thickly Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 I know these have just hit the streets, but I was wondering if anyone is thinking of moving their 3DS/AutoCAD work onto these. I am spec'ing new machines for my team (we are mostly ACAD with some viz work in 3DS Max -- I do a lot of Viz with 3DS Max/Maxwell). Will these programs run via bootcamp without issues or loss of performance? We are all PC-based at the moment and most people want to make the move to Mac's - I use both at home and though I prefer my Mac, I'm also really interested in the new core-duo's coming out. Do you think the Mac's will have comparable rendertimes to the PC's? Let's her some thoughts. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 I'm a mac guy, so can't yet comment on bootcamp or parallels (the other option for running windows.) From what I've seen though, the Macs look to be an exceptionally good deal. Strange, huh? A Mac costs less than a similarly spec'ed Dell, and black is white? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 Well, I can't speak to the new workstation but I have a Macbook Pro with Bootcamp and it works very well. Bootcamp makes the process of installing and dual-booting straightforward. The hardware all works fine, with a few exceptions - no remote control, no built-in iSight webcam, no keyboard backlight or hard drive drop sensor, the DVD drive has some issue that's making it slower than it should be and plugging in headphones doesn't turn off the speakers. But it's beta, and all things considered it's quite good. The drivers I care about - UBS and Firewire, full video card support, 802.11G, Bluetooth, ethernet, most of the sound support - are included. Everything runs at full speed, except when it shouldn't (Speedstep and a kind of Speedstep for the ATI card are included and work). It cooperates with my 2GB RAM (one DIMM is Apple, one Corsair) and the dual-core. Render speed is good - it's the 2.16 Duo, speed is comparable to a dual Xeon 3.4-3.6 or so. The new workstation would raise other issues. I haven't seen anything on whether Bootcamp works on them yet. The video cards are new to the line (Bootcamp's first release supports Intel 950 and ATI x1600, the Mac Pro has ATI x1900, some kind of Geforce and Quadro 4500 options) and the video driver comes from the Bootcamp CD. I don't know if stock drivers would work even with some .ini file hacking like you need with Dell Precision laptops. The dual-dual is also new to the line, and Bootcamp requires Windows XP SP2 (with a non-upgrade CD that includes SP2) which would not support more than 4GB RAM - the docs don't say anything about XP64 or Vista Beta. This is all stuff you'd think Apple would clear up soon, but if you can't have XP64 and the ability to go to 8GB or 16GB RAM you lose one of the big advantages. (Also, Apple RAM prices are ridiculous, look for compatible 3rd party parts - Apple wanted $300 for my second 1GB, Newegg wanted $90. And I'm disappointed that they don't offer any workstation class video card below Quadro 4500 - I'd never pay for that, but I can be persuaded to pay for a 1400 or a FireGL.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 One thing I forgot to add: two programs you need[/] when running bootcamp are Keytweak (free) to handle the differences between Mac and PC keyboards (though maybe with the desktop you could just use a USB PC keyboard) and MacDrive ($50). MacDrive is better than MacDisk - it makes your Mac partition a mounted, read/write hard drive under Windows, is seamless and has other features for dealing with files shared by a Mac on a network and Mac format CDs. You can give the Windows partition less space and keep your large files on the Mac partition. Doing it the other way around doesn't work - MacOS can read NTFS but not write, so if you want to make your Windows disk read/write under MacOS you need to make it under 32GB and use FAT32 (ugh). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FOG Lite Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 I'm really interested to hear if anyone gets one of these and tries running MAX or something similar with them. I split my time between 3D work and Photo Shop so this would be an interesting option. The price on the Macs seem really good, the graphics card being the only thing that would need to be bought elsewhere. I've been looking at machines with similar specs and everything is almost $1000 more. So even after buying a copy on Windows and and new GPU there's still significant savings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 be careful with planning on buying aftermarket video cards for macs.... at least for now:p. The deal with the video card is not the hardware but OSX. Apple makes it so the drivers included with osx only work with the nvidia/ati cards they manufacture (checks with the rom on the card). If a 3rd party manufacturer makes a card and provides osx enabled drivers, then it will work just fine. Asus, XFX or Leitech for example could do this if they wanted to pay engineers to write osx drivers. There are a few projects out there where people have extracted that rom off the mac card and then flashed a pc version from someone like asus or xfx with the Apple rom so the osx drivers will recognize it as an Apple product. hopefully it will become as easy to flash an xfx or other pc graphics card to an Apple version as it was to softmod the Geforces into Quadros. may be worth a watch: Apple WWDC conference why is the graphics card selection so horrid? Where's the mid-range quadro:confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 Compatibility with video cards bought elsewhere that are not Mac-specific versions may still be a problem, so research first. If you could get the cheapest video card that comes with it and swap in a Quadro 1400 or so, that would be a no-brainer, but I don't think it's that easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FOG Lite Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 Yeah, i don't get that wither. Hopefully the inclusion of the Quadro 4500 means that they might start including more quadros. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thickly Posted August 12, 2006 Author Share Posted August 12, 2006 thanks for the replies -- other than the minor issues, it seams like it may be worth trying to migrate everything over to a Mac. Maybe I can the company to buy one upfront, see how it works out, and then roll them out to everyone else. Thanks again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 I don't really follow your reasoning, are you going to be using any Mac software at all, Max has just gone 64bit, and as far as I know, you won't be able to use Windows X64 or Vista, at least right now... But you could buy or build a kicka** quad xeon system and fully utilize Max... Sorry I'm just not getting it ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thickly Posted August 14, 2006 Author Share Posted August 14, 2006 Manta -- I'm with you. Basically, I have been giving the task of spec'ing some new hardware for my design department. One of my manager's really wants a Mac for personal reasons and has more or less told me to figure out a way to justify it. And as long as she can run ACAD on it, that is all that is important for her. While I do prefer my Mac for many reasons -- for my viz work I'm all for trickin out a company bought Windows machine, you're saying quad xeon, but what about the new Core2Duo's? I'm guessing I have about $3k all in for budget -- feel free to spend it for me. I meet with IT tomorrow. 