ddeaco
Vulkan for osx

To beat twod to the punch, it doesn't have tesselation or geometry shaders, so it's a non-starter for now, unfortunately.

ndickson

ddeaco
Vulkan for osx

To beat twod to the punch, it doesn't have tesselation or geometry shaders, so it's a non-starter for now, unfortunately.

Yeah, we heavily use Geometry shaders for picking, wire-over-shaded modes, and handling vertex and primitive attributes. They're pretty indispensable to our renderer.

Vulkan itself is a non-trivial amount of work to switch over to as well, as shader introspection is not supported, which we rely on fairly heavily. Not to mention all the extra low-level things like VRAM and object lifetime management which we'd be responsible for, which the GL driver currently handles itself.

maybe, just maybe, Mac is back from it's sojourn. Houdini+iMacPro+MacVsMachine == magic.

https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/films/#manvsmachine [www.apple.com]

Can someone clear things up for me please..

I was a Mac User but in 2016 I needed a new workstation and there was nothing Apple had that was remotely capable of my tasks so I went with a Windows HP Workstation.

Now that a new Mac Pro is on the horizon, probably still just a dot but it's there, I am considering bying one when it comes out. If it is what I hope it will be.

The questions I have are the following:

• I hear all the time that open gl on the mac is outdated and crappy supported. In what capacity is that an issue with Houdini?
  
• Collegues who used to work on macs and switched to linux (cent os if memory serves) told me the performance gain is quit palpable.
  
• Is the open cl support (pyro etc.)on a mac on par with windows/linux?
  

ChrisCarneval
I hear all the time that open gl on the mac is outdated and crappy supported. In what capacity is that an issue with Houdini?

Judging from posts around the forum, crashes and slow performance, though people who encounter crashes and slow performance are much more likely to post about it than people who don't, so it's not a perfect metric. The slow performance is sometimes as a result of working around crashes in graphics drivers by falling back to slower approaches. twod would know more details, but I think that's the gist.

ChrisCarneval
Collegues who used to work on macs and switched to linux (cent os if memory serves) told me the performance gain is quit palpable.

Yeah, probably both in terms of graphics and cook times, since the memory allocator Houdini uses on Linux is faster, though I haven't run performance tests comparing against Mac, myself. The current allocator on Windows is also not as good as the current one on Linux, but hopefully that can be addressed at some point. The only other platform-dependent thing I can thing of off the top of my head that may or may not affect performance is network and disk I/O. People have run into a bunch of networking problems on Mac, but I don't know if they affect performance or not, or just connectivity and licensing.

ChrisCarneval
Is the open cl support (pyro etc.)on a mac on par with windows/linux?

Informal word is that the Mac OpenCL drivers also tend to be crashy or slow, like the OpenGL drivers, but I haven't tested them myself either.

Best of luck, regardless of what direction you go.

twod
I'm hoping as a developer they would consult with us on that decision, and at least give us a decent heads up.

If they do, can you guys publish a Linux partspicker list for a fast Houdini machine?

Honestly, I'd haved switched to Linux a couple years ago as the Mac Pro aged out but haven't sucked it up and sorted out the possible CPU / GPU / Linux distros, etc.

fuos
https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/films/#manvsmachine [www.apple.com]

Neat, the scene breakdown showcases Houdini distinctive interface and tools all over the place. The iMac-wielding designers can evidently navigate the application using mice with so few buttons.

I had dual boot Hackintosh and Linux, and on that machine Houdini on Linux was significantly faster, from viewport navigation to cooking. Also Apple pushing AMD cards is not good for me cause Redshift. OpenCl is worse state than OpenGl, both not touched by Apple for some time, and how things are, both are probably abandoned.

About that manvsmachine, classic marketing, does not change thing that Houdini (and most 3d apps today) works better on Linux and Windows.

It'd be great to see MacOS come back as Windows and Linux also have caveats. Windows is slow for Nuke, has license server issues for 3DE and is bad for multi-user environments running things like Shotgun. Linux doesn't have programs like the adobe suite of apps, tablet/3d mice drivers are terrible, builds of plugins are delayed, it also has major issues when display drivers don't install properly, can be very technical for things like networking and harddrive issues.

@Cyzor all the mice that work on Windows also run on MacOS.

@ChrisC OpenCL on AMD is meant to be very good but Nvidia and CPU is appalling / doesn't work.

If Apple can hit the HW build quality of the Cheesegrater then facilities love them as they essentially run forever with no downtime.

I use the 3 platforms and each have strengths.

Of course, I was talking specifically about Houdini here.

We got lured by Apple tooting full OpenGL an OpenCL in a professional and quiet setup. So we foolishly got the trash cans for the texture dept after Pixar demoed Mari on it saying it was the best thing since sliced bread. After that Apple showed their true colors when they stopped supporting OpenGL and OpenCL. Then their driver update process was lacking for all the bugs they have. There is literally a petition regarding this whole issue. The final kicker is a standing bug for Mari since they released it for the macpro trash can is that Mari under performs for its hardware spec and it still isn't fixed with version 4.x. Speaking of Mari 4.x if you know they have released it for win/linux but are having trouble releasing it for the mac and have been struggling for a month to get it to even beta. The only reason we got them is sometimes the artists need photoshop and thought this would solve that. We regret very much getting them. For the price we paid we could have gotten two linux boxes that were more powerful and better supported. Maya, Houdini, Nuke and Mari are slower on the trash cans compared to the other linux boxes in the studio.

