Have you tried LuxCoreRender yet? I’m curious how the macOS version performs using OpenCL on an M1 Mac.
How is real-time playback in eevee on the m1 mac mini?
I have tested Luxcore in November and it really was not bad at all: Look here
Might test it again to see if results will change with newer version…
I haven’t tried it yet. I’ve been playing with Eevee so much lately with crazy good results that I haven’t been looking else where.
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“Real-time” play black with Eevee isn’t really a thing, and it’s not great on the M1. Say that though, it’s not great with higher end cards either.
I don’t know if anyone is getting 30-60 fps with Eevee when playing back a full scene animation.
That’s cool. I’m just trying to dig up any hidden gotchas with using an M1 and Blender for animation. I could just play it safe and buy an Asus gaming laptop with RTX and a 5000 series cpu but I’m not looking forward to having a loud fan blowing hot air, plus they are much more expensive and build quality is nothing like a mac. At this point I’m like 90% sure about getting a mac but like i wrote earlier, I can’t help but wait just a bit longer to see if the bigger macbooks are coming soon.
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I’m in about the same boat, being severely tempted into getting a Mac, but holding off to see what the future holds.
Right now, I’m either gonna get one of the bigger Macbooks, or a Razer Blade 15 if I decide to stick to the old tried and true, which has about the same build quality and style of a Mac.
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I would definitely wait. The rumors of the new machines coming out soon are getting too strong now. I hope Apple comes out with guns blazing with the new iMacs and doesn’t release the lower end 21" months before releasing the rumored high end 32"
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I’m heavily suspecting that they are going to milk it with a mild spec bump and low end GPU, probably keep the ram at 16 gigs too. Honestly, 16 gigs is more than enough for like 95% of people and Apple isn’t really in the business to chase after edge cases like us. I think the great blender performance is a happy accident and I’m not sure how much better it will get. They already got the most recommended laptop on the market, why cannibalize that with something 2x as good when it would be overkill for most people anyways.
The real stunner coming from Apple will be whatever imac/mac pro/mac pro jr that comes out which hopefully challenges a threadripper. Sounds nice but i’m looking for a laptop today and not something in $3000-5000 land. I’m still waiting to see what’s what. Buying a new macbook and seeing a spec bump after a few weeks stings.
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I used to think that, then I started using Substance Designer…
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Seeing that officially 64 gigs is “strongly recommended” for fluid simulations in Houdini has me thinking like hmm 16 gigs on the Mac is it huh…
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I was afraid of max 16 GB RAM too.
But was surprised that I can work with my largest projects the same
good or bad as on the Ryzen PC - when the App is reasonably compatible
with M1 and Rosetta.
Like Vectorworks CAD. Twinmotion 2020.x was not, TM 2021.x seems to be.
Bricscad not yet. Modo and C4D R21 already seem to be pretty ok.
And I think that would even work better if these Apps were finally really
optimized fo Apple ARM. So I hope to see further acceleration in the future.
Don’t know really how that can be and how it works or if I will quickly wear out
my Mini’s SoC and SSD that way soon by my misuse …
I was surprised that it already works but of course I am much more interested
in what will be released as a third generation or a final Mac Pro.
Basically I would prefer such a M1x SoC with likely double the RAM, cores and
performance in my M1 Mini for now, but for a new purchase it should be
noticeably more.
For me it looks a bit like, in 2+ years from now, with Apples architecture and
optimized Software, we could finally also reach the point where we are satisfied
with our Computers are fast enough for our needs.
Like it was for standard office applications about 2 decades ago.
(Beside the fact that each time we get more performance we immediately
invest it in more performance hungry features to complain again)
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Have you seen your hard drive health lately due to swap memory? The people at hacker news were making a bit of a stink about this killing the SSD about a month or two ago but the consensus seems to say that heavy swap usage, like 20 terabytes per month, wouldn’t age the drive so much. It should still last roughly ten years under this stress… Though I wonder about the math on this: ten years to get to zero… does that mean five years to 50% health. Still seems quick to me.
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Mine looks ok so far.
Looked at it again lately and still looks ok.
But if I open Files that say using 25 GB of physical RAM and
19 GB of “other”(?) RAM and I see 10+ Gigs of Swap File,
I have to think that my SSD is somehow in use …
I renewed my entry in the “Constant Geekery” poll and hope
to see a final interpretation of all user data soon on YouTube.
Is there anyone here who is good at soldering?
64GB in MacBook Air please…
I think you may have misread the article. Techs have have upgraded the base model of 8GB to the maximum of 16GB.
I don’t think the system would recognize more than the maximum allowed. Similar to putting 32GB sticks into a 16GB maximum laptop. 
Or that maybe the joke which went over my head. 
How provable is that 5 months later release of M1 Mac mini Apple just release a new Mac mini with 12 cores gpu and 32gb memory Ram that runs Blender like a native software in Big Sur?
Could this be possible?
I think it would not be a problem for the M1 system to recognise 64GB memory. Many Apple computers supported more memory than Apple officially stated. The real problem would be finding 32GB of LPDRR4 memory in a single chip:
https://sinobestech.com.hk/tc/all_products.aspx?_id=330001016&_type=class
It’s a shame Apple didn’t use LPDDR5. At least there would have been a chance for 32GB in MBA…
https://sinobestech.com.hk/tc/all_products.aspx?_id=330003200&_type=class
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Everything is possible but nothing is provable.
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Hi there , … I was following this thread for quite a while now … Im sure I missed some parts so apologies is I ask something that already was talked /answered …
I consider myself a blender noob … I earn money being a 2d freelance artist … I learned Zbrush with that tool … lets say im not a noob but an entry level rookie xD … (and I had a brief experiences with maya and Modo) … Im reeally interested in the M1 mac mini (specially teh 16gb ) my budget is short … and I know its not a super workstation …
so my question to more experienced users …
it is possible to run blender without issues ? Im not worried if I have to render something 5,or 10 minutes more … my worries are more about :
live viewport performance …
and the 16 gb of ram enough ? nothing crazy … low poly characters, and not so low poly vehicles and sci fi tech … … Im not into animation … just, modeling, texturing …
Bluetooth issues and , memory swap thing …
and if all this will affect Blender performance …
if this is not the right place to ask pleas feel free to redirect or point me were I should post it .
just for the context my main pc was stolen (among other things)… and I need to buy something not crazy expensive … coz Im working on an old cintiq companion 2 with i7 5500u … my budget is around 1000usd…
and honestly I don’t want to buy a laptop (my last experiences were not good at all )
Im asking all this coz I don’t have how to measure m1 chip with let say a windows laptop with a 1660ti or a 2060 … which I guess it would be mac mini gpu counterparts ?