Author Topic: Corona for Apple Silicon M1?  (Read 36687 times)

2021-06-15, 13:58:21

SUPER68

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Don't hate me if this has been asked MANY times... I just cant seem to get answers from the web whatever way I phrase it. Is / when is optimised / native Corona coming for Apple Silicone M1 Macs? I've run the Rosetta version but its slow... Again, apologies if I'm a doofus! All the best

Brian

2021-06-15, 14:47:37
Reply #1

TomG

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It will be coming, but we don't have a date for when it will be coming, sorry.
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2021-06-15, 16:48:08
Reply #2

Beanzvision

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We don't hate you Brian, but there is a search function on this forum ;)
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2021-06-18, 13:41:57
Reply #3

frv

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I am with you Brian, also very keen to know a little more about how much of an issue this is for the Corona team. Has it any priority at all or is it actively worked on right now. No idea.

Many desginers working with C4D are not full time rendering images. There are lots who render a few times a month and are pleased to do so on a mac and with Coronarender. Redshift and Octane are really not an alternative yet. So once Coronarender has a native version I might just stick with Apple for now. If it takes another year or more I would probably go elsewhere.

Btw, tx Coronarender for version 7.

2021-06-22, 10:07:53
Reply #4

Atlantis

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So once Coronarender has a native version I might just stick with Apple for now. If it takes another year or more I would probably go elsewhere.

Same here. I'm a Mac user since 25 years. My next big investment would be a new "Pro" Mac with Apple silicon if Corona would run natively.
Otherwise I had to buy a Windows PC workstation for the first time, or work with a different renderer, both of which would annoy me.

2021-09-15, 17:23:58
Reply #5

wasfrans

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You can also have a look at the roadmap, it's at this moment in the left column.

https://trello.com/b/dgI8vjDb/corona-tentative-road-map-cinema-4d


2021-09-15, 17:47:01
Reply #6

johnnyswedish

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Hi Atlantis,

I too was a total Mac man since late 80's... Did the switch to Windows 10 and a Gigabyte Aero 17 laptop... Was scared of the change but boy, will I never look back! Speed and reliability is not comparable to Macs... most people in the design industry I know are switching. Might be a good time :-) John

2021-09-15, 23:01:40
Reply #7

frv

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Hi John,
I am afraid you're right. Apple is watches and phones first. I love my new MacBook m1 though but will probably get a proper PC for my daily work as an architect. So fed up with the waiting. Another thing is that I can no longer compete with architects on Lumion or a fast PC. C4D with CR is great as well but you need something fast and conceptual as well.

All the best Francois
www.francoisverhoeven.com

2021-09-16, 10:52:17
Reply #8

mmarcotic

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Hello,

we want to introduce full M1 support in v8, it is however not an easy task. In the meantime, it is possible to use M1 with Corona via Rosetta.

Thanks,
Jan
Learn how to report bugs for Corona in C4D here.

2021-09-16, 14:33:39
Reply #9

frv

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tx, good to know that V8 will have Apple silicon support.

2021-09-16, 14:52:58
Reply #10

TomG

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Just a reminder that the wording is we *want* 8 to have M1 support - this does not guarantee it will have, though; as noted, it's not an easy task. So this is not a promise that it will be in 8, just a statement we would like it to be. All depends how development goes and what unforeseen things crop up.
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2021-10-24, 12:41:45
Reply #11

bitarafali

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Just a reminder that the wording is we *want* 8 to have M1 support - this does not guarantee it will have, though; as noted, it's not an easy task. So this is not a promise that it will be in 8, just a statement we would like it to be. All depends how development goes and what unforeseen things crop up.

I have another question about M1. What about Corona-Render in windows(3ds max or C4D) but in a apple macbook M1 that running windows?
vimeo.com/bitarafali

2021-10-25, 10:29:44
Reply #12

jms.lwly

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I have another question about M1. What about Corona-Render in windows(3ds max or C4D) but in a apple macbook M1 that running windows?

For reference - I have 3DS Max / Corona running fine on a Mac running Windows (via Parallels) but not yet tried to move the setup onto an M1 Mac. I know there have been issues with the M1 chips running some Windows apps via Parallels and it's not yet optimised - also, with the move to M1 chips there is no Bootcamp option any more so virtualising Windows would be the only route (Parallels, VMWare, other).

2021-10-25, 21:50:20
Reply #13

Philw

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You can’t virtualise normal windows on M1. There is a developer ARM64 version of Windows but it’s not great and as far as I know currently not supported by VMware or Parallels either.

2021-11-03, 07:33:18
Reply #14

jp3112

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„In the meantime, it is possible to use M1 with Corona via Rosetta.“

Do you or someone else know how the performance and the stability of corona run through Rosetta is? I need a Notebook for homeoffice and the 14‘ MacBook Pro would be perfect except Corona isn’t natively supported yet.

2021-11-03, 09:11:12
Reply #15

balatschaka

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„In the meantime, it is possible to use M1 with Corona via Rosetta.“

Do you or someone else know how the performance and the stability of corona run through Rosetta is? I need a Notebook for homeoffice and the 14‘ MacBook Pro would be perfect except Corona isn’t natively supported yet.

https://corona-renderer.com/benchmark/results/cpu/apple

2021-11-04, 10:32:20
Reply #16

frv

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I have it working on my macbook air m1. Its ok, crashes now and I think because the 16Gb is too limited. I would suggest to get as much ram as you can and that applies to any system really.

I am hoping Corona Render will have a native apple silicon version ready as soon as possible. Its one of the very few great render plugins available for the mac.

2021-11-04, 14:46:47
Reply #17

rafaz

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„In the meantime, it is possible to use M1 with Corona via Rosetta.“

Do you or someone else know how the performance and the stability of corona run through Rosetta is? I need a Notebook for homeoffice and the 14‘ MacBook Pro would be perfect except Corona isn’t natively supported yet.

https://corona-renderer.com/benchmark/results/cpu/apple

I'm using on mac mini m1 8gb ram.... I guess it would depend on how complex is your scene, for my type of work it runs ok ( Not great). I'm following the roadmap and I see the next step is to release a daily build for m1 and hopefully it will have a better memory management.

