With GPU rendering, Fractal Architect performs better on Apple Silicon than the 16″ Intel MacBook Pro. Nuff said!
Apple Silicon Performance
Category Archives: News
What’s New in Version 5.1
This is a huge update adding 2 more render engines to Fractal Architect.
- Native CPU Render Engine
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XPC Render Engine Service – Included with GPU subscription
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Wide Variation Set Support for CPU and some GPUs
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Mega2D / Mega 3D standard variation sets
Announcing the X Generation of the Fractal Architect Family
Fractal Architect X and Fractal Architect 5 are being released for Mac OS together. (They are also called FA X and FA 5.)
Fractal Architect X is a free app that provides a feature set and workflow similar to the Apophysis PC app. Similar to Apophysis, it renders on the CPU and imposes no image size limits.
It also adds about 20 extra powerful features above and beyond Apophysis.
- Anti-aliased
- True 3D fractals vs. Pseudo 3D
- Color Gradient Editor
- See link below for many other new features.
See: Apophysis, FA X, and FA 5 Feature Comparison
Our Commitment to You
The free FA X app will always be able to render on the CPU any static image fractal produced by any product in the Fractal Architect family. You can edit those fractals using its Transform editor too.
FA X can be optionally eXtended
The free base configuration of FA X lacks most of the powerful tools found in prior FA app versions FA 4 and earlier. It also has no video animation capability.
The REAL Fractal Architect Experience Begins Here
FA continues to provide the best flame fractal creation tools available on any platform.
FA X + Silver Subscription
The inexpensive Silver Subscription provides access to:
- Powerful Random Fraction Creation
- Lua Scripted Random and Variant Fractals
- Cross-breeding Fractals
- Fractal Splicing
- Build Basic Video Animations
- Early Access to FA 6 Features – Continuous Development of New Features
It does not support GPU rendering.
FA X + Gold Subscription
This provides, same features as Silver Subscription plus:
- GPU Rendering
- Animation Sequencer
FA 5
Fractal Architect 5 is a non-free app that is comparable to FA X + Silver. It is intended for customers that want access to the powerful tool suit provided by earlier versions of Fractal Architect without a subscription.
FA 5 does not provide Early Access to FA 6 features.
It also does not support GPU rendering.
Cost of FA X + Silver Subscription vs FA 5
Having an annual FA X Silver subscription for 2 years costs the same as purchasing FA 5.
FA 6 is planned to be released 2 years after FA 5 is released. FA X will have early access to FA 6 features long before FA 6 is released.
FA 5 + Optional Subscription
This optional subscription provides these features:
- GPU Rendering
- Animation Sequencer
Free Trial Period for Subscriptions
See for yourself. Take advantage of the free subscription trial period to test drive all of these exciting features.
There is a one-time initial Free Trial period:
- 1 month Free Trial for Annual subscription
- 1 week Free Trial for Monthly subscription
Subscription FAQ
- Subscription has an initial free trial period. The subscription begins immediately but you won’t be charged until the free trial period is over.
- Subscription will automatically renew (at the duration selected) unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period.
- iTunes account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current subscription period.
- Current subscription may not be cancelled during the active subscription period; however, you can manage your subscription and/or turn off auto-renewal by visiting your iTunes Account Settings after purchase.
- Note that a free trial is only offered once. If you cancel the free trial and later purchase the subscription a second time, you will no longer be eligible for the free trial.
- Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable.
What’s New in FA X and FA 5 !
Its time for new versions of Fractal Architect: Fractal Architect X (and its peer: Fractal Architect 5). Two years in development. The new creative possibilities are amazing. This is a huge new version with many new powerful and easy to use features. It has the best workflows of any competing app.
Some of these new FA features are credited to prior Jwildfire innovations. (FA has a long term goal of being fully Jwildfire compatible — not there yet).
All new features are GPU rendering compatible (but if Apple’s OpenCL or Metal drivers are broken, you may not be able to use GPU rendering on your Mac).
Lennart Ostman’s FA 5 Fractal Collection
Lennart has been so excited by these new features and how easy it is to use them. A simple listing does not do them justice.
Here is the grand summary. (More on each feature in other blog posts.)
