Using egpu Nvidia with Mac
udayc
Posts: 0
I'm a new user and was wondering if I do manage to pick up an Nvidia egpu for my Mac will Daz pick it up automatically. Do I need to follow some steps to get it to use the egpu?
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As far as I am aware this is not possible with the current version of DS as it is not possible tog et a new enough driver for nVidia GPUs.
In my experience, Nvidia eGPUs will not work on curren versions of macOS. The last time mine worked was High Sierra.
The short answer is 'no'.
To make an Nvidia card work, you'll need to go back to an older version of MacOS and an older version of DAZ Studio. If you really want to go that route, visit egpu.io; they have lots of helpful information and software which may make it possible for you to get something up and running -- but it's almost guaranteed to be a pain in the rear end.
I gave up on the attempt and built a PC. More expensive and bulkier than a breakout box and a card but probably less hassle in the long run.
Apple decided to build their own graphics accelerators instead of relying on 3rd party companies. The first ones will roll out this summer, curious to see what they can bring to the table. Have to say, 3D looks pretty good on my Mac mini running X11 flight simulator in metal. We'll have to see what Daz3D produces with their coming-soon Mac port.
So I'm inclined to just setup an "inexpensive PC" just for rendering my projects. I was thinking I could create my scene in DAZ for Mac, then load the project into the Windows box and let it render. I really want to start using iRay so I can achieve some better photorealism.
Any recommendations on the PC build?
One challenge you'll have with setting up on the Mac and rendering on the PC is making sure that your library is the same on both machines. I haven't really found a good solution for keeping the library and CMS sync'd. Even if you used a NAS -- a shared, networked disk -- so that both machines can see the same files, there's still the CMS to think about. Given that the CMS is just Postgres and Postgres data files are just, well, files, you could presumably host those on the NAS as well -- but I haven't tested that, and haven't tested whether two machines of different kinds can successfully share the same CMS. You may end up having to do it all manually, which is not a problem, but it is a duplication of effort.
The slick solution would be to run Iray Server on the PC and then upload your scenes from the Mac using the Iray Bridge in DAZ Studio. (Jack Tomalin offers a rendering service based on Iray Server, and this is how you get files onto his rendering machines; it works well). But then you're looking at a $300/year license fee for Iray Server, which bumps up the price of your solution significantly.
I'm probably the wrong person to ask for recommendations for PC builds, as this was my first build and I planned and executed it without help or adult supervision (and by "adult supervision" I mean "some 14-year-old gamer kid who knows the different pros and cons of every single Taiwanese motherboard, memory chip or power supply ever made"). Somewhat to my surprise, it seems to work, but I put that down to beginner's luck. However, there are a bunch of forum threads on the subject and probably plenty of people here who can give you good advice. And, of course, there's the indispensable PCPartPicker to help you plan your build.
If it's just about getting started, you do know that you can render with the CPU on the Mac, right? NVidia cards are much faster of course, but Iray does not depend on them. I've rendered many images on an iMac with CPU only.
This is true. I've made a lot of images on the Mac using CPU renders. As long as your workflow can accommodate leaving it to render overnight, it's doable. A PC with a GPU is, however, much much faster, and this is helpful not just for the final render but for test and in-progress renders. I haven't done any direct comparisons, but my guess is that my new PC with a 1070Ti probably renders 6-10 times faster than my i9 MacBook Pro. And the 1070Ti is old and slow compared to the current generation of Nvidia cards.
When DAZ Studio is finally compatible with Big Sur, it'll be interesting to see if CPU renders on Apple's M1 chips are any faster than CPU renders on Intel hardware. My guess is that because of the layers of emulation required, they'll actually end up slower, but I could be wrong. And while I don't think we'll ever see Iray optimized for Apple Silicon, it's possible that we might see optimized versions of Octane, Filament, Cycles or 3DL, at which point the Mac could suddenly become a rendering powerhouse again. Especially if Apple design their own GPUs and/or put some more memory into their 'pro' machines.
Thanks for that info. I suppose I might just need to setup a PC and move my entire DAZ over. Right now my DAZ and all files are on a DROBO. So that won't work. I'll check out that link and see what build I can afford.
I'm running 12 year old mac pro. stuck an nVidia 1660ti, some SSD's, swapped out the CPU's and installed Windows 10. I boot to windows natively. If you want to run an eGPU on a mac then Windows 10 would be hands down the best bang for the buck if your current mac has more power than the windows box you're using.