2021-11-10, 09:47:35
Reply #18

rojharris

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Just to chime in here, I've been using an M1 Mini 16GB with Corona since May without any issues. I still team render big jobs to my old PC purely because it's faster (Threadripper) but tbh I rarely turn it on these days. Corona is stable and pretty fast on M1 under Rosetta. The only crashes I get are when messing with cloners or SurfaceSpread or MultiCloner.. For some reason any tweak of clones with the IPR running will crash it. I"m pretty sure it's just a memory issue.
I REALLY hope there's an M1 native version coming.
I've ordered a 64GB M1 Max Mac Pro so when it turns up later this month I'll report back on how Corona runs with all that extra RAM.

I'm using Cinema R20 by the way. Can't see any reason to upgrade until Corona goes Native M1. :-)

2021-11-10, 10:56:31
Reply #19

Philw

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I've got a M1 Max ordered too. The native M1 is in the dev Trello for v8 at some point - currently marked as some internal testing done. So looking forward to silent scene building. Similar to you my Threadripper is great for Corona but I'm a Mac boy (man) at heart.

2021-11-11, 19:11:56
Reply #20

rafaz

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I keep checking the forum everyday for a possible daily release :(

2021-11-12, 09:33:29
Reply #21

rojharris

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I keep checking the forum everyday for a possible daily release :(
Ha Ha! Me too! :-)

2021-11-12, 09:34:18
Reply #22

mmarcotic

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soon™
Learn how to report bugs for Corona in C4D here.

2021-11-13, 22:53:10
Reply #23

frv

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Works rather well. Got the daily 8 updated for apple silicon.
Attached scene rendered for seven hours without crashing.
Used about 5Gb ram without swapping memory.
Computing GI takes a little long but preparing is almost instant. After About 2 or 3 min I got to sl 3. 3600x2400.
Interactive Preview was too slow with this scene even at 800x600. Which is a rather large scene for IP anyhow.

MacBook Air M1 16Gb.
Don't think the M1 max will be much faster with this scene other than it has 2 cores more.
« Last Edit: 2021-11-13, 22:58:08 by frv »

2021-11-14, 18:40:13
Reply #24

jojorender

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Hi frv,
thanks for sharing.
Did you render the same scene on an intel Mac too?
The ray total# seems very low for this kind of scene. Doesn’t look like the mats are overly complex, and the rays/sample look normal.
Would be interested to see a Intel Mac comparison of this scene, if possible.

Maybe it's time to update the corona benchmark tool.
The M1 max in the result list shows similar rays/s that a i7-8700K got in 2018.
Not sure if this is a real comparison if the benchmark runs in rosetta.

2021-11-15, 11:43:30
Reply #25

frv

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Hi Jojorender
I did not test it any further on my Intel iMac quad core i7.
Coronarender is a cpu renderer so I am not expecting all that much difference with my iMac. I am also not expecting much difference with the new m1 max since they are only 10 core.

The scene I tested it with is a scene with just 3 laubwerk trees scattered with mograph and a random effector. But still I did not expect such a smooth performance on a small laptop without cooling. Even though it run CR all night. I was hoping the process before render was a little faster expecting more feedback in the design process. Maybe redshift is better for that being a gpu renderer. I don't know anybody here who has redshift and coronarender to compare. What was very fast on my m1 macbook air is changing LUT's. That is instant, scrolling the various LUT's. On my iMac its very slow in a way I never looked at all the different LUT's before.

Cheers Francois
« Last Edit: 2021-11-15, 11:48:31 by frv »

2021-11-18, 00:30:39
Reply #26

BigAl3D

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I had previously tested a first-gen Mac Mini M1 16 GB and it was significantly faster than my Mac Pro Trashcan, which is significantly faster than our i7 iMacs. This is also running Team Render client and Corona via Rosetta2. I think testing your scene on your old iMac would be eye-opening.

2021-11-27, 00:12:49
Reply #27

frv

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Depends on the ram usage. My iMac from late 2015 had 32 Gb of ram and uses 4 cores and 8 threads. I can render really big models swapping 30Gb of ram memory. The m1 16Gb runs out of ram quickly and when its swapping memory its falls back on its 4 cores and leaves the efficiency cores out of the render process.

2021-11-27, 03:20:31
Reply #28

caspian

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I can let you know on Tuesday. Mine was supposed to arrive yesterday… Hopi g for significant improvements from my current off the shelf  2018 MBP
C4D 2023 / Corona 9 / Mac 12.6

2021-12-15, 19:14:20
Reply #29

Rutg3r

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Here some fresh results just for rough compare speeds... the oldie run C4DR23 and corona V7.0. Other machines both R25 and V8 daily.

« Last Edit: 2021-12-15, 22:33:22 by Rutg3r »

2021-12-16, 08:59:54
Reply #30

runx

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A comparison between Native and Rosetta Mode would be super useful. thx

2021-12-16, 12:26:30
Reply #31

frv

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I just rendered this on my macbook air m1 with 16Gb. After a minute or so you have a decent image to work with but this image up to SL16 at 3600x3600 took about 6 hours.
C4D R25, V8, Graswald assets, Surfacespread by Laubwerk.
Its not more than one spline modifyer and two planes with the about 8 assets scattered. The gravel is by RD textures.

I would love to see Corona scattering provide the same functionality that Graswald managed to provide for Blender. It almost makes me join the Blender crowd.

2021-12-16, 13:59:48
Reply #32

rafaz

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that is a nice comparisson, Max 8 min and i9 5 min! the 8 min time is running native or rosetta? I was expecting a better results than the i9  if it was runing native m1 :(

2021-12-16, 18:27:13
Reply #33

rojharris

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I just rendered this on my macbook air m1 with 16Gb. After a minute or so you have a decent image to work with but this image up to SL16 at 3600x3600 took about 6 hours.

6 Hours! Blimey! I've never had anything in Corona take that long. I regulary render out 10000x10000 images on my mini M1 and they take about 1.5 hrs. An image like yours at that size on my 64Gb Macbook with the M1 Max would probably take 10-15 mins... I always use pass limit of 12 and Corona high quality denoise of 0.5.. Even the 16Gb mini would only take 15-20mins tops I'd guess.
I'm doing scenes with tons of Laubwerk & Forester trees and plants and I've never ever had to wait more than an hour for a 6000x4000 image.



2021-12-17, 12:19:39
Reply #34

frv

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I just start render and go to bed.  This was about 6 hours the next morning. I never use denoise. But in about a 5 to 10 min. these exterior images looks good already. But depending on the amount of vegetation and different instances render times can differ a lot.
I notice though that when you postproces images that have rendered a long time its a lot easier. Most final images I use have sl's of about 200 to 300.

