since Apple has now trumpeted out some groundbreaking news, after quickly checking what this is about i am still left riddled, since all the sources i have found just ruminate what has been said by apple on their launch. so here the big question, is that anything we can use for Rhino, should i be throwing my stupid expensive Studio M1 Ultra out the window already?
The initial ship date for the M3 I gather is next week.
I’m at a loss to understand how anyone here could possibly know what you’re asking since no one has one yet.
We will eventually purchase one and see.
I suspect other people; perhaps like yourself, will also buy them and let us know what benefits or problems they run into.
That’s how we find out, just like everybody else.
Sorry I’m not more help
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so you are saying that my question is of utter indelicacy? 
i am asking because if at all i shine anywhere most, most certainly not at computer science. hardware accelerated raytracing just sounds like something somebody working at McNeel knows certainly far more about, i hope at least, otherwise i should switch to Microsoft Word for doing CAD from now on 
Accelerated hardware raytracing is something that most GPUs are capable of, certainly recent generation Nvidia, AMD, and Intel hardware. It’s just that Apple has done it now, so it is revolutionary… again.
Rhino I think will already to hardware acceleration using CUDA/OptiX from Nvidia (as it is Cycles engine).
You can find examples on YouTube to see it in use. 
Not at all. Just that no one here has any insights into the realities behind (if any), Apple’s marketing hype.
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that option practically does not exist anymore, the support from Nvidia was dropped many years ago and V8 has a system OS requirement way above the last supported version.
the question is obviously about the general idea and knowledge, i would never trust myself in even trying to speculate in realms of marketing at Apple.
so whats the story… being a coach potato till reality hits? or anybody willing to shed some meshes into this topic…
There’s only iMacs and MacBook Pros that are getting the M3 for now. The top-of-the line M3 Max is about on par with the M2 Ultra.
You’ll have to wait for the refreshed M3 Ultra to see some improvments.
Check here Geekbench Search - Geekbench
Single/multi-core, approx.:
M3 Max: 3000/21000
M2 Ultra: 2800/21000
M1 Ultra: 2400/18000
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good to know that i am not that far behind. i am not benchmark fan usually, if the computer feels good its ok, also till beginning of this year i still worked on a 2014 macbook pro and felt little significant difference in rendering on the m1 till the new cycles came out. i worked at a company where the new cycles would have been dearly needed instead of the fastest mac out there. peaking over to windows machines was coming and going and for a while i even followed the volterra project from microsoft because i never felt that its rolling on the mac side.
but what interests me more is if realtime raytracing or mesh shading eventually could be a thing for Rhino, was that ever a thing in Rhino? was that ever a thing in any app other than games? or am i just misunderstanding all that.
ok, so diving a bit into the empty abyss of google, i found a bit info on Mesh Shading, in this link the first comments explains quite succinct what its all about. here some more info about it.
it sounds pretty interesting. we basically are stuck in stone age without it
I am very happy that they finally introduced it. A friend of mine bought a CPU&GPU spected out M3 Max (48GB only though) 14" MBP, which arrives in two weeks.
Let me know if you want me to test some benchmarks.
In the meantime you could do some extrapolation looking at the Blender Benchmark scores of the M2 Max and multiplying them with 1.8-2x(?). That would put the M3 Max close to an Nvidia RTX 4070 Laptop GPU.
I will test it myself once it arrives.
Mesh shading is very similar to tessellation shading which we already use in order to drawn wires/curves.
@stevebaer any news maybe? is there anything you are or will be working on regarding hardware raytracing for mac?
@nathanletwory would you maybe have some idea about the hardware raytracing abilities that came with these releases? anything in it for us for v9?
or is that already beneficial without having to do anything?
I have no idea about Mac hardware, I don’t follow that part of the market as I’m not that interested in it. I have access to an M2 Max, but that is about it. I don’t know how long I have access to that as a MacOS system - it may become a Linux machine (Asashi Linux).
i am a bit confused, is the hardware in this case hardware acceleration not something that is important for rendering? maybe i am just generally wrong with my assumption that this could substitute raytracing?
Not my thread but feel the question was more about if cycles in Rhino 9 will utilize metal to improve ( understatement of the year ) rendering on apple silicon, not a question so much about the hardware itself.
Blender cycles is now very smooth on apple silicon and it would be lovely to have a similar capacity in rhino cycles.
Rhino Cycles already uses Metal in Rhino 8, and will continue to do so in Rhino 9. We’ll be utilizing as much of upstream Cycles as possible, with a set of patches for features we want in Rhino that do not exist in upstream Cycles
Sure it is useful for raytracing. As just said Rhino 8 already uses Metal for Cycles. And anything that is in Cycles of Blender 4.5.3 will also be in use for Rhino 9 where we can enable such usage.
I am just saying that I am not in the habit of following Apple hardware evolution.
yes but since m3 i think or m4 apple introduced hardware accelerated raytracing, my question is if that is beneficial to the rendering or if that is only for real time raytracing and has nothing to do with a render output, or if that hardware acceleration can be utilised to speed up rendering
Apple does make improvements to cycles. Figuring out if anything new was added from Apple in recent years would require some searching around on the internet. We don’t track all the cycles contributions close enough to be able to give you a decent answer.
maybe there is a misunderstanding, i might not explain it well or i am too dumb to grasp that it has nothing to do with rendering, but for either i am still awaiting confirmation.
since apple has introduced new hardware raytracing it should speed up ray tracing in general i assume not just for cycles. but i assume that this has to be connected to cycles for Rhino. it is interesting that apple is involved in the development of cycles but that does not explain how far it speeds up or can potentially speed up rendering in cycles for rhino in general if at all. Rhinos Cycles should probably do the heavy lifting here?
here quoted from apple directly
biggest leap forward in graphics architecture ever for Apple silicon. The GPU is faster and more efficient, and introduces a new technology called Dynamic Caching, while bringing new rendering features like hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading to Mac for the first time. Rendering speeds are now up to 2.5x faster than on the M1 family of chips
and some general info
As far as I know Blender 4.5.3 has Cycles that can use Metal RT, so when in theory we can get it.
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