchanged at 96% for all versions combined. Hardware: Intel and NVIDIA are the top CPU and GPU.
 
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progx said:
You’ll have to define “blowout”? Last month was the first time since the Deck has shipped that the Linux user base base fallen. As of September, it’s 1.23% between all versions of Linux and hardware. macOS sits at 2.37% for September. This is all on Steam’s web page. Strange thing this month, they left off total number of users was based on. Last month was 26 million users and it was in the first paragraph, but not this month.


I’m a Deck owner and I want to see Linux make a dent in PC gaming, but until SteamOS 3 finds its way to PC hardware (X64 and Arm alike), it’s a small percentage of the Steam store’s base. Windows 10 is the most popular version and it’s still unchanged at 96%. Hardware: Intel and NVIDIA are the top CPU and GPU.
Click to expand...

SteamOS is coming to PC hardware. Valve announced ages ago they're working on a dedicated OS installer as well as licensing for prebuilds and manufacturers to preload their PCs with SteamOS. The Steam Deck Booklet they made for Asia says the installer is almost done and is releasing within the next three months.

Gamepad Digital, the biggest gaming PC manufacturer in China, is preparing to launch versions of their flagship PC the GPD Win Max with SteamOS preloaded instead of Windows 10.
 
Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
SteamOS is coming to PC hardware. Valve announced ages ago they're working on a dedicated OS installer as well as licensing for prebuilds and manufacturers to preload their PCs with SteamOS. The Steam Deck Booklet they made for Asia says the installer is almost done and is releasing within the next three months.
Click to expand...

That’s great news. My Ryzen 5 3600 will be the perfect candidate for the OFFICIAL release. Not the Holo-ISO. It’s still going to be a long road though.

Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
Gamepad Digital, the biggest gaming PC manufacturer in China, is preparing to launch versions of their flagship PC the GPD Win Max with SteamOS preloaded instead of Windows 10.
Click to expand...

Yes. I know GPD is putting SteamOS option (they’re still selling Windows 11 versions) on its Win Max 2 laptop hybrid. In fact, I almost canceled my Deck reservation for it, but the release date was farther out. Don’t mention it around the Deck heads, they get REALLY angry. I think it’ll help, but I don’t see portable PCs pioneering SteamOS, it has to be on desktops and other PC products to make an effect. The Deck might have sold 1.5 million units, but the user base isn’t terribly close to the number. Valve is doing all the heavy lifting with Proton, developers aren’t doing anything to get these games running on the Deck. Valve has to rely on Proton for the time being.
 
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