Author Topic: Mac Studio Experience?  (Read 11116 times)

2022-05-18, 17:52:56
Reply #30

kade

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Pathtracer works great but it’s only available on high end cards with hardware ray tracing, so not all Windows machines can use it.
As for Mac, current M1 systems do not support it but there should be no doubt that it’s coming with M2 or M3 or wherever Apple is ready.

2022-05-18, 18:17:48
Reply #31

Philw

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As an aside - I've just seen massive speed gains with Apple Silicon Blender 3.3a and Monterey 12.4 Cycles GPU. Such gains in fact that I've started to doubt what I've seen! :-)

2022-05-19, 00:11:26
Reply #32

frv

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Ok, that's good news.
I would love to keep working with Apple but not up to the point that my work suffers.

I will check out Blender as well. Do you have a link of what you saw ?

2022-05-19, 07:36:06
Reply #33

Philw

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2022-05-20, 01:12:54
Reply #34

frv

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Tx Philw
I am not familiar with blender, cycles or the render speed.
From what I saw is that is takes quit a bit more hassle to go from Vectorworks to Blender compared to C4D. That's why I have not bothered with Blender so far.

I got a lengthy support session by Chaos to solve the problem of the cosmos browser not functioning on the Ultra .They got it solved for now by installing the previous version of the cosmos browser.

This is one of the first renders I made with the Ultra 128Gb. I had a terrain modeled that was quit a bit larger taking 125Gb ram at rendering. I reduced the size of the terrain and underneath the house and from then on around 65Gb was in use at rendering. I don't know how long it took to the final render at around 500 samples but it looked not all that different at about 3 min at 12 samples.

I think I spend far more time getting the materials, the model and assets right compared to the rendering proces. Modelling and materialising the scene is completely fluent on the Ultra. (The car is a electric Bollinger that never came in full production).


« Last Edit: 2022-05-20, 01:16:57 by frv »

2022-05-20, 06:36:35
Reply #35

Philw

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Excellent work.

The point I was making (badly) is that is still early days for everything on Apple Silicon and the blender post shows that even in gpu land that optimizations are possible/happening. Just sticking up for Macs a bit!

2022-05-20, 10:16:28
Reply #36

runx

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Tx Philw
I am not familiar with blender, cycles or the render speed.
From what I saw is that is takes quit a bit more hassle to go from Vectorworks to Blender compared to C4D. That's why I have not bothered with Blender so far.

I got a lengthy support session by Chaos to solve the problem of the cosmos browser not functioning on the Ultra .They got it solved for now by installing the previous version of the cosmos browser.

This is one of the first renders I made with the Ultra 128Gb. I had a terrain modeled that was quit a bit larger taking 125Gb ram at rendering. I reduced the size of the terrain and underneath the house and from then on around 65Gb was in use at rendering. I don't know how long it took to the final render at around 500 samples but it looked not all that different at about 3 min at 12 samples.

I think I spend far more time getting the materials, the model and assets right compared to the rendering proces. Modelling and materialising the scene is completely fluent on the Ultra. (The car is a electric Bollinger that never came in full production).

you can have the latest Cosmos Browser Version!
Install the latest Version
> go to    ~/Users/ChaosCosmos
Backup the 3 Folders somewhere
> delete the Folders
>logout / in
>go to    ~/Users/ChaosCosmos/Packages and change the 3 Folders(your models) with the previous ones
>> restart

2022-05-20, 10:48:49
Reply #37

frv

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@Runx
I wa specifically asked by support not to install the lastest cosmos. And it took a long time to get it work again so I better stick to their advise.

@Philw
tx. I am happy with my Mac Ultra but don't think that without Nvidia's hardware raytracing and hyperthreading Apple is a match yet.

