iMac pro - compatible graphics card - Radeon Pro Vega 64 16 GB

[ignuf]

hi,

ok ive noticed that I can't use the GPU with tray on the iMac Pro I'm using, is this a compatibility issue if so, is it with OSX or the hardware?

(iMac Pro , OSX High Sierra , with Radeon Pro Vega 64 16 GB graphics card )

thanks and Regards
ignuf

[savage309]

V-Ray GPU does not support OpenCL on macOS. The same render engine that runs on OpenCL and AMD hardware on Windows and Linux, fails to run on macOS. I doubt that there is much that we can do. CUDA works fine everywhere, but requires NVIDIA GPU.

Best,
Blago.

[ignuf]

hi Blago, thanks for the reply , has anything changed on this since March at all ?

[shaio]

Hi,
there is no change and probably there wont be changes any time soon. We'll update the post if we have some news about this.

[ataylor]

Hi,
there is no change and probably there wont be changes any time soon. We'll update the post if we have some news about this.

At this point if we updated a month or so back.. can we get a refund on this? since kind of no longer really does what we bought it for?
It seems you can't or won't comit long term to mac or use metal2 api.. so.. we would like an answer on this i think... its really frustrating.. seeing other companies embracing metal. and vray can't turn the ship on the mac side?
is there someone specific i can contact?

[savage309]

We support CPU and CUDA on macOS.
I am not sure why you were expecting Metal support - we have never promised or committed to Metal. Metal does not have all the features that a production GPU raytracer needs yet (I can be very specific on what is missing). We tried to support OpenCL for a long time on macOS - didn't worked well because of the OpenCL compiler issues, and later it was deprecated.
As usual, if there is any update we will keep you posted.

For refunds, mail to support@chaosgroup.com, possibly with a link to this thread too. We have a 30 day free trial + month for refund.
If a refund technically is possible after the period, I am sure that the support guys will help.

Out of curiosity - beside the free render from AMD ProRender, who else supports Metal for production raytracing?

Best,
Blago.

[ataylor]

You somewhat misunderstand.. i was mentioning metal which is the preferred way apple wants folks to work. since open/gl etc are now "dead to them" as it were - I'm talking about gpu rendering being hidden and basically at your own risk status.. that doesn't give your users confidence that you won't just drop mac support because it wasn't worth changing out your code.. the octance folks are all in on metal and trying to really push ahead on this..eventually with the gpu's in the cloud it may be a moot point eventually.. but right now companies in the 3d space have to decide which way they will go. If apple supported nvidia this would not be a concern. Since Apple are not "that we know of anyway " they put their eggs in the Metal 2 api basket.

If i had to pick a horse i want that company to be doing 2 things.. 1 - be upfront with users about that post open / gl future.. and 2 not just turn off a major feature and slyly tell folks they can turn it on.. thats not the way to prepare pipelines for the future.. it really gives the impression that once it gets too hard you will just drop mac support.. Lets also hope nvidia keeps doing drivers.

That is what it feels like to us users.

Apple may never forgive nvidia.. "dumb in my opinion" but it is a possibly.. if thats true.. then.. going forward tyring to hobble nvidia on the mac side might be a pain and companies will just cut their losses.. thats the fear that i think a ton of users that use mac fear right now.

I know its hard to turn a large ship with lots of legacy code.. or even new code in the case of NEXT. on all the different platforms.. "do you guys even sleep??? " From a purchaser stand point i need to look to where the future is and which companies will be proactively supporting a long lasting way forward.. in an official way.

Does that make sense? I love vray.. id love to continue with it.. but it really felt horrible to suddenly update and gpu was gone.. thats not the way to do this. .. only thing i worry about like i said was . - once it becomes too annoying... then some day no more gpu for us..

[ataylor]

I'm not a coder but it looks like some folks are trying to be clever. - https://moltengl.com
and this -
https://twitter.com/otoy/status/1004...118849?lang=en

[savage309]

I was talking about real products doing raytracing on Metal. Otoy have promised many things - for example OpenCL and AMD GPUs support.

There are many APIs for graphics. As soon as Metal is viable platform (software and hardware wise) on which we can make production ready GPU accelerated raytracing, we will use it. We have been upfront supporting as many hardware and software platforms, to name a few - OpenCL, CUDA, OptiX, DXR - and this will continue to be the case in the future, as long as those platforms are viable.

Promising is easy, but I prefer to emphasise on the realities of the state of the platforms, as I believe keeping the customers as well informed as possible is helpful both for us, and them.

Best,
Blago.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

I don't really see a reason for supporting Metal in future
For many people, the main/only reason to choose GPU rendering is speed. With the right hardware, it can be way faster than CPU
Problem with Apple products is that they offer very weak GPUs..
Their most powerful machine offers Vega 64 which can barely catch up with a single 1080 in Metal benchmarks
And if you don't have 8k+ Euros for an Imac Pro, you will end up with an RX 580, 570(Cheaper Imacs and MacBook Pros) or dual D700s, D500s (the trashcan Mac Pro)
These GPUs are literally a joke for GPU rendering and they will be even slower than using CPU in rendering.
Back to the 8k+ Euros Imac Pro with Vega 64, using it for GPU rendering will still be pain. You will end up with OS UI lags and Viewport lags..
This will be even worse with Mojave, as every part of it is GPU accelerated, so using your GPU for rendering will slow down everything until your render finishes.
Usually for GPU rendering you need a separate card for OS and viewport performance, so you can still use your system while rendering.
Back to what I'm trying to say, Apple products are not meant for GPU rendering
Even after you paid 8k+ Euros for the most powerful product they offer, you will get a bad GPU rendering experience. Furthermore, these Imac Pros have very powerful Xeons that are as fast as your Vega 64 in rendering
Not to mention all the advantages of CPU rendering, like more features, more memory..etc
I would recommend you try ProRender and see how fast it is on your hardware.
and on software side like Blago said, Metal lacks many essential features for GPU renderers
If you still didn't upgrade to Mojave, an e GPU solution with a Pascal card will provide a good experience with Vray GPU. This is not officially supported by Apple, but it works. You can use up to 2 of these with your Imac Pro
But if you upgraded to Mojave, there is no web drivers yet, and it will probably take few months for Nvidia to release something(it took them 11 months to release Pascal drivers for OSX, so no rush at all)
I'm using Vray Next GPU with Cuda on high Sierra and it works really nicely.

