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Workstations For Poor 3D-artists
Peter writes: "Ace's hardware has written an 'article for the creative people, who are searching to build or buy an affordable number cruncher to run their favorite workstation application. Maybe you already have an Athlon Thunderbird/XP and you are wondering if a dual Thunderbird/Athlon XP workstation might make sense for you. Or you might be interested in an affordable dual Athlon MP 1800+ workstation.' Included are benchmarks based on almost all available 3D-animation packages."
Cheap things are good!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Ok, this isn't a troll... Many graphic artists uses Macs, as most of us already know. They learn how to use Macs and to use the Mac versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter, etc. I don't see many graphic artists gravitating towards the iX86 platform. I think they would prefer to stick to Macs, even if it is a slower, more outdated machine, because it is what they are used to. Just like many M$ users stick to Winblows, because they are used to it, even though Linux or BSD would be better. Just my 2 cents.
I bet this is not "First Post."
Cheap box for 3D artists?
What about cheap software for 3D artists?
(BTW - IANA3DA, but I'm pretty sure that all 3D software for modelling and such is mucho dinero)
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
You probably haven't checked the price of those 3d tools lately ... the only one in my pricerange is povray ...
;-)
... ;-)
We're not gonna copy those tools illegaly now are we ?
And btw, 3D studio 4 (the dos version) has a lot of possibilities and renders nearly real-time on an athlon 700
Life is about to get real interesting. The MPX chipsets - dual socket A support are rumored to hit the channel this week. While the tyan board had got a lot of positive press, I am really looking forward to having options from Abit, Asus, and a few others.
The original MP board needed a special power supply (due to the vid card specs) - but sounds like all the new boards will use a standard ATX PS. More important, there is a real good chance the price for the non-scsi variant might drop from ~200 to something closer to ~180 or 150 (hoping here...)
I know I have everything but the board, cpus, and heat sinks orded and waiting. Lets go!
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Yeah, most people don't use Linux, so I don't see many users gravitating towards Linux. I mean, who are WE to question the collective intelligence of CONSUMERS? ;)
Out of all of the 3D Animation packages they got their hands on, they forgot 2 of the most important ones out there.
Softimage|3D and Softimage|XSI.
Those two give Lightwave, Maya, and 3D Studio MAX a run for their money, considering they're the modeling environment used by most all major CG Effects studios out there (coupled with either Mental Ray or RenderMan).
Yikes. You might want to consider changing the title of that story. I jumped all over this story when I thought it was about poor-skilled 3d artists ;)
--The space between my ears was intentionally left blank--
Man, that's nothing. A really good 3D Modeller can make a cheap PC using nothing more than $20 worth of clay and a few chisels.
The best part? You can usually find free Cyrix chips in most PC Repair trash bins.
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Where's Hash's Animation Master? This is an app that was written to be "3d for the masses" yet I don't see it highlighted in the article.
For shame - how could you look at animation for the low-end and not include A:M?
What about blender? http://www.blender3d.com/
Isn't the "poor" superfluous? Everyone I've ever met who fancies themself a 3D artist has been dirt-poor.
Just think five years later and the Windoz PC still has not the Graphics and Animation or the comunity the Amiga had....
One solution would be a few Linux machines networked together for a POVray rendering farm.
Blender would also be a good pick for low cost 3D software package.
Nexusone
You're just bitter that you paid twice what you should have for a CPU, and all you have to show for it is an "Intel inside" sticker
I'm putting together my list for a 3D workstation/renderer and occasional game playing (but not the Quake variety, think Scorch15 or whatever that really cool EGA risk-type game was years ago (if anyone know what this was and where to find it I'd be in your debt, maybe even order you a pizza delivery if you find the right one))
Leaning toward Athlon MP, 1 processor at first, then add second later. Primary OS will be some flavor of Linux. Shopping list will include:
SCSI drives, CD burner
DVD burner (when prices gets down there)
Pile o' memory
19" monitor
Gyro mouse (providing there's a linux driver for it, if not looking for another wireless mouse)
Decent video card, not necessarily the Game type, but professional graphics quality
Powersupply, case, keyboard, etc.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Considering the parent to this post was marked "intersting", I think "paranoid" would be a more accurate description.
