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Hi All,
I am looking to purchase my next computer, and I wanted alittle proffessional expertise. I am thinking about getting the G5, but I am waiting to see if they update the proccessing speed to 2.8 from 2GHz. I am also interested in purchasing a PC. I dont really care for all the “I love mac vs PC stuff”, I just want to get the job done. I have been doing freelance lately and at the studio I was working with I noticed they all were using PC’s. So I figured that sources are right about PC and Linux in the proffessional work environment. But I am starting to get more into shake, and I want to benifit from all the new features version 3 has to offer. So this leads me to highend3d for help. Which system should a working proffessional purchase? Are G5’s used in any of your companies? Or PC’s? Dual Xeon or Dual 2GHz G5? I am still researching through different articles but cant seem to make up my mind. And this is an investment to me so I dont want to be disappointed in my purchase….Any advice would be excellent! cheers
Ajax wrote:Hi All,I am looking to purchase my next computer, and I wanted alittle proffessional expertise. I am thinking about getting the G5, but I am waiting to see if they update the proccessing speed to 2.8 from 2GHz. I am also interested in purchasing a PC. I dont really care for all the “I love mac vs PC stuff”, I just want to get the job done. I have been doing freelance lately and at the studio I was working with I noticed they all were using PC’s. So I figured that sources are right about PC and Linux in the proffessional work environment. But I am starting to get more into shake, and I want to benifit from all the new features version 3 has to offer. So this leads me to highend3d for help. Which system should a working proffessional purchase? Are G5’s used in any of your companies? Or PC’s? Dual Xeon or Dual 2GHz G5? I am still researching through different articles but cant seem to make up my mind. And this is an investment to me so I dont want to be disappointed in my purchase….Any advice would be excellent! cheers
I would hold off on any G5 purchase right now. Due to the differing costs involved with Shake on OSX compared to Linux I wanted to see what Apple really has to offer DCC (Digital Content Creation) artists. What I found out is that you really can’t consider the G5 a workstation..it’s a desktop. Sure it’s great for Paint and Editing but sucks because of one serious reason. That is there are no current highend pro graphics cards (ie: FireGL, Quadro FX, Wildcat, etc) supported on OSX. There is absoulutly no DCC drivers for Apple. There are only Win2000/XP and Linux drivers for DCC cards. So if you are planning on purchasing Shake then get the Linux version. It’s far cheaper to build a PC based system compared to Apple and you’ll get more hardware/software to chose from. I’d recommend either a dual AMD Opteron64 or AMD Athlon64-FX system. If you have no clue about building workstations then companies like http://www.boxxtech.com/swf/index.asp or http://www.alienware.com/ can build one for you. There’s another reason for going Linux and that is the huge amount of free apps because of Open Source under the GPL. For paint Cinepaint (free) kicks Photoshops ass hands down http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/ and then there are Linux editors like Smoke 6, Piranha HD, Cinelerra (free) http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 , Jashaka (free) http://www.jahshaka.com/. For graphics cards I would suggest one of NVIDIA’s Quadro FX cards FX 1000, FX 2000 or FX 3000.
My advice will be different from CGartist.
First the mac version of shake cost 5000$ instead of 10000$ for the other platforms.
Next, the mac version has several significant optimisations for the G5 making it REALLY fast compared to other platforms.
Next, shake doesn’t need high-end graphic cards. I’m currently using shake with a GeForce 2Mx and it’s working perfectly even on HD material. Shake just needs a lot of computing power. Those high-end cards are for intensive 3D use only or those who wants to display cubes à300fps on a 75hz display… My Geforce 2Mx can easily handle around 500 000 polygons scenes in maya (ok at 5 or 6 fps but that enough to work without using bounding box simplification).
Most of my friends are buying a new PC every six months (or every year for the lucky ones) because there is always a problem with these boxes. I’m now intensively using my dual 800 g4 since more than 2 years and I think, I’ll continue for at least one year to use it for real-time editing with FCP, 3D with maya and compositing with shake.
Mac os x is really easy to use and to install. It can saves you a lot of time on very short deadlines. You can also benefit of some of opensource projects like the gimp, cinepaint, and many others that can run in the X11 environement.FLGB wrote:My advice will be different from CGartist.
First the mac version of shake cost 5000$ instead of 10000$ for the other platforms.
Next, the mac version has several significant optimisations for the G5 making it REALLY fast compared to other platforms.
Next, shake doesn’t need high-end graphic cards. I’m currently using shake with a GeForce 2Mx and it’s working perfectly even on HD material. Shake just needs a lot of computing power. Those high-end cards are for intensive 3D use only or those who wants to display cubes à300fps on a 75hz display… My Geforce 2Mx can easily handle around 500 000 polygons scenes in maya (ok at 5 or 6 fps but that enough to work without using bounding box simplification).
