The Houdini 19.0 Apple Silicon build is a technical preview providing early access for macOS users on Apple M1 hardware. You can post feedback and bug submit reports specific to the Apple Silicon build in the forum. Please review the information below before posting.
NOTE: The Houdini 19.0 Apple Silicon build is not production ready and is not supported by SideFX for production use.
Downloading the Apple Silicon Build
On the SideFX website, go to Get -> Download in the main menu bar at the top of the page. You need to login first before accessing the download page.
Scroll to the bottom of the download page and click on the DAILY BUILDS button.
On the Daily Builds download page, make sure that you are viewing the old installer builds and not the launcher builds. If the green button at the top of the page says Switch to old installer, then click on it to view the old installer builds.
At the top of the page, select the Show All button.
Scroll to the bottom of the Houdini 19.0 section. There will be a subsection titled Apple Silicon Builds Tech Preview with the latest Apple Silicon daily builds.
Submitting Bug Reports
Do not submit Apple Silicon bugs to SideFX Support. The Apple Silicon build is a technical preview and is not production ready and is not supported for production use. SideFX Support will not respond to Apple Silicon bug reports.
Review the Known Limitations and Bugs section below before submitting a bug to check if the bug is already a known issue.
Verify that the bug is specific to the Apple Silicon build and is not a general Houdini or macOS bug. To verify, test if the bug exists in the main Houdini macOS x86_64 build. General Houdini and macOS bugs should be submitted to SideFX Support.
Post a new topic in this forum to report the bug along with test steps and any supporting files needed to reproduce the bug.
Performance of the topotransfer node has been greatly improved on Apple silicon. In our tests, we have seen an increase of approximately 81% over 19.0.565
Performance of the Bone Capture Biharmonic SOP node has been improved on Apple silicon. In our tests, we have seen an increase of approximately 26% over 19.0.640
Performance of the UV Flatten SOP node has been greatly improved on Apple silicon. In our tests, we have seen an increase of approximately 200% over 19.0.641
FYI, you can now grab Apple Silicon builds for recent 19.0 and 19.5 production build versions from the SideFX FTP server.
Here is the FTP connection info: - Server: ftp.sidefx.com - Username: anonymous
The builds are located in the /share/Apple Silicon Buildsfolder on the FTP server.
We will continue to upload the Apple Silicon build for upcoming production build versions to the FTP server until the Apple Silicon build turns gold (no ETA). When Apple Silicon turns gold, then the builds will appear on the SideFX Production Builds download page.
Apple has improved the speed of certain mathematical operations in the Accelerate framework provided in macOS 12.4 and higher. It is recommended that users upgrade to this version in order to attain peak performance.
