Carrara and Mac with M2
BrianP21361
Posts: 812
It's been more than a dozen years since I purchased a new computer so I got a new Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra chip. It has 24 CPU coes, 60 GPU cores, 2 TB of hard disk space and 64 GB of memory. for comarison, my old iMac is a 3.4 GHz Quad Core with an Intel i7. It has a 1 TBhard drive and 16 GB of memory.
I've been using Carrara since v1 and Infini-D before that and have hundreds of Carrara files that I don't want to recreate in another software. I've created this discussion to cronical my journety with the newcomputer to document the issues that I encounter and also ask for help when appropriate.
Before anyone tells me to buy a PC, let me just say that I hope this doesn't turn into a Mac vs. PC discussion. I use a Mac and PC at work every day and I strongly prefer the Mac.
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As you'd guess, Carrara won't run on the M2 Mac. Well, it kind of does. It will open, load content and even render a scene. Unfortunately the scree is mostly blank, except when it's in the background (see attached images). I'm assuming it's because OpenGL was depricated, but maybe not. In any case, it's not useable.
First, congrats on what sounds like a great computer, I both envy and hate you.
Second, thanks for starting the thread. I also started with Infini-D (after Swivel 3D and Macromedia 3D before that) and will be following the thread in hopes of a happy ending. I haven't installed Carrara since I got an M1 iMac as I was having issues with newer operating systems and I felt it would be a waste of time, I'm really hoping you can prove me wrong.
Finally, I totally understand the PC/Mac sentiment. Before retiring I used Windows roughly 40 hours a week for over 15 years; I *can* use Windows without real issues, but for me it always feel like I'm wearing a real nice pair of sneakers that are always half-a-size too small. Sure, I can walk around and even run in them, but it's not comfortable, and now that I'm retired, I'm all about the comfort.
-- Walt Sterdan
I decided to try DAZ Studio first since I'd still be able to use most of the content I've purchased. I'm an occasional Studio user and really just open it to convert content so that it will work in Carrara then save it as duf files for import. The rendered is good (but very slow on a Mac), but the interface is a little confusing. Better to learn a software package then give up my 3D hobby. I forgot to mention that i use Carrara as a hobby and render mostly superhero scenes. The real problem withStudio is that it won't render using the Mac's GPU. Why have a powerful 60 core machine if Ican't take advantage of it. Studio is still one of my backups and I may go back to it.
I tried Blender next. I had assumed that Blender will use my GPU and since there's a Studio to Blender bridge this might be a good option. I downloaded the latest version of Blender (4.0) and OMG, the interface is going to take a lot of learning. Unfortunately, the DAZ bridge doesn't support 4.0 so I downloaded 3.6. I loaded a simple Hot Dog Cart into Studio and exported it with the bridge. I opened it in Blender. None of the shaders transferred and some of the geometry was missing. I tried a simple render and got frustrated after about an hour. I haven't given up on Blender. yet. Maybe going through a few tutorials and trying other scenes from Studio will give better results.
Next I tried virtualization. Why? Because it would allow me to use allmy old Carrara files and content without learning new software or reloading them. I downloaded a trial (14 days) od Parallels to give it a try.
My first attempt with Parallelswas to load an old Mac OS. I decided to go back to Yosemite. It was the first OS released after Carrara 8.5 and was stable with it. Parallels wouldn't let me install Yosemite. It said I needed to do it on a Mac that supported it. I loaded Parallels onto my old iMac and created a virtual Yosemite OS that I tried to port to the Mac Studio. That didn't work either.
My next attempt was to virtualize Windows 11. That was simple, mostly because Parallels was created mainly for that. I got Carrara up and running by downloading it from DAZ and entering my serial number. OK. So here's where all the PC people ask me why virtualize Windows when I could just buy a PC and run Carrara natively. I may do that in the future with additional testing. (Remeber I have a PC at work that I can use.) Carrara runs very well in the virtualized Windows. I can access and load all my old Carrara files on my Mac. The good news is that Carrara looks identical (the interface) on a PC and a Mac. The only time I can tell which platform I'm using is when I open or save files. I can even save Carrara files to the Mac and also rendered scenes. sounds good, but how good.
I played around with core settings, memory allocation... and ended up allocating 20 cores to Windows with 16 GB of memeory. It doesn't seem to effect the performance of my Mac when running the rest of the software I use. I did bench marks with identical scenes on both machines. In general, the virtualized Studio with 2o cores rendered 4 times faster than the iMac. Not perfect, but certainly an improvement. i'm in the process of loading my old plugins and getting Carrara content installed and setting up my runtimes.
Overall, I'm happy (not ecstatic) with virtualizing Carrara in Windows on my new Mac Studio.
I'll continue to post my progress. In the mean time if anyone has any suggestions or criticisms (other than just get a PC) please post.
Thanks.
Brian
Walt,
Thanks for respponding and for the encouraging message. I also started with Swivel3D, in black and white no less. As you can see, I've made some good progress with virtualization. I'd still like to get native GPU renderer. Maybe Blender ot Octane, if the Carrara plugin is still available. Otoy offers a free year for M2 Mac owners.