Most of my friends are buying a new PC every six months (or every year for the lucky ones) because there is always a problem with these boxes. I’m now intensively using my dual 800 g4 since more than 2 years and I think, I’ll continue for at least one year to use it for real-time editing with FCP, 3D with maya and compositing with shake.
Mac os x is really easy to use and to install. It can saves you a lot of time on very short deadlines. You can also benefit of some of opensource projects like the gimp, cinepaint, and many others that can run in the X11 environement.Hello? 🙄
Cost: I don’t know where you are getting your figures from but when I configured a Boxx system equal in parts to a dual G5 I get a hell of a lot lower price for the Boxx. Plus I even included a Quadro FX card which is not an option for the Apple systems. Boxx also is willing to give discounts for studios purchasing a large quantity of hardware unlike Apple. Even when comparing parts from distributors to build your own you actually save even more when building a 2D or 3D workstation.
Graphics: I highly doubt you are doing any professional work with either Shake or Maya since the Geforce 2MX completely sucks on both. I know this since I tested several gaming cards on both software. You cannot get hardware rendering , Overlay Planes, the ability to handle large data on a gaming card. You may be able to get away with say a Geforce FX 5900 on Maya but you are still going to have issues with Artisan Paint FX, Fluids, Particle Dynamics, etc. Alias themselves have tested gaming cards and clearly pointed out the faults in each. As for Shake it’s a great piece of software but I wouldn’t risk my client projects on a gaming card. Also as I stated many times on forums to new users in this field. There are no professional graphics cards for use on Apple systems. Even editing hardware is pulling away such as Digital Voodoo that will stop producing driver support for Apple.
Lifespan: I’ll agree with you that PC technology is advancing faster than Apple but that is a good thing. Companies and Freelance artists are not constantly upgrading every 6 months. That is a myth stired up by Mac fanatics. We have the option of upgrading but most artists will continue to use their systems for 2 years or more. A lot of companies lease workstations, servers, etc so they can update with out significant impact on the production process.
OS Installation: OSX is easy to install? Umm…hello? A G5 system comes with the OS installed when you purchase it. Unless of course you are talking about OSX 32-bit but then again Linux 32-bit is free. Even the Linux distros that are 64-bit cost less than OSX 64-bit. Also, Linux follows the GPL so everything Open Source is free. We exchange ideas, tools, etc to improve on current technology that benefits all Linux users and not just a select few. You can also get Linux 64 to run on either the Intel Itanium or AMD Opeteron 64 and Athlon 64-FX.
Who’s using what: Call up studios and ask what type of hardware and OS they use. The majority of Post-Production studios use PC systems and either Windows or Linux. More are changing to Linux due to cost concerns and more open ability to advance the code unlike Windows.
Software: Maya Complete is only offered on OSX and barely works at that since again..no highend graphics. Maya Complete and Unlimited are offerd on Windows and Linux. Also XSI is offered on Windows and Linux but not OSX. MAX is only offerd on Windows but that may change since Discreet offers Smoke 6 on Linux.
Do you see the big picture? When it comes to running a studio and getting projects done the way the client imagines you cannot afford to go the Apple route. There just isn’t enough support for professional software and hardware for Apple. Maybe this will change but then again Apple has been saying this for 2 years. I want my projects done on time and not tell the client my excuse is that I’m waiting for Apple to get it’s act together.
Ok, don’t get enervated. I just gave you my advice on the question.
I’m a freelance artist and the solution I chose enables me to work easily on 3D, broadcast video and print jobs.
I’ve got a lot of softwares and hardware in this machine, and everyting is working perfectly together. I’ve never had any conflict and it’s fully plug’n play.
The solutions you are talking about are those used by big companies and made for an only use like 3D of compositing. Once your 3D or compositing work is finished, you send it to another guy which will have another station to do editing for exemple. That was the solution for the big company.
Now, if you are a freelance and just want to do 3D or compositing, you won’t get a lot of work. So, you need to build a complete pipe-line containing tools to handles the different productions states from the rough to the master. That’s why you need to add good image compositing tool like photoshop, a 3D tool, an editing tool, a video card (to output your video on a digibeta master), etc.
The fact is that it’s impossible to have all that in a single PC box running windows or linux at the same level of flexibility and price of a mac. If you want, I can make you a cost estimation for such a configuration.You seems very young and very 3D oriented. If you were a senior artist you would remember the configurations used at least during the last 5 years; you’ll see that those configurations were using worst cards than my geforce 2Mx. I’ll give you an exemple, in the movie Terminator 2, the last judgment scene was created on 40Mhz mac and contained millions of polygons. Amazing isn’t it?
I also suggest you to have a look at professionnal video editing workstations. You’ll certainly have a lot of good surprises.Remember that it’s not the graphic card that will make the difference.
