Right -- and there's every reason to believe that the Metal results will improve with optimization. This is just the first look.
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Blender Begins Testing Metal GPU Rendering on M1 Macs
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Deprecated but still supports. Pretty much every 3D app uses opengl for the viewport.
I have Blender on my m1 Mac mini.
One good place to start learning Blender is here, https://www.blenderguru.com/podcasts/episode-4 (the Blender guru)
One good place to start learning Blender is here, https://www.blenderguru.com/podcasts/episode-4 (the Blender guru)
I mean, deprecated is the opposite of supports. There are no updates or patches or fixes for OpenGL on Mac, and the fact that it's deprecated means that it's slated for removal on Apple's whim. It's not a matter of if but when.
For Blender to rewrite its entire UI/Viewport to a Metal native version would be a much greater task than adding Metal support to Cycles...
You might want to wait for the production release of 3.1 before comparing benchmarks? it seems macOS optimization for native hardware has only just started.
I don't think that's true. As I understand it, they've already abstracted out the draw components of the GUI as an API with 3.0. A new back-end wouldn't be instant, but it won't be greater than the Cycles Metal work and can leverage what they've learned.
I just found this note:
"- As part of their Viewport efforts, Blender 3.x will be working to "move Blender to entirely use the Vulkan open standard". A Vulkan back-end is being developed along with an Apple Metal back-end. They intend to replace Blender's OpenGL back-end by end of 2022."
Thank goodness...end of 2022 can't come fast enough.
Blender is an incredible app and I'm honestly grateful to the community for all the work they do, but… it's just wild that they get a pass on that ridiculous menu system. I can't believe there isn't a movement to do something about that feature of the Mac port.
I don't think it will ever have a Mac-like interface. But I've found it's really not a barrier, once you accept that window sizing works different and that moving your mouse into a tile is enough to activate it. It's certainly not bad compared to the hostile horridness pre-2.8, which simultaneously demanded and punished guessing.
Does anyone who has Apple Silicon and Blender want to run the BMW demo render and report render time results?Just run the GPU render as-is without changing any settings.
Baseline:
My PC finishes the GPU render is 8.6 seconds.
2:19? That's awful noisy for a 2:19 render. If that is a sign of typical results of M1 rendering, it has a long way to go to catch up.
Apple and Epic aren’t exactly on good terms right now. Unity and Godot and both AS native now, though!
Excellent news.
Meanwhile the three big corporate players, whose software will cost you an arm and a leg, are dropping the ball on this, big time!
Foundry stopped developing Mari for macOS entirely and won’t provide any further updates. Disgraceful. ?
Adobe hasn’t provided any support for Metal API in their Substance Painter/Designer software, leaving them crippled compared to the Windows version. Frustrating and disappointing. ?
And Autodesk haven’t said anything regarding Metal support for Maya. Their current real-time rendering implementation remains the worst of the three. Not surprising to be honest. ?
Well done Blender Foundation for putting that trio to shame. No wonder its popularity is surging. ?
Meanwhile the three big corporate players, whose software will cost you an arm and a leg, are dropping the ball on this, big time!
Foundry stopped developing Mari for macOS entirely and won’t provide any further updates. Disgraceful. ?
Adobe hasn’t provided any support for Metal API in their Substance Painter/Designer software, leaving them crippled compared to the Windows version. Frustrating and disappointing. ?
And Autodesk haven’t said anything regarding Metal support for Maya. Their current real-time rendering implementation remains the worst of the three. Not surprising to be honest. ?
Well done Blender Foundation for putting that trio to shame. No wonder its popularity is surging. ?
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To be fair, it will be more like Apple is finally coming into a game that's been playing out for years now.
Most GPU rendering software uses CUDA, and apple basically killed that by dropping Nvidia in 2019 and then having half-assed eGPU support since then.
Don't get me wrong, as a Blender user, I am happy about this, but it's not exactly a groundbreaking feature compared to what PC users have had for years, and it will still take time before other rendering software supports it.
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While I agree with that in principal, I tried UE4 in one of the templates it ships with on my partner’s iMac (base model, 16GB) and it was painful to work with.
The M1 Max will surely run it better but I have my doubts that it will be enough for the development of a bigger project. Especially, considering that for large parts of the development you’re running unoptimized code and render unoptimized assets.
I’m looking forward to a future where it’s possible to develop that sort of thing on AS, though. Yes, please
I don't think market share is all that important... I mean Apple "only" has a 9.54% market share and still...
Blender is at 4.95%
According to Blender roadmap, OpenGL is to be replaced with Vulkan based viewport in 2022. And I believe the viewport performance on arm Macs is not a weakpoint currently.
And about Blender market share. The following set I chose, can be debated and numbers may be biased depending on how people do searches. And naturally Blender has the biggest amount of total noob users, since it is the only free option here. But the trend is quite clear. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&q=/m/0l1qq,/m/0svhm,/m/023q2z,/m/01tgyn,/m/03nx_p
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Yeah, can't wait for a decent Apple GPU that stills supports the software I need to use.While I agree with that in principal, I tried UE4 in one of the templates it ships with on my partner’s iMac (base model, 16GB) and it was painful to work with.
The M1 Max will surely run it better but I have my doubts that it will be enough for the development of a bigger project. Especially, considering that for large parts of the development you’re running unoptimized code and render unoptimized assets.
I’m looking forward to a future where it’s possible to develop that sort of thing on AS, though. Yes, please