... if not then your PC manufacturers are shafting you.
... it's the same FUD that holds people back.
If you are blinkered enough to follow the mighty chipzilla instead of AMD in 2001 for desktop performance then you need to smell the coffee or at least try a fair comparison.
Yes, your P4-optomised build of the kernel will scream, but when I go out and buy 3d tools to run on top of a micro$haft operating system I can't just go recompiling the application to fit the specific hardware it's running on, and that usually means it's much faster on an Athlon by default.
And Athlon-based systems should be *much* cheaper than their Intel counterparts
The sooner people start realising the desktop processor market is about more than Intel then the sooner people may be ready to consider more than one desktop operating system
What you say is true, if you happen to have a work visa good for the early 1990s.
What were you expecting?
In fact, having rebuilt my kernel with the new Intel compiler, the P4 just screams and leaves the Athlon in the dust.
:-)
I may be completely wrong here, but I'm under the impression that the kernel should only be using a very tiny fraction of the CPU. Meaning that most speed gains you get by recompiling it would be quite negligible, and not the 3x speed gains you suggest.
(in any case, what sort of bleeep CPU grinds to a halt like that just because it had normally compiled code running through it?)
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
linux, windows, macOSX:
user blender:
http://www.blender.nl/
My personal choice for MAC:
pixels3D
http://www.pixels.net
lots of possibilities.
jdog
viral games, contageous fun. http://www.DaddySculpin.com
Hmm, maybe I just fell comatose for the press release, but as far as I know there are no dual Athlon XP boards out there. From what I understood, that was the whole point of the Athlon MP: multi-processing capabilities.
hmm i dont know if i 100 percent agree. The article i think was more talkign abotu dual processor systems. i recently upgraded from my p4 1.4 to a dual athlon mp 1600 and i can say that gddamn win2k boots, runs and shutsdown faster than anything i have ever seen. sisoft sandra (which i dont particularly trust but needed somethign to test performance) ranks my configuration close to that of quad processor xeon 2ghz and about 1/3 the mflops of a 8 processor 2ghz xeon rig. yes this is probably more power than i need for playign wolfienstien and such but its really nice to know i have a system that will be powerful for at least another year, unless i loose a processor fan and my pc melts ;)
incedently, i have 16 fans and they keep it cool down to about 45*c no load. Dont skimp on fans with these athlons!
oh but on the issue of stability, i would have to say that the p4 just crashed differently. i think they are both very stable with win2k. Tyan however could have included a temp monitoring program in the os but noooo because they are cheap bitches and dont answer my calls or email.
-
But I don't think the Intel compiler can compile the (linux?) kernel yet... I know intel has announced support for the GCC extentions the kernel uses but I don't think they have shipped that version yet......
AMD 760 northbridges have serious AGP bugs and will lock up when running Quake3 and probably
most 3D programs. Check Dave Miller's (of SPARC/Linux fame) posts on Linux kernel.
I have a Via KT266A board and Linux runs okay on it but Via chipsets are historically full of minor problems (disk corruption w/ DMA enabled, SB Live problems, USB problems with default USB Linux driver (use JE driver)) etc.
AMD CPUs are a better value (and faster usually) than Intel CPUs but the chipset support for AMD CPUs still doesn't match the rock solid stability of intel designed chipsets. Okay, let's forget the Rambus fiasco with the i820...
Povray can work on 386. Blender can work on Pentium. Why could poor artist need (dual) Athlon for modelling? Poor drivers should consider buying Ferrari?
I love all that clever people who buy Pentium4 becouse they want to learn programming .
