Maxon ships Redshift for Mac
Originally posted on 13 April 2021. Scroll down for news of native support for M1 processors.
Maxon has officially released Redshift for Mac, the new macOS edition of Redshift, its GPU renderer.
Native support for Apple’s Metal graphics API is available in Redshift 3.0.43, the current production build; support for Apple’s new M1 processors will follow after the release of macOS 11.3.
Updated 30 April 2021: Native M1 support is now available in Redshift 3.0.45.
The changes make it possible for users of host apps that run on macOS – now including Blender, Cinema 4D, Houdini and Maya – to use the renderer on current Mac laptops and workstations.
Native support for Apple’s Metal API makes it possible to run Redshift on new Macs again
First rolled out as a public beta last year, the port from Nvidia’s CUDA to Apple’s Metal as a GPU computing API will enable Redshift to run properly on current Mac hardware.
Apple no longer supports Nvidia cards, even as eGPUs, and in any case, CUDA no longer supports macOS.
To run on Macs, Redshift currently requires macOS 11 Big Sur, and either an AMD Navi or Vega GPU, AMD’s current- and next-generation graphics cards.
That means a machine less than three years old: Navi GPUs first became available in Mac desktops in late 2017 with the iMac Pro, reaching Mac laptops the following year.
You can see a full list of supported GPUs here.
Native support for M1 processors to follow ‘in the next few weeks’
While Metal support is available today in Redshift 3.0.43 – according to the Redshift Trello board, it’s actually been available since version 3.0.38 in February – anyone with a really new Mac will have to wait a bit longer.
Although Maxon is working on native support for M1 chips, the first of the new Apple Silicon processors, which rolled out late last year, it won’t be available until Apple releases macOS 11.3.
Updated 30 April 2021: Native support for M1 processors is now available in Redshift 3.0.45. Compiled binaries of the software are available for both AMD and M1 Macs.
You can see an overview of the other new features in the update on the Redshift Trello board.
Pricing and system requirements
Redshift 3.0.45 is available for 64-bit Windows 7+, glibc 2.17+ Linux and macOS 11.0+. It costs $500 for a node-locked licence; $600 for a floating licence.
The renderer’s integration plugins are compatible with 3ds Max 2014+, Blender 2.83+, Cinema 4D R17+, Houdini 17.0+ (18.0+ on macOS), Katana 3.0v1+ and Maya 2014+ (2016.5+ on macOS).