To make the switch... or not? (PC to G5)

[Happycat]

This is a question aimed firstly at Macintosh Lightwave users, and primarily at those who are familiar with working with the PC versions as a basis of comparison: Should I make the switch? I'm attracted to the Macintosh not because of its speed (which seems questionable) or its stability (my PC crashes very rarely, if ever at all) but because of the ease with which it handles video. I do a lot of video work, a great deal of it in combination with Lightwave and I'm considering a G5 primarily on the basis of Final Cut Pro which has a large number of video tools that I need. However I'm frightened of the transition. A lot of my plugins and secondary applications will be useless on the Macintosh, requiring me to keep my PC running as a secondary system for those occasions that I need those apps (i.e. RealFlow). Also I'm stymied by the fact that the Macintosh version of Lightwave (I've only examined the Discovery Edition) does not seem to support AVI files, which is the format the large majority of my video archive is stored in. Additionally, having visited this message board over the last few days I've seen numerous posts regarding poor video performance, stability issues, speed and file compatibility cross platform. Yes, a long introduction... should I make the switch from a primary system on the PC to the Macintosh? Macintosh Lightwave users, what are your experiences? Do you have any comparisons? Suggestions? Comments? I have a dual 2g G5 on order, but it's not scheduled to ship until the 23rd, which gives me time to weigh my decision carefully. Hopefully with the opinions of other, more informed users, to help.

[UnCommonGrafx]

Sounds like you would do well to look at their VT[3] product.

[Happycat]

Actually I have the VT2 on board currently, and have been using the Toaster line since its Amiga days (from there came my introduction to Lightwave). I am not enamored with the VT, not because it is a bad product (for it most certainly is not!) but because I find it to have been designed for those with different needs than myself. I would prefer, for the sake of focus, that we pretend for the time being that the Toaster is not an option.

[Nakia]

Depends on alot of things.
I use Final Cut Pro 3 on my Mac for video editing. Also I save to tiff files then compress to DV from Quicktime then edit in Final Cut Pro.
Depend on what level you are at in video editing cause you can go from the tiff files to .mov then to iMovie so you won't need to even by Final Cut Pro, well atleast for awhile.
The itools are cool. You can make books, portfolios, prints, slide shows for DVD (exporting to iDVD), export to your .mac account website to show off your work, all with a Stock Mac.

Don't look at it as swwitching but as an addition of a new tool and more options for yourself. As long as you keep your PC and use it with the Mac you will be in good sitting. I own a Powermac 933 and a Xeon 2.4 box. I love both of them. I get more of the all around work down with the Mac. But I think having both Platforms and a wonderful App like Lightwave that runs on both out the box is heaven!! With a new Mac along side your PC you stand a better chance of keeping your machines longer.
just my 2 cents

[mlinde]

The mac does handle video very well, and always has, courtesy of Quicktime. I think Nakia has it best, if you are getting the Mac for it's video features, keep your PC for it's Lightwave functionality. I know a lot of people who use both systems interchangeably, based on their needs of the moment.

Just get a bigger desk!

[Happycat]

Both the comments above are, in my eyes, good, balanced and true. One issue is that my PC is getting a bit behind the times. It's clock speed's hovering around a gig, and I know that just doesn't cut it anymore. Yet it's done me well for years now and render times rarely are such that I can't finish a Lightwave sequence by letting it render overnight. The interface speeds are still reasonably high thanks to Quadro 2 Pro card I put in a long while's back, so I'm used to a speedy enviroment. The only Macintosh I have nearby for comparison is an old "sunflower variety" iMac that another family member uses for school. I managed to get the discovery edition working on it just this morning and was not impressed. The screen refresh was awfully sluggish, slider bars felt like they were mired in honey and the rendering times were twice what I've been getting from my PC. Now I know clock speeds are a horrible thing to use as a comparison, but both these machines are running at 1 ghz, shouldn't they be comparable? And my efforts with the Combustion demo? No comparison whatsoever. I felt like I was back on my old Amiga 4000. Everything was just so damn slow. I can't afford to both purchase the G5 and update my PC - I just don't have ten grand laying around for that. I'm a student, and for this purchase I'm dipping heavy into my savings. So while I'm ready to keep my PC on hand to do what it needs to do, I don't like the idea of plucking down six thousand dollars for a machine that won't be, quite frankly, an incredible improvement in speed.

