Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 Posted by Jim Thacker

MachStudio Pro developer StudioGPU shuts up shop


StudioGPU in happier days, demoing MachStudio Pro in 2009. The renderer can still be downloaded for free.

StudioGPU, developer of pioneering GPU-accelerated renderer MachStudio Pro, seems to have shut up shop.

The company’s website has been offline since the start of October, while one user posted on the StudioGPU Facebook page: “According to the support email I got this morning they are no longer going to be active.”

While we haven’t been able to confirm officially that the developer is defunct, all of the former StudioGPU staff we’ve contacted are now working for other companies.

Ahead of the curve
Although well received on its release in 2009, particularly among pre-viz houses, MachStudio Pro undoubtedly suffered from appearing just ahead of the current wave of GPU-accelerated rendering solutions.

While it was later released as a standalone app, the fact that the software was initially tied to AMD’s FirePro V8750 GPU at a time when Nvidia’s CUDA API was starting to dominate the market didn’t help matters.

Version 2.0 of the software was postponed, then made available as a free download from the company’s site.

You can still download the software, minus supporting tutorials, from CNET (link below). We’ll update if we find the tutorial material anywhere online.

Download MachStudio Pro 2 from CNET