V-Ray FormZ GPU Rendering Future ?

[R2D2]

Are there any signs of: 

- AMD support in a future Vray/FMZ release (i.e. Metal/OSX) for GPU rendering ?

- Continuation of Nvidia drivers/CUDA support, or will this forever mean sticking to High Sierra - is this at all being further developed for FormZ ?

(I know: no support from Mojave on and also not mentioned for next OSX relase, not discussing Nvidia/Apple relations here)

IF I want to use OSX AND GPU rendering with Vray/FMZ, whats the perspective ?

 

Thanks

 

[Justin Montoya]

That's a fair question considering the newly announced Mac Pro with PCI card slots.  Yay!  Only took them 7 years to figure it out...  :/ 

However, most of these issues are out of FormZ's hands entirely.  Even if they wanted to support VRay GPU on the Mac, they are limited by what Apple and Chaos Group support.

Since there is not likely to be renewed CUDA support in future MacOS, VRay GPU would have to be ported over to Apple's METAL API, and that's a lot of work for a small user base.  They tried to make VRay GPU compatible with AMD GPUs through OpenCL, but found that OpenCL is too buggy to really provide a reliable option for AMD GPU users.  Apple and Nvidia need a renewed shared interest so CUDA can once again become updated on MacOS.  Or at least let Nvidia provide new drivers!  Apple's desire to control every part of their system has made it very closed off to third party software developers.

I'd say reach out to Apple and Chaos Group directly.  VRay GPU for SketchUp, Maya, and Cinema4d have much larger Mac user bases, and would likely be left to pick other products or hardware if CUDA really goes away for Mac.  

You can check out a similar question on the Apple forums - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/redshift-cuda-gpu-render-devs-we-are-not-leaving-the-mac.2182556/

In the meantime, stick with High Sierra and you'll have CUDA available, so it should work for a while longer.

[Smarttec]

With the MacPRO monster just announced Apple also released a developers kit at the recent WWDC for Metal development by existing software vendors like the renderer companies. So far only Maxon Cinema4D with Redshift and oToy with Octane have announced future support. Given that the MacPRO is still 3 months away for availability and the Metal development platform has just been announced then it's very early days.

Maxon
“Tapping into the amazing performance of the new Mac Pro, we’re excited to develop Redshift for Metal, and we’re working with Apple to bring an optimized version to the Mac Pro for the first time by the end of the year. We’re also actively developing Metal support for Cinema 4D, which will provide our Mac users with accelerated workflows for the most complex content creation. The new Mac Pro graphics architecture is incredibly powerful and is the best system to run Cinema 4D.” — David McGavran, CEO, Maxon

It’s all pretty new and future stuff but Metal is being used apparently, the point being Apple has a ‘cunning plan’?
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/pro-app-developers-react-to-the-new-mac-pro-and-pro-display-xdr/

 

[R2D2]

Thanks guys, 

yes I am (stuck) with High Sierra and using CUDA.

My question really goes to ADS:

- Is the Vray Plugin for "GPU rendering" on OSX being developed any further at this moment and will it be updated some time near future for a next Version. ?

Most people interested in rendering from within FZ will most likely not buy that plugin now without further perspective. 

(Then go and buy the new MacPro to run Vray on CPU ...? I guess not)

After spending (some) money on Maxwell and Thea, if Vray goes down that path I would have much rather paid the money to go to ADS for FZ development.

I just say this in perspective of staying on Mac for modeling FZ but rendering in Windows again (not FormZ then)

Thx