[mlinde]

The G5 should be a fast machine. It isn't really comparable to the i mac, which if it's the sunflower, it was (at best) a 700 MHz G3 processor. The G3 was a decent processor, comparable to the Intel offerings of the day (MHz for MHz, not overall), but the G3 lacked the Altivec/Velocity Engine that made the G4 and G5 faster in some processes than MHz would lead you to believe.

In addition, the system bus and RAM will make a huge difference in speed. I can't even begin to compare my iBook (which has a 600 MHz G3 & 640 MB of RAM) with my G4 (with dual 800 MHz processors and over a gig of RAM). They aren't even in the same class of machine, it's like comparing a 1973 VW Beetle with a 2003 Porche Boxter, they are that different in performance, but my iBook is probably comparable to your sunflower iMac.

Will the G5 be faster than your PC? For things that don't require the joys of your Quadro2 video card, yes. Unfortunately the best Radeon card is still not on par with a Quadro or FireGL card, and those beasts are not yet available for the Mac.

I'd definitely give LW a spin in the G5, it may do all you wish as well or better than your PC, but I know that the GeForce 4MX I have doesn't compare to the Quadro2 my friend had. Our boxes matched numbers otherwise though (dual 800 MHz processors, 1+ GB RAM, ATA/66 drives, 64MB VRAM cards) although his box said "Dell" and mine said "Apple"

[Nakia]

I wouldn't use an iMac to figure the speed of a Mac. I own a Powermac G4 933Mhz and a HPXW6000 2.4GHz XEON box. The G4 has a 1gig RAM and the XEON 1.25Gig of RAM. To tell the truth the both of the perform the same with use and speed. No real Gap at all. only in rendering I see a Diff. The G4 handles meshes good.
The tools they have beside Lightwave is what counts for me.
I use the Mac 90% of the time for every day use over the XEON box.

[Ade]

For D Video there is no question. MAC made DV popular and have the best equipment and software. Premiere, Avid DTS are all unfriendly compared to FCP4. G5 will rule the 3d world for speeds too. The mac is more complete it does all u want out of the box and no need to download drivers and DLL and software n crap to makwe firewire cards work.



I say wait for Panini's optinion, youll get a non bias view on the switch!

[Nakia]

Final Cut Pro is a great editor. The default install works wonders with DV, but with a little $$$ it can rock HD to Uncompress.
Its one of the best all arround Video Editors. For $1000 thats real good. Because it can grow. Avid Xpress DV only does DV. Alot of FCP basher don't look at the growth side of FCP.
I say nothing really beat a mac and pc combo.
Remember Apple has a A LOT of little tools to give you an edge. Remember UNIX has a lot to offfer also.
Plus making a movie then Burning DVDs after a fresh default clean install without ANY 3rd party installs is so cool!!!

[toby]

"I say wait for Panini's optinion, youll get a non bias view on the switch!"

He's being sarcastic - Panini is incredibly biased.

With the dual 2ghz G5 you will have no problems with speed. It's being compared to a dual 3ghz Xeon, faster sometimes and slower sometimes, but compilers and software haven't been optimized for the G5 yet - the newest compiler looks to be improving speed dramatically.

The iMac you tested is 4 year old G3 technology, and I don't think it even has a video card - if it does, it's 16mb at the most -

I'm still using a dual 450mhz G4, I run 2 copies of Lightwave, and run After Effects at the same time, switching back and forth to work in whichever one is not rendering - and iTunes never, never, never stalls or sputters - the last time I restarted it was Aug. 9th, to install a new HD - and I've only had 5 system crashes since I got OSX, 2 years ago. I can highly recommend using OSX over Windows.