Graswald assets are actually much more detailed than anything from Laubewerk or forester.

I would say all my images need memory swapping which doesn't help either. Good to know the m1max 64Gb is working well for you. I hope spring will bring a new mac with 128Gb.

2021-12-17, 17:18:48
Reply #35

rojharris

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Thanks for the info about Graswald. I'm looking into them now :-)

Also, forgove my ignorance, but what do you mean by 'SL' ?

Cheers

2021-12-18, 02:02:44
Reply #36

frv

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SL ? Sampling level. I am not sure its named the same in Coronarender but that's how we used to call the number of passes in Maxwellrender.

Graswald is incredible, really at a different level. I am afraid a lot of Archviz people will have a much more serious look at Blender because of Graswald.
If this is the direction Blender is taking it will gain a huge archviz crowd over the next years. Coronarender should as well have a good look at what they can do to obtain the same level of UI for scattering vegetation. I am a asset tester for Graswald. Only problem is for now its all legacy materials for C4D/Corona. Converting these is not optimal. Especially the transpacies are not as good. I find it difficult to get good leaf physically based materials Coronarender. Usually it all gets too dark or hardly transparant.

For those who would like to stay at Apple's side Coronarender & C4D are still the best option I think. Redshift is not all that faster and for Octane I have not seen any proper reviews on the m1.


2021-12-18, 11:39:46
Reply #37

rojharris

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I was blown away by how nice Graswald looked and so cheap! I bought the whole asset pack!

Yeah, Redshift is not so fast even on M1 and personally I don't think it looks as good as Corona. Octane is probably fast but again, it looks cold and heartless compared to Corona. Cycles is coming to M1 via the new metal backend but when I downloaded the recent Blender Alpha and tried it it wasn't that much faster than Corona and again, not as nice. The only good competition is V-Ray, which is way too expensive once you look at render nodes and Arnold, which is not M1 optimised and doesn't look like it will be any time soon


2021-12-24, 23:04:38
Reply #38

frv

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I got a Macbook M1 max 64Gb for a few hours and I must say that Corona runs very well on this system. Much faster than my iMac late 2015. So much faster that it feels like a whole new world for me. Adjusting light settings and so on in real time interactively.

It runs so well that I have for now postponed my plans to go PC.  I also checked Redshift but the preview render window looked a lot less inspiring although very fast really, almost instant.

On Graswald, its better to start a new thread on their assets. I got the new asset library today, here is a very quick render I made just now. I had to get some textures settings changed. Especially the transparency settings. I also converted the materials to Physical materials for this image. I am sure Graswald will update the assets.



2022-01-30, 09:24:00
Reply #39

haffy

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Any updates in performance?

2022-02-02, 13:41:28
Reply #40

quatrosolo

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From personal testing comparing:
iMac 2017 (64gb ram) / Macbook Pro m1 max (64gb)

I tested a few interior scenes (archviz) @4k resolution
Final render times were decreased to about 60-65% of the time,
effectively an image that required approx. 60 minutes would now be rendered in ±35-40 minutes.

Ipr feels a lot faster and especially the material preview.
Render seem to starts a lot faster as well.

* intel ai denoiser was seemingly a bti slower although I did not make an actual meaasurement and I guess it makes sense, not sure if ither denoiser options should work better with m1 processors.

Congrats to corona team for making such a stable and fast native app, great job!

2022-02-07, 04:43:39
Reply #41

rkeeping

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From what I understand v 8 is not a Native version for M1, yet but pleased to see that they have version that runs OK. I am assuming it runs under Rosetta then- still unsure how they will do 'denoising' it certainly won't be by 'Intel'.

2022-02-07, 10:42:52
Reply #42

frv

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C4D and Corona v8 run natively on my MacBook m1. No need for Rosetta.

2022-02-07, 13:15:48
Reply #43

TomG

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8 is native for M1:

https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=34088.msg191841#msg191841

"
Added native support for Apple M1 processors
supported for Cinema 4D S24 and R25
provided installer installs universal version of Corona that can run both on Intel and M1 devices
based on our tests, running native version results in 45-50% faster rendering compared to running under Rosetta
in case Cinema 4D was previously set to run under Rosetta with previous versions of Corona, don't forget to disable Rosetta in Cinema 4D application properties
"
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2022-02-07, 13:17:17
Reply #44

TomG

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Also, Intel denoising does not require an Intel CPU, that is just the name of who made the denoiser, not what it runs on (unlike the NVIDIA AI denoiser which was both created by NVIDIA and DOES require an NVIDIA GPU). That said, I don't have an M1 processor, so can't say whether or not that denoiser runs, but I don't see why not (it runs on my AMD machine just fine ;) )

EDIT - and of course there is always the Corona High Quality Denoiser too, anyway.
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2022-02-14, 04:37:57
Reply #45

caspian

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I’m using an M1 Max with Corona (beta 8 I think) and it hasn’t let me down. It’s gross faster than my old MBP. The bump when it’s native Silicon will be a treat, but for now I am still content.
C4D 2023 / Corona 9 / Mac 12.6

2022-02-14, 13:13:42
Reply #46

TomG

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I’m using an M1 Max with Corona (beta 8 I think) and it hasn’t let me down. It’s gross faster than my old MBP. The bump when it’s native Silicon will be a treat, but for now I am still content.

Sorry, I am not sure what this means - the current daily build IS native silicon and does not need to be run under Rosetta, so not sure what bump in speed you are looking for?
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2022-02-14, 15:53:33
Reply #47

BigAl3D

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Curious question. If you're running a non-M1 native version of C4D (R22 and earlier), would Corona 8 install as native or use Rosetta? Is that even possible?

What version of C4D are you using @caspian?

2022-02-15, 10:01:08
Reply #48

mmarcotic

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Curious question. If you're running a non-M1 native version of C4D (R22 and earlier), would Corona 8 install as native or use Rosetta? Is that even possible?

What version of C4D are you using @caspian?

Hi,

Corona will not install natively on versions in which C4D does not support M1 natively, that is just a hard brick wall.

Thanks,
Jan
Learn how to report bugs for Corona in C4D here.

2022-02-15, 10:49:59
Reply #49

Philw

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Also, even R23 is native but would require the latest service pack to work for Corona etc - and as its not an automatic update (need to download manually from Maxon) - Corona have taken the decision to only support S24 as a native minimum version. I get this as most people don't even realise there was an R23.110 version.

