I installed ZBrush on MacBook pro with this configuration:
MacBook Pro 2011
QuadCore 2.2 Intel i7
Memory 4GB, 1333MHz DDR3
Graphic: AMD Radeon HD 6750 / 1GB
OS: OSX LION
When I use ZBrush, the CPU processor is getting very hot within minutes and and the fan is rotating like crazy.
It seems that ZBrush does not use the graphic GPU.
Is there any suggestion to avoid this very high CPU temperature when using ZBrush?
Thanks,
Install more RAM.
Zbrush is running out of RAM, so it is turning to the CPU to handle the load. Your OS and any other apps you have running are also using the available RAM so Z can’t get the omph it needs.
Also, mac books are very thin and don’t disperse heat very well which may be the reason for the fan rotating like crazy?
How dense are the meshes you’re working on? Do they have a low SubD level that they can turn to during CPU intensive actions, like rotating?
Installing more RAM did not help. Today I have installed 8 GB memory, but the CPU temperature is still extremely hot.
Displaying only Sphere and I did very simple sculpting on this Sphere, my I7 processor became extremely hot (around 100 Celcius/212 Fahrenheit - I measure this temperature using utility tool) and the fan is rotating like crazy.
I believe that ZBrush did not run well on the high end Macbook pro with Quad core 2.2 GHz i7 processor, 8 GB memory.
This is really disappointed. ZBrush on Mac platform is useless.
ZBrush on the Mac is far from useless. A great many people use ZBrush on the Mac. The bottom line is that ZBrush is a multi-core application and constantly renders in 3D in real-time. This means that as you work it is going to be using all of your system’s cores all the time.
And no, ZBrush does not use your GPU at all. It is software rendered rather than hardware, which means that you don’t need to invest megabucks in a graphics card to get good performance from it. Nor do you need to have a specific kind of GPU to get support for a particular rendering feature.
There have been people talking about this in one other thread: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=77123 You may find some of the suggestions helpful.
If ZBrush was useless on the Mac I think it’s a pretty safe bet that there would be a lot more than one other thread about this topic. ;)
By the way, in the Preferences>Performance menu there is an option for MultiDraw. By default, it is turned on telling ZBrush to use all processor cores when rendering. You can disable this, which will then tell ZBrush to use only a single core.
The real-time rendering will suffer, but your system should not longer be having heat issues. If it’s not possible to get a laptop cooler to keep the system cool then this would be a viable option for you.