I forgot to mention an issue I encountered. Rendering in general with the Mac Studio is about 4x faster, except when I used Global Illumination. It was much slower than the iMac then. I prefer using light domes to Global Illumination so it shouldn't be much of a problem.
you may want to look at Unreal Engine and Twnmotion as another option
DAZ bridges are iffy at best for Blender most use diffomorphic
Wendy,
I'll add Unreal to my list. Can you use morphs and pose figures in Unreal?
yes
not as intuitively but it's possible
Thanks.
Blendshapes requires using the curve editor in the animation settings that's why I say not intuitively
but, if you are codey there are Blueprints and scripts and you can do wonderful things if you own an iPhone with the ArKit
OMG just watched this on YouTube
Looks amazing. Unfortunately I don't have any coding abilities. I'm willing to give it a try.
Thank you Brian for sharing your journey. I'm thinking about replacing my 11 year old Mac mini, that is still working fine, with a new one. I know that Carrara does not work well on the more recent versions of macOS. And virtualization is limited to OS-ses with the same architecture as the host.
On the Parallels website it reads:
I don't known why your old iMac does not want to accept Yosemite OS as a guest. But if your old iMac is an Intel mac then it should be possible.
I was able to create the virtual environment on the iMac. I tried migrating it to parallels on the Studio. It didn't recognize it as an OS.
instill want to try an older Mac OS. Maybe Monterey. I don't think that Carrara will run on it but it's worth a try.
been mnaking good progress. No real issues yet. I've installed a couple of plugins. I'm going to add them one at a time to identify conflicts if there are any. I didn't need to reinstall any content. I manually added my runtimes into Carrara's content tab while they were on the Mac since I can shgare folders with Windows. Worked with shaders to. I'll try objects next.
Doies anyone have an opinion if I shopuld install Studio for Windiows to get CMS running. It doesn't seem like I need CMS. I know it will autofind my runtimes in Carrara if I do, but manually loading them seems to work. I did get a couple of can't find ... duf file, but thgat happened on my iMac too.
Hello,
Might be out of strange waters, I don't know if latest mac os is supported, but have you tried WInehq or similar emulation software?
On Linux I was able to successfully run Carrara 8, unfortunately Carrara 8.5 version might fail, if I remember correctly, it requires DAZ3D instal manager to install, which doesn't work, but if anyone could supply installer of 8.5 that should be found somewhere in the system, it could work. to my understanding DAZ3D instal manager just downloads the regular Carrara 8.5 installer and installs it, why they introduced that horrid thing I don;t know, ruined my time with Carrara 8.5 on Linux. But Carrara 8 and 8.5 beta versions prior DAZ3D install manager used to work.
So if Winehq works on your version of Mac OS, chances are you might be able to run windows version of Carrara, some plug-ins may be problematic, but majority of things used to work well.
Danas,
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm open to tryingLinux. What do you think the benefits will be. Will it render faster? That's my primary concern.
I don't know that much about the differences between different versions of Windows, but I suspect that the only versions of Windows that will run under emulation are ARM-based ones, and I suspect Carrara isn't compatible with ARM Windows.
Again, far, far from a Windows expert, but I suspect that's the issue you'll have running Carrara under emulation. Hopefully I'm wrong...
-- Walt Sterdan
Walt,
It's actually running very well under emulation with Windows 11. I think that Parallels uses a special version of ARM Windows that allows it to work. I don't need to understand it, just use it.
Excellent! I know that Parallels uses ARM Windows, but I'd thought you were having trouble with it with Carrara on your new Mac, so I thought Carrara might not be happy with it. I'm very happy that I'm wrong.
Walt,
So far,I haven't had an issues. I've been manually adding content, shaders, and plugins. One of the nice things about Parallels is that I can share allmy Mac drives with Windows. I don't need to reinstall anything. I just have to manually load them. Except plugins because they have to be in special folders.
Thanks for your help!
I haven't posed in a while so I thought I'd give a quick update. I've been using Carrara with Parallels for about 4 months and haven't had any reall issues with it. It does crash once and a while, but not often. I haven't found and plugins or content that don't work. So far, I'm very satisfied.
Thanks for the update, much appreciated.
I've also been using an Apple M2 for a few days.
Parallels to emulate Windows 11. It took a while until everything was back to normal.
But it works very well and the speed increase over the old I9 is huge - same image 1600 x 900
with i9 3 hours with M2 about 30 minutes.
It was a very good step. :) although Carrara unfortunately doesn't run on Mac OS. I can recommend it.
The good news is that the interface for the Mac/Windows are identical. I didn't need to relearn anything. Parallels is also amazing at sharing files between the Mac and Windows. I didn't need to move any files except Presets and Plugins because they sit in the main program folder. All the files I've created and my runtimes work from the Mac drives.
Khoe,
How many cores/memory/disk space did you allocate to Parallels? Did you see much of a difference by changing any of those settings?
I have an M2 Max with 12 CPU. I assigned 10 of these to Paralles. Ram 32 gig from 62.
I also tested with 8 CPUs and the difference is not very big. but the difference to the i9 or even I7 from Intel is very big.
I have an M2 Ultra with 24 CPU cores. I've given 22 of them to Parallels with 32 GB of RAM. I did a series of tests and that's what I got the best results with. As I said previously its about 4 times faster.