2022-02-21, 13:33:53
Reply #50

PeterBartel

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Have I understand it correctly that M1 Max running Corona Renderer native renders at about twice the time as the old iMac i9? Wow that came as a huge surprise. Wouldnt M1 Max run faster then an Imac i9?

2022-02-21, 15:30:03
Reply #51

Philw

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Purely about number of cores - i9 iMac (depending on model) has 10 cores but 20 threads so that has to be an advantage. Its a balance.... Power consumption and noise on the iMac so much greater than the M1 Max.

2022-02-21, 22:06:18
Reply #52

PeterBartel

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M1 max also has 10 cores and their cores score higher per core then the imac i9, right? So its all about miltithreading then which the silicon cant do if I understand it right?
Such i bummer, Im getting the m1 max any day now and I was hoping it would replace my imac :(

2022-02-22, 11:31:14
Reply #53

Philw

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Mine has replaced my iMac - purely for the silence, general responsivity and low power consumption. However, I always hand off jobs I need serious rendering for to my Threadripper PC so my use case will be different perhaps. I was finding the noise on my 2020 iMac offputting for building the scenes and previewing - so was always limiting the number of cores anyway in the live viewing to mitigate the fans - no such issue with the M1 - I just leave all cores going...

2022-02-23, 14:19:23
Reply #54

jojorender

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Have I understand it correctly that M1 Max running Corona Renderer native renders at about twice the time as the old iMac i9? Wow that came as a huge surprise. Wouldnt M1 Max run faster then an Imac i9?
These numbers are according to the Corona benchmark results? The Corona benchmark is a old standalone app that doesn’t run M1 native. If the claim of 45-50 % faster rendering in native mode is true… well…
I think it would be good to have a “c4d test scene” that can be shared here that renders in about 10 min or so on a modern system. That would give us a more real representation of how M1’s compare to Intel macs. That would also show how much advantage team rendering can bring.
All scenes I have, use assets that I’m not allowed to share. Anybody here has a somewhat demanding scene that they can share?

2022-02-23, 14:23:39
Reply #55

Philw

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Just the scene from further up this thread. It would definitely be useful if the benchmark was updated.

2022-02-23, 14:57:08
Reply #56

jojorender

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Not sure what scene you are referring to. Can you link to the scene?
Benchmark update - I think the argument is that all test results will not be comparable if old and new results are mixed.

2022-02-23, 15:15:34
Reply #57

Philw

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There are three screenshots further up - that's all.

Yes, agree for direct comparson there needs to be a standard. I'm just agreeing that my results are similar and make sense with the threads vs cores type thing.

Most of the "it's the most awesome thing ever" reviews only discuss the hardware video encoding/decoding which isn't going to help us.
« Last Edit: 2022-02-23, 16:45:15 by Philw »

2022-02-23, 16:42:33
Reply #58

BigAl3D

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@jojorender For years, I've been using the Grapes sample scene that you can find in the asset browser. It's not Corona, but does give you an idea of the raw render speed since it has many render intensive features in the scene, i.e. SSS, opacity, Dof, etc. Obviously, the faster C4D runs on your system, the faster Corona will render as well.

There is an old thread of mine that shows render times. Since everyone has access to that scene, it's easy and consistent. Plus, it's more of a real-word test than a benchmark test. Just open that scene and hit render to picture viewer without changing anything.

For reference, my old Mac Pro trashcan did it in 10 min 3 sec. My 2017 iMac Pro blew that away at 3:19. I also have a renderbox with dual-CPU E5 v4 processors. That thing comes in below 3 min, but I don't have that info handy.
« Last Edit: 2022-02-23, 17:01:57 by BigAl3D »

2022-02-23, 23:25:04
Reply #59

ficdogg

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@BigAl3D you intrigued me with the grapes scene so I ran it out of curiosity😄.
5900x with 64GB RAM, 2min 14 sec render time.

2022-02-24, 04:30:28
Reply #60

BigAl3D

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That's fast! So that's not a Threadripper, but a lesser CPU? Can't imagine what the 64-core Threadripper does to that scene.

2022-02-24, 10:17:44
Reply #61

ficdogg

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Not a threadripper, just a 5th gen Ryzen with 12c/24t, but it has some really high boost on the cores.

2022-02-24, 11:18:34
Reply #62

ianosss

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That's fast! So that's not a Threadripper, but a lesser CPU? Can't imagine what the 64-core Threadripper does to that scene.

I just tried that scene on my threadripper 3960X 24-Core  :) ...  1min 19secs. I think the 64-core is roughly x3 times faster than that even!. :)

2022-02-24, 15:29:25
Reply #63

BigAl3D

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@ianoss

FIRE!

2022-02-25, 02:20:40
Reply #64

jojorender

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I ran the scene on a 2 year old 10c/20t hack - I9 10850K with a gentle 4.7G overclock.
3:35 min - not on fire but might be the closest to a M1max?

I still think a Corona scene could be more useful.
For example, does M1 native in Corona scale the same as “M1 native” in physical renderer?
Do updates to the corona core, shaders (C-bitmap), etc make the engine faster?
How well does TR scale in different configs.
This would be more than just a pure “machine power” comparison, but would mean people need to be clear about how they tested, including screenshots of VFB, cor version, Mac specs, etc.
This could potentially get messy and maybe not as helpful as I think...
Tried to 1-click convert the scene to corona - no go, unless you like black grapes.

2022-02-25, 09:49:16
Reply #65

Philw

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3:07 on M1 Max 64GB

2022-02-25, 13:57:16
Reply #66

jojorender

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Thanks Philw
I assume this is M1 native?
Shows us how far off the corona benchmark is regarding M1 (rosetta)
Ran the bench with same I9-10850K

2022-02-25, 14:39:25
Reply #67

Philw

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Yep R25 and latest 8 Daily build

2022-02-25, 17:05:30
Reply #68

BigAl3D

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@Philw's render time of 3:07 is good, but barely faster than my 2017 iMac Pro. Granted, this thing cost a lot back then. Maybe $,8000. Can't remember.

The M1 is way cheaper and the first generation so I'm hoping the new Macs coming up this year and next will show a big improvement in rendering power. I'm waiting to pull the trigger, but it has to be a "Wow! That's much faster!" moment.

