Mac OS vs Windows for a Blender user - or the experience after 2.79b

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Windows vs Mac in Blender

Disclaimer:

I don’t do photorealistic art, nor animations. Just modeling and simple texturing. Blender is a recreation for me, like therapy.

This article is about Mac OS side by side with Windows and Blender. Also I will be comparing AMD only systems vs Intel vs Intel+Nvidia. I will also explain why I love Mac OS and why Windows could be better for Profesional use.

Intro:

For years I used Windows PCs running 3DS MAX, Corel Draw and Sony Vegas (video editing).

Then I got my first MacBook and I had to change a lot. No more 3ds Max nor Sony Vegas or Corel Draw.

After failing to understand Maya 3D I was pointed by the Mac OS community towards → Blender.

WOW! Fell in love with the software and the community. It makes a lot of sense for me as a non-profit user.
And as Blender grows, I grow. It feels that I am more connected (maybe it sounds lame but look at OpenOffice or GIMP… is the same for many, many years… But Blender is dynamic! Maybe too much for professional use)

So just like that Blender became the best thing in my life (from an artistic point of view).

Combine that perfect tool with very capable hardware and I hated to do Catia at work and waited to get home and explore my creativity on Blender, on Mac OS.

Then in 2019 - 2 things happened:

  • Lightroom (photo editor) got really slow on my 2016 Mac and I wanted less response time on the Full Frame photos;
  • Blender 2.80 came and ruined my experience on my Mac;

What is Mac OS (from 2010 to fall 2019) for me

  • Best OS to be used without a mouse because → multi-gestures. You have to test them to understand. Just drag files, select stuff, copy and paste a lot and then you will find Windows QWERTY as old as Windows 95. It all sounds basic but is so great on Mac OS, still. I wish these gestures would come on Windows.
  • Best OS to be used on the couch/plane/train/coffee etc. What I mean is that besides the great trackpad and the UI, well you have notifications that actually work. I can zoom into the model, pan, select, do basic modeling and leave the details for later when I get at the desk. And when you are tired, you still have battery left to watch something on Youtube.
  • Best apps for productivity for non-professionals Notes/Documents/Spreadsheets/Presentations all that is for free with the hardware (if you are ok with the spending). Also using apps like Magnet, Tyme 2, Astropad or Dual Screen can turn your Blender experience from laptop to desktop just like that and all can fit in a small bag without a charger.
  • Most expensive OS – you need to buy the laptop/system
  • Way to elegant for the times we live in → most people buy them for the looks (even in 2019) and is sad. Should put also a plastic Macbook for people who love the OS.
  • Perfect ecosystem ( Mac + iPhone great for e-social life and sharing stuff and Mac + iPad best second screen that has touch input (that works on Mac OS))
  • Final Cut Pro is not bad and you pay once in life (at least so far) so you can enjoy even if you make zero money out of it
  • Best recognition of other devices such as Printers/Piano/Mix decks for Video, Photo and Audio edit. Just plug them and get the most out of them.
  • Best battery for a laptop – writing, Blendering, surfing the internet and some Soundcloud. Maybe Mac OSX from 2016 to 2019 is great at energy consumption.
  • Best with wireless air pods – is a small thing but is so great if you can experience it
  • Their OS just works on their hardware → just read about Windows Surface line-up…
  • Worst OS at school for mechanical engineers – you need CAD/CAM/AI/Labs → most likely those programs run only on Windows so Bootcamp for Mac OS owners.
  • Most papers I had to give were .doc so I had to send them as .pdf and explain that I don’t have the Mac OS Office and LibreOffice is not great at retaining the strict formatting.
  • Worst for Blender… (to be honest, is the only reason I went 100% to Windows, so I don’t miss the other 13 points). It might get great again in 3-4 years with the help of AMD developers but Apple will be faster at ruining stuff. And then who will have money just to try something.

