The problem is not M1 or M2 (arm64) chipset. The problem is keras installation that installs tensorflow-metal, which
makes Keras to choose GPU over CPU, even if Sys.setenv("CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES" = -1) is set. However, Apple's GPUs
are not supported yet by tensorflow-metal. Thus, we have to get rid of tensorflow-metal! Combined with R / RStudio, the
trick is to use a dedicated r-reticulate environment to run python and to manually uninstall tensorflow-metal again, which
is installed automatically whenever we install and load the keras package in R.
Install Anaconda for arm64 first: https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/install/mac-os/
Open the terminal (iterm) and use whereis python on the command line to find your current path to python. You will need to copy the path in below's R scnippet where it says python = "/Users/my_user/opt/anaconda3/bin/python".
Then add this snippet to your R scripts:
# Disable GPU
Sys.setenv("CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES" = -1)
install.packages("tensorflow")
library(reticulate)
# replace the file path to your Anaconda python installation accordingly
virtualenv_create("r-reticulate", python = "/Users/my_user/opt/anaconda3/bin/python")
install_tensorflow(envname = "r-reticulate")
install.packages("keras")
library(keras)
install_keras(envname = "r-reticulate")Then switch over to the terminal (iterm). Because the r-reticulate Keras installation always installs tensorflow-metal again, we have to switch to that conda environment and uninstall the tensorflow-metal again (beacuse Apple's GPU chips are not supported).
- Open terminal (iterm)
- check the python / conda envs availalbe - find the path to r-miniconda-arm64:
conda info --envs - activate the conda env for r-reticulate, for me this was:
source /Users/my_user/Library/r-miniconda-arm64/bin/activate - then -- still in iterm -- uninstall the tensorflow-metal again (be sure to use the same coda env python distro):
/Users/my_user/Library/r-miniconda-arm64/envs/r-reticulate/bin/python -m pip uninstall tensorflow-metal
Back in your R script, confirm that Tensorflow works:
# confirm installation
library(tensorflow)
tf$constant("Hello Tensorflow!")