Here is a rough estimation from the apple store for a G5 + shake configuration :
G5 dual 2Ghz (including Keyboard, mouse and internal modem)
+ SATA HD 160 GB
+ Superdrive (burn cds ans dvds)
+ 2GB of DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200)
+ ATI radeo 9800 pro
+ Cinema display 20″
+ Shake 3
= 10598 $It could be less expensive (certainly a 1000-1500$ difference) if you buy the ram and the display in another place than the apple store.
The Shake licence for linux/windows costs 9900$. So if you want a pc solution (for shake v2.51) the PC you have to buy has to cost less than 700 $ including a screen. That’s the price for a quadro FX 1000 and half the price of a quadro 3000.FLGB wrote:Ok, don’t get enervated. I just gave you my advice on the question.
I’m a freelance artist and the solution I chose enables me to work easily on 3D, broadcast video and print jobs.
I’ve got a lot of softwares and hardware in this machine, and everyting is working perfectly together. I’ve never had any conflict and it’s fully plug’n play.
The solutions you are talking about are those used by big companies and made for an only use like 3D of compositing. Once your 3D or compositing work is finished, you send it to another guy which will have another station to do editing for exemple. That was the solution for the big company.
Now, if you are a freelance and just want to do 3D or compositing, you won’t get a lot of work. So, you need to build a complete pipe-line containing tools to handles the different productions states from the rough to the master. That’s why you need to add good image compositing tool like photoshop, a 3D tool, an editing tool, a video card (to output your video on a digibeta master), etc.
The fact is that it’s impossible to have all that in a single PC box running windows or linux at the same level of flexibility and price of a mac. If you want, I can make you a cost estimation for such a configuration.You seems very young and very 3D oriented. If you were a senior artist you would remember the configurations used at least during the last 5 years; you’ll see that those configurations were using worst cards than my geforce 2Mx. I’ll give you an exemple, in the movie Terminator 2, the last judgment scene was created on 40Mhz mac and contained millions of polygons. Amazing isn’t it?
I also suggest you to have a look at professionnal video editing workstations. You’ll certainly have a lot of good surprises.Remember that it’s not the graphic card that will make the difference.
I’ll admit it’s a nice price for Shake on a dual G5 but that’s it. If you are freelancing and want to do more you are limited on hardware and software choices such as I stated above.
I consider FCP in the same catagory as Premiere Pro. Just putting the word “Pro” doesn’t mean it’s a professional app. It’s true that it’s more difficult to find editing cards than graphics cards for Linux compared to Windows but that is changing fast. Companies are meeting the needs of consumers by developing more linux drivers and software.
Also if graphics cards are not important in comps than why has Discreet chosen to use the Quadro FX 3000-G in their Smoke 6 turnkey system? I don’t understand when Nothing Real had Shake they recommended professional graphics cards but since Apple aquired Shake they don’t list any. Maybe that is because you can only get “gaming” cards for Apple systems. Compositing, Animation and Editing tools have gotten more powerful since as you stated T2 (how many years ago was that?..lol). This is due to studios trying to meet the demands of both client and audience viewers.
So if you are building a studio and want Shake for compositing. Great one dual G5 will do fine. No need to fork out extra cash since there are more cheaper solutions for animation, paint, editing and rendering on PC Workstations and Servers. There is another issue though and that it if you want to change compositors you are limited to only Shake. On a PC (Windows/Linux) I have the choice of many compositors for both OS’s.
I’m not young at 32 but you guessed right that I’m mainly a 3D artist that uses Maya. I’ve been using Shake on and off though since 2.5. Correct me if I’m wrong but can’t a studio use other rendering tools instead of using Shake’s render only app..such as Renderman?
Contrarily to Shake, Discreet systems are really hardware dependent and so, instead of adapting itself to the machine, the soft will require a special hardware to dispatch the computing load.
I’ll stop re-lunching the debate (even if I really want to) but I think that Ajax has enough elements to begin to choose a solution that will match it’s need.
So ajax. Before you buy anything, try the choosen solution so you’ll be sure that you’ll be productcive and efficient. Some people can’t stant the mac interface and others (like me) can’t stand the windows and linux interfaces and way of thinking.
Just choose the tool wich you’ll be more confortable with.FLGB wrote:Contrarily to Shake, Discreet systems are really hardware dependent and so, instead of adapting itself to the machine, the soft will require a special hardware to dispatch the computing load.I’ll stop re-lunching the debate (even if I really want to) but I think that Ajax has enough elements to begin to choose a solution that will match it’s need.
So ajax. Before you buy anything, try the choosen solution so you’ll be sure that you’ll be productcive and efficient. Some people can’t stant the mac interface and others (like me) can’t stand the windows and linux interfaces and way of thinking.