Maybe the Devs or one of us could put together a sample scene. Something real-world like a archvis interior, exterior, a car scene and maybe a motion graphics type scene. I do like that Blender provides nice scenes available to all. The benchmark tests just don't translate into the real world IMHO, but if I see a scene that could be a job I might do and I see that render time to compare, that means more to me.

2022-02-25, 17:12:21
Reply #69

Philw

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Yep - the "Almost" Mac Pro that is rumoured with the M1 SoCs stitched together will be the only way they achieve it right now. Minor speed bumps in the cores won't make a huge difference. First iterations of M1 were always going to be about power consumption rather than being uber-powerful.
« Last Edit: 2022-02-26, 07:54:06 by Philw »

2022-02-25, 20:31:09
Reply #70

jojorender

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@Philw's render time of 3:07 is good, but barely faster than my 2017 iMac Pro. Granted, this thing cost a lot back then. Maybe $,8000. Can't remember.
Let’s not forget we are talking about a laptop here. I still think it’s pretty impressive.
I’m also waiting for that Mac Pro (mini) with several SOC’s glued together, and knowing how well this scales from a M1max or how it compares to a threadripper in corona is useful info.
All my intel macs are currently heating my workspace, which I can also clearly see on my electric bill. So, yes please give me something less power hungry.
Just for reference, that i9-10850k/64GB was a $1k build (no gpu - only render node)

There is this very old free scene on the blog https://blog.corona-renderer.com/corona-c4d-a1-1/ that might be useful.
It popped up a missing plugin warning but strangely didn’t ask to convert any corona assets to new core.
- delete vray bridge and GI from render settings
- changed the pass limit 9999 to 5% noise
- turn off bloom and glare in corona/ camera tab!!!
Could this be good scene for testing?

2022-02-25, 22:17:50
Reply #71

BigAl3D

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Ha. That was one of the first scenes I downloaded to test with Corona Alpha. Since I render lots of cars, I modified it just a little. When I showed people my render and they asked how did they get that car inside an apartment? I knew Corona might be a good choice for me, plus Octane and Redshift didn't run on Macs unless you had an e-GPU setup.

Here's my test run. I actually saved 4 seconds after I closed After Effects, Media Encoder, Photoshop and Firefox. This iMac Pro holds up pretty well I think.

As far as a test scene, it could work. It's freely available for anyone. The only concern, is it challenging enough for a real test? I mean we both got pretty fast speeds and that 64-core Threadripper will demolish those times. So it's more difficult to get a feel if the times are 3 seconds for us one day, and 1.5 seconds for the Threadripper. Yes, it's 50% faster, but do I care about 1.5 seconds? See what I mean?

2022-02-26, 19:06:58
Reply #72

jojorender

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This scene was also my first contact with Corona and blew my mind back then…
“The only concern, is it challenging enough for a real test?”
I know exactly what you mean and of course you don't care about 1.5 sec, but if 50% faster means 2 hrs instead of 4 I'm sure you do care.
I ran the scene again with a 2% noise level and it rendered in 16:22. That might be a bit long for the casual tester.
If Philw is up for it and wants to test this on his M1 and Threadripper and establish a noise level  on the M1 around the 8 min mark… Maybe that’s a good compromise?
Unfortunately this scene doesn’t render in TR as is, need to remove
“WhiteGlass” > vray comp tag.
Would love to see how fast M1 + ripper renders this scene to 2% noise

I mostly render 6-8K stills to 3% noise and 4-6hrs is "normal" for me. If I can get this down 50% for a reasonable price, I'd be more than happy.

2022-02-26, 20:50:40
Reply #73

Philw

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I’ll give that a go. No problem.

2022-02-27, 04:10:59
Reply #74

BigAl3D

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Don't worry about Team Render. That brings with it too many other variables to be useful as a "how good is my CPU at rendering a real job?" question.

2022-02-27, 09:51:49
Reply #75

Philw

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8 minute mark screengrabs attached!

2022-02-27, 17:03:35
Reply #76

jojorender

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Hi Philw,
Thanks for running this test.
I ran the test again set to your 4.2% noise level. Strangely it finished in 3:30
I assumed the M1max is faster than my 10850K.
Did you have any demanding things running in the background?
The only difference I can see from your screenshot, your build is Feb. 16 and I’m on Feb. 1
Any idea what’s going on?

Don't worry about Team Render. That brings with it too many other variables to be useful as a "how good is my CPU at rendering a real job?" question.
You’re definitely right about “too many variables”, but still can help deciding if replacing cheap render nodes with a ripper is worth it.

2022-02-27, 18:20:29
Reply #77

Philw

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Nope - nothing taxing - and after a reboot too to flush its brain.

I think its a combinaton of things:

  • Conservative Processor usage (even when switched to high power mode) (Apple flying the "it uses no power flag") - The efficiency cores are always maxed out - the performance cores maybe 75% so
  • Early days
  • Non-trivial to program/non-optimised rendering libraries that have had years of Intel nurturing - early adopters on M1? (For instance, Arnold still hasn't dipped its toe into Apple Silicon - guessing here of course, I'm certainly not informed
  • Early days again

2022-02-27, 20:12:43
Reply #78

jojorender

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Interesting… So instead of Intel’s thermal throttling, there might be a apple imposed performance throttle.
   
While the M1max was about 14% faster in the grapes c4d physical scene, it was about 56% slower in Corona native M1.
Not sure what this all means, but might be helpful info for the corona team.

Out of curiosity, I TR’ed this scene with 2x 10c/20t + 1x 8c/16t (closest I can get to your 32c/64t) set to your rippers 403 passes.
Took 8:52. This result makes sense.

2022-02-27, 21:23:01
Reply #79

Philw

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More wierdness... Didn't use VFB - direct to PictureViewer (prefs set to 4.2% noise)... all cores maxed out this time... a bit better at 4:25.

But then set it to high power mode... and it was slower :-(

« Last Edit: 2022-02-28, 06:19:53 by Philw »

2022-02-27, 21:45:04
Reply #80

jojorender

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I would say that's a LOT better!
Definitely strange that the VFB might throttle performance.
Maybe other M1 users can confirm this?   

2022-02-28, 16:54:33
Reply #81

BigAl3D

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I'm getting confused about how you guys are testing. I see one post about setting the passes to 403. I see another that appears to be set to 8 min. Then the 4.2%. I'd like to add to this, but not sure which one we're doing now.

