Upgrade for Animations

[linz]

I am new to this forum and have the following system.

 

P4 2.8GHZ

1 Gig Ram

GeForce 6800 GT

200GB HDD (120 plus 80)

 

I use Archicad 9, Photoshop, Illustrator.

 

My question is this:

 

I want to add animations and walkthroughs to my marketing skillset. Should I.....

Buy a Mac PowerPC Dual 2.5 GHz system?

or

Stick with PC, Buy the Quadro FX 700 and Cinema 4D?

and

Upgrade to a Dual Processor Setup (Im thinking AMD right now...)

 

I sure would appreciate your feedback thanks very much !

[Ernest Burden III]

I want to add animations and walkthroughs to my marketing skillset. Should I.....Buy a Mac...or Stick with PC...and buy...Cinema 4D?

 

I don't know what the costs involved for switching the Adobe apps to Mac...it may be nothing, if the install discs are cross and the licence transfers. But that is certainly not the case with some programs, and i think Cinema is one of those. So your first task is to figure out if you can transfer your existing licences, and for how much cost.

 

THEN you know what platform to look for. The great thing is that the Adobe apps AND Cinema are available on both Mac and PC. However, also look at the animation editing market. I use Premiere, which is now PC only. I also use After Effects, but I don't remember if it's got a Mac version.

 

The PC is a very good platform for all the programs you use and want to use. Macs are good too (it is alleged).

 

In fact, one reason i bought both FormZ and Cinema was to be able to exchange files with a collegue who uses them on Mac.

[Frosty]

Mac has Final Cut......and its the Bee's Knees Ernest

In my experience FormZ runs better on Mac as does PhotoShop/InDesign/Illustrator.

 

Cinema, however, is better on Windows - mostly because of plugins and OGL speed.

 

OSX is light years ahead of Windows tho. So carefully consinder which platform will make you personally work faster. I personally use both.

[mbr]

From my limited experience on a dual G5, it was slow in Photoshop, Illustrator, and FormZ. I also found OSX to be annoying, but that could be my lack of familiarity with it and my extreme dislike of scaling, poorly designed button things (reminds me of that old 'tsunami' flash effect that was so popular 5 years ago, actually, it's exactly the same).

 

Granted, I only used it for a few hours a day over the course of 2-3 months, but that was enough for me.

 

I've always said that I love Macs for their design and attention to detail. If you could put XP, or perhaps a Linux OS on there, I'd consider buying one. Most importantly, it has to run Max (although with the cost of Max these days, I am not sure I'll be buying more copies).

 

Just my very subjective opinion, but I am not a Mac hater, quite the opposite - I am always looking for a good reason to consider them again. So far, the only one I've come up with is that their pretty. ;-)

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

when i first starting learning computers beyond word processing i was a mac person. most of my friends were windows users, but i diligently stuck by mac. i believed in it. when i went to work, after college, i became a pc user. i have not looked back since, and will probably never consider going back to the mac platform.

 

i had high hopes when mac introduced OSX. touting how it was practically a version of linux, but with mac sensibilities about it. it is those mac sensibilities that continue to let me down. i believed that mac would gather more and more interest from the linux community as an alternate to linux. this would pull in the geek programmers that mac has always lacked. people who would push the operating system further than what it had been in the past. i believed that porting programs back and forth across the mac/linux platform would be second nature for companies that published software for either platform. i believed that this would greatly increase what i could do on mac. ..and to a slight bit, it has happened. more geeks are using mac than previously. there are communities that port apps back and forth, but not to the extent that i wish. it seems like mac is still playing the same game of severely controlling its product, which is holding it back. i understand that they want a quality product, but they are very limiting when it comes down to it. it is my opinion that the mac operating system is quite a bit slower than a windows environment. i won't get on the wagon about how for the most part you have to buy hardware from them, and it is virtually impossible to build your own system. at this point, i would not recommend mac to anyone. if that is what you want to use, then by all means, use it. but you won't get a recommendation from me. i am far from saying i love windows either, but it allows me to get my job done efficiently. it allows me to build my own machine. their is sufficient support from the extremely large share of users it has. truth be told, someday i hope to be running linux, but until i have full array of software i need to do my job, that won't be happening either.

[linz]

OK. So sticking to a PC platform, and upgrading a new workstation.

 

With Archicad 9, C4D, Photoshop and Illustrator, I am considering going to a dual processor, and a Quadro fx700.

 

Any comments?

[Ernest Burden III]

OK. So sticking to a PC platform, and upgrading a new workstation.

 

With Archicad 9, C4D, Photoshop and Illustrator, I am considering going to a dual processor, and a Quadro fx700.

 

Any comments?

 

Do you really need Illustrator? OK, you've already got it, but with the others you have/will have...

 

Don't forget the video editing app. I like Premiere for the workflow. After Effects is Photoshop with a timeline, some people here are fond of the Discreet products.

 

The computer sounds good. When does the money run out?