Rhino very slow on M1 Mac

@venamly, @benjamin_beck, @Giulio1

did you try Rhino 8 WIP and run the command TestMetal?
I don’t own an M1 Mac, but did a very quick tests with a friends M1. Turning on TestMetal in shaded display mode, resulted in a near 10x increase of the frame-rate.

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@rudolf.neumerkel thanks a lot!! indeed this works way better but feels still pretty weak regarding the performance the M1 should bring…

The Metal backend is still work in progress.

I used Rhino 6 & 7 in MacBook Pro 2017 model with Intel chip and it work with an average performance. Recently I bought a MacBook Pro 16 M1 Max 2021 thinking that it would have a better performance as Rhino employees repeatedly said on this forum that it’s compatible. And it’s incredibly slow. Obviously it’s not working and exhausting to even try using it with 10 MB files will low number of surfaces.

So, RHINO 7 & RHINO WIP is not supported for Apple’s new silicon based chips. Stop saying that it does…

Unfortunately, I’m either gonna sell the MacBook and buy a HP Zbook or use different software. There’s certainly a market for MACOS 3D and rhino is not fulfilling andnot even trying to…

Shame…

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Just to make sure you already tried this:

The point is Intel Mac Rhino does run on the new Macs. It does not run well.
Since you can not buy a new Intel CPU Mac, you are left with finding a late model used Mac, or a Windows PC.

We have high hopes for a binary Silicon Mac version of Rhino for V8.

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… and while it currently seems like Rhino 8 will be the solution to running Rhino on a mac with Apple Silicon, we are looking into making Rhino 7 work better than it is. But it’s not an easy thing to do…
-wim

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Dear John,
Tomatoes Tomatos, So basically you are saying : lets hope that Mcneel produces a functioning version for the new Macs? And we don’t know if that will be in this year or the next 5. Very unfortunate. Just bought a really suposingly fast MacBook Pro M1Pro-OS Monterey. And waited to buy a full Rhino version until I made the transfer from Windows to Mac. But now you tell me that my favourite 3D program will not run properly for a long time on M1Pro chips?.

Dear Wim,

When will Rhino 8 for Mac be out you think?

Yes. That’s pretty much what I’m saying.

The first 2 or 3 versions of Rosetta did not work at all.
Then a better build of the Rosetta tools came out and Intel Rhino ran pretty well. This caught everyone flat-footed.
The current performance is not good and we are not at all happy about it.
As Wim said, we are working to try to improve V7 performance.

As in all Rhino development, we do not have release dates until the work is done. For a viable V8 Mac Rhino, it will need to install and run reliably on both Intel and ARM processor Macs. That’s a new trick we need to figure out.
I am disappointed by this process and how frustrating it is for both users and us.

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Hi Ivan -

I see that you just joined this forum, welcome!
We never try to predict when a new version will be released and pretty much always just say that it will be released when it’s ready.

That said, these days I only run Rhino 7 if I absolutely need to - and that’s only when I need to test fixes that are specific to Rhino 7. As a Rhino 7 user, you can use Rhino 8 with the same license until it is ready to be released.
-wim

Thank you John. Yes, Apple is just an arrogant bunch of … And they could have done some more backstage developer preppings. a very unfortunate attitude. that being said.

Thank you for creating such an amazing program. I hope we find a solution soon or I have to throw my Macbook out.

Maybe there are better options in the mean time…

How do you use Rhino?
Is Rendering performance important to you or not?
Are your files large and complex?

Dear Wim, thank you.

This is a bit the problem, I do not have a license yet, just a 90 days trial. I used to use Rhino on Windows, recently bought a M1macbook pro.

until it its released… I assume if it will be released I am able to buy the liuscence?
I would like to buy a full licence, but of course will not buy it for a nonfunctioning Rhino 7(On Monterey) Is there a way, if the trial is over (I currently have 90 days Rhino 7), to buy the Rhino 8 licence?, or get a transfer?

Hi Ivan -

No, that’s not possible. Rhino 8 licenses won’t exist until it gets released.
-wim

Rendering not to important. I use Rhino pretty basic. for sculpture/architecture modelling . Files sometimes around 200mb. when hiding objects etc it just takes forever and computer gets stuck for seconds after seconds. What options do you know off?

The V8 WIP with TestMetal turned on should work pretty well.
If you run into issues, report them with repeatable example in the Serengeti Category so we can fix them.

If you can find a good deal on a late model Intel CPU/AMD GPU Mac, that would be good too.

Thank you. I just downloaded Rhino WIP. I only have a trial version for next 90 days on Rhino 7. How would `I be able to run Rhino WIP. is there a trial version of that if you don’t own a licence yet?, do I need to buy a licence for Rhino 7? - this would off course not really work for me.

No.
Participation in the Work-In-Progress requires you own a purchased permanent license.
Sorry.

Well, off course I am stating the obvious and I will try it again. Is there a way I can buy a Licence that eventually also works for Rhino 8 (which will work for M1Pro) Its not really attractive for me to pay that amount of money just fort a beta version and then pay again if it releases. Is there a way we can work this out? Thank you