What is Windows for me (from ‘95 to 2019)

  • Very good for all the things that can be done using Windows (and you can write a book on that… not a list). I mean if there is a software you need, most likely is made for Windows. If not, then you can find it on iOS or Android. So you will not miss Mac OS. Numbers, Pages, Keynote and Mail are ok because they are free… but Office is everywhere so I know it deeper and better. So I don’t miss the Mac OS alternatives and wow Outlook is the king.
  • Best for Gaming – if there is a game non-existent try your phone or a console. Don’t look at Mac OS you won’t find anything there to peak interest.
  • Most jobs use Windows so probably is the best known OS so easy to get around and get lost
  • Only way to enjoy Laptop + Tablet in one device (as of 2019)
  • Only way to get NVidia GPU or eGPU (as of late 2018 to 2019. Maybe this will change in the future)
  • Best choice of keyboards/screens/form factors/colors/materials/experiences – no more Apple wants that for you → you can pick the color, the type, the sound, the power… everything. Windows runs on everything that can be produced with a chip inside and a screen. (for small stuff Android is the twin)
  • Has best laptops money can buy (in my opinion) – Microsoft Book 2 with Nvidia 1060, tablet mode and etc – Picture this: you start on the couch with the tablet mode and a small keyboard next to you to be used from time to time. And when things get serious just go to the desk and work the details. Except when Microsoft forgets to run updates on their own products
  • The only OS that offers little surprises → some old software or newer ones work even on old computers. On Mac OS, after an update, a crucial app might not work. So there is waiting time after the developers
  • Windows and Blender are great together, but not because of performance but because you can use also Adobe products and some free programs to fast edit photos. Those don’t exist on Ubuntu so the extra power of that OS does not justify for me to give up on Windows.
  • Everything for which Mac OS is great for, Windows is not so good…

Mac OS (with examples) vs Blender – the examples.

Blender before version 2.80 was the best tool to use after my day job. If I did not use Quadro workstations at work, every day for 8h minimum, I would not even know Windows exists anymore. (I exaggerate but I will prove a point soon).

The following scene is for my own website and was a struggle to work on it on Mac OS:

PNG
PNG1918×979 396 KB

That wave has this material:

mix shader
mix shader1128×756 108 KB

The image below is shown in LOK DEV Blender 2.81:

  • iMac 2019 21,5” Radeon 560X without Intel integrated graphics → Lok DEV 1 FPS (almost)
  • Macbook Pro 13” 2018 only Integrated graphics Intel → Lok DEV 16-20 FPS
  • Dell INSPIRON 7000 series 2019 integrated graphics → Lok DEV 25-30 FPS
  • Lenovo ThinkPad with Quadro M1000M → first time load is very long but then I get around 30 FPS and more
  • HP OMEN 17” Nvidia GTX 1070 → Lok DEV 59 FPS or more…

Mac OS screenshot:

37
372880×1800 974 KB

Windows DELL and HP OMEN and Lenovo ThinkPad

PNG
PNG1626×852 296 KB

1 FPS on iMac is not acceptable and on the small MacBook is also not that great as the scene is very simple…

This is the same scene in Cycles Preview…

PNG
PNG1628×873 407 KB

So Macbook 13 inch or HP Omen with Nvidia is the same for me when it comes to Cycles. If I want high speed to render I will not complain that my laptop is 3 kg and more…
So Cycles rendering I do not mind to be slow, I don’t work during that time.

Here is the same scene in the Blender that I felt in love with → prior to 2.8 (2.79b is showcased)
See how transparent materials are actually transparent? Wow right?

blender 279 GLSL
blender 279 GLSL1647×921 148 KB

iMac + 13" MacBook + Dell 2 in 1 = max refresh rate of the screen , no lag. Is as if you look at the scene with no colors at all.

Why Blender Devs took out GLSL option… I don’t understand (but I read).

Should have just let it go along side with Lok DEV.

