DazCentral: One more example of the extremely low priority of Daz's Mac users
Ulysses Heart
Posts: 43
There are many, many issues that make using Daz on a Mac so difficult that continuing to use it might not be worth it. For PC users, it's fantastic. I also use a PC, but in terms of design I use a Mac. I know at least three Mac-based 3D designers who have dropped Daz completely this past year and moved on to different figure-based software because of the many increasing issues that have impacted deadlines and workflow. Since Mac OS 10.15+ launched a year ago, Mac users of Daz are facing everything from PostgreSQL CMS problems, to frequent crashes when saving, to crashes after cancelling a render, etc., etc.. These are now commonplace. For those of you who say "It's Apple's fault," my response is: Yes, Apple screwed up in releasing OS 10.15 too soon. But why do ZBrush, Maya, 3DMax, Blender, Houdini, Rhino (and all other 3D-focused applications I have on my machine) run like greased lightning on Mac OS 10.15? What happened with Daz?
And now along comes DazCentral, which can't be used on a Mac. When Pixologic/ZBrush, Autodesk, Blender, Rhino and Houdini (etc.) launch updates of any kind they always launch Mac and PC compatible versions at the same time. So anyway, that sucks about DazCentral, but who cares? We can continue to use DIM... if it only worked (see below).
When you click to download a purchased product on Daz3D.com now, a page launches that declares something like HOORAY!! Download the new DazCentral! But of course, in small gray text below it says it doesn't work on Macs. Instead of giving the Mac user the familiar direct link to download on DIM, the only link is to download DIM AGAIN?? Why would I want to do that? Okay, it's a pain in the ***, but who cares? Move on, dude. Launch DIM on your own. No big deal. Unfortunately, though... DIM no longer seems to work. It no longer recognizes my account or allows me to download products I've just purchased. It's the first time that's happened in since DIM was made available. Is it somehow linked to the launch of DazCentral? I have no idea, but it's getting to the breaking point.
If Daz has made the business decision to drop its Mac-compatible version over time, that's absolutely Daz's choice. Can't argue with a company's internal strategy. Maybe it's a choice they are making for financial reasons, for development reasons, or possibly there are massively fewer Mac users of Daz and it just isn't worth it anymore. Or all of those. That's their call. But if it is the case, Daz needs to be transparent and inform its Mac users that – from this point on – Mac-compatible versions of Daz and supporting software are very, very low priority and probably will be phased out over time. Yes, it would be painful to all of those loyal Daz Mac users out there, but at least they'd have all the facts and could start planning ahead to figure out what replacement software they'll need, or whether (just for Daz) they will have to use a PC going forward.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Daz has not made a business decision to drop max support. If they had, they wouldn't had released fixes for Catalina.
As for DazCentral, I obviously don't know what their reasoning was, but I work in IT and can tell you that releasing the first version of a new software on only one platform and porting it to the other once it's stable rather than having to fix early bugs on 2 platforms actually makes sense from a software development perspective.
Regarding your login problem with DIM, Daz has updated their security settings recently and password rules have changed (for one thing, they now need to be at least 7 characters long). Users whose password doesn't respect the new rules couldn't login into DIM, could it be the problem for you?
Thanks for your response. If indeed they are not dropping Mac-compatible Daz versions, that would be fantastic. As far as the DIM issue is concerned, my password is 12 characters, and I updated it about 2 months ago. So I don't know what the issue is. But it looks like, at least for the time being, I'll be manually installing everything. It could be just a quirk. It hasn't worked since yesterday. I will try again tomorrow and it might have been fixed or reset.
Contact support to get access to your password.... The password thing seems to be happening to random people and is platform agnostic. As for Mac support, remember there are several things happening: first, for something like DazCentral, they have a relatively small tream so consider it a blessing that, by the time it comes to the Mac, it will be more stable, next is that Daz3d is a brokerage so that someome may come with a plugin that is Windows only and Daz3d decides to sell it but they didn't make it so they have no say in what platforms it is developed for, and finally, the are working on better combatibilty with Catalina.
All good points. Thanks for the response. Hadn't thought of the "mixed blessing" point about new releases.