Just choose the tool wich you’ll be more confortable with.The question regarding Renderman was not meant as an attack I just noticed tools like Rush that allow distributed rendering on Linux, Irix, Windows and OSX for Shake, Maya, Mental Ray, etc. Was curious if there are alternatives to Apples high price scheme for Linux users. See the link for more info.
http://www.seriss.com/rush-current/
Re: Ajax and Linux.
Ajax, out of all the distros I found SuSE Pro 9.0 and Mandrake 9.2 the easiest to install and understand. Both come with helpful tutorials for both user and Admin. I was nervous like you coming from over a decade on Windows but after installed I finally realised what I was missing all these years. Both distros offer Live Evalulation versions that run off the CD and don’t require installation on your drive. That way you can see if Linux is really for you. See links below for the list of tools/software/features with SuSE and Mandrake.
I didn’t take it as an attack. It’s just that because I’ve just got a single machine and so, I dont have a good experience with network renders especially on others platforms than mac.
I don’t know if there is a batch render tool for shake on linux and windows. But on the mac, apple has developped Qmaster. it’s really a great tool.
Just drag’n drop the file in it and it’s rendering.
The setup is also really really easy.
Add to that a renderfarm filled with Xserve cluster nodes and you are ready to go!I think the only choice is a mac. They are way faster. The card thing might be true to realtime 3d but it has nothing to do with Shake. I don’t recall a Photoshop or Final Cut Pro version for Linux. The macs also have 0 maintenance cost as for Linux has proven that it needs just as much as a Windows machine. Shake on OS X is running a 64bits while on Linux it runs at 32 bits. Also when you look at real specs of the system the G5 is faster than an SGI Tzero (including in system bandwith, SGI’s strong point). Plus Shake is owned by apple so not only is heaper but you can be shure that they put th extra effort in it to be the best version around.
Ajax,
I think most studios use PCs now because until very recently, the Mac (with G4 CPUs) was WAY behind in terms of performance.
Now with the G5, I think PCs and Macs are pretty much on par in terms of performance. To prove my point, check this out:
http://www.media-motion.tv/aebenchmarks.html
Take a look at the third graph (Comp 1 + Comp 2). There is very little difference between the top 5 machines.
If Shake is your main use: get a G5. Apple makes the soft+hardware, the software is half the price, render node software is free on OS X, Windows is stuck at version 2.51.
If editing is your main use: get a G5 with a Blacklogic IO card (http://www.decklink.com) and FCP. You can do realtime DV to uncompressed SDI to “uncompressed” (ahem… YUV 4:2:2) HDTV (with proper storage, of course). Bonus points for creating DVD client copies with iDVD.
If 3D is your main use: get a PC. 3dsMax and XSI are simply not available for Mac. I seriously doubt the Maya experience is super enjoyable on a Mac either. As noted by other posts, the 3D card offering is less than stellar on Mac.
If you want to render fast for minimum $$$, build a custom built PC. It is a hassle if you don’t like those things, but there is no way you can get a cheaper computer with a G5 or “brand name” PC.
If you are curious about Linux, get a G5! 🙂 OS X gives you access to most of the open source goodies (GIMP, FilmGIMP, mplayer, …) and UNIX goodies (shell scripting, process management, command line tools, networking goodies) without sacrificing user interface and ability to use commerical (i.e. Adobe!) tools.
For everything else, get either. Whatever you are most comfortable with. Both can do AfterEffects, Combustion, Commotion, Photoshop, Illustrator, Shake (if you don’t mind v.2.51) etc… For every task a Mac user will come up as “impossible to do on a PC”, a PC fan will come up with another that is equally “impossible to do on a Mac”… There are ways to do whatever you need to do on both platforms, don’t worry.
Disclaimer: I work all day on IRIX boxes for Discreet stuff, I use Macs at home and all the 3D artists at work use Dell PCs. This should give you an idea of my biases!
— Xavier
eltopo wrote:I think the only choice is a mac. They are way faster. The card thing might be true to realtime 3d but it has nothing to do with Shake. I don’t recall a Photoshop or Final Cut Pro version for Linux. The macs also have 0 maintenance cost as for Linux has proven that it needs just as much as a Windows machine. Shake on OS X is running a 64bits while on Linux it runs at 32 bits. Also when you look at real specs of the system the G5 is faster than an SGI Tzero (including in system bandwith, SGI’s strong point). Plus Shake is owned by apple so not only is heaper but you can be shure that they put th extra effort in it to be the best version around.Shake runs at 64-bits on both OSX Panther and several Linux distros that are 64-bit. Just so everyone is clear Linux had 64-bit long before Apple came out with Panther.
As for the stability of Linux I would consider it just as stable as OSX and UNIX. I’ve had RedHat and SuSE running 24/7 with no errors or crashes. It all depends on what distro you are using. At least the 3 OS’s I mentioned are nothing compared to the instability of MicroSuck products. 😀
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