Switching from PC to Mac Mini with Vray

[bertholt_schroeder]

I'm looking to switch over all my hardware from PC to Mac. Currently I run 3DS Max with Vray on Nvidia Graphics card. Theoretically, it seems like I could switch to Maya with Vray on a Mac Mini (M1). Does the M1 Mac Mini perform well for Vray with Maya?

[sirio76]

I’m not even sure it will run right now on M1, I read about Vray for sketchup running using Rosetta 2, so it maybe possible despite not delivering full performance or complete features.
AFAIK developers are already porting the code for M1/ARM so it’s better to wait for a native version. Seems to remember that Maya was running fine (not sure if running natively though).
Be aware that M1 is an entry level 4core SoC so you can’t expect that much performance for rendering (it is comparable to an average 8core Intel/AMD CPU), video editing is quite fast since have dedicated hardware.
It’s extremely likely that within 2 months Apple will release a new faster SoC for high end laptop and before the end of the year they can also refresh Mac mini and other low end machine, personally I would wait for faster hardware and native Vray support.

[Robert]

I can confirm that Blender, C4D and Modo run well on the M1 with Vray (not Blender). However Chaos is a pure Autodesk/Cuda flavor company. Meaning they probably do not give much on further adapting to other software and GPU solutions. But as the future is GPU and the M1max is benchmarked even with 3080mobil you will have all you need in GPU render like Octane, Redshift and CyclesX (which is said to get very close to V-Ray GPU). But, of course not all software runs perfect on the Silicon chip yet. So C4D is said to be the adapted software, and it also got V-Ray 5.0 running. I use V-Ray still, but I see myself forced to drop it on the Mac. Chaos did stated that they want to do a support for the M1, but knowing Chaos since 20 years, it isn't meaning anything. Yeah, I know thats frustrating as V-Ray is really superbe product. Also I would strongly recommend you not switching to Maya. Its not creative artist tool, but a studio tool. It has thousand of problem when you try to work like in Max. I switch to Modo 10 years ago coming straight from Max and Maya. Never regret that move. But I think the future is Blender. So amount of add-ons and resource are just brillant and it has very strong development. Its probably the closed software to 3dsmax, with a modifier stack and good modeling tools.