The only good thing is you can run adobe software which is basically saying if adobe put their crap on linux, windows and mac would disappear from our industry.

fuos
Linux doesn't have programs like the adobe suite of apps, tablet/3d mice drivers are terrible, builds of plugins are delayed, it also has major issues when display drivers don't install properly, can be very technical for things like networking and harddrive issues.

One of the main reasons why I finally dropped Windows fully is the TERRIBLE wacom driver for Windows. It has an unavoidable lag (there are placebo registery medications for these symptoms, but didn't help too much). When I used Linux and went back to Win, the lag was unacceptable for me, actually irritating. After few minutes my nervous system adopted… again… then when I switched back to Linux, the cursor was in the future. Especially if I tweaked the driver settings. Because my nervous system adopted to the Windows lag, it felt like the Linux driver is a “precog”.
No it isn't, just feeds the data from the hardware directly to the cursor. Stupid but simple and I recommend to at least try it, especially for serious digital painters/concept artists etc. The Windows (and I guess MacOS) drivers have a massive algorithms to filter out the noise of the real-time coordinates coming from the device. It also filters out your sublte movements. Why not filter out the subtle finger movements of a violin artist? It is unnecessary, right?

Autodesk Flame tutorial/demo videos have shaking cursor. Why? Because it (was IRIX) is Linux with this stupid driver. Your hand wired into the machine directly. I like it. However it has filter algolithms and has some subtle default filtering (I switched off completely, there is no EMI device around me), fully customizable (not with Windos driver). Yes it needs command line inputs, but not hard to learn and definitely worth to learn (and maybe there is GUI interface too?).

However I miss Photoshop. There is Krita, but full of bugs, maximum few minutes without crash. And lot usual Linux fancy stuff (days of nightmare problem solving marathons).
So yes, it seems there is no good OS in 2018, shame…

Should be a VFX OS (based on GPU )

xilofoton
Should be a VFX OS (based on GPU )

If I recall well, there is a move toward that due to the blockchain, not exactly VFX but some guys are on it ;-)
http://gpgpu.org/2011/05/04/kgpu-gpu-computing-in-linux-kernel [gpgpu.org]

fuos
If Apple can hit the HW build quality of the Cheesegrater then facilities love them as they essentially run forever with no downtime.

I always hear people say “Man.. back in the cheesegrater times everything was better”.
How was Apples Software Support, Updates, Drivers,.. back then?
I remember bying macbook pros and really loving them but I didn't do heavy sims or stuff like that so top notch performance wasn't my main concern. The “it just works” and love (continuing to this day) for their os kept me bying macs.

ChrisCarneval
I always hear people say “Man.. back in the cheesegrater times everything was better”.
How was Apples Software Support, Updates, Drivers,.. back then?

GPUs were weak, limited and expensive. OGL drivers were slow but stable. OpenCL didn't work.

Today the iMacPro is much better except for the form factor issues. i.e. repair costs, limited ram upgradeable and probably heat issues over the long term.

People preferred the Cheesegrater Mac Pros because they were upgradable. You could buy a new GPU a couple of years down the road when the original 5790 became long in the tooth. With the new Mac Pro tube, you're pretty much stuck with the hardware you bought on day one. It's like having all the disadvantages of a laptop and a desktop. Add to that the fact that it hasn't been updated since its debut (likely because of all that custom hardware), and you've got a Mac Pro which people were pretty dissatisfied with.
But I don't recall the drivers being better back then. If anything, drivers have greatly improved in the past year with High Sierra, especially the GL drivers. Apple appears to be taking the pro segment a lot more seriously lately.

This is looking promising. MacOS 10.13.4 has official egpu support with AMD cards. Hoping with the newer better GPU drivers they can be certified with Houdini for CL & GL:

AMD Radeon RX 570, RX 580, and Radeon Pro WX 7100
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, Vega Frontier Edition Air, Radeon Pro WX 9100

https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT208544 [support.apple.com]

Still only supports OpenGL 4.1 and OpenCL 1.2…

Where as the rest of the world is rocking OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 2.0 and better drivers.

Wren
Where as the rest of the world is rocking OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 2.0 and better drivers.

It would good to know the exact benefits of OGL 4.1+ in Houdini to see how much this actually is detrimental for MacOS users. With Apple now pushing ‘pro’ machines then maybe, just maybe they optimise the OGL drivers as well as fix bugs.

Re: OCL 2. Houdini only uses OCL 1.2 so far anyways.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/apple-is-said-to-plan-move-from-intel-to-own-mac-chips-from-2020 [www.bloomberg.com]

Personally I think getting a Mac for 3D is a self-inflicted wound, but I wonder what this would mean for the future of their “workstation” products if it's true. Definitely wouldn't give me much confidence.