Mac: M2 Ultra - *VR (Part 2)

I can assure you that the M2 Ultra would already have been an amazing upgrade. When I boot up my old iMac Pro, I realize how much faster the Studio is.

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Since a few years I tried to buy/upgrade an iPhone.
My first and last self bought was an iPhone 4, which was a perfect
product in my eyes at that time.
So the last years I survived by family rejected iPhone 5 or 5s models.
From iPhone 12-14 I could never decide if I should take the current
one or a predecessor. And all had little flaws and imperfections.
Now with iPhone 15 for me finally looks all good.
(USB C, 80% charge limit, Lidar, prism camera, 3 nm A17 SoC, ā€¦)
So I finally bought one and am happy and may be for many years with it,
like with Apple products in the 2006-2012 area.

And I feel the same for the Mac Studio.
I would already have bought and been happy 2 years with the M1 Ultra.
If there would not have arisen that deal breaking GPU scaling issue.
I would nearly have bought a M2 Ultra because of the fixed scaling
issue. But basically I awaited hardware RT and 3 nm since the WWDC
M1 presentation.

So for me the M3 Ultra Studio, if it arises in the same manner as
M1 and M2 Ultra = 2 M Max glued together,
(which isnā€™t for sure if I look at the degrading changes for the M3 Pro)
the Mac Studio M3 Ultra or even Max could be finally a flawless device
again that I really want to buy.

So my only for testing or interims M1 Mini meanwhile is in its 4th year
now as a daily driver. I can wait a few months more.
(After basically waiting since at least 12 years)
But I hope I will not have to wait another whole year.

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You sound like a person who makes well thought out decisions. If youā€™re a professional, I would recommend caution so you donā€™t get stuck with a few years of a slow computer while you wait for a perfect one. Because slow computers end up costing a busy professional money. If itā€™s a hobby purchase, there are no wrong choices!

Example: I know the Studio 2 isnā€™t perfect and the Studio 3 will be faster, but in 6 months time itā€™s already allowed me to take on much more complex client animations, which would have been impossible on the iMac Pro. If the Studio 3 is much faster, Iā€™ll sell the Studio 2.

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It will be interesting to see if Apple can turn the AR / MR / VR device into a lasting item in their product line. AR / MR / VR has remained gimmicky for many years, but lately it seems to finally be here to stay, given the rising popularity of the Quest series.

I can imagine a future where you donā€™t have to sit behind a desktop computer anymore, and sculpt models in spatial 3D, as is already possible with the Quest and similar VR devices.

What Iā€™d like to know is: can you connect two Vision Pro headsets, to play games with / against each other, and watch videos together?

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Iā€™ve thought about the same. Iā€™m kind of looking forward to being able to lay flat on my back (possibly in bed :laughing:) mouse or trackpad along with Razer Tartarus at my side to do my work. A far recline chair for those who donā€™t want to take the bed route yet. Having multiple virtual 4K displays seems like it will be fun. I probably wonā€™t be able to have this for a bit though. $$$

Possibly, but I think you may be looking at the option wrong. Why wouldnā€™t it be like any other virtual space where you will both occupy it wirelessly? Like similar to FaceTime groups where multiple people can sit together and watch the same film and talk to each other.

Note: I use Tartarus while in Blender and other creative apps; best workflow upgrade Iā€™ve ever made. As an animator this has speed me up considerably with me mapping the like hot keys next to each other i.e. x,y,z, - g,r,s,e and all my editor, camera and keying functions grouped nicely. All my modifier keys Shift, CMD, Option are set to the joystick and large key button. Thank god for Karabiner too.

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Since box of rumours opened up:

Meh,

I was pragmatic enough to buy a Trash Can in 2015 when the
Mac Pro 2.1 started to limit my projects.
I am more idealistic and it has to feel good.

I have the ā€œunlimitedā€ PC backup since 2018.
It was not much fun and somehow did not works as reliable
as expected in the past.
But I luckily did not have such ugly large projects since.
So far there was nothing I could not have done on the M1 Mini.