[Happycat]

Thank you Toby. I was under the mistaken impression that Panini was some divine Lightwave user who would set all matters straight. The iMac I used was a newer G4 variety (I checked in the system profiler) which everyone seems to be unaware ever existed. Still, I believe you and many others are correct when you say that I cannot base an opinion out of my experiences on what was intended to be a "living room computer." I just am continually frustrated by the lack of available comparisons between Lightwave's performance on one platform over another. I've visited Chris's Benchmarks site, but the Apple showings are few and far between... not to mention out of date and limited (why did so many people submit the "Textures" test results and so few "Tracer with Radiosity?"). My largest concern, still, is not so much even with render time. I'm a careful coordinator of my scenes, and that it why I've been able to stick it out with my old PC for so long; I spend far less time rendering than I do modeling, animating, lighting and texturing. And that's where my question really lies. Without a plethora of aftermarket graphic accelerators, what is it like to work in Lightwave? What are people setting their "bounding box threshold" at? OpenGL lights? Texture resolution? OpenGL fog or no OpenGL fog. As I said above, I do a lot of work with video and film compositing. In Lightwave. My Quadro 2 Pro's been decent to me in that regard, allowing me to push a fairly large number of GL textured polys on screen with little or no delay. I want to know whether or not I can expect the same thing on the G5, or the Macintosh in general. My machine's a P3 with a processor that's archaic by most people's standards, and I just don't think it would be fair to plug down in excess of six grand only to find that I had a better workflow on my old PC.

[toby]

oops! someone said sunflower iMac so I thought it was the old iMac with the flowers - I believe yours has a 32mb video card

Can't tell you much about graphics acceleration, I'm stuck with a geforce2 on my old clunker - sounds like it might be the biggest hurdle for you

[Arnie Cachelin]

Speed schmeed, I have 2 words that should convince anyone to get the G5 over a PC:

Windows XP

(ok maybe XP isn't even a word)

;-/

[Happycat]

I wouldn't know. I've been happy enough with Win2k to have never tried XP.

[Jimzip]

Happycat:
Now I know clock speeds are a horrible thing to use as a comparison, but both these machines are running at 1 ghz, shouldn't they be comparable?

Remember that GHz and MHz do not equate (speedwise) between the two architectures. (As in, Intel and Apple).

Also, yeah, the sunflower iMacs are getting on now, but still, a 32MB card should run LW well enough for a lot of things. (Hell, I produced a six-minute 3D animation last year only using my 800MHz PB G4. It had a 8MB graphics card & 512MB RAM.) Did the iMac have OSX or 9 installed? Because it really makes a difference.

Jimzip. :D

[Happycat]

I did check to make sure it was OS-X. No doubts there.

[Ade]

Originally posted by Happycat
Thank you Toby. I was under the mistaken impression that Panini was some divine Lightwave user who would set all matters straight.

Most of us believe Panini doesnt even use Lightwave but is really a 3dmax employee who frequents hotline alot.

[Ge4-ce]

Originally posted by Ade
Most of us believe Panini doesnt even use Lightwave but is really a 3dmax employee who frequents hotline alot.

LOL!


I would stick with a G5.. Once you're at the good side.. you will never go back :-) I would though go with the dual 2 ghz. The speed improvement over your current system will be dramatic. Put a lot of memory in it to even improve your speed. Try to get (if your budget allows it) to get the ATI radeon 9800. And probably (but not sure) ATI and Nvidia will port there fireGL and Quadro's to Mac.. I mean.. If even pixar ordered G5's for 3D purpose, ATI and nVidia must see a market in Workstation graphix for Mac?

Nevertheless, I have sent maybe 20 mails with a request to port those cards to Mac.. I suggest we all do :D Maybe it helps..

