Blender Begins Testing Metal GPU Rendering on M1 Macs - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Blender Begins Testing Metal GPU Rendering on M1 Macs

by

The free and open source 3D creation tool Blender this week began testing Metal GPU rendering for its Cycles renderer on M1 Macs running macOS Monterey. Blender said Metal support for Macs with Intel and AMD GPUs is under development.

blender metal rendering

Image Credit: @Jonatan on Twitter

Metal GPU rendering for Cycles can be tested in the Blender 3.1 Alpha and was made possible by a contribution from Apple, which recently joined the Blender Development Fund to support continued development of the 3D creation tool.

Blender said Metal GPU rendering in the Alpha build "is in an early state" and no timeframe was provided for the final release of Blender 3.1.

Apple's support for Blender has been praised by users of the 3D creation tool, as it marks the return of macOS as a completely supported Blender platform. Blender had not supported GPU rendering on Macs since Apple implemented its Metal framework.

Tags: Blender, Metal

Popular Stories

Apple TV Thumb 3

Everything Coming in the 2026 Apple TV 4K

Wednesday July 8, 2026 4:51 pm PDT by
The Apple TV 4K hasn't been updated since 2022, and it's due for a refresh. An update is planned for 2026, but Apple is likely going to wait to launch it after Siri AI launches in iOS 27. Design Apple TV design updates don't happen often, and that's not changing. The next Apple TV is going to have the same squircle shape as the current model, and it'll continue to be made from a black...
Read Full Article • 172 comments
iphone 16 teal

'Siri AI' Lawsuit Update: Apple to Pay Owners of These iPhone Models

Thursday July 9, 2026 7:08 am PDT by
In May, Apple agreed to pay $250 million to settle a U.S. class action lawsuit over Siri AI's delayed launch, and eligible iPhone users could receive up to a $95 payout. This week, the California court overseeing the case held a hearing regarding preliminary approval of the settlement, but the judge has not yet issued a ruling. It will likely be at least a few more months before eligible...
Read Full Article • 115 comments
iCloud iPhone 17 Pro

Apple Says These iOS 27 Features Require $9.99/Month Subscription

Wednesday July 8, 2026 6:24 am PDT by
iOS 27 includes new Apple Intelligence features for compatible cameras in Apple's Home app, but only if you have an iCloud+ plan with at least 2TB of storage. This limitation effectively means that the new features are only available with a minimum $9.99/month subscription, even though the centerpiece of the subscription is the 2TB of storage. The features include AI descriptions for...
Read Full Article

Top Rated Comments

Populus Avatar
Populus
60 months ago
I’m so happy to read this, not only because it’s another big software on it’s way to run natively on the Apple Silicon macs, but also because Blender is becoming a big actor on the animation scene (I could say one of the most important softwares in 3D)... and it is open source!!! And I love open source software.

PS: This means support for Intel macs as well, because we’re talking about the graphics API, which is shared among all macs
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
T
terminator-jq
60 months ago
This is actually an area where Apples unified memory can show major advantages over a traditional GPU. GPU rendering often requires a high amount of VRAM and nowadays 4K textures and digital scans are becoming more of a norm especially when rendering for photorealistic projects like architecture.

There’s also the benefit of thermals. On a regular PC and especially in the laptop space, powerful GPUs generate a lot of heat which then causes major throttling. The M1 chips stay cool which allows for peak performance for much longer.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️ Avatar
TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️
60 months ago
Very nice! Glad to see this
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
M
MauiPa
60 months ago

$1200 Lenovo Legion Slim 7 with 3060 at 70W is 2.6x ('https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/3d-rendering-on-apple-silicon-cpu-gpu.2269416/post-30676733') faster on BMW render than $3K+ MBP M1 Max. Desktop RTX is even faster at <10s.

16.39s - 3060 70W mobile (OptiX Blender 3.0)
20.57s - reference 6900xt (HIP Blender 3.0)
29s - 2070 Super (OptiX)
31s - 3060 70W mobile (OptiX Blender 2.93)
42.79s - M1 Max 32GPU (Metal supported Blender 3.1 alpha)
48s - M1 Max 24GPU (Metal Blender 3.1 alpha + patch)
51s - 2070 Super (CUDA)
1:18.34m - M1 Pro 16GPU (Metal Blender 3.1 alpha + patch)
2.04m - Mac Mini M1 (Metal Blender 3.1 alpha + patch)
2:48.03m - MBA M1 (Metal supported Blender 3.1 alpha)
3:55.81m - AMD 5800H base clock no-boost and no-PBO overclock (CPU Blender 3.0)
5:51.06m - MBA M1 (CPU Blender 3.0)
all fine and good of course, but isn't this why they are developing native software? So you were not expecting these results?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Grohowiak Avatar
Grohowiak
60 months ago
Once stable this will be a game changer.
Some of the time improvements are insane already.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
V
vinegarshots
60 months ago

I don't think that's true. As I understand it, they've already abstracted out the draw components of the GUI as an API with 3.0. A new back-end wouldn't be instant, but it won't be greater than the Cycles Metal work and can leverage what they've learned.
I just found this note:

"- As part of their Viewport efforts, Blender 3.x will be working to "move Blender to entirely use the Vulkan open standard". A Vulkan back-end is being developed along with an Apple Metal back-end. They intend to replace Blender's OpenGL back-end by end of 2022."

Thank goodness...end of 2022 can't come fast enough.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments