Is it worth it?

[thelibran]

DEAR FLGB.

It is advisable for you to visit this link

http://www.alias.com/eng/support/maya/qualified_hardware/QUAL/maya_50_win.html;$sessionid$DJVUSZJEPI1GNQCLCWSCFEWAJMK0KIV0

this will tell you more about your Geforce2MX.

I am using PC’s(workstations) for last 5 yrs for production and it has given me the best speed than any mac. When I was working as editor I was using both Avid on PC and FCP on a Mac G4… Mac was full of troubles mainly because of the video card issues. For urgent work we nevr used to go for mac. Avid on PC was our best solution. Now I am in front of a mac G4 Dual working on SHAKE. I am finding this a biggest waste. SHAKE on a PC running on linux has always given me best performance. and it depends on the hardware you use for PC. without thinking about the hardware, dont blame a PC….
😉 [/b]

[Xavier]

Thelibran,

Everybody here (I hope) knows that G4s suck in terms of raw performance compared to Intel/AMD chips produced in the same period.

But those days are long gone and now the G5 is able to hold it’s ground against the best of the PCs.

Check this out:

http://www.media-motion.tv/aebenchmarks.html

And keep in mind that the PowerPC 970FX (aka G5) at 2.5GHz is just around the corner…

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/16/hnpowerdown_1.html

I still don’t think that the G5 is the best choice for 3D work (not enough high-end 3D gfx cards), but for editing and compositing it is a very cost effective option…

… but since it’s not *me* who pays the box I work on: I still prefer Inferno! 🙂

— Xavier

[Ajax]

Thanks guys,

I agree as far as 3D work is concerned. I dont feel that the macs video card is suitable enought for really hard core VFX comps, but I think the road Im following is in Compositing, and I do think that it can handle it. Im sure many people disagree, and say that they are using macs for there 3D stuff, but from the places I have been, it looks to be different. I am waiting to see if Apple ups the processing speed of the G5’s. That would be nice and I could finalize alot more once it does, Cheers

[thelibran]

I tried a Dual G5 1.X something I dont remember with 2 GB RAM and a ATI FIRE GL (I guess so) nearly 4 months back when it was first deployed in my old company… I tried SHAKE some files with PAL res and the result was again bad… It got struck while I tried multiple undo and made me Force quit shake 2-3 times and to restart G5 2 times…. I couldnt even get 1FPS playback and on applying a mask it was taking hell a lot of time… Once I started adding more than 4 layers… system started dragging… Engineers told they will show the performance after 2 days and they did many things on that system and couldnt make it better… Am getting a lot better perfomance on a PC with AMD athelon XP 2400 running on ASUS A7N8X-E with a Geforce4MX card… I am trying get the GeForce replaced for a better card… But still I am getting better performance in PC even when it crashes 2-4 times per day….

[Anonymous]

hi all,

i have found this test on highend2d.com

http://homepage.mac.com/breadboi/shake/

and the results are intressting……

have fun

mandrake[/url]

[Diogo Girondi]

Hi,

I’ll not get into the infamous PC x Mac fight because it’s useless, if you really plan to use Shake get a Mac, not because it’s faster or cheaper but because is the only way that you have a garantee that you will have future versions of Shake avaliable to you, plus to that it’s in fact cheaper even with the hardware included and you get rendernodes for free, so it worths.

Linux is a great OS, but you still need to be kinda “engineer” to set it well, plus it lacks of applications and good drivers and you can’t really compare Gimp or Cinepaint to Photoshop, Photoshop still the ONE to be beaten, and its the standart in the market so you simply can’t runaway from it.
Amazon Paint looks pretty nice tho, but I still not too sure about it.

If you can get two computers, get a Mac with Shake, FCP bundle and a PC for 3D stuff, if you plan to do heavy 3D stuff (dynamics, complex character animation) the boards that comes with G5 might not be polygon “beasts”, but for Shake GUI, DVE, 2D and some 3D stuff is more then enough I assure you.

In the other hand if Shake is not an issue and you need heavy 3D stuff, get a good PC with a polygon “beast” graphic board.
Since the PC plataform in my opnion still more flexible in terms of applications and possibilities then the Mac plataform you could set a PC running Nuke, DF or even Combustion for compositing and have a powerful 3D box in the same computer.

But if Shake is the main thing here defenitly go for a Mac G5, you get all the advantages on buying a Shake copy and the garantee that you will have future versions of Shake, also you still have access for great apps for 3D like Maya Complete, LightWave and Cinema 4D running pretty well too.

Just my R$ 0,2 😉

Cheers,
dg

[Diogo Girondi]

Almost forgot it, wait till July/August, Intel will release it’s new 64bit processor line, that I’m sure will kick some ass too, and Mac might have some reaction to that, making the current G5 configs drop their prices and releasing new processors speeds.

So if you can, might worth the wait 😉

See ya,
dg

[thelibran]

hi…

anyone tested the new AMD Athlon 64bit systems for speed….
any idea abt system costs…???

[Diogo Girondi]

thelibran wrote:

hi…

anyone tested the new AMD Athlon 64bit systems for speed….
any idea abt system costs…???

Hi thelibrain,

I haven’t yet, but till now I’m not aware of any major windows ou linux based apps being optimized for 64bit plataforms, if I’m not mistaken the only one that I’m aware of is Houdini, so I belive for now you won’t see much difference.

By the way anyone knows which CG applications for windows XP64 or Linux are already optimized 64bit?

Cheers,
dg

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