Please tell your Mac setup for iRay
mavante
Posts: 734
Calling all Mac users. It would be such a help if Mac users who have actual real-world (well, and, uh, virtual-world, too) experience with using iRay in Daz Studio on a Mac would set forth their hardware and operating system configurations, and give some indication of how well their setup works with DS and iRay.
It's almost pointless for me to list mine here—except possibly as a great example of what not to do. 
But here it is:
COMPUTER: Late 2012 iMac, 21.5-inch.
PROCESSOR: 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5
MEMORY: 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
GRAPHICS: nVidia GeForce GT 650M (built-in), 512 MB
OS: High Sierra 10.13.6
NVIDIA DRIVER: Web Driver 387.10.10.10.40.105 ("Up to date")
CUDA DRIVER: 418.163 ("No newer CUDA Driver available.")
I struggle. A lot. As far as I can tell, almost all of my renders (or all?) are done by the CPU, not the GPU. Then again, I've never really undrstood how to tell.
I hope Mac users will wade in here. Would love to hear from you and about your specs.
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Hey mavante...Mac user here.
COMPUTER: Retina 5K, 27 inch, Late 2015
PROCESSOR: 4 GHz Intel Core i7
MEMORY: 32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
GRAPHICS: AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4096 MB
OS: High Sierra 10.13.6
I love my machine and with the new Daz update it renders even faster. I have only ever had my Mac crash once during a render (touch wood), and in the whole four years I have owned it it has only crashed once, but it recovered completely. I do not have a nVidia graphics card, as you can see, and run everything from CPU. I use Zbrush, Marvelous Dsigner, Substance Painter/Designer, etc and I have never had any problems. My renders may take little longer than the PC users here, but I just run them overnight if I have to. I also use Key Shot a lot, and my Mac benchmark for that is at 1.5 (Key Shots reference system uses an Intel Core i7-6900K CPU @ 3.20GHz using all 8 Cores) - so I am more than pleased with it. I'm probably not the best one to ask why if you have a nVidia card your system still renders on CPU. Are you running the latest Daz version 4.12? When you go to Render Settings > Advanced, does it give you the option to select your graphics card?
I'm sorry to hear you are struggling but with 512 of VRAM pretty much all Iray rendering will be done by the CPU. While GPUs of CUDA 3.0 and higher are Iray supported, I think you just don't have enough VRAM to accommodate all your textures etc. You might consider a desktop with a dedicated GPU... doesn't have to be anyhing fancy... 2GB of VRAM would do. Cheers.
I have two machines.
Work machine
COMPUTER: Mid 2011 iMac, 27-inch.
PROCESSOR: 3.4GHz Intel Core i7
MEMORY: 16 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
GRAPHICS: AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB
OS: OS X 10.9.5
NVIDIA DRIVER: Nada
CUDA DRIVER: Nada
Render machine
COMPUTER: Early 2009 Mac Pro
PROCESSOR: 2 2.93 GHz Quad-core Intel Xeon
MEMORY: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 ECC
GRAPHICS: nVidia GeForce GT 120 512 MB, nVidia GeForce GTX 980 4096 MB
OS: 10.11.6
NVIDIA DRIVER: Web Driver 346.03.15f06 (Up to date)
CUDA DRIVER: Not sure where that is
I know that when I updated my version of DS on the render machine it stopped using the card so I am back on 4.10. I know 4.11 worked but I didn't have an installer. 4.12 didn't work because it required a newer driver than my machine could use so I had to revert to what was on another machine. The DS numbers might be off but I just know I am on 4.10 on both machines.
I am thinking about getting a newer machine because the work machine is struggling some but still saving up.
COMPUTER: MacBook Pro, 15", Early 2019
PROCESSOR: 2.3 GHz Intel Core i9
MEMORY: 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
GRAPHICS: Radeon Pro 560X 4 GB
OS: Mojave 10.14.6
Obviously, that Radeon isn't doing anything for my renders, so everything I render on my machine is CPU rendered. Lately, I've been doing test renders on my laptop at reduced resolution and then shipping them up to Jack Tomalin's Iray rendering service for final render.
