Is Octane on macOS a dead-end?
Forums: Is Octane on macOS a dead-end?
A public forum for discussing and asking questions about OctaneVR.
I love using macOS for work, but it's starting to feel like a dying platform for many pro-level applications. The latest macOS Mojave doesn't support CUDA at all, but what's alarming is there doesn't appear to be anyone left that cares. I didn't even see it mentioned that it didn't have CUDA support at launch. There's hardly anyone talking about it.
Apple's recently released macOS 10.14 (Mojave) does not support CUDA. For CUDA developers who are on macOS 10.13, it is recommended to not upgrade to Mojave. Developers may not be able to use Xcode 10 to build GPU applications or run CUDA applications.
What's the long-term roadmap for Octane on macOS? Will it always be CUDA-dependent or will it work with Metal2/Vulkan at some point? Is it time to give up and move to Win10?
Would be great to hear some opinions and any insights, thanks.
Re: Is Octane on macOS a dead-end?
We'll never give up on MacOS, unless it becomes literally impossible to support.
We are working on a new framework (RNDR SDK) that can cross compile to Vulkan, Metal, CUDA and more. Already some pieces of Octane 2019 are ported over, and these pieces (including a test of our path tracing kernel) run at full speed on RTX (+ RT Cores), MacOS, iOS, Intel integrated, Macbook, AMD GPUs on WIn/Mac and more. No ETA on when we will fully replace every feature of the CUDA backend 100%, but we plan to release Octane 2019.1 next year with a good chunk of Octane ported to this framework (and you might be able to use AMD or Intel as secondary GPU even in those releases), and go from there.
As far as I know, Apple hasn't been directly selling/supporting new CUDA hardware since 2012, and OS updates since then have just been supporting that older, legacy hardware. Fortunately, the good folks at NVIDIA keep putting out Mac OS drivers (usually within a day or two of a n OS update) and the cards keep working fine. All our animation stations are using GTX cards of one sort or another.
I think the litmus test will be the 2019 Mac Pro. If they drop the ball with that one, then yes, the Mac as a pro multimedia production platform will be more or less dead. They seriously stumbled with the cylinder Mac Pro, and they can't afford another dud like that. It's hard to say with Apple, though; they have pulled the fat out of the fire more than once.
We've been an 80-90% Mac shop since the early 1990s, and seen a lot of ups and downs. For the most part, the Mac's longevity, low maintenance and minimal admin overhead with almost no user hand-holding has been well worth it. As a production studio, we're usually a few years behind the cutting edge, for stability and reliability reasons, but that cushion is getting thin. It's not a religion, though, and as the next round of workstation updates looms on the horizon, if we have to jump ship, we will.
If we can have Octane running on AMD GPUs, that solves a whole load of problems for a lot of Mac users. It's annoying that Apple has forced us down this route. but if we're forced to use AMD, so be it. But once Octane runs on those cards then it all becomes a non-issue – especially with eGPUs now a legitimate thing for Macs.
I'm a C4D user (with Nvidia card in an old Mac Pro), so how long would it take for the developer to port the existing Octane plugin to use the new SDK and have it running on an AMD card?
It would be great to hear some ballpark timelines on when this AMD/Metal stuff will be usable.
Also, there's still no Mojave Nvidia drivers or updates regarding them.
Not a dead end, but a long road ahead. Did you see our WIP from siggraph?
Goldorak wrote: Not a dead end, but a long road ahead. Did you see our WIP from siggraph?
Yeah, looks awesome! Just tough to gauge when it'll be a stable platform. I'm not concerned about Otoy, but rather with the whole Nvidia/Apple situation and the future of "Pro" Mac hardware. It's all in a weird place right now.
Don't be afraid to share dodgy crashy early builds with us! just label them accordingly. They'd be great fun to play with.
For now, I'm back on Windows for most work. I'm not a professional 3D guy at all though, I just like to sit down with a beer and dig in to Octane/Materials/etc.
Is there a timetable for a beta/alpha that will work with mojave?
I'm just starting to learn my way in Octane ... and new iMac pro will arrive within next weeks... All this CUDA and GPU thing is yet a bit of mess for me at the moment.
Do I understand your point correctly, that under newest MacOS Mojave, there is no way I can use Octane even with external eGPU?