Mac chat - any info about 3DCoats' performance on any new M1 machine ? - thx!

[erb]

Hi everyone, this is mainly about #2 below.. but #1 is good for context.

1: I have planned to make a video of performance for 3DCoat on an i3 & i5 Mac with an iGPU.  I mentioned this earlier this year and have yet to do complete the video.  I'll get to it before too long!
**In case you're curious why; because 3DCoat performed well above expectations on my Mac Air from 2010  and I want to share any Mac-iGPU-performance info with people as there was almost-nothing to read about 3DCoat on Macs with iGPU.  #Knowledge Is good.
//The Mac Air from 2010 has an Nvidia GT320.  - I suppose that I expect similar performance from the 8th gen iGPU in the mac I'll be testing and we'll see..hopefully sometime this month!

2: Now that the M1 macs are released, I am curious about the performance of 3DCoat on any of the M1 machines.  I do not have an M1 to test.  So if someone has tested an M1, it would be nice to hear about your opinion of performance.

- Thx
Enjoy your week.

 

Edited November 24, 2020 by erb
correct error

[SERGYI]

1. Thanks for sharing. I had tested "3DCoat" on my old iMac (CPU i3 3.06 GHz, RAM 8 GB, GPU Radeon HD 4670, VRAM 256 MB) and "3DCoat" allows painting texture with resolution up to 2K and sculpting up to 2 million triangles with comfort performance (about and above 30 FPS).
2. We don't have a Mac with an M1 processor yet. But "3DCoat" uses proprietary Intel libraries for some functions (Sculpt > AUTOPO, Retopo > UV > Mark Seams > Selected > To ABF/GU/LSCM/Planar). Probably those functions will fail on M1.

[ymesh]

At least it starts and works on MacBook Pro M1 8Gb

I just have no time to dig deeper, though...
But at first glance, it looks pretty well )))

[ymesh]

Auto Retopo works also.
So... Don't hesitate. Buy a Mac with M1 ))) 
 

[erb]

Are you running the App directly or through Rosetta ?
I'd be curious how the mentioned intel based functions perform through Mac's Rosetta or if they just work.

I bought a new Mac this Summer.. it mostly sits gathering dust due to the underwhelming performance and heat it generates. I was thinking about selling it and buying an M1 Mac.. *shrug* IDK.

[ymesh]

The 3dcoat is running through Rosseta 2, of course... 
But this process is hidden from a user.
You just clicked on icon, and MacOS desided how to run this app. 

[Metin Seven]

@SERGYI As this thread is more than a year old: how is 3DC 2022 performing on macOS? Does everything work?

And is there a chance Apple Silicon / M1 chips / Metal will be natively supported for more Mac power utilization?

Thanks.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Metin Seven

[SERGYI]

On 3/21/2022 at 10:50 AM, Metin Seven said:

how is 3DC 2022 performing on macOS? Does everything work?

Personally, we don't have M1 Macs. But some users reported on the forum and in emails that they are running "3DCoat" on M1. You can freely check that on your Mac using the latest "3DCoat 2022" for macOS from here: https://pilgway.com/~sergyi/links-macOS.html

[Metin Seven]

Thanks for your reply, @SERGYI, appreciated.

I also haven't got an M1 Mac yet, but will soon get one, and will then try 3DC on it.

[erb]

I have an M1 Mac Air, I can load Sergyi's linked build if anyone has any specific questions for me to test.

@Metin Seven

Q: "And is there a chance Apple Silicon / M1 chips / Metal will be natively supported for more Mac power utilization?"
A: While I can not provide an answer, I feel I should mention that the Dev Team is in Ukraine.  I think about them and Ukraine each day.

Edited March 23, 2022 by erb
condensed and clarified

[Metin Seven]

@erb Any reports about 3DCoat's overall performance on an M1 would be much appreciated, particularly in the Sculpt Room, thanks.

And I also think about the 3DC developers a lot, and really hope and wish they will remain alright in these crazy times. War is madness.

[erb]

I forgot to reply, my apologies to you.
Overall, it feels good. (using latest version on M1 Mac Air)
Without a specific context, I can only provide a general overview..

As long as you keep your detail work on the resolution levels that are generally expected ..  (AKA: don't try to sculpt a human from a 20million sphere).
• An object with:
<5 mil range = good
10 mil range = performance might hiccup on certain things like large radius brushes doing complex operations. Cuts can take a couple/few seconds.
15 mil range = a smaller radius brush feels good, a larger radius brush will hiccup. Cuts start to feel heavy.
20 mil+ range = stick to adding fine / small details. Resampling to 20mil range takes < 20 seconds avg. Cuts take  <20 seconds.

• Multiple objects of 3-5 million each seems fine. Hide whatever you're not working on.. etc.

..Please remember that this is extremely generalized.
IMO, the performance is good.
 