Before I got the 2019 MacBook Pro last year, I was doing all my renders on a 2014 MacBook Pro with 16GB of memory; that had an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M card, but because the VRAM on the card was so limited, renders still happened in CPU (and took hours). Incidentally, the Nvidia card in that laptop had 2GB of memory -- four times what you have in your machine -- but the renders nevertheless went to CPU. As I understand it, the OS grabs some of the GPU's VRAM for its own purposes, and the remaining memory simply isn't sufficient for anything but the simplest DAZ scenes. I've been told that 4GB VRAM is just about the minimum required for modern DAZ figures.
DAZ Studio works fine on my laptop (although the latest version crashes a lot).
I have the new 16" MacBook Pro. I render every DAZ scene in iRay. The renders are fast - 2 or 3 minutes. I can also do a HUGE poster size render in less than 15 minutes. This computer has lots of cores or threads or whatever they're called. I do not believe the built-in graphics card is doing ANY of the iRay render, because it is almost impossible to preview in the viewport in iRay.
There's no way to use an NVIDIA card with a newish MAC (that I know of), not internally or externally.
I do try not to overload my scenes with tons of content. I use resource friendly HDRI lighting. I almost never crank up the SubD past 2. I TURN OFF the visibility of EVERYTHING in the scene that doesn't appear in the camera view at render time.
It works for my style of art, it may not work for anyone else.
COMPUTER: 2017 27" 5K iMac
PROCESSOR: 4.2 GHz quad core Intel Core i7
MEMORY: 24 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
GRAPHICS: Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB
OS: Catalina 10.15.3
Iray renders everything in CPU of course, but manages to be quick if the scene is simple. I tend to push it, and usually render final renders, roughly 4K resolution or thereabouts, overnight for 10 or more hours.
Thanks very much to each Mac user who has responded so far with the requested information. This has been a real eye-opener for me, and very educational.
I'm sort of gobsmacked at the percentage (so far) who use no nVidia graphics hardware and render only with CPU. Obviously, with my nVidia card and it's piddling half-gig memory, all my renders are done with CPU, but I didn't know it was such a widespread practice among Mac users. Even with my not-hot Mac, I've managed to render quite a lot of frames of animation—not approaching or even trying to approach iRay convergence, but certainly being able to get workable animation renders with just a matter of usually <10-minutes per frame, usually followed by batch despeckling in Photoshop.
This gives me hope that if I get a bigger and better and faster iMac with lots of memory, I can stay with CPU rendering and get even better results.
I really hope that more Mac-based Daz users witll chime in here! Great information!
I'm not a Mac user, but I wanted to send encouraging vibes your way. Even though I'm on Windows, I hadn't had a video card up until recently, and all my renders were CPU also.
It's certainly possible to produce the same content via cpu render as others do via GPU, it just takes longer and you may (at least I did) may have to consider heat.
Kudos to you and your Mac brethren for pushing forward in the laid-back world of CPU render LOL
I started with Daz Studio on a 2012 (I think) iMac, and even though the iMac was great for everything non-DS, rendering simple images took 12-20 hours, which meant that any product that I made for the store here ended up with more than half of the work time invested in days of rendering the most basic promotional images. I eventually switched to this custom build because I wanted to be able to use an Nvidia graphics card and render faster in Iray and save hours of work time. It is a lot faster. Still running High Sierra because other software that I use for work won't run as well on anything newer.
I often repeat this, because it applies so well to rendering: "Better; Faster; Cheaper: choose two."
Ok, I have to chime in. I have been using Daz for about 4 years now. I have a Mac Pro 5.1, High Sierra with an Nvidia Titan X 12 GB VRAM. It is not the fastest, but it works for me. However, I just discovered something interesting.
It was my understanding that iRay only works if you have an Nvidia video card. I just tried Daz on a small 2015 11 inch MacBook Air with 4 GB RAM and intel ~1Gb Vram and iray works just fine. I even tried a small render and it worked ok. The little laptop has only an i3 1.4 GHz processor. I connected it via wifi to my main computer and I accessed my Daz library from the main MacPro. Am I missing something? I was holding back on getting a new Mac because I thought that I can not use iRay on no Nvidia video cards. So Does the iRay rendering still works, even if that is done via CPU?
Cheers!
Iray rendering using the GPU only works with a compatible Nvidia GPU.
You can definitely render with the CPU if you don't have a Nvidia card. It's just slower.
