The Apple M1 chip takes our most versatile, do-it-all desktop into another dimension. With up to 3x faster CPU performance. Up to 6x faster graphics. And our most advanced Neural Engine for up to 15x faster machine learning. Get ready to work, play, and create on Mac mini with speed and power beyond anything you ever imagined.
Nov 2020
I am MacUser and BlenderUser. And I have a HP PC with Nvidia for Blender. But now M1 from Apple is here, what will the Blender programmers do?
13.12.2021. DONE! They did it!
Metal is there!!!
Thanks to the developers! Thanks to Apple! Thanks to the Blender boss
22.12.2022. DONE! The next milestone!
Metal Backend!!!**
Thanks to the developers! Thanks to Apple! Thanks to the Blender boss
15.02.2023. DONE! We will soon reach Jupiter! Blender 3.5 Beta!
Thanks to the developers! Thanks to Apple! Thanks to the Blender boss
23.03.2023. Blender 3.5.0 Release Candidate!
The spacecraft goes into a stable orbit. We are almost there!
Thanks to the developers! Thanks to Apple! Thanks to the Blender boss
To all who have been on this almost 3 year journey. Mac is back!
I think efficiency wise Apple has a real advantage now. Not only they control the design of the SoC and the OS, all their devices use that same architecture. It will be really hard to beat this in regards of optimisation.
I am looking back on a long history on different systems. Starting from a VIC-20, C64 over Atari Mega ST to PC (DOS, Windows 2.11 – 10, Linux, Unix) and finally to Apple – still have a PC with NVDIA for Blender But every time I start my PC it really feels (and sounds) like going back into the steam age Blender is performing really nice on that machine and that is the only reason for me using it. But I would be really glad to run Blender on the new Mac mini, with its much more sane ratio between energy consumption and performance.
Sure, the current 16gb really is limiting, but I bet that will change over the next iterations of AppleSilicon.
I’m on an old 2011/2012 Mac Pro tower (my daily mover machine) plus a circa 2012 gaming PC. I’m contemplating getting a Zen 3 machine plus new GPU card next year and maybe all out-migrate to Windows (a new Mac means abandoning a lot of old software anyway), but boy do toys like these complicate one’s decisions.
My two MacBook Pro are also really old (early and late 2013). I am a self-employed Fullstack Developer, so for that kind of work they both still fit. But I also do a lot of graphic works like photo editing and print design etc. and there I often feel their age
If I would do more jobs with blender I also would consider using AMD Zen 3 and decent GPU. But I would never go back to Windows only. In all those years using it exclusively I never really liked it – but it did it’s job.
I’m not a typical fanboy, in the end I am using what fit best for my needs. And for blender it’s still my old PC (with WIN 10, so I can also test my web projects on that horrible IE11), for servers Linux and for everything else my Macs.
If it’s on the same chip, that should mean that the 16GB can be used as graphics memory as regular RAM memory. So in theory if the next iteration of chip has 32 GB then it has 32GB(less of course because of the OS and opened apps) of GPU memory for rendering.
Edit: Just saw it had “unified memory architecture”.
Edit2: Cinema 4D will work. “Millions of objects” is one quote. Don’t know if it’s on viewport or not.
I think initially blender will work under Rosetta 2 emulation in Mac m1, which won’t be as fast as the arm native version. Just don’t expect the full features and Pythons won’t work well and Maybe cycles won’t work well. But I could be wrong. It will take a while to see a native version of blender
Here is another take on it from Linus Tech Tips. Personally, I wouldn’t trust Apple’s statements. Also, they’re now all about locking down things in general, so yikes.
I haven’t seen the vid and haven’t watched Linus in several years; there are just better/professional tech vloggers out there now.
Saying that, and knowing that none of these machines are out yet, I can only assume this vid is an opinion piece were he takes slides and comments out of context so he can high-five his gamer buddies in the background while yelling “O’Doyle Rules”.
But if the leaked Geekbench benchmarks for the new Apple Silicon, “1634 Single-core and 7220 multi-core”, are true, and starting in the $700 entry level Mac, with the M1 tech reportedly being truly scaleable for future high-end Macs… Then I would say the old “86” architecture is getting a little nervous.
Either way I hope the devs at Blender Foundation are being proactive rather than reactive.
AMD might be able to fight off Apple considering the massive performance and technology gains being made in the Zen architecture, but Intel’s days are likely numbered if they end up in third place in terms of desktop performance (because of their apparent lack of ability to bring their next gen processes to the point of making desktop chips).
In addition, we might have to wait and see if Blender will run on the new Macs, as there is nothing preventing Apple from just banning the GPL and other open licenses from the upcoming versions of MacOS (which means no Blender, no Krita, no Inkscape, no Godot, no GIMP, you name it).
Agreed. I hope BF takes up the ARM mantle because when It comes down to it , I’m a Blender user; so I would have to make the full transition to Windows.
And yes I posted that without watching. It’s pretty easy to guess the type of video style when the presenter plasters his or her face on the cover with either a forehead slap or a stupid grin. Gamer Bait lol
Blender is performing really nice on that machine and that is the only reason for me using it. But I would be really glad to run Blender on the new Mac mini, with its much more sane ratio between energy consumption and performance.
