A DAZ Studio Version to Render in Metal?
inquire
Posts: 2,460
Not sure if this should be in the Developer Discussion, but I'm not a developer. Basically, I'm questioning what happens to the Macintosh version of DAZ Studio if Apple drops Open GL and Open CL, and replaces it with Metal, which it looks likely to do in its upcoming release of OS 10.15. I'm hoping that the developers of DAZ Studio will want to allow Macintosh users to be able to render in the new OS. Is there any interface with Apple on the part of the DAZ Studio Developer Community?
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2026 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Daz usually doesn't give info on what evolutions or features will be coming for Studio.
Edit: removing double post
Yeah, I know. I was hoping for some reassurrance, though.
Daz is aware. Daz has been, and is currently, investigating multiple potential solutions - none of which are Mac specific, and no Mac only solutions will be investigated. Changes of this magnitude involve a rather significant amount of work. That is all that we know at the moment that can be said on the matter. No promises will be made.
OK, Cris. Thank you for that insight.
If OpenGL and OpenCL libraries are included in the video driver, Apple dropping OS support will only affect apps that use Apple's own UI libraries. Presumably, DAZ Studio and Iray should still be able use those libraries?
I don't know. I'm not knowledgable about those things. But will Open GL and Open CL libraries be included in the video driver?
Both AMD and Nvidea currently include OpenCL runtime libraries. I don't see why that would change, nor why they wouldn't include Open GL runtime libraries where the OS doesn't already provide them.
Well, I hope so. But Apple is including a kind of specail twist to the AMD cards that will launch in the new Macs. I think Apple's intent is replace both Open GL and Open CL with what it calls Metal, its own graphic rendering software.
Just found this here: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/270902-apple-defends-killing-opengl-opencl-as-developers-threaten-revolt
" . . . Metal (technically Metal 2 now) is an API designed to minimize CPU usage and limit the amount of time a GPU spends waiting on the CPU to finish processing work. These low-level APIs are quite different from previous versions of OpenGL and DirectX. That difference, according to Apple, is a key component of why it’s deprecating the older standards now. GPU pipelines, support for multi-threading, and asynchronous compute capabilities have all changed a great deal over the past decade, and Apple wants to make a clean break from the past.
. . .
"Right now, Apple is just deprecating the standard. OpenGL won’t be used or preferred, but it isn’t going anywhere, either. But in the future — probably in the next few years — that’ll inevitably change. Again, that’s something we can generally count on, because Apple isn’t in the habit of just leaving support for deprecated capabilities in its operating systems. When it told developers to start prioritizing 64-bit apps in the iOS App Store, it was as a prelude to removing the ability to run 32-bit applications altogether. It’s since told macOS users to prepare for the same transition."
I also think this article is significant: https://architosh.com/2018/08/apple-moving-away-from-opengl-what-is-the-answer-for-developers-now/
I hope you'll consider signing this petition: https://www.change.org/p/tim-cook-apple-publicly-commit-to-work-with-nvidia-on-drivers-for-mac-os-10-14
It basically asks Apple to include drivers for Nvidia cards, and maybe the cards themselves as options, in its new OS 10.15.
Here's an article that does explain Apple's switch to Metal, and the advantages that Metal has over Open GL or Open CL: https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/06/28/why-macos-mojave-requires-metal----and-deprecates-opengl
This made me feel more positive toward Metal.
Apple has lost their minds. OpenGL and OpenCL are, its right their in the name, open standards. Lots of different pieces of software use them and rely on them. Dumping them for their proprietary API means they will squeeze out every piece of software without a big enough dev team to develop a MacOS specific version, and every larger team that will not spend the money to do so.
I'll have to look into how this will effect Windows programs run under Bootcamp. If they are going to mess with OpenGL and OpenCL even running on Windows that could be a real problem.
@kenshaw011267: So, are you running Windows on a Macintosh computer, using Bootcamp? If so, how does that work? Are you questioning if you would be able to continue doing that if OpenGL and OpenCL were dropped in OS 10.15? Wouldn't they be contained within Windows?
