oldteapot7
IMO its waste of time and programmers effort and human resources in SESI.

I'm not sure SideFX are actually putting that much time into it? I would love it if they made the M-series a higher priority, I don't think ARM even got a mention during the H20 launch keynote.

I prefer using Houdini on Apple Silicon - I really only use a PC for lookdev, specifically RTX rendering performance. ARM chips are plenty powerful enough for 3D content creation nowadays.

Imagine if developers said why should I develop for Intel chips back in the day. I'm sticking with the 68000, that's good enough.

Chips are getting smaller, getting faster and it is a progression. I don't think it's realistic that a laptop can outperform a dedicated workstation just yet. They will always be behind, but it's quite phenomenal that they are becoming so powerful after 2 generations IMO.

The M2 is as powerful as my 1950x that I type on. I can afford to run a sim for 20 mins or so on the 1950x, so I could afford a couple of mins extra on a laptop that can be taken anywhere. That's phenomenal IMO.

Rule of thumb, don't need it, don't buy it. But it may just enable more options if you need it.

oldteapot7
IMO its waste of time and programmers effort and human resources in SESI.

People fall too much in Apple marketing and propaganda...

The type of 3D we usually do in Houdini with heavy simulations, instancing, rendering etc. isn`t what most or anyone does on laptops - yes, it`s ridiculous to use to much man power on such a tiny group of users.

Sygnum
The type of 3D we usually do in Houdini with heavy simulations, instancing, rendering etc. isn`t what most or anyone does on laptops - ridiculous.

Theory Accelerated have done a brilliant job of optimising simulations on Mac GPU's using the Metal framework as a plugin for Houdini. That's the kind of innovation I'd like to see within Houdini itself. Axiom Solver can even run on iPad:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/axiom-solver/id6443941087 [apps.apple.com]

It's incredible what can be achieved on highly portable, battery powered devices in 2023.

Sygnum
isn`t what most or anyone does on laptops - yes, it`s ridiculous to use to much man power on such a tiny group of users.

think of it that way - the amount of people who actually have macbook pros, mac studio max/ultra is in millions, but rendering happens on octane, redshift, and cycles - simply because of the speed. why say no to those people?

btw, Houdini is not only about simulating super large vfx. I've spent lots of time doing some moghraphey style ads like toasters flying around and letters looking cool - typical C4D bread and butter. You dont need infinite power there.
(also i'd wager M3max would outperform gen1 and gen2 threadrippers, so they are not exactly "toy" machines now are they)

oldteapot7
It looks like toy CPU

oldteapot7
So from definition it cant be powerfull

oldteapot7
but still its only ARM processor

I am sorry but to call out people for falling for Apple propaganda but clearly never having bothering to take a objective look at what Apple Silicon actually offers is quite a feat.

Wanted to jump in here and say that as a long time Mac user and using Houdini for 10 years, I would be super excited to see a native renderer (XPU) that took full use of the M(x) GPU. It's something that Redshift has offered for a few years now and it's fast and because of that I upgraded to the M1 Studio mac (as opposed going PC). I know Mac is a smaller market for CGI but when it works it really does work. The problem always seems to be that Mac falls behind on development schedule and sometimes off the cliff all together. Also, I have to say it - as iPhone is getting flack for monopolizing cell phone use, I often resent 'only works on NVIDIA hardware'. Going out on a limb here but I would drop my redshift subscription in a heartbeat if I could render in XPU at the same speed or better.

For what it's worth, I've noticed that sims can be computed extremely fast on my M3 Max MacBook Pro, often nearly as fast as my AMD 64 core threadripper. I wonder what an M4 Max will be able to accomplish with regards to grinding through sims -- now if we could just get Metal-based GPU Karma on Mac!

Just ordered the M4Max with all the cores. Looking forward to trying it out, just waiting for that XPU support so I can ditch redshift.

M4 Max MacBook Pro Cinebench 2024 results (along with my prior results):

M1 Max: 4543
M1 Ultra: 5968
M3 Max: 12698
M4 Max: 16336
Nvidia 4090: 41676

I do all my work on Mac now, and Deadline to a PC for final rendering. But I would really love to go all in on XPU on Mac (with GPU support) and not have to use Redshift.

Hello ! Any update from the staff on whether Houdini Xpu will support the new M3 so we can do CPU and GPU renders too?
Nvidea is not doing a proper job atm with limiting the 50 series so the new Mac Studio seems like a very interesting switch atm

Really hoping that 21 brings initial Metal support for XPU - whenever it may arrive!

oldteapot7
People fall too much in Apple marketing and propaganda...

I switched to a full Mac, which is very convenient and portable. I can’t afford to bring a large PC on a plane every time a studio decides to close bc of the taxes in one province to switch to another, forcing me to relocate. It’s a good compromise.

is there any news on this?
any sign of H21 around the corner?

this is a really interesting thread, as a freelancer I really enjoy the portability of the MacBook Pro M4 MAX, and Houdini is my software of choice for Environment, Motion Graphics, and Heavy Rendering is made easy through solaris but right now I'm stuck rendering in Redshift because of the GPU integration, I would LOVE to be able to switch to karma xpu since I've used it extensively in production before making the switch to freelance, and would like to leverage the usd power that comes with it!

I Hope there is someone in a corner at sideFX that have us Mac user in his heart and will make this happen! I totally understand that we are not your main income generator us but I think with the new technologies and Laptops solution becoming more and more common we will see a shift in the freelancer industry and people embracing houdini as their main software of choice!

I agree, Metal support is really needed as it is a core component of Apple Silicon. Apple supported the implementation in Blender so there‘s proof how much it brings in terms of performance. Axiom is an other excellent example.

It seems like developers at SideFX are sold on Vulkan to Metal translation, which is a shame.

Metal 4 announced this week:

https://developer.apple.com/metal/whats-new/ [developer.apple.com]