Here is another example:

dell sintra no render
dell sintra no render935×856 821 KB

This is a huge file. Every tile on that house is made as a separate object. I have 99% simple Diffuse and one big Glass surface.

Here is the same scene in Blender Lok DEV on Mac OS:

5-10 FPS on iMAC – is like rendering with Cycles…

12-15 FPS on Macbook Pro 13” - bad for working

15-18 FPS on Dell Inspiron 2 in 1 – not that great for working

59 FPS on HP Omen GTX 1070 Nvidia – best to work

20-30 on Lenovo ThinkPad – it depends if you wait a bit to load… after that is fast enough to work

18
182880×1800 930 KB

Here is the magical same scene in Blender 2.79b with GLSL Material

Full FPS on all laptops no matter the OS…

Sintra GLSL
Sintra GLSL1223×921 165 KB

Conclusion:

As of Blender 2.80 and 81:

Transparent materials ask LokDEV the help on Nvidia

Tons of objects (thousands) need also Nvidia in LokDEV

GLSL Material render present until 2.79b works as great on Nvidia as in MacBook Air 11” i5 (had one at work) if you have the RAM.

Then what about the final render and the people who use EEVEE as a final Render.

Well… I do not mind waiting 1 hour or 4 hours for a final render.

But for working purposes, speed is crucial.

Hope you find this article useful.

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I am currently in the same boat as many other out there. No more Nvidia in OS X and no more AMD GPU acceleration for Cycles and now with RTX the difference is even bigger, much bigger. I also bet eevee, which I love working in also works much faster with Nvidia cards.
After more then a decade on Mac I am forced to switch to Windows because of this. There is always Radeon Pro Render but in my case it doesn’t run that much better compared to cycles, especially in viewport.
Blender isn’t the only app that gets a major boost from Nvidia, there are plenty of other apps out there that support CUDA and Optix.
I love MacOS for it’s design and workflow, stability and security. OS and Apps feel like one whereas in Windows it’s spread out everywhere, design and files feel detached.
Both Adobe and Davinci which I also use frequently run fine with Metal support but it’s Blender (amongst other 3D apps) that I want to enhance and that is out of the question.
I was thinking about getting the RX5700XT but that will only help me with eevee if that.
I’m not going to waste 1 hour rendering knowing I could do it in 10 mins. This is my work not a hobby so I have to be efficient.
Windows used to be a Gaming/Office station and Mac the Pro/Art station but nowadays Windows is the Pro/Art/Gaming station and Mac the Office station with a bit of photography/audio on the side.
I feel with the current situation a lot of graphic artists (pro and hobbyists) are going to move to Windows.
It’s a shame that a company can force one into moving away from them while their purpose should be the exact opposite.

Take care lads!

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Well Apple says that it is the others who should align to the new technologies. (much like the debate over 5G network for which my 3G is still all I need and I was born with Nokia so I know mobile, I work on iPad etc.)

I have sold all my Apple stuff (iMac and Macbook “Pro”) and bought an Microsoft Book 2 on black friday, before the COVID 19). I can share opinions on the product if asked.

Eevee works only with Nvidia (at a professional level 7.7h/per day).
The whole point of my initial post was not the introduction of EEVEE as a final render, but as the only working engine to display the Shaders. I know that in the beginning all it was just wireframes ( I remember working on 3DS Max in Boundary Box visualization and then not moving so that I get a visual) but let us the choice if possible of how we want to render the view to better work when scenes get big.

Should they have stayed with old UI render and new for another 10 years would have meant that Apple and AMD users are saved (for that timeframe). (and Windows also because that Lok DEV is faster than EEVEE with or without Nvidia)

And i don’t think many people read what I will say but I have almost 9 years of experience in CAD/CAM on the real deal (plus the faculty -> so for 15 years) and I can say almost nothing changed in the core of CATIA.