2022-02-28, 17:07:01
Reply #82

Philw

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Originally its an 8 minute run to see what noise level we get down to. My M1Max got down 4.2% on that experiment in VFB. Since then - bypassing VFB and going direct to Picture Viewer it has gone faster considerably. We should stick to the 8mins and see what noise level we get down to.

2022-02-28, 18:45:24
Reply #83

jojorender

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I picked the 8min mark on the M1max to find a noise or pass level that is challenging enough and doesn’t take too long to test.
Ultimately, this test is to find out how Apple Silicon compares to Intel/AMD in a “real world” scenario.
Since there’s such a big difference in render time with VFB on or off and also the macOs power settings, maybe it’s best to first figure out what’s going on there, before setting test parameters?

@Philw is there any difference when rendering to PV, opening VFB to establish the connection and closing VFB again? Or you only get the faster times after c4d restart and no connection between PV and VFB?

2022-03-01, 15:28:01
Reply #84

Philw

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Just fairly random differences between the two methods and flipping into VFB didn't seem to make any difference or sense. I even got different noise levels squeezed into the 8 minutes both in VFB and PV modes - I'm putting it down to the machine maybe being busy with other things (but nothing obvious) or just overall weirdness. Might even just be a Monterey thing.

2022-03-09, 11:55:21
Reply #85

ianosss

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Anyone getting the new Mac Studio M1 Ultra? Would love to see some benchmarks. :)

2022-03-20, 00:24:03
Reply #86

piredude

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Model Name:    Mac Studio
Model Identifier:   Mac13,2
Chip:   Apple M1 Ultra
Total Number of Cores:   20 (16 performance and 4 efficiency)
Memory:   64 GB

Noise Level Limit set to 4.2, running Corona 8 daily.

2022-03-20, 20:58:11
Reply #87

frv

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No idea if this is fast. Grainy after two minutes at low res.

2022-03-20, 23:10:46
Reply #88

jojorender

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Let's find out if this is fast,
Philw can you pour some gasoline into your ripper and run it to the same 4.2% noise?

frv is right, maybe we should run this test at a more real world rez like 4k/ 3% noise?


2022-03-21, 02:52:00
Reply #89

BigAl3D

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Just for comparisons sake. Here's my test including my render settings to make sure I did it right. This was rendered in r20. I then rendered it in r25 and saved 3 seconds. I then copied all the parts of the scene and pasted into a brand new r25 scene. Saved another 3 seconds. I find it always best to paste everything from an old scene, into a fresh scene. Avoids some weirdness, plus a little bit faster.

2022-03-21, 03:03:59
Reply #90

BigAl3D

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Were we supposed to use Denoise for these tests?

2022-03-21, 13:43:43
Reply #91

jojorender

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I would say “no” on the denoiser.
BigAl3D, that iMac has a lot of life left in her. Pretty ok result for a 5y old.

I’m not sure what my expectation for the ultra was but that score is in line with Philw’s Max best 4:25 min score. Ultra doubling Max power.
I think the important number here is the rays/s to make things comparable.
I was sort of hoping the Ultra to be in the 12M rays/s range, only because all my I9 10 cores hover around 6M r/s. Wanted to see at least double the power.
This Ultra comes in at 9.7M r/s, that’s according to the benchmark list the middle ground for Ryzen 9 5950X 16 core but also some older 32 cores rippers
If the coming Mac Pro Extreme doubles the Ultra to 20M r/s that would still barley touch a 64 core ripper. They mostly cruise around 25-30M r/s

@ Philw’s any updates on the render power weirdness between PV and VFB?
I don’t know the first thing about coding, but maybe corona M1 code optimization will be able to squeeze out more power in the future?

@piredude Did you run just 1 test or multiple with the same result?
Any difference when rendering only to PV or to PV+VFB? Just for comparison, can you also run the corona benchmark? I’m curious to see the rays/s there 

2022-03-21, 14:41:30
Reply #92

BigAl3D

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For giggles, I ran a 4k test with Nose Level set to 3 as suggested above. I think this also has IntelDenoise ON, but that goes pretty fast on this machine.

This test might be a bit much for a benchmark. An hour is perfectly fine for stills, but a no-go for an animation unless you're Pixar or Disney.

2022-03-21, 16:02:34
Reply #93

piredude

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So the Ultra is faster than the fully loaded iMac Pro at the default resolution. Here are my results at 4K width. (png is too large, so attaching a 100% jpg.)

2022-03-21, 16:20:42
Reply #94

BigAl3D

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I was hoping that Ultra time would be faster to be honest. I know this iMac Pro was expensive when we got it, but that loaded Studio isn't cheaper either. The question remains if indeed there are any additional software updates needed to take full advantage of the new dual chip systems. Supposedly, the way Apple set these up, the system is going to see it as one big CPU instead of a dual system.

I watched the Max Tech first review on these Macs, and he addressed this by noticing Apple's presentation speed claims were using an un-released update to Final Cut Pro. That would indicate an update might be necessary. Who knows.

Not sure if that would be an update to the OS so all M1-optimized apps take full advantage, or each piece of software. Apple are so focused using less power over just making it as fast as they can and also try to save some power, that it's hurting the product. Max Tech also noticed the GPUs are being throttled in certain tasks. Maybe that's a future "update" and they can release that power that is already there.

So many questions.

2022-03-21, 17:29:29
Reply #95

Philw

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I'll put the Threadripper on it as soon as it has stopped heating the house with a 1000 frame Redshift job :-)

2022-03-24, 10:32:57
Reply #96

prince_jr

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hi corona-users

i think y'all should use the corona benchmark for comparison. there's only one result yet:
https://corona-renderer.com/benchmark/results/cpu/ultra

would be nice to see more users testing their mac studio like this.

for comparison:
my mac pro (5.1, 2010) 2x6 core, 3.46 ghz, 128gb ram needs approx. 2 minutes for the benchmark scene.
> i seems the new mac studio 20-core is "only" almost twice as fast...1m15s

what do y'all say about that?

2022-03-24, 11:32:23
Reply #97

Philw

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@prince_jr We are avoiding it because its not M1 native yet.

2022-03-24, 14:25:40
Reply #98

prince_jr

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@Philw ah okay. didn't know that. this brings me to additional question.
so...one day if corona renderer is native m1, will the renderer benefit more from the processor and be faster than now?