Thanks to you folks for responding.
I definitely don't want to reduce the number of us Mac users; I've been around since Daz3d started!
I'm having terrible problems with the new DS public build. If I load in an existing scene, I can only do two or three actions before it crashes. The older version was pretty stable (excepts sometimes during simulation, but otherwise it did not crash often).
This version is unusable.
The fact that it's a small team is why it is so frustrating to me that they would invest time and resources developing DazCentral instead of fixing issues with Daz Studio or innovating new features. I can already download content with DIM or directly in Daz Studio. Why do I need a new content downloader? It doesn't offer me anything that I didn't already have and DIM had the ability to hide items that I don't want to see. And DazCentral doesn't seggregate by items that are available and items that are installed. Sure, they can add these capabilities in the future but that just means more time and resources devoted to something other than their flagship program.
Maybe I'm in the minority on this and the vast majority of you love DazCentral. Right now I'm sticking to DIM or Daz Studio until there's no other option or until there's a convincing reason to switch to DazCentral.
Daz Central is, as I understand it, aimed to make the new users' life easier - as an experienced user you are not the target, though you may well benefit from updates to the core engine that is shared between the two applications.
I don't mind that DAZ Central is only available for the PC. I intend to buy a PC for my DAZ Studio work. I'll give my iMac a vacation.
Sadly I stopped buying Macs a while ago. I still have a Mac mini and a Macbook Pro laptop though. When I tried to install Daz Studio on the Macbook it said "Nope. Not gonna happen."
Sadly, as long as Daz remains committed to Iray, it is committed to abandoning the Mac. Apple and Nvidia show no signs of ending their feud. As long as that goes on, there can be no CUDA on the Mac, and thus no Iray.
Personally, I wish Daz would redirect the resources they're devoting to poorly supporting the Mac toward producing a native Linux version.
No Iray using GPU - CPU rendering is still available on the Mac
Yeah but how much longer does it take to render iray on a Mac?!
Currently I have a version of Daz 4.12 that supports my meager Nvidia card on my iMac and the Beta that does not. It depends on the scene is the short answer... in an optimized situation, I would guess it doubles the rendering time but it varies.... This was an hour long render which is long for me...
Thanks, nemesis10. That's about what I thought. It's too long for me. My iMac's 1GB video card is not good enough for iRay. I've seen the messages in the log files. I've actually accepted the fact that I need to get a PC just so I can easily handle iRay. And I will ignore DAZ Central as long as humanly possible.
I only come back here to see if DAZ finally got over the DAZ Central Identity crisis. Is it still a Beta version? Why does the announcement say DAZ Central is for everyone, when it is not?
You know you don't really want Daz Central... it is really for newbies who don't rearrange their stuff. I am puzzled by those people who are already using DIM (which is pretty robust when you sit down to use it), DAZ Connect which is more than fine for some of us, or those who install manually. The image above took a bit longer because it has all the bells and whistles (DOF, a large emmisive surface as the background, figure, geoshells etc...)
Except Stonemason's new Frontier Outpost is ONLY available to download with Daz Central. I have no interest in installing or using Daz Central but now I have to because I bought Frontier Outpost. I hope this isn't a trend.
It's broken, the files aren't there fr Daz Central either.
nemesis10, you're right. I don't want DAZ Central. I'm just waiting to see if they get their act together concerning DAZ Central.
It was a glitch in the store that is now repaired; you don't need Daz Central... The overarching mistake that was made was that if you already have a method to install, you don't need Daz Central. It was meant for new users as "training wheels" but it shares the same databases as DIM and DazConnect so it looks like it can overwrite the database. Since, there is an apparently large contingent that never backs up their database for "reasons"; they found the database damaged without a real backup. Ron Knights will appreciate that I recently installed a version of Daz Studio that broke my Nvidia support on my iMac so I simply deleted it, retrieved the last working one via Time Machine, got its preference files, added an updated Nvidia web driver and it was up and running in 15 minutes. So, if you are a new user, remember that it is a beta and choose your poison, and if you have a method for installing, don't shift and continue as you were.