Enscape is coming to Mac, so that’s something!
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Right now a Mac isn’t a realistically viable renderer; yes you can render on it but not anywhere as effectively as a Windows machine but……
The M1 SOC is an amazing starting point for Apples future PC’s and I’d say that whatever comes out (M2?) after the one released later this month (M1X?) will ‘hopefully’ be a serious contender.
I feel save in saying that this time next year a conversation like the one we’re having now will have a very different landscape.
Indeed
There is a lot of misinformation (or great marketing from Apple) in regards to what the M1 chip is.
Unless they are planning Pro models of their devices with discrete GPUs, then Macs will continue to be a poor choice for anything related to rendering, whether it’s realtime or offline - and even then, Nvidia are so far ahead of everyone else, Apple would need to do something truly amazing to even achieve parity.
I think there is still a hangover from the early 2000’s in regards to certain groups of industries using Mac for creative stuff.
Obviously there are lots of good reasons you might want to use a Mac, but personally I would use one for this type of thing now.
A couple years ago I got a refurbished MacBook Pro 15" retina 2014 because it has an Nvidia card which (sometimes) works as another thread with Thea. To do this I have to run the older Mac OS Sierra. In general it’s good having the older machine because my primary CAD software is stuck in the past. (My primary colleague is also stuck in the past so we could become incompatible if I switch up)
So, no it’s not the latest and greatest machine–then again I bought a brand new 2018 MBP and took it back because it offered NO (zero) boost in performance over my older laptop. The M1 looks to be a game changer but your software has to be compatible. I could go for that someday or just get a nice PC for rendering.
Every couple months I really need to do a couple renders. But it is too slow for real production. Daytime scenes are OK, but I have needed a lot of night interior scenes that are a real pain to get through.
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Agreed. Macs revolutionized desktop publishing and image production in the beginning. And (e.g. )my wife is using Macs for music mixing and video quite successfully, but they dropped the ball on the creative front in many ways, for some reason–well I guess they were really going for the general consumer market (despite the high prices) and the rest is history.