Mac: M3 - *Hardware accelerated RT (Part 1)

Yeah…needs to be able to handle at least 4K to satisfy most users’ needs.

Oh yes wow I finally got it to work while fiddling with the terminal and fixing my Xcode command line install.

512 x 512 pixels goes up to 29 GB of memory.
While generating…


Fairly slow too.

Looks like 1024x1024 px might works and be the limit with 32 GB and feels like it takes forever.

I would say it is fairly unusable as it is at the moment unless one has a 128 GB M1 Ultra?

Why does it need so much memory?

I don’t know seems to be a thing with Stable Dissuasion.

I did try it on my PC (not the blender version of it) and the max I can do on the 12 GB is about 700 x 700 px, 512x512 is a breeze and takes only seconds.

Thanks, that seems too bad to be useful.

Best option but not totally free and does not run locally is Mid Journey, it can create you 2k textures / pictures.

Perhaps his plugin would be more usable if it ran on google colab or so.

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Thanks for running those tests… hmm def doesnt look usable right now. Have 64gb, so might give a try in the week though.

Nothing OT here - this thread turned into a cool hangout for the mac folks :wink:

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No problem I think the current AI wave is interesting.

There is a Krita plugin too but I have not tested that yet.

I was planning to do some texture tests but did not yet so I was very curious about the blender plugin.

Did you guys see the water cooled Mac Studio that LTT did :rofl:

At least it looks like Apples air cooler is fine enough.

So Nvidia officially launched the 40xx line today:

I have to say, as much as I hate them as a company, and the rift that was caused between them and Apple (regardless of whose fault it was); the demonstrations are impressive to say the least.

I don’t know any other company in existence that is doing so much to advance what is possible in real time or quasi real time. I can only imagine that Cycles with an RTX 4090 will effectively be faster than EEVEE with none of the drawbacks and compromises. I am quite sure that at this pace, within a couple of years, rendering as we’ve known it until now will no longer be a thing.

I can not imagine Apple being able to keep up with this level of power, no matter what they do. Meanwhile, even the high end 4090 at $1600 is still a bargain compared to a Studio Ultra, and with 24Gb of VRAM, the entire argument for having a larger amount of memory seems less relevant for most render scenarios.

In an ideal world, Apple and Nvidia would make peace, and Apple would re-enable eGPU and we could all collectively rejoice.

In reality, I think having a side RTX-equipped PC for running Unreal and Cycles might be unavoidable.

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i doubt apple is going to bother really competing at the graphical performance top end (but won’t stop them from claiming it, haha), but i really do hope they at least keep pushing to be a bit more feature competitive, even if they aren’t shooting for the crown.

there is so much going on with neural processing to speed up graphics that i’d love to see a bit more from apple here, especially since they’re already working in that space.

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Ooh looks like that thing will fly. 90 tflops :grin:

I will hold judgment till after November 3rd.

Then we will see what AMD has up their sleeve and perhaps Apple, I am not betting on the last one however ( That is if Apple shows something in October or November).

Who knows…
M2 3,6 Tflops
M2 Max 14,4 Tflops?
M2 Ultra 28,8 Tflops?
M2 Extreme 56,8 Tflops?

And it has to scale perfectly :no_mouth:

I am betting when Apple announces the the M2 Extreme they will say that they beat the 4090 and 1/3 of the power :wink:

Sorry could no resist that one.

However in all seriousness, even if they do at what excessive cost ?

If I had to guess there 12k euros or so.

Anyway next 2 months might be interesting and I still want a new Apple desktop :frowning:

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i am not super up on all these specs, but given the current m1 max, i’d guess m2 max would fall in the 12-18 tflop range. the bigger questions in my mind is if they do anything akin to their video accelerators but that could benefit 3d artists.

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you might be right I cant calculate, did edit it that, looks more correct.

Ops no chance Apple, even if it is 3nm and gives them another 10%

You just made me think of 3dfx, too bad Nvida bought them back then.

3d accelerator card by Apple :thinking:
Nah they would not or would they?
We had Afterburner so…
Light-speed the raytracing / 3d accelerator made by Apple :slight_smile:
I guess the chance for that is however as likely as them bringing eGPUs back (even if I still think that would be the right move).

knowing apple they’d rather sell you a mac pro and a mac laptop rather than a mac laptop that can be extended.

my only other thought on the matter (which is extremely biased) is that i tried the egpu route with my 2018 macbook pro, and my god was it a mess. granted while i didn’t get the ‘apple approved’ one, it was a massive headache. (although in fairness, if i didn’t have it, i would have ditched that laptop within 6 months)

pretty much same experience during the “Intel days” and I had a non official one too.

All Apple needs to do is make the GPU in the Mac Pro 12x faster than the GPU in the M1 Ultra to compete with RTX 4090. Piece of cake.

… and more seriously - I think we can expect the Radeon RX7000 in the Mac Pro.

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Timing wise that could make sense.

Amd announces it early November and Apple about Mid November or so.

The problem is that Apple publishes drivers for AMD cards a year after their release…