[DannyBCreative]

I so badly want 3DCoat and 3DCoat Textura to work on my Macs, but as of my recent testing, it's not possible to work on any production level models. Even 3DCoat Textura struggled with the most basic of models. The app frequently became unresponsive and had to be force terminated. I hope this can change in the future as many of us Mac users would love an alternative to Adobe/Substance. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by DannyBCreative

[Melik]

Hey @DannyBCreative

May I ask what are the specs of your Mac and what version of 3DC were you using?

I"m also curious about performance on the newer Macs.  It's 3DC's Mac versions I'm also concerned about.  Compared to the Windows version, the Mac version always seems to have strange little "surprises".

[SERGYI]

"3DCoat 2023.29" for macOS has become "Universal":
https://pilgway.com/~sergyi/links-macOS.html
Does it run/work on your Silicon/ARM Mac?
 

[David McEachern]

Hello, 

Just upgraded to 3D Coat 2023 after seeing MacOS ARM support being added. when I open the 2023.29, I get the error: (0,0) : ERR : Invalid configuration. Verify the registered application interface. No interface loads and the error repeatedly pops up if I click around. I'm on a Mac Studio M1 Ultra with Ventura 13.5.2. (I've also sent an email to support with screen shots.) 

Edited September 22, 2023 by David McEachern

[Hickz]

Yeah, I have the same issue as David, here's a screenshot:

[Hickz]

@SERGYI , are there any updates? We're itching to try the live booleans here too

[SERGYI]

Thank you all for the feedback. I have uploaded "3DCoat 2023.31" for macOS:
https://pilgway.com/~sergyi/links-macOS.html
The build is for Intel (not Universal). Here is the reason. I have bought a Mac mini M1 and investigated the cause of the issues you have encountered. It turned out that the "AngelScript" library does not support the native calling of functions and methods on the Apple M1 chip. "3DCoat" is heavily dependent on the "AngelScript". All functions and methods (thousands and thousands of them) are registered in "3DCoat" in a way that counts on the native calling of functions and methods. We will discuss this situation at the meetings to understand what we can do with this problem.

[Hickz]

Thank you for the update, Sergyi. Unfortunately, it seems like live booleans aren't working on macOS, so can't test them alas. Otherwise seems to work as previous builds have.

[Metin Seven]

Good to read that you've got an Apple Silicon Mac now, @SERGYI! I hope you will be able to solve the AngelScript issue soon.

[voidcore]

Reading at Anglescript homepage we can now see since a few months:
 

• Added support for native calling conventions on Apple OS's with M1/M2 CPUs (Thanks Sam Tupy)

So can we expect a native Mac apple silicon build now that works? I have been holding off upgrading from my old 3dcoat in waiting for this. Best regards!

[Metin Seven]

On 9/12/2024 at 5:40 PM, voidcore said:

Reading at Anglescript homepage we can now see since a few months:
 

• Added support for native calling conventions on Apple OS's with M1/M2 CPUs (Thanks Sam Tupy)

So can we expect a native Mac apple silicon build now that works? I have been holding off upgrading from my old 3dcoat in waiting for this. Best regards!

Any news about improved Apple Silicon support in 3D-Coat for macOS?

Thanks!

Edited January 24 by Metin Seven

[SERGYI]

On 1/24/2025 at 1:24 PM, Metin Seven said:

Any news about improved Apple Silicon support in 3D-Coat for macOS?

Thanks!

I am still waiting while our employee converts "3DCoat 202x" UI scripts to "Python". In the meantime, I compared the performance of the "3DCoat 202x" on my old Mac Pro Intel Xeon E5 vs. Mac mini M1. Temporarily, I have removed the "AngelScript" library from the Xcode project and commented out all source code in the "3DCoat 202x" project that uses the "AngelScript". Then, I built two "3DCoat 202x" executables for macOS: the first for Intel architecture (x86_64) and the second for Apple architecture (arm64). "3DCoat 202x" without the "AngelScript" doesn't display most of its interface. But it shows enough to run AUTOPO on a scene from a file. Here are the results of AUTOPO on the same file:
Mac Pro CPU Intel Xeon E5 3.7 GHz, RAM 32 GB 1866 MHz DDR3, Storage 480 GB SSD PCIe: 22 seconds on Intel executable;
Mac mini CPU Apple M1, RAM 16 GB, Storage 245 GB SSD NVMe: 11 seconds on Intel (x86_64) executable, 10 seconds on Apple (arm64) executable.
These results show that the Intel executable is 2 times faster on Apple M1 than on Intel Xeon E5. Also, they show that the Apple executable (arm64) gives about a 9% performance boost. So, the switch from Intel Xeon E5 to Apple M1 CPU dramatically increases the performance of the Intel executable. However, switching from the Intel executable to the Apple executable on Apple M1 gives only a tiny fraction of that initial boost. Of course, the Apple executable will not be more stable than the Intel executable because instability comes from data and how the algorithms process that data. The stability does not come from the architecture of executable instructions.