With the recent announcement of Apple transitioning to their own chips using ARM ISA, will SideFX port Houdini to this or will there be anything stopping them outside of business decisions? As a Mac user I am quite confused. The new HW could mean that the Apple experiemce will be even better but that there will be quite a lot of SW that will not run good if at all.
Have SideFX commented on this? Will they? (please do!)

There is a lot of 3rd party libraries used in Houdini. Some of them will be easy to compile on the ARM other not.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/porting_your_macos_apps_to_apple_silicon [developer.apple.com]

OpenGL is deprecated, but is available on Apple silicon.
OpenCL is deprecated, but is available on Apple silicon when targeting the GPU. The OpenCL CPU device is not available to arm64 apps

It seems like a porting to the Metal is required and (IMHO) that looks like a lot of work for a very little benefit.
Also, Apple's exclusivity for AMD GPU bans some interesting technology like Optix.


ARM is a very interesting platform for various reasons but I think it takes a few years before ARM-based workstation gets as mainstream as x86-64 in VFX (right now they are also more expensive).

One option will be the remote/cloud-based x86-64 workstation on the Mac.

Anything about this now that M1 macs are released? Does Houdini work at all? Will sidefx support AS macOS by recompiling? Will QT limit adoption? Etc etc?

M1 Macs are not released, they begin shipping next week to most customers. Wait until they're out in the wild, perhaps Houdini will run just fine under Rosetta 2.

My understanding is that SideFX and Apple have a ‘relationship’ of sorts which is why Houdini is not a Windows/Linux only app. My guess is that we'll see a Universal version of Houdini 18.5 as soon as Apple releases some “pro” machines considering that not many people are going to buy a Mac Book Air or a Mac Mini to run Houdini on it.

My advice for any OS X user at this time would be to stick with Intel CPU's until there's a clearer roadmap for not just Houdini, but all of the other 3rd party apps such as render engines, as well as ancillary apps like Substance Painter.

And wait for the real performance of the M1, to see how they go from day to day.

Now that they’re officially out in the wild, very curious to see Houdini benchmarks, even running in that Rosetta 2 emulation mode.

I wish someone would confirm it works at all on M1 computers.

Geez you guys are an impatient bunch!

If you want confirmation, go buy one, try Houdini out, and if it doesn't meet your expectations return the computer within 30 days and you'll know the answer.

Houdini 18.5 on Apple Silicon M1 Mac Mini under Rosetta 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAnZDBiR8Z0&feature=youtu.be [www.youtube.com]

I really hope that Houdini can run natively on Apple Silicon (Even if it's still on OpenGL/CL before any possible Metal transition), considering that the following models of MacBooks may have very good performance-to-watts ratio comparing to x86-based mobile workstations, and probably has better render / preview performance on GPU renders due to their unified RAM.

Well.. apperantly M1.. is faster than macbook pro i7 4 core. in Houdini + 3delight as render engine.. soo.. yeah it is already faster than.. all 4 core laptops.. apperantly the upcoming macbook pro 16.. will have 8 high performance cores + 4 efficient cores.. currently m1 have 4 highperformance and 4 efficient.. so kinda we will get double performance with mean… it will be… faster than all 8 core laptops… like Ryzen 4900H etc.. Currently the Ryzen 4900H gets around 10k score in CB23… and M1 get's 7k

considering that ARM CPU&GPU uses same memory.. the M1 have kinda 16GB GPU… if macbook pro 16.. and M2 chip will have for example 32GB memory.. that will mean.. that we can do some pretty nice GPU volume sims etc… not even mentioning what will happen if they will make 64GB version.

i think the future of 3D on apple hardware is finally looking good!

So, has anything more been said regarding support for AS Macs?

i asked on support

apr 22:

"Side Effects Support Ticket: #98593

Hello Maciek,
We haven't received any on our offices yet.
We do know that the M1 is incapable of running Tesselation shaders with Geometry shaders. It's a known issue (at least to Apple)."

Maybe we can start campaign to donate Mac M1 or upcoming M1X to sidefx.. so they can do some work.

They not have one in their office ... lol
Never heard that from a Quality Assurance department.

Hmmm... If sidefx had any interest in supporting the M1/AS they would of course have had the Devkit since last summer and a few M1 since release in November. I really hope this is not the correct info because if it is, H on Mac AS doesn't seems like it will happen at all. The issues when using it right now using rosetta is not very good and the last half year has not led to any bug fixes for things like height fields etc. For reference, Isotropix/Clarisse seems to be in the same situation and Mac users should quickly snag intel machines while those are available in order to have usable systems for the coming years. When AS pro machines are available (at the end of 2022?) maybe the situation will change. An official statement from sidefx would be good in order to plan ahead.

Hi, does this mean the same issues that are already known would persist on a windows bootcamp installed on the new macbook pro as well? Thanks!

Please SideFX,

Build this.

Any descriptions of which OS version works with Houdini 18.5? I have been trying to get Apprentice to launch on 11.3.1 using a variety of different installs (18.5+) and hangs on start after manual license key installation.

r

r

rdurnin
Any descriptions of which OS version works with Houdini 18.5? I have been trying to get Apprentice to launch on 11.3.1 using a variety of different installs (18.5+) and hangs on start after manual license key installation.

r

I have used multiple. Did you get prompted to install Rosetta?

timothytai
Hi, does this mean the same issues that are already known would persist on a windows bootcamp installed on the new macbook pro as well? Thanks!

BootCamp has been announced not to work on the Apple M1, however.

Any news to this on Houdini 19?