2022-03-24, 14:47:30
Reply #99

Philw

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Corona v8 IS native M1 - just the benchmark isn't - so we were just trying to standardise on a scene for now. So performance now is pretty much just number of available CPU cores as per Intel - but without the overhead of the Rosetta conversion you would get in V7.

2022-03-25, 03:06:33
Reply #100

BigAl3D

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I'm assuming I don't need to do anything for this benchmark since it starts on its own. To reinforce the statement that it is not M1 native, my 2017 iMac Pro beats out the M1 score.

Corona 1.3 Benchmark Finished
BTR Scene 16 passes
18-Core Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-2191B CPU @ 2.30GHz
Render Time: 0:00:59, Rays/sec: 8,164,390

2022-03-25, 13:19:34
Reply #101

jojorender

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Yo Phil, is the ripper still keeping your place nice and cozy?…asking for a friend.
Keep that beast running, we don’t want you to freeze.
I just checked the benchmark list and it turns out the currently 3 fastest “Macs” (16-18M r/s) are all Threadripper 3970X 32-Core - LOL, sorry Apple.
The living room scene we picked for M1 testing gives me (Intel Mac) a similar rays/s number as the official benchmark scene.  Same for BigAl3D’s iMac Pro 8.1M r/s in both.
That makes it easy to see where the “M1 optimized” rays/s score plugs into that benchmark list.
Ultra lives in the 10M r/s region, not 6.5M r/s as the official benchmark suggests
I believe macOs is already fine-tuned to support all the power Ultra has to offer. It comes down to the individual app to add “M1 optimized” support for the task at hand.
The scores where Ultras shine, all use hardware acceleration like the Media Engine.
Render engines probably only tap into the actual cpu cores and nothing else.
How much initial M1 software support can be further optimized is anybody’s guess.
I believe the Corona M1 support is a one-and-done thing. No use in hoping for a further optimization miracle.

At this point, I don’t think the ultra makes a great “render box”, but no doubt an amazing machine to work in a scene. The insane direct connected memory speed is probably the real game changer here . To take advantage of that you have to max out internal SSD and have all your textures and other assets live in that tiny box… not sure if I’m comfortable with that.
External storage interface would still be a huge bottleneck. Going 10GbE network to feed that memory is another big expense.
I think Phil hit the sweet spot, Max to work in and ripper to crunch those rays.

2022-03-25, 18:23:55
Reply #102

Philw

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4K - Threadripper 32/64 3% Noise limit

2022-04-01, 13:17:05
Reply #103

prince_jr

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here's what my machine rendered...see attachment (mac pro 5.1 2010, 2 x 6-core 3.46ghz, 128ram, c4d r25)

impressive render time from philw's threadripper...amazing! but i must say, piredude's mac studio ultra is fast, too. could be a venerable successor for my 12-year-old "cheese grater".

2022-04-03, 13:36:38
Reply #104

frv

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Scene parsing on the Threadripper is 3s and the Mac ultra 2 sec looking at the post here. May mean nothing for this test but my scene parsings on much bigger files take minutes on a late 2015 iMac and are the biggest bottleneck for me to get work done. If I am not mistaken render to first pixel is basically scene parsing.

Since most designers need fast feedback the Mac Ultra might just be 50% faster than a Threadripper. That would be huge. To set up a Mac Ultra with 128Gb ram/4TB SSD and have all my textures on the internal SSD is totally fine with me. I see a lot of testing done looking at final render times at SL +100. But for me as a designer only scene testing and finetuning materials is important. It would be a lot more interesting to me to see how interactive rendering is performing and the time to first pixel. I have not found any reviews or tests on that. Once a scene is fully tested and ready for a final image,  the work is done,  and render times less than a few hours a non-issue these days.

2022-04-03, 13:41:36
Reply #105

Philw

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Yes it makes a big difference. For example, time to first pixel and general responsiveness on M1Max with Redshift is better than on my Threadripper with an RTX 3090 and 3080TI - due to reduced swapping about between memories and buses. Not 100% applicable to this situation but important to know nontheless.

2022-04-04, 10:36:53
Reply #106

frv

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Tx, thats good to know indeed. I would hate to switch to PC and see the most of my daily work slowed down by 50% just to have final renders finish somewhat faster.  Those final renders are about 2 to 4 images every two weeks. They render at night or in the weekend.

When you need to do animations I understand its a whole different thing. Lumion on a PC might be a far better option as I see here at the office. Animations though are very time consuming to set up compared to stills regardless of the hard-software used.
« Last Edit: 2022-04-05, 00:46:24 by frv »

2022-06-30, 22:51:35
Reply #107

ASIMO

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Hello

Is there any short answer on how much speed I would gain from running a M1 Ultra in comparison to an 3.6 GHz 10-Core Intel Core i9 iMac ?

Since I read that not all benchmarks are accurate. What can I really expect ?

Thank you for your opinion :)

2022-07-01, 01:47:21
Reply #108

frv

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depending on your ram not much of a difference.
I am working with a M1 Ultra 128Gb. 20core.
Most reviewers find that the ultra compares with the hypertreaded intel cpu's. So a 10 core Intel with 20 threads is about the same speed as a 20core m1.

I think though that the Ultra is very fast with memory intensive tasks. Such as starting renders, opening large files and using the asset browser with assets on the internal harddisk. It all depends on what your models look like. Lots of asset placing, trees vegetation and so on that's I think better in the ultra. I rendered today a scene with a lot of ground cover vegatation by Maxtree and Graswals, high polycount. And still there was only 8Gb involved in the render. Then I added about 20 Maxtree trees and the memory usage was close to 125Gb.

2022-07-13, 12:44:44
Reply #109

dacian

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Does anyone remember where was the info on ssd speeds for the Mac Studio?
I seem to remember that the 4tb version is much faster. But by how much?

2022-07-21, 12:01:29
Reply #110

masterzone

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I'm looking for MacBook Pro M1 Pro Max....I love the portability and Corona is very fast on my actual Intel i7.
Any experience about this processor?
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2022-12-15, 18:53:19
Reply #111

lamfadel

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I want to buy such a model, but 16 GB of memory confuses me ... Maybe someone has experience rendering on such a laptop?  I usually work with apartments and small houses with an exterior.  I previously had a 2017 Macbook with 4 cores and 16b of memory and it barely managed some exteriors and simple apartments.  I think this M1 should do it better because the memory is faster...?
I understand that there are more powerful ones, but this is a matter of price ...