[Nakia]

Happycat you seem like you will be real good Mac user. I say that because you stuck with your PIII for long and you more concern about work flow then pure speeds. You understand dedication to you tool. Seem like you willing to stick with your machines till the end. A Powermac will grow on you big time. Work flow is AMAZING on Mac OS X. Its like it lays itself out for you. Only thing I say do is add a 2nd monitor and boy its like you got two macs (Before I bought XEON box I will fire up VPC in the Second monitor so it was like I had two machines)
Apple is gearing up new card support. Geforce FX cards are made for Macs so that should hold up for awhile.
If you into some freaky OpenGL stuff, Mac OS X has the only full blown Open GL tool Kit built into the OS (my SGI don't even have that) that most folks don't know is there, came with 10.2.
I was did the opposite of you I bought Powermac G4 933 first then year later I bought a XEON 2.4GHz. I haven't been on the PC in over 10 days, thats probably because I'm a Mac user. I keep finding myself pulling the Dongle out of the PC and sticking back into the Mac.
In the End you got to give Lightwave credit for such a well rounded app to run on both Machines!!

[Nakia]

Final Cut Pro is TOP NOTCH, I love it.
Get G5 but Dual. Final Cut Pro loves Duals.
Combine FCP with Combustion or AE you are set. Then you can alway render with both your Mac and PC. But if your focus is Video, Mac is your choice.
With Cinepaint coming around slowly that will be a good tool for Video. UNIX system will allow you to run serious cron jobs with cinepaint while your are not login.
Also with (xp like) switch user feature on the Mac OS X new release will be cool.

[Lightwolf]

Happycat:
You should also check out PremierePro on the PC side of things. It looks like Adobe has caught up with FCPro, and the integration with EncoreDVD, Audition as well as After Effects and Photoshop might make that purchase worthwhile. Esp. if you look at the price of the video collection. That might leave some more room for your hardware decision.
Cheers,
Mike

[Happycat]

Today I had the opportunity to play with a 1.8 G5 with the 9600 Pro card onboard. Render times were fine, but again (and I know this is not the top-of-the-line card) the interface was unworkable. I brough along a scene I've been working with that just barely plays back in layout at real time on my card, and I'm sad to say that the frame rate was maybe one or two updates per second. Is there really any market at all for workstation class graphic cards on the Macintosh? Have any been announced? Because while I expect that the 9800 Pro will be better than what I saw today, I find it difficult to believe that it will perform 30+ times faster, and then only to match three year old Nvidia technology. This seems awfully silly to me, that a new graphics card can get thrashed by ancient display technology that goes for around $40 on eBay. How have you Macintosh users managed with such a slow interface? Am I missing something? Do Apple computers support software GL emulation as an option? Because it could hardly be slower. As of now I've placed my Apple order on hold until I can find some sort of answer to these issues. Even optimization of Lightwave for the G5 will not solve workflow issues that are directly tied to graphic card performance.

I'm very frustrated.

[Nakia]

I have no interface issues at all.
Only when I kick in high Mesh rotating gets slow. From what I'm hearing ATI has some serious issues on Mac. There were no nVidia models around?
You tried one of the Powermac G4. Most likely its a code issue for G5 running Jag.

[mlinde]

Originally posted by Happycat
I'm very frustrated.

This has been my personal b!@#h since Lightwave came out on the Mac. I'm sorry this was the result, but I'm not surprised.

[Jimzip]

I know this has been said to death, but I hope NT makes some optimisations for Panther.. *Hope*
It's a pity seeing potential users not seeing the beauty of these systems. I'm just guessing it's because the code is directly ported that performance tends to be slightly better on PC's.. But we'll have to wait and see, NT hasn't gone wrong so far.

Jimzip :D


P.S.. Heh heh, yeah, Panini. Divine Lightwave user! More like, divine PC zealot!

[Happycat]

Nakia - Out of curiosity, what is your bounding box threshold set at in Lightwave? Additionally, if you could: OpenGL Lights number and texture resolution? Unfortunately there were no NVidia units available. Only one G5 on hand. However I did just try Lightwave on a 17" powerbook which has the mobile Nvidia chipset and I have to say that I was impressed. Slower than my PC card, but so much faster than the ATI. And this was on a laptop.