Composite Multi-Fractals – Fractals made from other fractals
Let us count the ways:
- Crossbreeding (Morphing) – morphing 2 different composite fractals to create a new one.
- Splicing — splice together the variation group chains of 2 basic fractals
- Layerz — layering of multiple basic fractals sharing the same histogram (Jwildfire)
- Sub-flames – invoke another basic fractal via subflames variation type (Jwildfire)
Easiest way to create these composite multi-fractals
- Crossbreeding: Use Cross Breeding editor.
- Splicing: Use new Lua splicing scripts
- Layerz: Select multiple thumbnails. then open Quicklook view to see the layered result. Save the selected thumbnails as a new layered fractal.
- Sub-flames: Use sub-flame Lua scripts to add either new normal or new final transforms with sub-flame variation.
Final Transforms Enhancements
- Multiple final transforms
- Using sub-flame variations in final transforms.
Variants + Super Variants + Lua Workflow
Best demonstrated with an example video, this workflow is so effective for creative new exciting fractals.
From the Variants editor, create variants using Lua scripts. Select a variant thumbnail, then open the Super Variants editor from the selected thumbnail. Use the Super Variants editor to find even more fractals related to your selected thumbnail.
From that new batch of thumbnails, select one and open a new Variants window. Select a different variant Lua script …. repeat ad nauseam.
Finally, stop with a thumbnail you like. Then create a new fractal from it and finish editing it in the Transform editor (the traditional Apophysis workflow).
So many of these new composite fractal features are easiest to use with the new Lua scripts found in FA 5. You will see!
Lua Scripting Improvements
In practice, these features make a huge improvement in the Variants workflow.
- 40 different Make Fractal and 95 Variant Lua Scripts included
- Save a fractal as a Lua script. (Used by item 4 below)
- Lua scripts can have input arguments.
- Generic scripts to add pre, normal, and post variations selected by user from a list.
- Many scripts now call other Lua scripts for splicing, layerz, and sub-flames.
- You can create a list of variant Lua scripts and save the list as a single new Lua script. (Any configured argument values are saved too.)
- Full traceback for reported Lua errors.
Crackle Variation on the GPU
Finally! Blazing fast.
Got a new Lua script to add crackle variation to existing fractals too.
New Hypertile Lua Scripts
Add hypertile variation to any existing 2D fractal. Automates the steps and randomizes the hypertile parameters.
Incredibly easy and so effective in practice.
One Last Thing: True 3D Fractals !!
Pseudo3D is so legacy. True3D is the state-of-the-art replacement.
If you create a fractal with a 3D variation set, it is automatically a true 3D fractal. Every transform in it is now a 3D transform.
If you open a Pseudo3D fractal created in FA 4 or Apophysis, it is converted to a True3D fractal. (No change in appearance.)
Recent versions of Jwildfire, use a technique I call Pseudo3D-Three-Times to render a 3D fractal. It uses 3 separate 2D transforms.
FA 5 does not. It uses 1 3D transform instead of 3 separate 2D transforms. This is the natural way to do 3D. The rendering cost for 1 3D transform is also 33% less than rendering with 3 separate 2D transforms.
How do I manipulate a 3D transform?
Like Jwildfire, in FA 5 you can edit 3 different triangles, one face at a time. There are 3 faces, called the XY, YZ, and ZX faces.
But simple things like rotating that 3D transform around an arbitrary rotation is basically impossible with this approach.
So …
Another Last Thing: 3D Tetrahedron Editor !!
FA 5 includes a full 3D Tetrahedron editor that allows you to manipulate the Tetrahedron (which represents the 3D transform). A tetrahedron corresponds to 3D just like a triangle corresponds to a 2D transform.
This a basic 3D modeler, which allow you to edit a 3D transform by manipulating its equivalent 3D tetrahedron.
- Rotate the transform about an arbitrary axis: easy.
- Translate the transform around in 3D space: easy.
- Scale the transform: easy.
You can switch back and forth between the 3D Tetrahedron view and the 3 Triangle face views at any time.
Enhancements For Fractal Animation Sequencing
These features greatly simplify the steps to creating great video animations.
