How well will this run DAZ studio?
Cruellinnet
Posts: 12
So, I bought a new macbook pro with
- Apple M1 chip with 8‑core CPU, 8‑core GPU, and 16‑core Neural Engine
- 16GB unified memory
I'm assuming that it's going to come with Big Sur as the OS on it since it's directly from the Apple Store. Would I be able to render and work on things with DAZ studio or would I fry my macbook pro? I'm probably going to see about downgrading OS until that Big Sur compatibility thing comes out. But it's still the hardware I'm worried about.
I bought it for Art and Rendering and I wanna use it for that but at the same time...I don't want to kill it.
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Comments
You might want to read this thread: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/453421/why-8-9-months-for-a-big-sur-update#latest
I think Big Sur is not officially supported yet, and since your MacBook is using the new Apple silicon, it may be a while before it will run DAZ Studio (there should be more and better answers in the thread above).
Lack of compatibility with Big Sur aside... I'm afraid rendering IRAY on any Mac is rough going.
It's good enough to get your feet wet, learn the basics, find out if you enjoy it... but once you get halfway serious about it you'll probably need a PC, and it's going to be an expensive one.
I'm curious, too. I don't think we've seen anyone benchmark the new M1 hardware with a rolled back OS.
...@ Hylas, indeed somehow the idea of an 8 core GPU and CPU doesn't really seem to translate to short render times compared to a dedicated high thread count/VRAM GPU. Maybe for gaming and video streaming, but 3D rendering, which is very resource intensive, For CPU based rendering, the more cores/threads, the better, The M1 has 4 fewer CPU threads than my decade old Xeon E3 x5660.
Unfortunately, the M1 systems can't be rolled back to a pre-Big Sur version of macOS. Unless there's a hack for that, there's no official way to do it.
Would be nice if we could! :)
Lee
Daz Studio can't run on Big Sur without a lot of extra work, and from what I've seen in the other thread (mentioned above) it seems to be a sub-optimal experience. But as to your concern of "I don't want to kill it" the only way Daz could kill your mac is if a Daz employee came to your house and beat it with a hammer (okay, a bit of an exaggeration). These are well built and long-lasting machines. I'm typing this on my 8yo MBP that has done countless Daz3D (and Poser/Lux before) renders.
It sounds like Daz Studio won't be Big Sur ready until summer of 2021.
Since you have the machine do you have Rosetta 2? I'm not sure exactly what it does but as I understand it is an emulator that allows you to use all kinds of apps until Apple or in this case DAZ ports their programs over to native Mac OS.
Not to sound like an anti-Mac guy, but honestly if the primary purpose of this is for Daz, you want to return it and get a Windows based desktop.
Laptop if you wish, keep in mind for rendering your money goes much further with a desktop. High end laptops for rendering cost far more.
Ryzen 3000 or 5000 series 8 core or more chip will suit you well. Seems that Iray has substancial performance gains with RTX. The Nvidia 3000 series are very hard to come by on their own, but are very powerful for rendering and are much better bangs for your buck than the 2000 series. You may be able to get one easier/quicker in a whole system from a builder like Dell.