I'm just running around jamming my test CD into every Mac I can get my hands on... makes me feel sort of dirty.

[Nakia]

Everything is default.
Bouonding box 1000
Open GL lights 1
texture resolution 128x128

Funny thing for me I fired up in OS 9, The App seem alot faster the in OS X.
As far as control and interface.
Could it be me?

[Happycat]

As far as OS9 is concerned... I have no idea.

But to put things in perspective, interface-wise:

Bounding box threshold: 40,000
OpenGL lights: 8
Texture resolution: 256x256

How would I go about launching LW in OS9? I'm curious to try.

[toby]

My bounding box is set at 70K. It slows down way before that, but is managable. ( If I need realtime playback I make a preview ) It sounds like you're used to some really fast acceleration, can't wait 'til I can get a quadro.

lights: 4
textures: 512x512, but only when I need them, otherwise I turn them off.

OS9 is a little bit snappier, but not worth the instability. LW was barely usable in OS9 - If it weren't for OSX, I'd have a PC by now.

You would have to boot into OS9 and install the OS9 version of LW to try it.

[Happycat]

Toby, if the Quadros (now at 4 I believe) were announced for the Macintosh my heart would be at ease. I hadn't realized, when I first started this thread, exactly how little choice I have when it comes to Macintosh graphics acceleration. I have since looked high and low and discovered that the total number of workstation graphics cards made for the Macintosh platform number zero. None. That, in my mind, is absolutely absurd. How can a platform whose longtime reputation has been that of a graphic artist's base of choice not warrant the development of a single card for accelerating 3D applications? This is an open market folks... normally any graphics manufacturer would recognize an empty playing field as an opportunity and step right in. If 3D labs or NVidia were to roll out a workstation class card tomorrow they would, overnight, occupy the entirety of a fairly substantial user base. Or maybe things have changed since back in the days when I had a Macintosh? Is the userbase simply not there anymore? As it stands in my internet quest for answers I've come across petitions to card manufacturers, polls, and threads upon threads pertaining to this single complaint and always there's the rumor that something suitable is right around the corner... but when you look at the dates you have to realize that it just wasn't true.

[toby]

yea, I don't understand it either - it can't be that hard or expensive to make a Mac version of their high-end cards.

It must be a conspiracy...:eek:

[Ge4-ce]

In one way or another.. We should manage to get into contact with someone that knows if Nvidia, or ATI, or anybody is working on such a card!

Is there nobody out there that has a "connection" so someone on the inside?

Problem is that they won't tell anything...

secrets secrets secrets... aaaaah!! I also want a Quadra card for my coming G5 (not ordered yet, I'll wait for the dual 2.5 Ghz) This gives them about until January, february to write drivers for this card!!

because that' s actually the only thing they have to do? right? the cards are there.. just not the software.. (but I don't know enought about drivers to be sure about this)

[Nakia]

I luck out with the Last of the Quicksilvers that Dual Boot.
OS X was what cause me to by a Mac.
Os 9 is fast but will lock-up on you in a sec.

[mlinde]

Originally posted by Happycat
If 3D labs or NVidia were to roll out a workstation class card tomorrow they would, overnight, occupy the entirety of a fairly substantial user base.