Delta Keyframe Animations
Concept: take 2 fractals and capture their difference as a delta animation segment.
Now that variants can create fractals that are so extremely different from the original, delta animations are they only way to capture their changes. The delta segment captures a separate animation for each property that is different between the 2 fractals.
Drag a keyframe from the Variants editor to the Sequencer. You get a new animation segment, which captures the delta between the original and variant fractals.
In the Sequencer, you can assign a different animation curve to each property — a very powerful feature.
It is so easy to create great animations, by dragging a Variants editor thumbnail and dropping it on the Sequencer.
Morph Animation Improvements
Perfect Color gradient interpolation that matches keyframe colors.
New workflow for creating smooth morph animations that don’t have instantaneous shape changes.
Smoothed Audio Clip Animation Curves
Take an audio file and create an animation curve from it. This is an easy way to get an animation curve for fractal animation.
Audio Curve Smoothing – an FA innovation
Without smoothing, the resulting video animations can be gut wrenching. Audio signals are packed with high frequency noise that when sampled from create terrible animations. Jerky-jerky floppy-woppy. I can’t watch those animations myself.
A smoothed audio signal captures the essence of the audio signal, but eliminates the high frequency noise. Video animations then look so much better. But even these animations can be improved upon.
Use a smoothed click track as an animation curve
Use a simple musician’s click track to create an audio file. Now use that audio file to create an audio clip animation curve.
Result: Perfect video animation to the beat. This is the killer way to create great beat animations. You can watch and dance to these animations all day long!
Mac OS High Sierra Wide Gamut Videos & Smaller Video Sizes
Make videos that have deeper color saturation and wider dynamic range.
New Apple HEVC Codec support that creates output videos that take much less memory than H.264 codec.
Is it time to remove GPU rendering support from the app?
Update: GPU rendering now requires a subscription in both FA 5 and FA X. Hopefully that will help us support this very expensive app (to support) feature.
Let’s face it. Apple has done a terrible job producing reliable drivers for OpenCL and Metal compute shaders. Each Mac OS update brings the terror of: Did Apple kill the drivers this time?
Since March 2017, the state of OpenCL drivers for AMD GPUs has been: Unusable
Either the app crashes or you get a total system lockup with OpenCL AMD rendering. (late 2016 MacBook Pro with AMD GPU)
With about 100 different Mac configurations released in the last 6 years that have GPUs, your results will probably be very different.
For the 5 previous years, the AMD OpenCL drivers had been rock solid.
Fractal Architect is the “Rosetta Stone” for GPU compute testing. It allows you to easily switch render devices between OpenCL, Metal, and CUDA. It allows you to check their LLVM compilers for their ability to compile the extremely complex kernels used by the app.
It allows you to profile and compare performance between devices and between different Mac models.
But supporting GPU rendering is very expensive. Guess who pays for all of the test Macs?
The revenue base to support this GPU support feature is tiny. Flame fractal apps are a micro niche. To date (since 2009) the entire revenue from the app goes toward buying test hardware and nothing else !
This year, because of driver quality problems, worldwide sales of the app are now so low that I can only buy 1 test Mac every 3 years. I cant test the app on a current generation AMD GPU on a low end MacBook Air. I can’t test next years AMD GPU on last year’s Mac.
So should:
A) GPU rendering be removed from the app as test hardware is cost prohibitive?
or B) should it be left in because it will probably work with fixed drivers on future GPUs?
Perma-Broke Apple AMD OpenCL Drivers
Update Spring 2018
The OpenCL driver for AMD is working again. AMD Metal driver does not correctly render final transforms.
Fall 2017
Its now 7 months of broken OpenCL drivers for the AMD GPU in the late 2016 Touch Bar MacBook Pro. (Since Sierra 10.12.4. Affects all builds of High Sierra.)
Metal drivers work correctly for the Mac’s AMD GPU, but some fractals (10 to 20%) render incorrectly. So I don’t recommend Metal as an alternative. (Note: this incorrect render output is a new problem. Older Metal driver versions did not have this problem. The drivers in Q1 2017 worked so well. Now it is Q4 2017.
The legacy of Apple’s unusable GPU compute drivers goes on and on.
