Combustion Performance

[Maz]

Hi all, especialy Jack!

Does anybody know, how a combustion, would run on a G4 Powerbook, 17", top of the range, fully loaded,...and to what PC would you campare it to in terms of Graphics and CPU etc. ??

Thanks

Maz

[JackP]

Hello...

Hmmmmmm.....

The debate about WHO IS FASTER>

MAC - or - PC ???? ...

This has been asked again and again. I can only say that it will probably be debated for ever and ever.. Until Jobs wins or Gates dies...

Hey: I use a PC with Windows. So, I guess I am slightly biased.. (there-I said it.)

But, there are sooo many specific factors about software on each platform to consider. One MUST consider ALL FUNCTIONS and APPLICATIONS...

Here is what I would offer with you:

1) There was an EXCELLENT article published by MediaWorkstation (a DigitalMediaNet Imprint) called the "After Effects Showdown: Mac vs. PC# written by Charlie White ... Althoguh they use Adobe After Effects as their test software, the comparison is in fact the same. Here is how they state the article: "Apple has been advertising its G4 processors as faster than Intel Pentium 4 chips -- and that megahertz don't matter -- often citing higher performance on certain Photoshop filters. But we were wondering how the fastest Mac stacks up against an equivalently equipped PC in real world situations regularly encountered by digital video compositors. So, with Adobe After Effects 5.5 installed on the mightiest Mac available at this writing, a Power Mac G4 with dual 1GHz processors, and the PC version of After Effects 5.5 installed on a dual Athlon 1800+MP by Polywell, we did a series of six After Effects 5.5 projects that tested a variety of aspects of the rendering speed of each platform.... And the Winner was......."
Check it out yourself at :
http://www.mediaworkstation.com/2002/05_may/features/cw_aeshowdown.htm


The other things to consider include:

2) About Network Rendering: You can use multiple computers on a network to render the outputs saved in workspaces. Network rendering speeds up rendering by sharing tasks among several computers. There are two network rendering options available in combustion: a client-server based system named backburner and the Watch Folder feature in the stand-alone Render Queue. Currently, backburner is only available on Windows systems...... With network rendering, this means you do not have to sit waiting for a render to complete but can carry on working. Projects can be rendered at any resolution and bit depth in a variety of file formats including Tiff, Targa, Photoshop, SGI, Cineon, BMP and JPEG. Combustion 2's network render manager allows you to efficiently render your projects across multiple systems and CPUs across the network using TCP/IP. There are some limits to this, such as for Windows AVI files which (by design) can NOT be network rendered. (AVI files are interleaved and must be rendered on the same CPU.)

3) OGL and rendering: Discreet mentions that users may experience different results using OpenGL acceleration on different OpenGL hardware cards, and this is simply due to the supported capabilities of each card. For example, some cards may support full anti-aliasing, while other cards may have limited anti-aliasing support or no anti-aliasing at all. A suggestion is to always make sure your OpenGL hardware supports the features you need for your project before attempting to use OpenGL for final rendering. For this reason, Discreet recommends that you use OpenGL to speed up the preview of your work, but then always use software rendering for your final renders, much as you would in any other 3D application. In fact, some hardware/software combinations may result in corrupted renders using Software OpenGL. Therefore, with unsupported graphics cards, you should always use the Software Renderer. By the way: Discreet also highly recommends that you turn OFF OpenGL rendering when submitting network renders. Use software rendering for any Composite operators in your workspace because the presence of unsupported OpenGL hardware on any render workstation on your network may cause visual differences between the frames of your project. In other words, if you have different cards on the PC on your network, each card might give you different results. Some advanced composition attributes such as ambient lighting, spotlight falloff and reflections will not produce the same results as they would in software rendering mode. Again, remember that software rendering is always recommended for final rendering.

4) Are you rendering video streams for the Web? For the most efficient web-streaming file formats, I would suggest that you use Discreet Cleaner, which has proven the most efficient and effective streaming tool. Cleaner helps you create professional video streams for CD-ROMs, DVDs, web
video or visual communication projects, and is the only software you need to process, format, encode and publish the highest quality streaming media in all the major formats - QuickTime, RealSystem, Windows Media, MP3, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 at a wide range of connection speeds. Cleaner provides is the industry standard today.

5) There is a lot of talk about RAM Rendering: Always remember to OPTIMIZE your RAM Player: There can be many reasons why systems may not provide real-time RAM Playback, despite fast CPU speeds and high amounts of RAM. The reality is that real-time RAM Playback can be dependent on not only your computer CPU speed and graphics card, but also your preference setting. Note that some computers are not able to play back from RAM in the viewports at the full frame rate because the graphics card simply does NOT have enough 2D performance. In other words, a better graphics cards will deliver faster playout. As for the playout: It has nothing to do with the number of video or graphic layers, because once something is rendered to RAM, the images that are stored are independent of the processing that was required to create those images. The best idea for improved RAM playout is to optimize your Rendering Settings: Under your Composite Preferences, set your output to the "Color" option and NOT the "Color+Alpha". This is because Color creates a 24-bit images in RAM, whereas Color+Alpha creates 32-bit images (RGBA.) Obviously, 32 bit will play slower in the viewport due to the extra data! (Note that "Color+Alpha" is the default option.) Another Tip: if you are have a supported video frame buffer installed in your computer with combustion and you have set the preference for “live buffer display,” you should size-down your viewport and rely on your video monitor for playback. Or, conversely, switch OFF your frame buffer to speed up your RAM play out on the Viewport.

Anyway, that's all for now....
Until next month, when things change again.....

Bye,
JACK

[Maz]

Thanks Jack

After reading that article about Mac vs PC

I can assume that probably a Mac 17" 1GHz powerbook, is probably as fast as 1ghz Pentium 4 ....being a mac addict user I'll probably go for it, .. considering that there are alot of film post houses using shake on 800 mgz PC.

cheers

[arvid]

Just adding that there are 3.06GHz laptops available from Alienware, if you can stand the color :)

[zolo]

Here's a very interesting update on the now-infamous Mac vs. PC After Effects test at www.digitalvideoediting.com:

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2003/03_mar/editorials/smack105030326.htm

An important fact to note is that After Effects is apparently very poorly optimized for dual CPU Macs, making almost no use of the second processor. Combustion appears to be much better in this regard, so Macs may not lag behind PCs to the same extent that they do when running AE.

-zolo

[arvid]

Launch a render on a dual cpu PC and watch the TaskManager, it hardly ever goes above 50% CPU usage, so it's AfterFX that is entierly poorly coded, and it's not specific to any platform, if a dual CPU pc would be used to compare the result would be the same. Do a comparison with Shake with a dual PC vs a dual Mac, you'll see the same sort of difference in performance. (true performance)