COMPUTER: Late 2015 27" 5K iMac
PROCESSOR: 4.2 GHz quad core Intel Core i7
MEMORY: 32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
GRAPHICS: Radeon R9 M395X with 4GB
OS: Catalina 10.15.7
I was happy enough with the rendering quality and the time it took to render in the past, but Bessie is getting on a bit and I have delved deeper into 3D (with various other software and applications) and wanted a powerhouse to do my rendering. I love working on an iMac and will never, never, nver give that up in favour of a PC. However, that being said, I bought a PC laptop to do the heavy lifting for me, so I switch over when I do my batch rendering. I have never had any problems with my iMac (touch wood), which is more than I can say for a PC on Windows 10 (blech)...so when this old dear says 'enough is enough' I will for sure buy a new one (sorry Bessie), but not sure how the M1 chipset will work with Daz, Zbrush etc. Too early I guess. Specs for PC below.
COMPUTER: Origin PC Laptop
PROCESSOR: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 Core
MEMORY: 32 GB
GRAPHICS: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070
OS: Windows 10 (hate it)
Computer: iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017)
Processor: 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory : 32GB
GPU: Radeon Pro 575
Daz : Latest Beta
OS : High Sierra 10.13.6 and thinking of sliding up to Mojave
As with others above, renders take longer and it's much easier to have a simple scene. To get around this, I render in layers so I can composite in Ps, using multiple canvases for masks.
Edited to add: I've only ever played with iray. I have no idea how to start with 3DL, lol
A LOT slower. Like magnitudes slower.
If you want to work with Daz & render with Iray a fair bit or more, you should consider a Windows machine with an Nvidia card.
* ETA: This isn't to poop on Macs, but just about choosing optimal hardware for your use. Sounds like OP is in the market for a new computer(s), and I don't know how important Iray rendering is for OP's overall computer use.
Computer: Mac mini M1 2020
Processor: M1
Memory : 16GB
GPU: Internal
Daz : Latest Beta
OS : Big Sur 11.5.2
Very solid, not a single crash. I can run renders while still watching YouTube and other tasks, not a single pause. Some day, perhaps Vulcan portable graphics support and native binaries. Hey, you can dream...
If you are looking for a Windows machine, remember that most existing and some still-for-sale Windows hardware will not run Windows 11.
Hello fellow Mac Users,
i9. 10 core. 32 gigs Ram. 1 TB SSD. Radeo Pro 5700 XT 16 Gig.
Mac OS. (Love it.)
But. The iMac's cpu is quick to anger when attempting to render 3D. A couple of passes on the Iray and it's ready for 'take off.' The iMac's usual 'poise' (very quiet) is unsettled.
Between the 'hot running' Intel i9 and the 'little fan' trying to cool the cpu and that Radeon gpu, it would make you nervous running that 24/7 for renders solidy for a year. (Having had the last iMac's gpu burn out, ironically, an Nvidia GPU.)
So. I bought a 'workhorse' PC for Daz3D/Iray Rendering. When software gets the hardware it needs? An order of magnitude faster for GPU rendering and cpu rendering because the components aren't downclocked. Clearly, Iray and Nvidia are a synergy for obvious reasons.
The PC? 12 core AMD. 3060 Nvidia (I'm due a 3700 Ti drop in replacement that my supplier couldn't get straight away...), 32 gigs of ram. 2 x 1TB drives.
(Windows. Don't love it.)
Best of both worlds?
Kyle.
PS. When they finally upgrade the iMac 27 incher to the next gen 'M' class processor I'd probably part exchange the current Intel iMac. It runs too hot in my view for this kind of work. For everythingelse? It's 'master class.'
My setup for constructing scenes
Computer: iMac Pro 2019
Processor: Intel Xeon W, 10-Core
Memory : 32 GB ECC
GPU: Radeon Vega 56, 8GB
Daz : 4.15.0.30
OS : Big Sur 11.5.2
Storage: Synology 4-bay NAS 920+, set up as RAID-5. DAZ directories are implemented as symbolic links from their defalut install configuration
For rendering, I use the same machine, but using Bootcamp running Windows 10 and added an eGPU (Gigabyte AORUS RTX3090, connected via Thunderbolt 3) using latest Nvidia Studio drivers
Render times are very significantly lower with the eGPU setup (e.g a simple scene renders in less than 10 min - aboout 1 hr on the macOS setup with CPU rendering, a complex scene with lots of light and reflections plus athmospheric smoke renders in about 1 hr compared to 32 hrs on the macOS setup. Default DAZ directories are again mapped via symbolic links to the network drive (avoids installing the content files more than once, plus I do have the appropriate SamrtContent on both setups)