OpenCL/Metal Rendering on Intel GPUs Works !
Fractal Architect version 4.5.0 submitted to Apple today (Dec 14, 2016) makes it possible to use either OpenCL or Metal GPU rendering with Intel processors. This capability requires Mac OS Sierra.
With Mac OS Sierra, it seems that all Intel CPUs (2013 and later) having Intel HD, Intel Iris, or Intel Iris Pro GPUS can now take advantage of either OpenCL or Metal rendering for HUGE speed increases. For example, a 2013 MacBook Air gets approx. a 9x speed increase ! That is like a baby going from crawling to Olympic sprinting.
On Macbook Pros and iMacs having both a discrete AMD GPU and an Intel processor with its integrated GPU, you can use both GPUs together for rendering. This gives you almost twice the rendering speed !
Thank you Apple for giving us great OpenCL and Metal drivers on Mac OS Sierra !!
Note: Older versions of Mac OS and Macs produced in 2012 or earlier may have compatibility problems. (But CPU rendering works fine.)
Metal Rendering on Intel, AMD, & Nvidia GPUs Works!
Sierra Metal is Working Well on AMD and Nvidia
With Sierra coming out shortly, Metal renders can be made on all 3 GPU platforms: Intel, AMD, and Nvidia using Fractal Architect 4 version 4.4.0.
Apple has done a very good job on the Sierra release. In general, Metal is working well, and for some older GPUs, OpenCL rendering now works again (El Capitan’s OpenCL drivers were so broken).
Both Mac OS El Capitan and Sierra support Metal rendering, but the quality of the Metal drivers varies depends on the specific GPU configuration and OS version used.
For example, on Sierra the AMD drivers are much faster than on El Capitan.
On 2013 Mac Pro, with 2 AMD GPUs, you can use both GPUs for even more speed using Metal (but OpenCL driver has a critical bug preventing usage of more than 1 GPU).
Warning – Sierra Metal may not work on your GPU
On El Capitan, my 2013 Macbook Air renders 10.5 X faster than CPU. On Sierra, the Metal compiler cannot compile the app’s kernels on the 2013 Macbook Air, resulting in no GPU rendering at all !
But 2015 Intel Iris Pro in Macbook Pro works great with Metal !
Evaluating Sierra First
Since GPU compatibility is so hit and miss, I recommend installing Sierra first on an external hard drive and trying it out on your Mac(s).
You boot off that external drive by holding down the Option key at boot and select the external drive from the list shown at boot time.
Since normal hard drives are so SLOW, I recommend the following external drive: Samsung 250 GB T3 Portable SSD. This has worked very well for me, and the cost is reasonable.
Evaluate both OpenCL and Metal
Apple’s OpenCL drivers have been very good on AMD GPUs, but don’t work at all on Intel GPUs. But that OpenCL on AMD, may be faster than Metal on AMD. So remember to try both to see what works better.
Intel GPU Rendering now works on all Macs since 2012
This is BIG News !
Fractal Architect 4 now fully supports Metal GPU rendering on all Macs built since 2012 (using the Mac’s Intel GPU). Version 4.3.3 of FA 4 has some critical fixes.
Last October, we reported issues with Metal rendering. Those issues have been resolved in version 4.3.3 of Fractal Architect 4.
With the latest Sierra Beta, OpenCL GPU rendering now works on Intel GPUs for the first time too.
The rendering performance increase is HUGE.
El Capitan 10.11.6 Performance using Intel Metal
2013 Macbook Air 10.5 X faster than CPU
2015 Macbook Pro 4.8 X faster than CPU
Version 4.3.0 Submitted to Apple for Review
New Features
New Render Modes
- Normal, Transparent, Composite over Background Image, Composite Over Color
Drag and Drop any image (even other fractals) to make it the Background image (for compositing).
Control transparent image’s alpha mask using new AlphaGamma parameter.
Preview window has fixed aspect ratio for fractals with composited background image – same aspect ratio as the background image.
Render to File dialog boxes show the compositing background images width and height (and sets the output image’s width and height to the same values.
Continue reading Version 4.3.0 Submitted to Apple for Review