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Switching to Mac, Putting 3D on Backburner

Nyghtfall3D

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Staff member
Switching to Mac

I've used Windows ever since the first version came out in 1985. I built my current PC four years ago. The most expensive component was my RTX 3090 at $1750. I've never been proud of having paid that much, I've never liked its inefficient energy usage, and I'm tired of it sounding like a jet engine when rendering.

As GPU prices have continued rising, I've been telling myself that, if the market hasn't settled by the time I'm ready to upgrade in the next few years, then I'm switching to Mac. nVidia's last event, in which they announced their new 50x series and revealed the $2k MSRP for the 5090, didn't help. IMO, there is no good reason why a single component should cost nearly as much as a down payment on a car. Bottom line, I am very displeased with the current state of the PC market, and firmly believe my current build will be my last.

I bought my M1 MacBook Air when Apple unveiled their own silicon in 2020. I wanted to try Apple's ecosystem, and the M1 chip felt like the ideal entry point. Five years later, there are still a few quirks about MacOS that I continue wrestling with thanks to decades-long muscle memory from Windows, but my overall experience has been more positive than negative. "It just... works," is not hyperbole. In contrast, my current PC failed to post the first time after building it, and I'm still bitter about the few hours I spent trouble-shooting the problem. Watching a tech guru on YouTube experience a similar issue a few months ago after building a new PC for a client brought back that unpleasant memory. I'm not looking forward to the risk of that happening again.

As a visually oriented person, I'm also deeply influenced by design language and aesthetics. On those two points alone, Apple's ecosystem has always strongly appealed to me, much moreso than Windows. Unfortunately, my needs as a 3D artist have kept me anchored to Windows. Welp, that ends today.

After extensive research and contemplation, I pulled the trigger on a new silver M4 iMac this week, taking advantage of an 11% discount on Amazon for a cost of $1695. It'll be here today, and includes 24 GB of unified memory and a 512 GB SSD. I've wanted an iMac ever since the first Intel-based 27" model came out in 2009. They're gorgeous machines, and I've been envyous of anyone I learned owned one. I also bought a 1TB Samsung T7 SSD.

Putting 3D on Backburner

Thanks to a series of marketing blunders in recent years, and their failed attempt at their own brand of AI, Daz3D have left many artists, including me, with the impression that they can't get their shit together, and are just tossing ideas at the wall to see what sticks. To make matters worse, they still haven't managed to release an Apple silicon version of Daz Studio. Therefore, I'm putting 3D art on the backburner, and will continue experimenting with AI.
 
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Wish you the best Nyghtfall. I'm a PC guy all the way. I can't imagine myself ever touching a mac. Can't stand all the proprietary stuff it has with it. \for me its the freedom of being able to fix anything I want inside my PC. But thats just me. :P Hope it all goes well for you. :)
 
I wish you the best of luck Nyghtfall!
Wish you the best Nyghtfall.
Thank you both.

Let us know how it goes!
So far, so good. Still need to customize it, but I've got all my apps set up and could not be happier. The 4.5K display looks absolutely stunning, and seeing the UI properly scaled* is icing on the cake.

The Magic Mouse is nice and sleek. It uses Apple's trackpad gestures for certain tasks, and is great for folks like me who use their fingertips to manipualte their mice, but it's also useless for folks like me who prefer mice with a high DPI. Even on the fastest tracking speed, the Magic Mouse is too slow for me, so I replaced it with my Logitech G305 wireless.

I love the convenience of the Magic Keyboard's Touch ID (I use bank-level passwords whenever possible and never use the same password twice), but the lack of a numeric keypad and backlit keys are going to take some getting used to. There's an aftermarket solution available, but I'm not crazy about spending another $180 for those two features. I have a Logitech MX Keys keyboard I can replace it with, but will have to see which features I miss most and annoy me the least.

* Here's a vid on Mac UI scaling, which I didn't know was a thing until I connected my MacBook Air to a Dell 27" 4K I bought for it two years ago. My Air automatically chose a default UI resolution of 1920 x 1080. Anything higher was useless because the Mac took a performance hit or the UI was too small. I started researching to learn why, and found this vid:

 
I love the convenience of the Magic Keyboard's Touch ID (I use bank-level passwords whenever possible and never use the same password twice), but the lack of a numeric keypad and backlit keys are going to take some getting used to. There's an aftermarket solution available, but I'm not crazy about spending another $180 for those two features. I have a Logitech MX Keys keyboard I can replace it with, but will have to see which features I miss most and annoy me the least.
Quick update:

Just three days in and I definitely much prefer an extended keyboard with a numeric keypad and backlit keys over the convenience of Touch ID, so I replaced my Magic Keyboard with my MX Keys.
 
I'll always be a Mac girl. Yes, It's a pity the digital world hasn't caught up with the Mac world but I'll just keep plodding along.

Just a point of note, I never use Touch ID on any of my devices. As far as I can tell, neither of them have it on the keyboards I use anyway. I just use the stand Mac keyboard. Then again, if you prefer the numeric keypad, then MX keys would be the go for you. I've never been into numeric keys myself ...
 
