I realize that Starlight local is basically broken with video 1.0.4 and Macs. The last time I successfully used it was on version 1.0.1. I have both installed on my Mac (I just changed the name of 1.0.1 and installed 1.0.4). Starlight does not work on that either now. Does the model download first before running or is there some file on my computer that changes with a new install. What would cause it to work on an older version and not work now?
Starlight is extremely broken on Apple Silicon but all those reports like yours and also by me several times now seem to be vastly ignored.
I’ve had the best success with the last TVAI beta and the nearly identical Studio 1.0 version.
All later versions are extremely buggy, doing only 1x upscales regardless of the set resolution or try to fake higher res outputs by simply doing a bicubic or lanczos scaling after SL 1x.
The RGB bug should be fixed, though.
Best would be if they went back to the model from the last 7.2.0.3 beta and cleared out the bugs in that one as at that time at least the quality was decent.
That said the old versions still work here?
So which video versions DO work on a Silicon Mac using starlight mini locally? I have a number of them still in my download folder.
I‘d try the first Studio version 1.0 which is claimed to have the same SL mini model as the previous last 7.x beta.
That said, even that version is quite buggy, failing on quite some input resolutions, so you might have to try slightly cropping the source to be able to run the model.
Also there is quite a crash risk especially when you want to preview the rendering- so better leave it untouched.
P.S. this is for a M2 based MAC - Topaz seem to have unexplainable problems with M3 chips throughout their software offerings 
The next patch release should have an update to help with some of the issues with Mac systems and the Starlight Mini model.
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Hope it primarily solves the quality issues.
As it is Starlight(mini) absolutely isn’t worth it on AppleSilicon. IrisLQ is really much better here atm.
And it doesn’t have to be like that as Starlight already had very decent quality on the Mac (nearly comparable to NVidia on TVAI 7.0.2) with the last pre-Studio Beta 7.2.0.3b.
So, that Model was fine regarding output quality and also did do more than 2x - just quite picky regarding input formats . Maybe it’d be best to revert to that model and start again optimising from there?