Catia it is used in Europe, and I can name 3 companies that are more than happy with it even now with the Cloud stuff.
Why?
Because Suppliers, Old employees, Logistics all are to slow and expensive for the change.

If a software is muscle memory for the employee, than the software is a tool so the company by the minute is productive. Also hiring new people from school is easier as the speed to which they become productive is key to profit.
So Dassault can make new versions, but clients will not pay if productivity goes down because of them. And when it does go down, then Dassault pays bills to clients + free support and they even had to hire companies to respond to all the problems. So if they risk too much, they pay the whole effort.

Imagine if Microsoft would come to your home and pay you to use their software, help you for free, and be by you side for free for many years (until the new is not new anymore). Is a huge financial deal for the maker of the software.

Blender I do not know why they changed -> they say is for the beginners -> I made a test with my colleagues (young and experienced in CAD/CAM) -> they said it is not OK anyway. :))
Truth be told, by the time they realize the huge power and speed of Blender, the Eevee issue on their Macs or underpowered laptops will annoy them. Blender for most is a hobby.

AMD ProRender is a bust. I am sure it will get better but Cycles* will get better also. So it will, forever, be a bust. :))
*Get the eCycles and make photorealism on notebook and AMD Prorender will be compared with 1995 Toy Story engine…

Whatever you buy, should better be workstation and you will get the same safety as on MacBooks, and I dare to say is because of the ECC RAM.

I have on my work laptop (Nvidia Quadro and ECC RAM and Intel i7 series) and running simulations after 2 hours of work, no save -> is safe no blue screen, no crash. It comes back to life if particles take to much time to run the simulations. Just like on a Mac, if it thinks to much, I take a break and when I come back is done.

But on my no ECC RAM, Nvidia GTX1050, and i7U laptop, things are different. EEVEE is faster and looks better when navigating the scene to check textures, positioning of lights etc. BUT every time the loading cursor appears you wish for Blender to actually do something.

Blender for some reason can be used on laptops (without mouse) only on MacOS and I miss that.
Blender will continue to exist on Mac Os in one way or another as long as Ton Roosendaal lives. (this is one of his wishes, for continuity on Linux and Windows and Mac OS) and also the blender on .zip.

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  • Best OS to be used on the couch/plane/train/coffee etc. What I mean is that besides the great trackpad and the UI, well you have notifications that actually work. I can zoom into the model, pan, select, do basic modeling and leave the details for later when I get at the desk. And when you are tired, you still have battery left to watch something on Youtube.

I really wish they could add touchpad gesture recognition to Blender for Windows. It works so well on MacOS that I never use a mouse with my MacBook Pro. On Windows laptops Blender is really frustrating to use with only the touchpad.

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Very recognizable.

I was quite content with my iMac that contained the last NVIDIA GPU before Apple shifted to AMD-only.

Not long after I had bought an iMac with an AMD GPU, Apple announced that they would cease support for OpenGL and OpenCL, while I was already frustrated about the discontinued NVIDIA GPU option.

With the AMD GPU I could not use the GPU for Cycles anymore, and for a while I hoped Metal would be adopted soon by all major 3D developers, including Blender, but I fully understand that Blender is largely based on OpenGL, and needs to stick with widely used standards to avoid heaps of extra developer time and maintenance for a relatively minor user base.

About 1.5 years ago I returned to a solid, up to date Windows PC rig. Initially I was a bit reluctant to do so, as I had become accustomed to the stability and comfort of macOS. But Windows 10 turned out to be quite stable and comfortable as well.

It didn’t take long for me to start appreciating the freedom and large software base of Windows again. Obscure tools that do exactly what I was searching for are almost always available for Windows, while I often had to search for an alternative in my macOS days, to no avail. Many times, Blender add-ons are also not available for Blender macOS, because the developers can’t test it.

Also, there’s much more choice in Windows hardware, and a powerful rig can usually be bought for much less than a comparably powered Mac.