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Final update:

With the exception of the iPad and iWatch, I am now immeshed in Apple's ecosystem.

At the risk of sounding like I'm flexing, I left Android for iOS last week by trading in my Galaxy S22 for the new iPhone 17, and replaced my Jabra Elite 8 Active earbuds with a new pair of 4th gen AirPods. Suffice it to say, the peace of mind I'm enjoying using hardware and software that works seamlessly together is unparalleled, and the aesthetic consistency between MacOS and iOS is an indisputable breath of fresh air thanks to Apple's continued support for old hardware. Case in point, my M1 MacBook Air, my new M4 iMac, and my new iPhone are all using Apple's new Liquid Glass interface design.

It's highly unlikely that I'll ever buy an iPad or iWatch. I have no use for tablets, and the Galaxy 7 Watch I bought for my S22 in February reminded me why I stopped wearing watches in my youth - watches get hooked on clothing, and I got tired of my hands getting stuck on the way into my pant pockets. And, since it's incompatible with my iPhone, I gave it to my wife as she prefers Android and Samsung.

Incidentally, I've kept my PC shut down ever since switching to Mac, which means I haven't rendered anything locally for nearly one full cycle of my electric bill - 3D or AI. My account cycles in three days, and so far I've saved $130 on electricity.
 
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While rendering does unquestionably run up the electric bill my bet is more of that $130 was due to summer being over you not running the air conditioning as much ;)

BTW, I feel the same way about watches, but I will say my mom got one of those Apple watches and they have a really awesome wrist band on them, if other watches had that I might still be wearing them. As it stands I just don't see any reason to wear a watch, I always have my phone in my pocket when I'm out.
 
Therefore, I'm putting 3D art on the backburner, and will continue experimenting with AI.
I gave up on DAZ3D years ago. I first got into A.I. at the end of 2023 when it really began blowing up. I've since made thousands of A.I. renders, and well over 100 high quality A.I. music tracks. And all of them were 100x better than anything I ever managed to produce with DAZ.

I can suggest Deviant Art. I pay like $12 something a month for the ability to create 1200 renders each cycle. You can 4K upscale, use existing images as references, select from many model types, download them as much as you want, and every render you create is privately stored until you post them (and they remain stored).

This is my profile for reference: https://www.deviantart.com/neo-plisken

Wish you the best in your endeavors!
 
I gave up on DAZ3D years ago. I first got into A.I. at the end of 2023 when it really began blowing up. I've since made thousands of A.I. renders, and well over 100 high quality A.I. music tracks. And all of them were 100x better than anything I ever managed to produce with DAZ.

I can suggest Deviant Art. I pay like $12 something a month for the ability to create 1200 renders each cycle. You can 4K upscale, use existing images as references, select from many model types, download them as much as you want, and every render you create is privately stored until you post them (and they remain stored).

This is my profile for reference: https://www.deviantart.com/neo-plisken

Wish you the best in your endeavors!
Nyghtfall has done plenty of great AI, he just hasn't posted any of it here *grumble grumble* :LOL:
 
Final update:

With the exception of the iPad and iWatch, I am now immeshed in Apple's ecosystem.

At the risk of sounding like I'm flexing, I left Android for iOS last week by trading in my Galaxy S22 for the new iPhone 17, and replaced my Jabra Elite 8 Active earbuds with a new pair of 4th gen AirPods. Suffice it to say, the peace of mind I'm enjoying using hardware and software that works seamlessly together is unparalleled, and the aesthetic consistency between MacOS and iOS is an indisputable breath of fresh air thanks to Apple's continued support for old hardware. Case in point, my M1 MacBook Air, my new M4 iMac, and my new iPhone are all using Apple's new Liquid Glass interface design.

It's highly unlikely that I'll ever buy an iPad or iWatch. I have no use for tablets, and the Galaxy 7 Watch I bought for my S22 in February reminded me why I stopped wearing watches in my youth - watches get hooked on clothing, and I got tired of my hands getting stuck on the way into my pant pockets. And, since it's incompatible with my iPhone, I gave it to my wife as she prefers Android and Samsung.

Incidentally, I've kept my PC shut down ever since switching to Mac, which means I haven't rendered anything locally for nearly one full cycle of my electric bill - 3D or AI. My account cycles in three days, and so far I've saved $130 on electricity.

dark.webp
 
While rendering does unquestionably run up the electric bill my bet is more of that $130 was due to summer being over you not running the air conditioning as much ;)
Perhaps, but my wife frequently experiences periods of discomfort with regard to temperature, so we tend to keep the a/c running fairly regularly regardless of the season. In fact, it just kicked on again.

As it stands I just don't see any reason to wear a watch, I always have my phone in my pocket when I'm out.
Ditto.

Nyghtfall has done plenty of great AI, he just hasn't posted any of it here *grumble grumble* :LOL:
Coming soon...

@MCDesigns , RE: Dark Side
And it feels great. :devilish:
 
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