SteveT Posted December 18, 2021 Share Posted December 18, 2021 Hello folks, I have X11 and was looking to upgrade to X13 but thought I'd see if it was worth it in terms of new features. It turns out it was! Finally the feature I've been waiting on for years has arrived: hardware (GPU) 3D rendering! The video on these new features got me very excited. I almost purchased the new version on the spot but thought I'd double check to make sure the new version was really all that, so I downloaded the trial version and opened one of my plans. And... it's the same old (slow) 3D support I have on X11. The CA video demonstrating the new features in X13 was... misleading. Doing some digging, it seems that there is no GPU for Chief on Mac platforms for X13. Hence it's not even remotely worth the money for me to upgrade. So my question to the gallery is, will X14 have GPU 3D support for the Mac? X15? Will it ever? Thanks, Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SusanC Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 The problem currently is on the Mac end, not the Chief end. There are several threads about this topic if you search back over the past 6 months. If you put your hardware specs in your signature it will be helpful. I have to use a Mac for work so my work around was to purchase a dedicated pc for the real time ray tracing which has proven to be a great solution for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VHampton Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 If I am correct, it's possible to remotely connect to the PC. Do you mind my asking if you might be set up this way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveT Posted December 19, 2021 Author Share Posted December 19, 2021 2 hours ago, SusanC said: The problem currently is on the Mac end, not the Chief end. [...] I looked and looked and couldn't find that thread. Do you know where the info is on that? If it's a bug in Apple's software I'd like to know where so I can know when to expect a fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveT Posted December 19, 2021 Author Share Posted December 19, 2021 47 minutes ago, VHampton said: If I am correct, it's possible to remotely connect to the PC. Do you mind my asking if you might be set up this way? Nope, never tried that. I just use a Mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgardner Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 1 hour ago, SteveT said: I looked and looked and couldn't find that thread. Do you know where the info is on that? If it's a bug in Apple's software I'd like to know where so I can know when to expect a fix. Search the forums. The only thing not possible with Mac is the real time ray trace which is only available for certain high end gpus. All of the other features are still available and well worth the upgrade. If you do as asked and put the specs of your machines in hour signature it may help to see if there is a reason why you are having any issues if you are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveT Posted December 19, 2021 Author Share Posted December 19, 2021 15 minutes ago, rgardner said: Search the forums. The only thing not possible with Mac is the real time ray trace which is only available for certain high end gpus. All of the other features are still available and well worth the upgrade. If you do as asked and put the specs of your machines in hour signature it may help to see if there is a reason why you are having any issues if you are. I am not having any issues, just trying to get an idea of when the feature I want will be on the Mac product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Electromen Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 HERE is on thread on the subject 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 for me, this is a very good upgrade even without the real time raytracing, the edit cad blocks without exploding them is a huge time saver, save as template is also huge for starting new plans based on old plans similar to the "Save as method" in the old days. Many other good new features make it worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VHampton Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 On 12/18/2021 at 10:03 PM, SteveT said: Nope, never tried that. I just use a Mac. Thanks Steve. What I was trying to hint at, is that there's probably potential to still use the Mac as the primary computer and then remotely connect to the PC. At the end of the day, a fairly robust Mac can still RayTrace. The number of "passes" however simply needs to be set to a limit or the CPU usage goes to an extreme. And lastly, I agree with Perry. There's so many good features on this newest release, including the ability to 'shape shift' poly-line solids like never before. They did a really great job. On 12/19/2021 at 11:21 AM, DRAWZILLA said: Many other good new features make it worth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveT Posted December 19, 2021 Author Share Posted December 19, 2021 Apple's future is it's M1 chip, which most of its new systems have and they are clearly looking to migrate away from other chips. The M1 has the GPU on the same chip, which is incredibly efficient from a system perspective. Apple does in fact have a ray tracing API which exploits the GPU hardware on the M1: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10012/ Hopefully a future version of CA will use this API. That said, it's unlikely that the Apple M1 will ever come close to a dedicated GPU card like the 3080 (and they cost $2000 right now). Still, it would be nice if CA would actually use the hardware that is available to them for those of us who don't want to switch platforms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VHampton Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 Yes - I totally agree. But time will tell, as Chief has always aimed to please the loyal user base. For what it's worth I spoke with a very nice fellow at tech support last summer who provided excellent guidance. He was highly informed. While he wouldn't answer or endorse a certain product (which is totally understood), his observation was that the M1 chip technology is new, and that Intel was proven. That said, many folks with the Mac-mini are seeing good results which is encouraging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNestor Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 I’m hoping that Chief takes full advantage of the new ARM based system that Apple is moving towards. Also - full adoption of “metal” which is Apples graphics engine. At this moment Apple can’t beat the Nvidia 3080 or 3090 cards…but the M1 chip is just step #1 for Apple. The M1 is fast, their laptops have unmatched battery life. Try unplugging an Intel laptop with a 3080 and see what happens. It’s not a pretty picture. Intel has reached the end of the road with its chip design. The amount of watts it has to feed these powerful Nvidia cards creates an incredible amount of heat…which in turn degrades performance. They know this and believe me - they are working fast to catch up - and they will catch up and might even surpass Apple. Chief will eventually write their software to take advantage of everything that ARM based computers excel at. Fingers crossed. Disclaimer - I’m not a computer guru at all…but I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos on this subject and I like where Apple is going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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