[ataylor]

I understand that my point was with apple still stupidly spurning Nvidia what are CG long term back up plans...other then discontinuing gpu on Mac... I agree only speeding amd is really short sighted on apples part and I do already have an eGpu which I'm waiting for drivers for. i also have the hackintosh Rouge with 3 gtx980s and yes that does work but far from being supported. I'm happy that nvidua and CG still support even unofficially gpu but as an industry we either need to really pressure apple ot do what they asked if possible ie their preferred way . Does metal 2 change any of this vs metal 1 I wonder?

[ataylor]

I guess while it's great that gpu is working but unsupported...It occurs to me once prices get down to say electricity levels something like vray cloud or something could make this a moot point. I don't see that happening yet.. vray cloud or aws etc - metered is metered after all.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

I patched the latest High Sierra web driver and installed it on Mojave, but this caused many issues. There are many UI bugs and video acceleration is not working. This was never the case with older version of OSX
So I think Mojave's Metal 2 most likely requires the web drivers to be written from scratch. It is very different from Metal 1
Also Apple will include support of the new RTX architecture within the new web drivers. This will take very very long time, maybe next Summer!!
You better downgrade to High Sierra and make use of your e-gpu with a Pascal card.
And to be fair, it is mostly Nvidia's fault. They always refuse to work on any Beta of new OSX releases and they only work after the official release. That is why every new OS release we get delayed/bad drivers
My main workstation is 7900X and Asus X299 Deluxe and 2 1070tis + 1 t080ti running 10.13.6 based on Dr klaus Puschmann's guide here,
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/h...-guide.229353/
It is as reliable as a real Imac Pro and works flawlessly with Vray GPU

other then discontinuing gpu on Mac

I don't think Chaos Group are going to discontinue Vray GPU on OSX. It works nicely with Nvidia cards and a few people are using it now.
Nvidia will provide drivers for OSX for quite some time, even if the drivers are late, but they will eventually arrive. Meanwhile, we can stick to high sierra until new drivers for Mojave are released.

yes that does work but far from being supported

The whole hackintosh thing is illegal, but it works flawlessly like what I mentioned above. You should be able to get your triple 980s to work without issues
e-gpus are still an option and also the old Mac Pros (from 2012 and earlier) you can equip these with up to 2 nvidia GPUs
These macs sell for like 600 Euros on ebay and some people are still using them

we either need to really pressure apple ot do what they asked if possible ie their preferred way

I don't agree :III
I don't think it is worth supporting Metal for CG.
You can never pressure Apple fucktards into something. They just don't care, forcing many Pro users to switch to Windows in the past years.
Why would CG invest time and money on supporting metal?
Right now very few people are interested in GPU rendering using Apple hardware
Anyone serious about GPU rendering is using Nvidia cards

[ataylor]

i agree that we were in the middle of this change and both apple and nvidia snit is really hurting things.. just hard with so much up in the air.. they need to bury the hatchet and start working together or apple will soon realize no one will care about ar / vr on their setups... its soooo dumb they don't see the writing on the wall.. AMD must really be giving them.. something to keep them from seeing reality?? wonder what? - i decided to just stay put for now... i renew next summer perhaps more will be clear by then.. and some more of the shoes will drop.. as it were.. hard to read the tea leaves right now.... - future is always in motion ever changing it is.... YODA - thought if i were the devs--- just put the gpu back in the interface and put text up saying "experimental"

[ataylor]

Putting this here since we talked a bit about Nvidia in this thread too up above.. far as I know.. the other scripts will activate AMD cards .. but without metal not much use that way.

OSX 10.13.6 - I managed to get things working on my MID 2018 i9 MacBook Pro - used Benjiman's Nvidia installer.. it put in 105... wrong for this os but still patched it happily.
then ran purge-wrangler - I doubt I have qi/qe on ext monitors on eGPU - 4k TV was janky as hell. but CUDA is happy and both v-ray and octane benchmarks are. about right for a single 1080 card. aorus gaming box. - had to reboot then remote in the first time to set the monitors not to mirror got rid of black screen and logged out logged in.. rebooted long as its in its working... AMD for screen drawing and CUDA on ext eGPU for rendering.,.. my use case is happy - ONLY ODD THING - My trackpad does not work when eGPU is connected..Other than that... v-ray 3x seems happy. NOTE: Boot fully into osx and log in - then log back off - at the login screen connect egpu. then log in again. this makes sure the drivers are loaded before connecting... also shutdown before unconnecting TB cable . or you will kernel panic. other then that its happy with CUDA - Don't think I have full acceleration on the ext. GPU connected displays..

Nvidia driver update script for osx - nvidia-update
Purge wrangler - purge-wrangler