onetwenty Posted October 4, 2006 Share Posted October 4, 2006 Hi Everyone, Thinking about adding an intel imac or macbook pro to our pc only office running bootcamp and win xp pro. heavy autocad, viz, and photoshop use. I'm assuming a 2.16GHz intel core 2 duo will be adequate, haven't kept track of cpu specs for the last 2 years or so, so not to sure. Is this assumption correct for 60% cad work, 25% mid/heavy rendering (full scenes, building and landscape rendering), and 15% heavy photoshop work, 800mb file sizes max. considering 20-inch 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo moreso than macbook pro right now (budget) but I'm concerned with a few things. mostly with networking, all our cad files are on a central workstation, shared directory essentially, not running server software (small firm) where all users in the office are opening files across the network, working on them, and saving them. all remotely, nothing local on their boxes. If I open up cad files through autocad on the xp side w/ bootcamp on a intel mac, will it act as a standard pc in terms of writing files to that networked central pc? will it have issues with the format of the disc the files come from, for instance, non-intel macs don't like ntfs. will the files still open without problems for other users in the office? will i have troubles being recognized on the network via the xp side, and will the network recognize the osX side of things? any help on these questions is much appreciated. I've searched on here and most of the application running seems ok, and up to par, I'm more concerned with will the intel mac "play nice" with the pc's in the office with file sharing and other users accessing the same files I'm accessing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted October 4, 2006 Share Posted October 4, 2006 Windows on Bootcamp behaves eactly like Windows on a PC - networking is the same. You'll have two partitions on your hard drive, one in Mac format and one in PC (you can use FAT32 up to 32GB, over that you need NTFS). MacOS can read/write a FAT32 partition, but it can only use an NTFS partition as read only - this is only an issue when you've got the computer booted in MacOSX and you're trying to use files from the Windows partition. For the other way around - you've booted Windows and you want to access files from a Mac-formatted disk, what you want is a shareware program called Macdrive (Google it). OSX has some ability to use Windows networking. I can use my file shares on my home PC, for example. I don't think it's fully compatible with Windows domains, but I've never really tried. I'm using a Macbook Pro with a 2.16 Core Duo, bootcamped with XP Pro. It performs beautifully - renders like a dual 3.6GHz Xeon, and the 3D is fast. Recently I got it softmodded from a Radeon x1600 up to a FireGL v5200. I've got CS2, Autocad, Revit, Viz, Vray, Cinema4D and Maxwell on it and they all run fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antisthenes Posted October 4, 2006 Share Posted October 4, 2006 so how long do you give before OSX become extinct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted October 4, 2006 Share Posted October 4, 2006 I was actually thinking "how long before windows goes extinct?". OS X is a F1 Champ Car compared to Vista's Hummer...and thats coming from an anti-mac guy! LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted October 4, 2006 Share Posted October 4, 2006 How many years have I been seeing people talk about how MacOS was about to die out... at least 10. And now it's running stronger than it's been since Windows was in 3.0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onetwenty Posted October 5, 2006 Author Share Posted October 5, 2006 Great! Looks like I might be going the mac route then. So are the imacs up to par spec's wise for a decent render setup? I'm used to using a p4 2.6 for viz rendering. Should I be expecting a decent increase going with a core 2 duo imac, or is the macbook pro a much better investment? the imac is more tempting budget wise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 The 20" iMac has a Core2 Duo 2.16. This should be somewhat faster than the Macbook Pro with the Core Duo 2.16 (though I'm not sure exactly how much), and some time early next year you should be able to upgrade MacOSX and Windows to 64-bit versions, which will give you some more render speed and better handling of hihg-poly scenes. My Macbook Pro renders about as fast as a dual 3.6GHz chip based on the old P4 architecture, so I would expect the 2.16 iMac to be maybe 3x the speed of your P4. The downside is some "hidden" costs - I don't think the iMac RAM is user upgradeable, so you may be forced to buy a gig at Apple prices (2GB is a good level to be at these days, especially with dual cores - you'll be using 2 render threads, which will take more RAM than 1, and going to 64-bit will probably increase the memory footprint of software); and you'll have to provide your own copy of Windows XP (Pro is best) with SP2 included on the CD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antisthenes Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 here is some information y to not use XP on the Macs i use parallels or bootcamp i always use 2003 eXperience "Why use Windows Server 2003?" you might ask - because it runs everything faster than Windows XP. Server 2003 boots up faster than XP, it even runs GAMES faster than Windows XP, for example, loading levels in Half Life 2 takes a third of the time it takes in Windows XP. Also, you get way better frame rates in server 2003 too. Server 2003 has no Welcome screen and it is simply more responsive than Windows XP. Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition with SP1 allows up to eight processors and 1 TB (terabyte) of RAM, yes, up to one thousand gigabytes of RAM! So this OS is somewhat future proof, since most home systems only use one or maybe two processors at the most and usually only use up to 4Gb or 8Gb of RAM in even the most extreme gaming setups. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps it is best not to mention the real world cost of this OS, but remember, this eXPerience Edition is not meant to be used as a server OS, although the truth is, it could be used as a server OS if you wanted, because it has not actually been "converted" to a workstation, only carefully tweaked for "home use". Bear in mind that some features have been stripped out of this special edition, however, this should not affect the use of this OS as a server, but this is not its intended purpose - the purpose of this OS is to provide a very fast and very stable home OS that runs software faster than XP could ever hope to be, especially now XP has over 65 post SP2 hotfixes you have to cram into it, it seems to get slower with every hotfix that you install. Mcft cannot afford to be like that with Server 2003 because it costs too much and professional Administrators would catch on. Maybe the slowness of XP is down to Vista coming soon, who knows, but XP is not what it once was, the fastest XP is probably with SP1. The theory goes that hotfixes protect you from viruses and spyware, but I have yet to experience any real evidence of that, however there is plenty of evidence that hotfixes bloat XP and slow it down! Again, just in time for Vista. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 Why not just use Windows X64, its based on server 2003, can address up to 128 GB of physical ram, and TB's of virtual memory, and it only costs $140, I think server is overkill...considering its made for servers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antisthenes Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 maybe becuase eXperience is not server any more and it's not a 64 bit system? just only maybe, and not wanting to enrich monopolies who still are NOT complying with the EU's settlement with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 XP 64 is 64-bit, or at least as 64-bit as Server 2003 is. It was developed from the same code base. So unless you have more than 2 CPU slots or more than 128GB RAM, or you need the large-scale server functions (in which case you probably have a dedicated box for that) there's no need for Server. You'd just be enriching the monopoly by buying a more expensive product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antisthenes Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 XP 64 is 64-bit, or at least as 64-bit as Server 2003 is. It was developed from the same code base. So unless you have more than 2 CPU slots or more than 128GB RAM, or you need the large-scale server functions (in which case you probably have a dedicated box for that) there's no need for Server. You'd just be enriching the monopoly by buying a more expensive product. no not a 64bit mac. and the operative word is Buy, you can't buy "eXperience 2003" and it does run faster than XP, try it and get the undeniable experience for yourself unless you are... nm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 Erm... I actually don't understand what you're trying to say. If you're suggesting I bootleg a copy of Windows, that won't be necessary, I already have more licenses than I have computers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 I have no idea what he's talking about... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antisthenes Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 hahaha you guys crack me up im proud of you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 Maybe he's talking about some new meditation technique... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 Is "eXperience 2003" that E from the west coast that was popular a couple years ago? Stay away from that, I heard it's got aftereffects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 I'd really like to see the evidence of 2003 running faster then XP. Generally when people make blanket statements like "Blah blah is faster then blah!" its because they're comparing two completely different scenarios...like an old XP install, vs a new 2003 Server install. If you never optimize XP properly, it'll become a bloated mess and lose a massive amount of performance over time. I don't particularly see how running Server 2003 would be faster, considering the massive different in background services and design, unless you biased your comparison with a flawed control. If you really want a crazy fast operating system, you need to snag one of the benchmark win2k OS's. It's missing alot of features, but it'll make a PII look fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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