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Hi everyone.. i’m just new in the world of silicon graphics. i bought a SG O2 system because i want to learn 3d animation (Maya) and video editing/compositing.. and i wanna know if any of u know how well the SG O2 behaves with what i want to do..
i’ve been told that the SG O2 is a great machine for that, so i would like your commentaries.
Also, the SG O2 has installed the piranha hd ¿4.0? (i don’t remember the version).. but i can’t find a place on the internet (or outside) where i can learn about this software.. or any tutorials either..
i would like your help about this stuff and appreciate some answer..
thanks. 😀Bad news! The O2 is about 7-year-old technology, and when it was new it was at the bottom of SGI’s heap. It’ll be a nice box to play around with, but if you wanna learn 3d and compositing, you should get a nice mac or pc. It’ll be a lot faster. A LOT! The O2 has a 300 MHz processor, which is dog slow compared to the 2.5GHz on a mac or a nice 3.2 GHz proc on the pc. You’ll be able to find current versions of the software you want without too much trouble. Good luck getting photoshop on IRIX, y’know? Sorry to rain on the parade.
More bad news, Alias said the the current version of Maya will be the last version for IRIX.
I think the only 3d program left that release an IRIX version is oftimage, but for how long?
higginba wrote:The O2 has a 300 MHz processor, which is dog slow compared to the 2.5GHz on a mac or a nice 3.2 GHz proc on the pc.Well, that depends on which O2 you have… O2 was released with the following MIPS CPUs:
R5000 180MHz
R5000 200MHz
RM5200 300MHz
RM7000 350MHzand
R10000 150MHz
R10000 175MHz
R10000 195MHz
R10000 225MHz
R10000 250MHz
R12000 270MHz
R12000 300MHz
R12000A 400MHzRecently, SGI enthusiasts have custom-modded RM7000 600MHz O2s.
You’re correct in summary, though. Even the fastest O2 is a slug compared with modern PCs and Macs.
The miraculous thing, however, is that even a 7-year old O2 is still somewhat usable, especially for video. You can’t really say the same of 7 year old Macs and PCs…
-zolo
zigfil wrote:Also, the SG O2 has installed the piranha hd ¿4.0? (i don’t remember the version).. but i can’t find a place on the internet (or outside) where i can learn about this software.. or any tutorials either..You can find out more on:
interactiveFX
I don’t think that you’ll find a lot of tutorials about that program. You mostly get access to such compositing apps only with you allready have done compositing. But a good manual should be part of such a software.about Maya…
The main problem with O2 and and Maya is the missing 3D performance. And a the end when you’re doing render jobs, the processor can’t be compared to something that is common right now on Windows systems. have a look at the Maya Test Center at Highend3d… the first SGI system is at the end of the list an Onyx2 with 4 600 MHz CPUs. You can’t compare a Onyx with an O2, the interactive speed is miles faster than that of an O2 (and it costs a lot more).
I had a couple of O2s to maintain, now I use one for exchanging data and as a simple web server. The performance is really weak. Perhaps it’s enough for the beginning, but if you wanna create complex scenes, dynamic simulation and render images for example with global illumination or other processor intensive techniques, you will work much faster with an simple windows box and one of the NVidia or ATI gaming cards. You could also use Linux on an Intel/AMD box if Unix was why you’ve taken the O2.
If you’re an artist and don’t want to have to do much with hardware, perhaps Apple is an option. The only weak point are graphiccards there, but people say that it’s much easier to work with them than on a Windows system. I would recommend Windows because there’re much more programs, but only for Maya and perhaps Photoshop, an Apple could be enough.
Anyway, if you already have your O2 and you bought a Maya version, I would go with it as long as it isn’t too slow for the things you do. But if you wanna buy Maya should have in mind that you have to pay if you change your license from your O2/Irix to Windows or something else!