Happycat, I think there is a twofold problem here, and I've been following this issue since I got into 3D back in the mid-90s. First of all, the transition to fast processors and the PCI bus weakened the Mac graphics accelerator market with the release of the PowerPC computers and (here's an old one) CHRP. This was followed by a rapid descent in Mac quality and increase in Windows NT market penetration, which dulled the interest in graphics cards. The return of Jobs to Apple brought along with it a new hope for Apple resurgence, and around the same time 3DFX, Matrox, ATI, and some Mac-specific vendors all released graphics cards that worked on the Mac. Then came the transition from OS 9 to OS 10, paired with nVidia buying out 3DFX, and suddenly the market for Mac graphics cards dropped to two. I don't know if it's the rapid changes in the platform over the last few years (hardware and software levels), but no-one has entered the Mac graphics card market with anything resembling a powerful card since the advent of OS X. The only good news, which is too new to expect anything before January -- nVidia was hiring a Macintosh firmware programmer this summer. Perhaps they are bowing to interest, and plan on making their chips available (with firmware to support the Mac) to 3rd party developers at last. I hope that news over the next 2-3 months will pan out, because, as you know coming from the Windows market, the 5200FX and the Radeon 9800 are not professional graphics cards, no matter what any marketing guru says.

[Ge4-ce]

I also thought that the entire G4 systems had a lack of decent motherboard support with AGPx8 to support those pro-cards..

Therefore I jumped in the air when I heard the specs from the new G5 motherboard.. They do support enough to manage a Pro-card..

Now I hope that new Guy at nVidia works his but off ;)

2 to 3 months.. that's just enough! Then I could order one right away :D that is ofcourse.. being very optimistic...

I will try and pull some tricks at Mac-expo in Paris.. maybe there's a guy that talks too much ;)

[mlinde]

Originally posted by Ge4-ce
I also thought that the entire G4 systems had a lack of decent motherboard support with AGPx8 to support those pro-cards..

This is just Apple blowing smoke. There have been professional video cards for WIndows NT, 2k, and XPPro since the advancement of the PCI bus over the ISA/EISA bus. Professional graphics has NEVER required 8xAGP, or even AGP for that matter. The first Quadro and Wildcat cards were PCI cards, back before AGP was installed on a single motherboard in a single computer anywhere.

[Ge4-ce]

Originally posted by mlinde
This is just Apple blowing smoke. There have been professional video cards for WIndows NT, 2k, and XPPro since the advancement of the PCI bus over the ISA/EISA bus. Professional graphics has NEVER required 8xAGP, or even AGP for that matter. The first Quadro and Wildcat cards were PCI cards, back before AGP was installed on a single motherboard in a single computer anywhere.

damn.. why don't they make those damn cards then :mad: We need speed! (as in fast.. not the drugs.. :rolleyes: )

[Nakia]

I think its a Demand thing. Remember when the First Geforce card came out. nVidia claim they will not support Mac,, so Apple drop the Voodoo line for ATI. Then the Geforce appear on Powermacs and folks stared digging it. nVidia had to keep making it for us.
I think Apple thing could be drivers. Apple probably don't want us to have to go hunt down drivers. They rather have the OS support the new cards. They menion how the next release of X with support newer high-end cards. I rather deal with that. This also will make better performance cards if a lot work with the card maker is down.
Because after I reinstall Win2K or XP I hate having to search the Site for the drivers (I know I could burn them to CDs).
SO I beleave the highend cards are being made but it is up to Apple drop the support into the OS.
We also have remember Mac OS X Desktop runs directly off of the Video Card, what other OS does that. So the need of better Cards will surely come from that. Also Apple gain alot of 3D artist in the Last year thanks to new apps like Maya, and continued support of Lightwave, and Cinema 4D and the Blender Community. Renderman is no real biggie because it mostly a background app, that will push CPU speeds. We need a heavy CAD App, may AutoCad once agian. This growth is new $$ for Apple. Good things will come.

[Jimzip]

Hope you're right Nakia.
I was considering a Radeon 9800 a few months ago, then these threads started popping up. I then began considering nVidia cards, and people tell me they're not that good. Now I'm waiting to see if a Quadro card comes out.

Jimzip :D ~ Heavily taking considerations into account..

[wizlon]

OSX.3 (Panther) has support for several high end graphics cards, Our I.T. guy know's someone who has Panther running on there Mac and tells me it has support for ATI FireGL and others I think it was Quadro, he's on holiday right now so I cant confirm all the actual makes and models, but i'll ask when he back.

Lee.