MacBook Pro 14″
Apple M1 Pro Chip
8-Core CPU, 14-Core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
512GB SSD
16GB


2022-12-15, 19:18:04
Reply #112

BigAl3D

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In a VERY simplified way, 16 GB of M1 Unified Memeory is similar to 32 GB of traditional RAM. The new M1 chips don't have to transfer data back and forth to separate chips. Everything is in one place so the memory handling is much more efficient. Since it's faster, it can handle new data sooner and essentially allow you to do more work with less memory. In some situations, this doesn't work as smoothly as the fancy presentations show however. Again, this is just my understanding.

The rule of thumb is, always buy the most RAM you can afford or even just past what you can afford. You can't upgrade later and your new system will most likely last you for years. You will be glad you got more memory down the line.

My two cents.

2022-12-18, 23:23:42
Reply #113

frv

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I have 128Gb of ram in a Mac Studio Ultra. I noticed that it's always rendering my scenes at around 125Gb ram usage where before I could do with 32Gb sometimes swapping some memory. Because of the large amount of ram I I also got a bit lazy optimising my scenes. Just scattering vegetation every where without much intelligence is a luxury but even 128Gb will not be enough.
I think with a little bit of conscious modelling 64 Gb could do just as well.

2023-01-25, 20:18:54
Reply #114

lamfadel

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Thanks everyone for the replies.  I decided to buy a new model :)
I'm working on an iMac 2020 i7 with 64 Gb RAM and it's enough for me, although it almost always asks for disk space.  I'm thinking of buying an M2 MAX with 32 Gb RAM and I have doubts that the new memory will be enough... of course it's fast and works differently... maybe someone has experience with M1 MAX with similar memory for rendering exteriors and interiors of private houses,  a lot of grass, forest, bushes and more ...?

2023-01-26, 17:33:17
Reply #115

BigAl3D

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One thing that makes these ARM chips faster in some ways, even when swapping between memory and the hard drive, is that the HD is a super-fast SSD and close by so you don't get as big of a hit as other systems with spinning drives. So if you have a 512 or 1 TB SSD, it's "almost" like having a ton of extra RAM (yes, I know RAM is usually faster). In the old days, people would partition large drives into smaller volumes for faster access or to keep one for cache files or swapping. One for applications, one for scratch, one for this, etc. Since today's drives are usually SSD, this might not matter too much anymore since this technique was to address the amount of time the drive head would take to search a massive drive to access items scattered all over.

I personally would like to keep working on Macs, but am a little nervous about Apple's issues with the scaling of the new chips. Fingers crossed that the M3 line will be a huge jump in power.

2023-01-27, 05:44:20
Reply #116

lamfadel

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The DDR4 memory on my iMac is 20Gb/s and the memory speed of the new m2/m1 max is 400Gb/s.  64 at 20 vs 32 at 400… will Corona run as fast with 32…?

2023-01-28, 21:32:53
Reply #117

frv

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Apart from slower you will also crash more with insufficient ram. I just made this image and it took about 125Gb of ram according to the app activity window. My system a Mac ultra with 128Gb and 2Tb is rather fast but since I tend to model vegetation without much thought everything is back to slow again as it was on my old iMac :-).  The gravel in this image is all mesh by Arroway. No displacement.

If you are a smart modeller and put only vegetation where you need it and use displacement with care you could make the same image with 16Gb without having to swap memory. But a careful or smart model is also much more work.
« Last Edit: 2023-01-28, 22:16:07 by frv »

2023-01-31, 17:03:43
Reply #118

BigAl3D

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In my experience, most 3D apps use the RAM for loading all the textures for faster access. Is that not how Corona works? Are you saying you have 125 GB of textures?

2023-02-01, 15:53:17
Reply #119

Nejc Kilar

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In my experience, most 3D apps use the RAM for loading all the textures for faster access. Is that not how Corona works? Are you saying you have 125 GB of textures?

Hope I can help here by offering a super simplified answer :)

Corona (and any other renderer / software really) needs stuff to be in RAM so that when a ray travels through the scene and hits something it then "knows" what exactly is there and how its set up.
If your RAM is full then your SSD / HDD will act as an extended RAM so to speak - but because that hardware is slower in general it'll be orders of magnitude slower than accessing stuff from RAM. Hence why you can still render stuff when you run out of RAM but its really slow.
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2023-02-01, 19:09:49
Reply #120

frv

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Tx,
And no, I don't have 125Gb of textures. But when you scatter vegetation almost at random you add to the models complexity and it will sit in your ram unnecessarily at render. By making sure all you add to a scene makes a real difference you can often make do with much less and so render much faster.

2023-02-01, 20:48:50
Reply #121

BigAl3D

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Gotcha. Did you turn on Camera Clipping? It is supposed to help avoid this type of situation by not rendering anything outside the camera's view.

2023-02-02, 13:10:09
Reply #122

frv

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Yes, I always have camera clipping on. But never tried to see the difference when rendering. Maybe the engine of corona render itself does some form of camera clipping as well.

2023-02-02, 16:44:36
Reply #123

BigAl3D

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I just want to make clear that I'm referring to Scatter's Camera Clipping feature and not C4D's camera clipping that is only for the viewport.

Now I was making a top view to show what I'm saying, but then I noticed something I hadn't seen before. In the past, when I've used Camera Clipping, it cropped out the clones that were not visible by the camera. As you can see in my top view, it seems to be taking all the clones and jamming them into the visible area. Is that normal? I'm sure it's a setting, but I'm not an expert with the Scatter tool.

2023-02-02, 16:56:25
Reply #124

Philw

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Yep that doesn't seem right...

2023-02-02, 17:02:01
Reply #125

Philw

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Works as expected here... on Corona 9 Hotfix1 ?

2023-02-02, 17:17:17
Reply #126

BigAl3D

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Lates daily v10. I'll do some testing.

2023-02-24, 15:49:21
Reply #127

Rutg3r

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As you can see in my top view, it seems to be taking all the clones and jamming them into the visible area. Is that normal? I'm sure it's a setting, but I'm not an expert with the Scatter tool.

Clones in the viewport in not the real number, but a fraction of it that you can set in "viewport display" tab. When camera clipping is on all "visible" clones are redistributed on the "new" area accordingly to "Max Instances" value.

« Last Edit: 2023-02-24, 15:55:06 by Rutg3r »