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The first conformant M1 GPU driver

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Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#271

Post by astrange »

thangngoc89 wrote: post #26
leedrake5 wrote: post #20

I assume that this primarily benefits games and not any deep learning right? The most attractive aspect of Mac M1 is the huge memory boost. Might not be great for training due to the inability to distribute across multiple cards, but it makes for a great inference engine for stable diffusion, llama, and other large models.

Correct. You need CUDA, or ROCm, MPS (native to macOS) backends for running deep learning. I found it relatively easy to train some Pytorch model on beefy server with CUDA and running interference on my Macbook Air.

MPS is a Metal shader library rather than a programming language, which would be MSL (like GLSL/HLSL).

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#272

Post by astrange »

mook wrote: post #246
sneak wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a top of the line XPS. Battery life is less than half that of the Air. The speakers in the XPS sound like they are from the 90s. It gets painfully hot on the bottom case. The keyboard wrist rest area is cheap plastic. It was thicker and heavier than the MBA. Intel Iris GPU (ie slow af) versus M1/M2 GPU. One point to the XPS: the pixel density of the 4k 13" was absolutely LOVELY. I have never seen a screen so ni…

Isn't a good high density screen typically a large power drain? Perhaps there's a trade-off that was made there…

It's not included because it's really hard to make a high quality screen, not because of the battery tradeoff.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#273

Post by eru »

selectodude wrote: post #44
eru wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, couldn't find anything coming near the value of a baseline Macbook Air M1 as far as build quality, battery life, stability etc. is concerned. The ThinkPads are pretty good laptops, especially if you put Linux on them.

My brand new work thinkpad is total garbage compared to my two year old MacBook Pro. Only laptop where I need to use an external mouse.

Did work install any crapware on the laptop? Or is it bad even without?

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#274

Post by dreamcompiler »

gorjusborg wrote: post #165
tracker1 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the closest option to M1 on build quality and battery will be the AMD version of the Framework laptop... if you want can run Windows or Linux without issue. Will probably go that direction on my next purchase. Later this year and next year AMD are releasing new laptop CPU/APU that will absolutely kill on performance:watt, while they're a bit ahead of Intel at the moment, they're going to leap a bit further a…

I vote with my wallet. The Framework laptop is my choice. It is not the best in every category, but it is mine. I didn't like the weak hinges, I replaced them. I can replace the battery when I need. I can upgrade the memory or hard disk, or motherboard or screen when I need. The thing with Apple is that their way of vertical tech integration results in highly polished, non-standard, unservicable machines. They are ni…

I feel exactly the same about Apple's software. It's great as long as your preferred workflow matches the Apple-blessed workflow. But if it doesn't, you're pretty much hosed.

Desktop Linux is not as nice or facile or polished, but it feels like "my" desktop because I can modify it. When I use MacOS, it feels like I'm just renting somebody else's computer. It's a very nice computer, but it can never be mine.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#275

Post by izacus »

jolux wrote: post #29
seeknotfind wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. It's intentionally closed, so network effects can drive usage. Common Apple strategy, straight from Jobs.

Jobs is the guy who claimed they were going to make it an open standard originally.

Jobs also repeatedly lied and backstabbed his business partners when he thought he gained an advantage. As we see here.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#276

Post by zamadatix »

softfalcon wrote: post #252
zamadatix wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenUSD is a way of bundling and specifying the data to be rendered. It doesn't relate to which API the app uses to accelerate rendering. Adobe, Autodesk, Blender, and most others support different backends per operating system including Metal on macOS already.

Yeah, I know it's just a file format for scene description. I still believe rendering would work better for the industry as a whole if they could agree to all support, say, Vulkan. I doubt it'll ever happen, but a consistent graphics driver/API standard across operating systems would be pretty rad.

While not at the kernel level I think WebGPU is probably better than something like Vulkan for that "I can target this low level access to the GPU resources but expect it to work everywhere" use case. Ignoring the name hint that it was designed for the web (it works fine outside the browser), it's a lot more portable than Vulkan across its various implementations precisely because it needed to work on various devices that could browse the web. It's also already backed and supported by all the big players, including Apple.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#277

Post by Buttons840 »

azinman2 wrote: post #139
Buttons840 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm frustrated that "good management" involves breaking things down so small that there is no room for enquiry or engineering. Jira ticket #5229 "Port get_order_* API" doesn't leave much room for problem solving.

It’s almost like business needs come first

Is there a world where we put people's needs first?

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#278

Post by JohnBooty »

softfalcon wrote: post #197

I wonder if support for OpenGL, Vulkan, etc will improve now that Apple is partnering with nVidia, Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft, etc around the OpenUSD rendering/animation/CAD/3D-scene format? Considering the whole schtick of OpenUSD is "one file format that renders consistently everywhere" (paraphrasing), I would be surprised if Apple doesn't use it as a means to cement more 3D software vendors into macOS land. It's r…

    In my experience, Apple doesn't like any standards it 
    doesn't control with an iron fist
I mean, on one hand, the Metal/Vulkan/OpenGL situation is unfortunate and I don't understand Apple's motivation there.

On the other hand I'm sitting here typing on a Mac with nothing but USB-C ports that is connected to half a dozen peripherals and a big ol' monitor over those standard ports using standard protocols.

In general I feel that Apple prefers open standards when they actually suffice. USB2 couldn't do a lot of the things that Lightning did, so they invented that. Now that USB-C exists, they embraced it immediately on the Mac and iPad but are unfortunately dragging their feet w.r.t. the iPhone.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#279

Post by olddustytrail »

ajdude wrote: post #228
alberth wrote: post #42

For clarity, this isn't the first conformant linux drivers. Apple themselves are not conformant to OpenGL® ES 3.1. So this is literally the first conformant OpenGL ES 3.1 drivers for M-Series, for any operating system (Apple or Non-Apple). Hence why the call to action to donate to the team. https://asahilinux.org/support/

I love what they're doing, but last time I clicked a link for asahilinux on hacker news I was taken to a pop up that specifically said that readers from Hacker News are not welcomed on their site and couldn't read their content.

[flagged]

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#280

Post by robert_foss »

leedrake5 wrote: post #20

I assume that this primarily benefits games and not any deep learning right? The most attractive aspect of Mac M1 is the huge memory boost. Might not be great for training due to the inability to distribute across multiple cards, but it makes for a great inference engine for stable diffusion, llama, and other large models.

TensorFlow Lite does indeed support OpenGL ES.
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