NVIDIA GPUs, CUDA and OptiX are very well supported in Blender. I am quite satisfied with my current Windows system. I’ve still got an iPhone, but I’m now looking into switching to Android, completely leaving the fenced Apple sandbox.

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You could ditch also the iOS when you look at SAR values :slight_smile: Then come back to it because it works all day, all night for 5 years if you don’t drop it :))

I think that Blender will continue to work on Macs even without Open GL/CL, with the help of AMD.
So just like once upon a time a software asked for 32 bit only, then 64 bit only, it will say in the future AMD PRO X… or above.
Those who will not read into it will be on this forum and others asking why it is not working EEVEE or why with the CUBE he has 25 FPS on a 120 screen :sweat_smile:

Also, I am even more positive that Mac OS will fade, and be used much like Windows Server (for dedicated by dedicated, with dedicated) and the mainstream, (the majority of doughnut makers, low poly rooms etc) will be on iPad OS. All you need is a bunch of smart kids, give them at school this assignment, and for 4,99 euro per month, you have 100% Blender. For green also but no Cycles.

I have colleagues at work, in the 20s (i am in the 30s) who use Autodesk Fusion on tablets with mouse :slight_smile: -> why? because cheap. They can have one device (with 3G) for all. And that is the future to go forward.
And the pros will be in VR and AR a lot.
So today 2.8 works on WINDOWS and LINUX.
Tomorrow on mobile.

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Personally, I expect Apple to switch to their own GPUs as well, after their CPU switch in the near future. I expect that move to cause a comparable stir to their PowerPC to Intel shift in the past, with developers needing to alter their code, removing CPU-specific instruction sets and the likes.

The shift to a custom Apple CPU and GPU will also make macOS drift away from Blender even further, while AMD support is also needed for Windows and Linux users.

I’m keeping an eye on Apple’s developments, but I don’t see myself returning to the Apple realm anytime soon.

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You mean to go to ARM instead of Intel or AMD?
If so-> Yep that was what I meant by they will go mobile 100%. But that is more far in the future…

And if the Mac Pro (modular*) will be kept it will run either AMD cpu or ARM -> but we don’t know the contract for how many years was signed. We see Apple is pushing mobile with free teaching apps, free computers to schools so that iOS can grow even higher and become even more popular.

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One other point that affirms the shame Apple is placing itself on…besides UI, stability etc. many developers have said MacOs is much easier to program for. I hate Apple Corp. for settling for mediocrity.

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Yeah they do some stuff better than others. My wife still has a macbook pro and it runs like butter. (but not in 3D work, actually all except that)
I have switched since this winter on a Microsoft computer, and today I just lost my internal GPU… just like that. I was working in Lightroom and I tried to adjust the brightness of the screen and it did not work. I fixed it for the moment. Also is the third time I install Windows 10 because I was searching for some apps to try to do what I was doing on Mac and had viruses…

I guess controlling all the drivers is good for the end user because he can have a machine that just works, but if you want free or cheap alternatives for a special software then you are out of luck.
On Windows you have the options, but sometimes they work perfect, other times they bug.

We will see how Apple will work out the ARM thing, and if it actually becomes a thing then good times for casual Blenders like myself.

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I don’t understand Mac policy concerning 3D, I’m also a Mac user and I’ll have to switch to a PC because I can’t use 2.8 properly. Mac has always been the favorite platform for a lot of graphic designers, so why do they give up 3D which is a bigger and bigger part of the design business? :unamused:

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Well maybe because the Development is not so dynamic… I mean I watched interviews and even the father of Blender, said to Andrew Price that there are very few developers even on big software (Autodesk). So if development is very slow, Apple is anything but that.

Second, there is a market shift to NVidia, to Unreal and to other stuff that involve AI… Kids want those toys. And when they have a smaller budget they still go for stuff that Apple does not want in their products. Power is what Apple decides, not the consumer :))

So yeah they get out of the business.

But Pixar is using what?