[lh.clement]

I would like to share my thoughts concerning the new Maxwell 5 for OSX workstations.
I have no ideas how people are sharing this situation (not so much I think) !

What are the big new features of this brand new Maxwell 5 ? CUDA or GPU rendering with no doubts !

Is this working an Apple machines ? NO !
Will it work in a short time period ? NO !
Could you install an external Nvidia Card ? NO !
Apple has stopped all support for Nvidia Cards early this year and there no informations saying they will

At the end of the day, what do we have ? A new button for Farm renderings and an auto save ! Great news ! As was expecting much more !!!!
As a Rhino users, I was used to finalise my renderings within studio, But I discovered that it was not included anymore ! (it was supposed to be a nice gesture as M4 was poorly integrated ). I really feel that OSx users are left over…
Giving studio with the plugin would be a fair move from Next Limit to our community

What do you think ?

Please post your comments

[Christian Zuppinger]

I really feel that OSx users are left over…

Yes, but initially by Apple as they have neglected the CUDA system by Nvidia. That makes the OSX platform currently a less attractive option for GPU rendering. I have been a Mac user for 20 years and still using it for tasks not related to rendering, but for GPU-acceleration (rendering and simulation) I am using Windows now. Some companies offer GPU-acceleration of rendering by OpenCL that exists for all OS and both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards (Maxon, e-onsoftware), but it is not a very popular option so far.

[Nasok]

Well .. I haven't tried Maxwell 5 on Mac .. since I'm waiting for plugins to be released first. But honestly I don't think that in every case you would need studio on Mac.
Maybe in case of Rhino .. yes. In case of Maya - if Maxwell v5 plugin for Maya would be at least same as Maxwell V4 plugin for Maya on Mac -then I'm fine - since in such DCC packages like Maya, 3D Max, cinema and etc - you rarely would use Studio standalone, tbh. However in case where visualisation is secondary, like Rhino, Solidworks, Sketchup and etc - then maybe - ya ..
I agree not much for Mac users on this release ... my bets are on Random material / colour / texture randomiser - not even much concerned about autosave ..

Altho cloud rendering could be a handy feature for production. Would definitely use it.