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224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
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Yes: I have a M1 Pro Macbook Pro and Daz runs on it (of course, renders are done by the CPU and that's unlikely to change in the futur, especially considering how much bad blood there is between Apple and Nvidia).
From what I can see, the biggest difference between M2 and M3 is on the GPU: M3 GPU can do hardware raytracing (it's unlikely to help with Daz even with the mythical Daz 5 but they are 3D rendering applications that run natively on Apple silicon).
Having said that, Mac Studio is currently only available with M2 chips, so if you need one right now, it's not like you have any choice. If you can wait, the M2 update happened in June 2023 (likely around the WWDC conference), so the M3 Mac Studio will maybe be launched in June 2024, for the next WWDC.
Hi there, inquire!
As the others have pointed out, DS 4.2.x.x versions do run under Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon (M-series) Macs.
I've been running DS successfully on an M1 iMac and M1 Macbook Air. Around a year ago, I also purchased an HP Omen 40L gaming PC with an Nvidia 3060 (12GB VRAM) specifically for rendering with DS. It's around 7 to 10 times faster rendering than my M1 Macs. That's a wonderful speed up and the newer Nvidia cards render substantially quicker than the 3060.
However, I still daily use my iMac to set up my scenes and render. I use the PC every few days/weeks for rendering as I'm not the biggest fan of Windows 11. It gets the job done just fine, but Windows requires a bit more attention to keep it running well. The PC feels like a pet that you have to take care of. The Mac feels like it's taking care of me. LOL.
I'm still waiting for Apple to release an iMac Pro with at least an M3 variant (Pro, Max, or Ultra) -or- an updated Mac Studio with a high end M3/M4 variant. I'd also get the Apple Pro Display XDR to go with the Mac Studio. I have a feeling that the Mac Studio and Pro Display XDR is the combo that I'll be picking up later this year. DAZ Studio 5 will likely not make use of the M3 GPU/hardware ray tracing for rendering (unless Filament can use it), at least for Iray. However, CPU rendering on the M2 Ultra is, I believe, 2 to 3 (3 to 4?) times faster than the M1. So that's a nice improvement for CPU rendering on the Mac.
In any event, I'm disappointed that DAZ hasn't released an Apple Silicon native version of DS yet. I know it's a tough road for them due to the technical changes/challenges between Qt 4 to Qt 6. It's just that it's been 4-ish years since Apple Silicon arrived. It would be nice to at least have native performance instead of the overhead of running in Rosetta 2. But, everything is tied to the Qt 4 to 6 transition. I don't envy the DAZ developers task of updating DS while maintaining and enhancing the current version. I'm just getting impatient. :) LOL!
Since I'm rambling, I'll try to end my thoughts with a summary of my situation for a new Mac:
I will almost certainly wait for an M3/M4 based Mac Studio due to the hardware ray tracing regardless of whether DS will make use of it or not. There are other applications that can and those (and future apps) might be helpful in my DAZ workflow. Plus the incrementally better CPU performance. And with a Pro Display XDR, I'll have a large monitor that I can use in landscape or portrait mode as needed (I render quite a lot of standing portraits.) That's about it based on my needs. :)
The Wrinkle: I keep putting the top spec 16" Macbook Pro (M3 Max) in my Apple Store cart and taking it back out. I really do want a desktop Mac for daily use. One day I might actually buy it and then get the Mac Studio that I really want when it becomes available.
Lee
Thanks to all of you for your thoughtful replies. I've had an experience with Rosetta 1. I think it's when Apple switched from the Motorola chip to the Power PC chip, or was it from the Power PC chip to the Intel chip? In any case, I could run some of the applications in Rosetta 1. Then, Apple dropped Rosetta 1 and those applications could no longer run.
One such application was Final Cut Express.
So I hope DAZ will get a version of DAZ Studio running natively on the M chips because Apple may eventually drop Rosetta 2.