New M3 chips have hardware raytracing!
- Thread starter Somian
- Start date
From what I understand hardware accelerated raytracing is an M3 GPU feature (like nVidia RTX).
So it won't improve CPU rendering as done by Falcon.
It should be available via the Metal API.
Now we have the new editor view finally on Metal instead of OpenGL, but I don't think it traces rays, so probably there won't be an effect either.
All those good things will be in Cycles but not Falcon which has not seen any major improvement in years sadly.
So it won't improve CPU rendering as done by Falcon.
It should be available via the Metal API.
Now we have the new editor view finally on Metal instead of OpenGL, but I don't think it traces rays, so probably there won't be an effect either.
All those good things will be in Cycles but not Falcon which has not seen any major improvement in years sadly.
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Well yes but I cannot speak for Martin.
Falcon was published 2016 and is still not feature complete (SSS, volumetrics . . .).
It took four years from the deprecation of OpenGL/CL 2018 till v8beta with Metal UI and Apple silicon support.
If a full port of Falcon CPU (C++?) to Metal API is feasible for a single developer without help from Apple I don't know.
Falcon was published 2016 and is still not feature complete (SSS, volumetrics . . .).
It took four years from the deprecation of OpenGL/CL 2018 till v8beta with Metal UI and Apple silicon support.
If a full port of Falcon CPU (C++?) to Metal API is feasible for a single developer without help from Apple I don't know.
Hello,
A while back in this thread - Attention: Metal, Big Sur and Apple Silicon - in response to my question about shadows in the Metal 3D viewport, Martin wrote…
Back to now… The M3 chips are the newest and, as the OP pointed out, they are the first chips in a Mac to support hardware ray tracing.
This still leaves the vast majority of the Macs currently being used for C3D lacking support for hardware ray tracing.
So even though the first Macs with factory hardware ray tracing have now hit the street, nothing has changed regarding the capabilities of the vast majority of Mac hardware.
As time moves along and new Mac OS updates drop support for older boxes, eventually the vast majority of Macs being used to run C3D will have hardware ray tracing. It seems that will be the time to ask the question again.
cheers,
gsb
A while back in this thread - Attention: Metal, Big Sur and Apple Silicon - in response to my question about shadows in the Metal 3D viewport, Martin wrote…
Back to now… The M3 chips are the newest and, as the OP pointed out, they are the first chips in a Mac to support hardware ray tracing.
This still leaves the vast majority of the Macs currently being used for C3D lacking support for hardware ray tracing.
So even though the first Macs with factory hardware ray tracing have now hit the street, nothing has changed regarding the capabilities of the vast majority of Mac hardware.
As time moves along and new Mac OS updates drop support for older boxes, eventually the vast majority of Macs being used to run C3D will have hardware ray tracing. It seems that will be the time to ask the question again.
cheers,
gsb
I think Martin has done a great job with Cheetah. I'm not sure if he still feels the same as he did some years back, but back then he was determined to keep Cheetah affordable and easy to use. One reason why Cheetah is reasonably priced is because it's mostly a one man show. And that's also the reason why Martin can't implement everything. If you want a team of ten developers, with all the up to date bells and whistles, then you will pay for it (except for "Blunder", but that's a different case.)
At the end of the day, software is a tool. You use the software that does what you need, and avoid the ones that don't.
Cheetah occupies a fairly unique place in today's 3D world, certainly on the Mac side.
At the end of the day, software is a tool. You use the software that does what you need, and avoid the ones that don't.
Cheetah occupies a fairly unique place in today's 3D world, certainly on the Mac side.