2022-05-27, 11:21:39
Reply #38

frv

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My experience with the Mac Studio Ultra matches this review:

I think that for C4D and Coronarender the Mac Studio Ultra is great little computer. GPU performance is not an issue with CR. But if you plan to use Twinmotion and other realtime apps as well along with CR than a PC would be a far better choice. Apple can't compete at all with current GPU render speeds.

2022-07-30, 20:19:46
Reply #39

dacian

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OK, I finally got my Mac Studio yesterday (maxed out, except for the 2tb ssd). Going to install Corona now. Are there any settings that you guys would recommend for c4d? Like for example to disable cpu+gpu rendering? Is that a thing that Corona/C4D would do by default? My work is less visualisation and more artistic so I'm also not familiar with all the samples or percents or noise levels you guys are talking about. I just render 20 passes or so until the render looks good. Any tips?

2022-07-31, 11:39:56
Reply #40

Philw

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Nothing to configure really - GPU is not a thing for Corona.

2022-08-01, 15:11:30
Reply #41

dacian

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Thanks @Philw for replying both here and in the Redshift Forum.

What is everyone's experience with noise? I expected it to be completely quiet. Maybe the reviewers exaggerated the quietness. I can hear the air blowing when the room is very quiet.
I also hear a slight high pitched humming like when an old HDD would start and wind up, but not that loud. I can hear It when I put my ear close to the exhaust of the Studio.
Here's a recording: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t7oaemgssvvhvdu/Studio%20Ultra%20fan%20noise.m4a?dl=0
The hissing in the beginning is just background noise picked up by the microphone that I don't even hear. Computer wakes at around 5s.
I made it with the iPhone microphone set on the desk right behind the computer. The two louder clicks are my mouse waking the computer and putting it back to sleep. Makes it feel louder than it actually is.
The high pitched sound is audible with the ear right to the back of the computer. But when I work at night and it's really quiet I can hear it slightly from about 1m away.
The air exhaust sound is not bothering me, but this squeak is.

@frv maybe you have some experience with this?

My 2019 MBP is very loud but it only blows air, it doesn't hum. And I can't compare it to a PC.

2022-08-01, 15:17:22
Reply #42

Philw

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All I can go on is my M1Max Macbook Pro for fan experience - and fans do kick in under load - which is to be expected. The cooling system in the Studio is huge so I guess the same is also to be expected. My guess is that the squeak is coil whine which is unavoidable sometimes (GPUs are big on coil whine). Some systems don't have it, and some ears don't hear it. I always do!

2022-08-02, 13:54:38
Reply #43

frv

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I hear nothing really. But I work in an office with a lot of sounds. At home I also heard nothing though. Unless I put my ears next to the Studio Ultra. And this was while rendering for hours using all cores and 125Gb memory.

2023-02-08, 12:31:52
Reply #44

Chules

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Good morning. I'm having performance issues with a mac book pro M1 max and an imac M1. It seems to be according to the corona department that the performance drop problem is due to the ventilation system of the equipment. The activity monitor shows a % CPU of 750% when rendering when on mac intel it shows 990%. The fact is that I see that the M1 Max is much more powerful in certain tasks than the last iMac i9 but when it comes to rendering complex scenes the M1 Max is below the i9. I am going to buy a Mac Studio Ultra 128Gb, ​​my question is if you are observing that when rendering it is not taking advantage of all the power or, on the contrary, the mac studio takes advantage of all the potential when rendering with corona. The developers of corona comment that they work with a mac mini that in their opinion has better ventilation, and their tests with corona show that corona works at 990% when rendering. They say that they have done tests with Mac book pro and that the performance also drops to 750%, and their reports say that it is the mac book pro itself that prevents excess heat and lowers performance. I would like to know if I am right to buy mac studio and if you can verify that the ventilation design in mac studio is better and does not cause a %CPU performance drop when rendering. I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your 3d infographics and projects. I have a scene that I've been testing so I can buy the i9 vs M1 Max. Thank you for your attention and I hope I don't take up too much of your time. A greeting from Spain.