But I am used to have a project simultaneously open in 2 CADs
and a 3D App plus Safari and Mail and such.
Which constantly hints that I need/want something beefier than
an Apple entry level consumer device in the long run though.

But it concerning my work, it is not yet super urgent to buy ā€œanyā€
Studio, but annoying that I still sit on my M1 Mini.

An as-expected M3 Mac Studio Ultra, for me so far feels good
and worth to buy.
(Beside Apple decides to degrade it or the M4 rumors start
too soon again. But I only expect a M4 spec bump, nothing
fundamental or ground breaking ā€¦)

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Interesting/awesome that someone is working on this. I believe the Apple devs glance at this thread from time to time. Would be cool if they gave a look at the link too.

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Does anyone know if any macOS VM or WINE application is already capable of running Windows software relying on recent OpenGL versions, such as MagicaCSG and MagicaVoxel?

Iā€™m still a die-hard MagicaCSG fan, and would still very much miss that if I decide to return to Mac.

When it comes to SDF editors, thereā€™s not much available for macOS. Thereā€™sā€¦

ā€¢ Clavicula, which has potential, but its SDF functionality is still in an early development stage.
ā€¢ Unbound, which is very user-friendly (Iā€™m a beta-tester), but is mainly aimed at being a game editor, not a modeler.

ConjureSDF by @JohnKaz would be a great option, but a version for Blender macOS is yet uncertain. :cry:

Finally, my dream of a sleek yet insanely expensive iPad render farm can come true!

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From the dev meeting that just concluded: EEVEE-Next might slide to 4.2

Seems like a sensible choice to me. EEVEE Next is still pretty buggy and incomplete.

I wonder why EEVEE has proven to be such a tough nut to crack? I also have to wonder why, instead of an underlying technology based in rasterizing, why not instead explore some of the fairly successful real-time path tracers that already exist?

Either way, I think this is not great news as 4.2 is not due out until the late Summer.

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An iPad cycles is a good idea for presentation. At least the Laptop M3 does a fantastic job. And yes GPU rendering on M3 is buggy. Viewport possible, but rendering will crash as memory overflows. Hope they fix it.
Eevee next on M3 supports raytracing ā€¦ still WIP

Taking a render engine that was designed to work with opengl, and then having to make it work on systems that donā€™t support opengl, probably adds to the challenge.

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This does not bode well for the idea that Apple will up the base storage for all their offerings, and/or offer more reasonable upgrade pricing for storage. Sigh!

I was thinking more that this would allow 3D artist who already work on an iPad like with Nomad sculpt to easily stay on the iPad longer and have the materials and lighting match if they need to move the project to Blender.

I donā€™t think anyone would want to use their iPad as a render farm. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I thought the entire backend for Blender including Eevee got a complete rewrite by the Apple devs for Metal and Apple Silicon devices? This is why Eevee and the viewport is performing so well on AS machines, right?

From the notes, it looks like the Eevee Next Mac issues are Intel based issues, no? I donā€™t see much of as future for Intel based development from Apple even in the short term. I feel like they are now just trying to patch holes in code until they completely turn off the X86 switch. 3 maybe 4 years out?

I hear that the PC side of Blender is hoping for a Vulcan rewrite to be performed at sometime. Unfortunately they donā€™t have a team of devs that came in from the outside to wok specifically on this. Maybe Nvidia can get involved again and loan some devs like before, like Apple has done.

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1TB of storage on a Mac is equivalent to 4TB storage on other systems.

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

There are issues with both Metal and Intel; the latest dev notes just mention Intel. Reading various notes in patch discussion, youā€™ll see Metal.

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Sorry I was going off the blanket statement. Iā€™ll admit you may have been replying to a comment further up the thread. :slight_smile:
Yes, Macs and Windows machines are having many issues with Eevee Next, but brand new render engine in an Alpha phase what do you expect.
Eevee (Metal) though has been great on my Mac. Just as nice and even a little better than Eevee (OpenGL) on my PC. :slight_smile:

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