-Klauszigfil wrote:also, a friend of mine is gonna sell me the O2 at $1,200 USD… is that ok???The SG O2 has:
The Flat panel monitor of 18″ or so… the one of Silicon’s..
Procesor R10 000 with 250 MHz… it has 750 MB of RAM…
Do you think i should buy it for that price??Wow, you can get a faster machine than that off of ebay for $99 USD. Look here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11223&item=5768464674&rd=1
It doesn’t include a monitor, but still. It’s $99. Even if the O2 has software on it, you’ll have to pay full price if you want to upgrade it, as the licenses generally aren’t transferrable between owners. I really, really wouldn’t go anywhere near that O2. SGIs are dead, dead, dead for 3d animation! I’m pretty comfortable with PCs, though, so I’m kinda biased. If you can get around on Windows, you could get a pretty decent Dell for the same $1200. It wouldn’t have dual processors or a super-fancy workstation gfx card, but it would still be WAY faster than the O2. Good luck with your decision!
of course an o2 is a few years behind but mips/irix is rock solid and even it’s slower
the work in total is really smooth.
take a cheap x86 as renderslave and work with the o2.
this should give you advantages from both worlds…zigfil wrote:Do you think i should buy it for that price??absolutely not.
the older sgi’s are fun for hobbyists who like oddball hardware to toy with, or have seats of highend turnkey packages built around them. if you are a single user starting fresh, then an sgi would be the worst you could do.
wheter your friend says its a good thing or not, just dont do it.[/b]
well according to the ebay prices you can have a trouble free and cheap life compared to mac
or even x86.
it’s not the speed but the overall quality (crashes, odd hardware issues etc.)zigfil wrote:foetz wrote:of course an o2 is a few years behind but mips/irix is rock solid and even it’s slower
the work in total is really smooth.
take a cheap x86 as renderslave and work with the o2.
this should give you advantages from both worlds…Just a question Foetz… how can i do the renderslave that you’re suggesting.. it seems really interesting.. (and hopeful due to my low budget)
depends on the app.
mentalray can render over the net out of the box.
renderman, houdini and softimage have network rendering support as well.just read their guides for proper setup.
zigfil wrote:I appreciate all of you for your help. I think i’m gonna buy a pc after all.But… what configuration do you think will be great for handling 3d animation and video editing an postproduction…???? do i really need dual processors??
How much RAM is enough??? 1 or 2 GB?? Hard disk?? Graphic card?? an so on…that will save my day, thanks!!!
editing and post is disappointing cause of the limits of x86.
for 3d get as much cpus as you can get. 2gb is enough cause x86 can’t handle
more.
though it’s possible to use more it’s kinda software trick. pure hardware is
stuck to 2gb.zigfil wrote:How much RAM is enough??? 1 or 2 GB?? Hard disk?? Graphic card?? an so on…If you just wanna have one processor, I would go with an Intel, otherwise I would take a Opteron system. The problem right now is, how fast 64 bit will be an advandage. Operon system seam to be quit fast and Intel isn’t that cheap. Some of the software have special optimizations for Intel/AMD.
As graphic card I would use a NVidia Gerforce card. ATI and Maya isn’t the best combination… there were a lot of troubles in the past. There’s allways a little war if someone posts ATI or NVida is the better choice. From my experience NVidia doesn’t make much trouble if you use the right driver version. And of course if you’Re system doesn’t make trouble, don’t change something…
2GB of RAM is enough… more doesn’t make much sense now. You should buy at least two harddisks… one for system and one for data.
About the renderslave setup, if you buy maya for your sgi and mental ray standalone for your PC you can use an SGI and render everything even previews directly in maya. Only problem, this costs a lot… you now get with maya 6.5 complete 2 (8 with unlimited) satellite rendering licenses… but this only works as far as I know on one platform. So if you have a windows license you have to use a windows pc as second or third renderslave… this is what I’ve heard at the 6.5 presentation, I don’t use it so perhaps someone has newer infos about that.
-Klaus
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