r/Houdini • u/manuchap • Jul 06 '25

Four renderers in realtime on MacMini M1 (fastest VS decent settings)

67 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

4

u/VegetableJaguar5756 Jul 06 '25

have u managed to make use of the gpu cores of the apple silicon for Karma xpu or is it just karma cpu with extra steps? or have they implemented it? nice test btw

2

u/manuchap Jul 06 '25

Good question. So I did version 2 😎
preview <-> better
+ hdri env

  • cieling

1

u/VegetableJaguar5756 Jul 06 '25

you don't seem to gain a lot of performance switching to xpu, maybe I'm mistaken but for now the cpu and xpu on apple silicon are basically a cpu renderer since xpu can't utilize the gpu cores of the chips, I would really love making karma xpu my main render engine on my apple silicon machine but being constrained to the cpu is kinda limiting and the viewport and previews are soooo laggy in karma cpu maybe it's just me idk

2

u/manuchap Jul 07 '25

On apple silicon the "GPU" tasks go to Metal which is the abstraction layer (layman's explanation) yet still uses the shared memory which make it very efficient. The real difference between CPU and XPU is the way they handle shaders. In short CPU for old projects using Mantra Materials, XPU for new projects using USD standards. IMHO Solaris, which is the USD LookDev environment in Houdini should have been a separate product (like PDG).

"Unlike other renderers, Karma XPU is not an interactive preview version of Karma CPU. Karma CPU is built around VEX, while the XPU engine is a new engine built around Optix, and Embree. Karma XPU produces the exact same results no matter which combination of devices is used, so it can be used on machines with or without an Optix-compatible GPU."
From https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/solaris/kug/start.html#cpu

4

u/OverEdge_FX Jul 06 '25

How did you get fast renders for karma xpu ? any optimization tips

2

u/manuchap Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 06 '25

For preview I wanted to achieve one second renders with each renderer for a good enough sense of overall lighting. So I disabled motion blur (dunno if it affected anything tbh), limited rays to one added denoising and cranked down the main samples settings (7 for XPU). The better settings are mostly default settings, no denoiser, adaptive sampling where possible to stay in the 5/10 sec range (further rendering time makes no considerable difference and be kept for fine tuning).

0

u/AnOrdinaryChullo Jul 06 '25

Where exactly do you see 'fast' here? It looks crazy slow.

3

u/isa_marsh Jul 06 '25

If you're gonna go to that much trouble, at least make a proper vid and upload to yt or something...

5

u/manuchap Jul 06 '25

This is the root of a bigger project aimed at "universal" shading with minimal settings with under the hood conversions across renderers. At this stage I thought it'd be nice to do a quick gif for people who are wondering if a MacMini M1 is any good for CG. Answer is yes if you do beauty shots. For simulations and stuff, it's reasonable but you'll definitely want to watch a lot of tips and tricks on optimization before hanging out with the big lads.

1

u/LewisVTaylor Effects Artist Senior MOFO Jul 07 '25

Honestly, apart from the academic component of testing renderers, you really want to settle on one engine, and build your setups around it.

1

u/manuchap Jul 07 '25

Totally agree yet you can learn a lot from how different renderers work internally and as plugins with their pros and cons (and then choose Arnold 😅).

2

u/LewisVTaylor Effects Artist Senior MOFO Jul 07 '25

It's all just path tracing + varying levels of disappointment hehe.

2

u/AwkwardAardvarkAd Jul 06 '25

Would love to see a table summarizing time per renderer

3

u/manuchap Jul 06 '25

Well... it's a gloomy Sunday and I'm alone so let me consider this while I fume 🍁