95% of my work now is ACAD, Max8, Maxwell. thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FOG Lite Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 Core 2 Duo and the new Xeon's are essentially the same. I think the only difference is that the Xeon's are more dual proc friendly then the core 2 duo. But it's basically the same chip with different names for different markets. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 15, 2006 Share Posted August 15, 2006 With the Xeon 51xx you can use 2 dual cores and have quad cores, the Core 2 Duo can only use 1 dual core per system, otherwise they're basically the same. $3k should get you a nice dual-dual Xeon. If the boss wants a Mac and the most complicated thing it needs to do is Autocad, get a Mac and run Bootcamp. A Geforce 7-whatever is more than good enough for Autocad. Or get the 20-inch iMac - it's got a large screen, Core Duo, large hard drive and the ATI x1600 video is quite good. $2000 with 2GB RAM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted August 15, 2006 Share Posted August 15, 2006 95% of my work now is ACAD, Max8, Maxwell. ... can you break that 95% down a little further. The reason I ask is working in the ACAD or Max interface is non-smp and won't make use of 4 of the 4 cores of a dual woodcrest system while a core2 can easily be oc'd to over 3ghz on air cooling and would be an absolute modeling monster and would still render quite well. A core2 @ 3.0ghz renders just a tad slower than a dual 265 Opteron system so your rendering performance won't suffer all that much... plus you have the added benefit of the speed for all non-smp stuff but your decision should be based upon how much you'll be using the computer for rendering. rendering = more cores modeling/non smp tasks = fewer but faster cores FWIW: I'm considering building an OC'd Core2 (6300 or 6400) system myself if AMD doesn't cut thier 940 Opteron prices soon ... the cost of upgrading my 248's to 275's or better dualcore or 254's or better singlecore is more than the cost of an ultra-fast Core2 sysem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 15, 2006 Share Posted August 15, 2006 Damn, you're even more of a hardware monger than I am. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted August 15, 2006 Share Posted August 15, 2006 Damn, you're even more of a hardware monger than I am. ... thanks ~ that means a lot coming from you! our "hardware hedonism" is all the more dangerous now that Max, and hopefully the other apps we use, are all going 64 bit : ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thickly Posted August 15, 2006 Author Share Posted August 15, 2006 wow - now my head is spinning, and I meet with IT tomorrow to tell them what I want. Seems I can give the boss what she wants (good thing). Now for me...it seems every day I get more & more of the viz assignments so I would say at least 50% of my time (and growing) is in 3DS Max. My modelling is never really over the top, its the rendering I feel is more important because like it or not -- I do that in Maxwell -- and as we all know, that takes some time. I have been making due with a P4, 3.0 HT, 3 Gig RAM -- and if I could cut my render times in half I would be psyched. It seems like that should be easy after looking at some of the tests out there. I will also be putting in for Max 9 and Windows 64, so based on that does anyone want to pursuade me toward the Xeons or the Core 2 Duo? Oh, Quadro FX 1500 is cool? Seems to have received good marks in some of the posts on here. Many Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted August 15, 2006 Share Posted August 15, 2006 since maxwell is a part of your production pipeline, get the dual woodcrest system with the fastest Xeons your boss will pay for with regards to Max9, 64bit, and the Quadro... that is a good setup you'll be happy with, regardless of which processors you have. Core2's or Woodcrest both would be good mates to a 64bit OS, lots of ram (don't buy directly from Apple), and that nice little quadro. cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 15, 2006 Share Posted August 15, 2006 Agreed - with Maxwell you need as much CPU and RAM as you can possibly get. I tried using it on a P4-2.8HT and it was just too slow, but maybe dual/dual Xeons would make it workable. Also, with Max9 and the new mental ray features, all in 64 bit, you might find mental ray useful for when you need more speed and you don't need the full Maxwell effect. (You can fake the full Maxwell effect by rendering in mental ray with GI, and using Photoshop to change from mental ray noise to Maxwell noise, adding a bit of dark-corner vignetting, and messing with contrast and adding a slight bloom.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thickly Posted August 15, 2006 Author Share Posted August 15, 2006 well -- I just put in the formal request for - dual, dual-core xeons - quadro FX 1500 - win64 - Max 9 - Maxwell - CS2 wish me luck. thanks for all your advice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thickly Posted August 17, 2006 Author Share Posted August 17, 2006 I hadn't realized Max 9 was not out yet and according to my IT dept. Max 8 is not supported by Win64. Does that mean that it will not run on Win64? The same goes for Adobe CS2 -- it is not a 64-bit application but does that mean it won't run under Win64? I want to procede with Win 64 on the new machine -- I was thinking that if we purchase the Max subscription I can just upgrade to 9 when it is released as long as I can run Max8 in the meantime. Can anyone confirm this. I have tried to research this but everything I read has so much double-talk in it -- nothing says "yes you can do this" or "no you can't do this". Thanks!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jafs00 Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 according to what I understand winxp32 program versions run on windows xp64 but not the other way around. so... winxp32 progrs on winxp64--OK winxp64 progs on winxp32---NO this is what I understand, though I haven't been able to check that out yet. so If I'm wrong, someone correct me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 Max 7 and 8 not only run fine on winx64, they run better... I use all my 32bit programs on winx64, they run fine, if they didn't it would be pointless, since there really aren't any 64bit programs yet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now