I didn't think it was possible, but Keyshot software can now take advantage of graphics acceleration on Macs with Silicon chips (currently in beta testing). I never would have expected this!
So it is possible. When will it be available for Daz?
That's not all that impressive, as Keyshot is OpenGL based.
It's also $1300/year on subscritption.
There's no way, that i'm aware of, to get IRay to operate on apple silicon, as it's dependent on the CUDA architecutre which is strictly Nvidia.
Unless daz incorporates a different render engine, you're gonna be stuck with cpu only on on macs.
To me it is hard to understand how people first gets the hardware then gets the software, only to find the software doesn't run as expected. It is usually better to do the opposite, first look at the software requirements then get the hardware for those requirements. In this respect Apple is of course free to deviate from open standards, provided they will build their own software for everything, or simply lose customers when they can't support an application.
As a former IT guy, it's easy to explain, people don't know spit about computers or software.
In my experience, people usually already have the hardware, then find the software.
I was that way when i got into DS and 3d graphics in general.
Had a potato Atholon 6000+, 6GB of sysram and a GT8400 512MB gpu.
Today, 3 dell workstations(active), 4 HP servers, a half dozen GPUS for rendering only, 300TB of storage, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Might not be the latest and greatest and my electrric bill stinks, but i can crank out just about anything my little brain can come up with.
In regards to macs...i like em, and they frankly kick butt.
For some things.
The lack of software support, not being able to use nvidia, amd or intel gpus for acceleration, lack of upgradeability, and the price premium of their systems makes them not an investment i can make.
Luxion made this possible on Mac by rewriting KeyShot’s graphics engine to leverage Apple Metal and its ray tracing framework instead of the NVIDIA CUDA ecosystem, while taking advantage of the unified memory of Apple Silicon chips (M1 through M4), which allows the graphics card to instantly access all system resources without bottlenecks to process very complex scenes.
From a technical standpoint, there’s no reason why Daz Studio couldn’t follow in KeyShot’s footsteps: its main rendering engine (Nvidia’s Iray) is based on the same fundamental concepts of ray tracing and could easily be adapted or paired with a Metal backend to take advantage of the unified memory and RT cores in Apple Silicon chips. The argument that this port would be financially or technically unfeasible because Daz is free software funded by its 3D content store doesn’t hold water in light of KeyShot’s example; it is first and foremost a matter of engineering and resource allocation, proving that with a commitment to software modernization, exclusive dependence on Nvidia is no longer a technical inevitability on the Mac.
Furthermore, the current memory shortage and the skyrocketing prices of graphics cards are making users particularly cautious about the cost-effectiveness and investment required for configurations that demand a lot of processing power.
This is prompting software developers to find alternatives. And that’s exactly what Apple is offering.
I don't mean to promote Apple, but I've always preferred the macOS interface to that of Windows (I'm familiar with both environments). That's why I'm frustrated that I don't have the same choices or software capabilities.
Correct. Software can do anything you have the resources, time, and money to make it do whatever you want. And that's the issue: costs. Is there sufficient business opportunity to justify the costs involved?
As the name suggests, "nVidia Iray" is developed by nVidia. Daz does not develop it and so cannot rewrite it to use a diufferent hardware/API system.
Historically, the Mac ecosystem has never been particularly conducive to the 3D market. And yet, Daz Studio is also available on Mac. This means there is a market for it on this platform.
That’s what I initially thought. And the recent example of KeyShot has shown that it’s technically possible to rewrite the “graphics engine” to make it work with Apple Silicon chips and take full advantage of them.
From there, it’s just a matter of will and investment (see my previous post on the existence of a market on the Mac platform).
It is a matter of having access to the code and permission to edit it - for iray, Daz doesn't.
Also, that is an enorrmous "just".
Daz could integrate with a render engine not exclusive to nVidia and its hardware. Cycles comes immediately to mind. But given the usual pace of development, that'd probably take until the 22nd century.
Which has the issue that materials would need conversion, and shaders would probably need replacing.