I'm not sure about you guys, but I noticed a really subtle pro-AMD bias in this article. For instance, the banner ad on the top of the page was for the new Athlon XPs and linked to AMD's page. And the author gave Intel a few token references, and then completely ignored them in the benchmarks.
The author performed benchmarks in a number of major 3D applications, and in all the AMD chips absolutely rocked: If you have a problem with the methodology, or feel that it isn't telling the whole story, then post your own site (that's the beauty of the net). I think it's fairly obvious that putting an ad for a Xeon chip on an article where it was pummeled probably doesn't make an awful lot of sense.
Well, as a very satisfied Pentium 4 owner and a somewhat satisfied Athlon owner, I can tell you that if you're serious about getting work done (not just overclocking your Unreal box), you'd be best off going with a P4
Let me get this straight: You refute an article that is packed full of actual metrics by saying that it's biased, and then you say that people should get a Pentium 4 if they're not going to "overclock their unreal box" (again an absolutely absurd supposition given that we're talking about an article where the AMD trounced the Intel chips in something much more serious than "overclocking their unreal box").
My Athlon had some heat and manufacturing issues (this is my second chip because the first one was DOA), and really isn't any faster in the real world than my P4.
The absolute definition of FUD. "Uh, sure the AMDs are faster, but they have heat and manufacturing issues!". Whatever. Metrics are all that matter, and the metrics in the industry say that the power consumption of upper end Intel's and AMDs are very similar (hence similar heat), and that major manufacturers have roughly equal DOA rates with both chips. The metrics also say time and time again that the "real world performance" of the AMDs are often faster than the Intels.
In fact, having rebuilt my kernel with the new Intel compiler, the P4 just screams and leaves the Athlon in the dust.
I see. Again please tell us when you've put up a site and posted some benchmarks with your platform and methodologies, because as it sits it sure sounds like a bunch of bullshit.
I'm going to shoot in the dark here and make a wild guess: You ran out and bought yourself a fancy new Pentium 4, spending top dollar to be the top dog in the tech arena (of course not doing any research), but now that you have your new purchase you're a little more sensitive whenever you see performance benchmarks, and everytime you see another review that shows the Athlon dominating it just burns at you, so here you are with your "real world" experience. Bullshit. I highly doubt you have an Athlon whatsoever.
I am not biased whatsoever, and if Intel comes out with something that is competitive with the XPs at a similar price then damnit, I'll be there. But I owe nothing to Intel, nor do I owe anything to AMD, so I lack "brand loyalty" and simply go for what is proven the best at the best $. If only more consumers were that way.
When I first read "workstations for poor 3-d artists" I thought great, finally a computer that recognizes my artistic shortcomings...
This is absolutely ridiculous. Go outside and start up your car and then pull the plug in the radiator and see what happens after a while: I think you'll be unpleasantly surprized. Actually, get on the highway and cut the fluid to your brakes and see what happens then. Boy are you in for a treat! Go down and stick peanut butter in your DVD player and see if it automatically cleans itself. Throw a lot of nuts and bolts into your washer machine and see how it survives.
The hilarious thing is that Intel chips "caught fire" if the heatsink was taken off until very recently (since the 486), when they had to put such protection as the 1 lb heatsinks had a high likelihood of falling off, but now to the FUDmeisters this is a MAJOR issue: "EGADS! WHAT IF THE HEATSINK FALLS OFF!". Of course to anyone who has actually tried taking a heatsink off, you know that the probability of that on most systems is about as likely as expecting the system to withstand being driven over by a dump truck.
You'd do well to check out Comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing Look in the FAQ for more info on cheep or free tools.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Spend a few hundred on a Indigo2 R10000, I got mine for about 500 bucks and a 21" Fixed frequency monitor for it for 150 bucks. and it does a pretty good job on graphics.
Shouldn't they be more concerned with becoming 'Good' graphic artists instead of advertising the fact that they are 'Poor' graphic artists?
In my opinion, if you get a cheap dual CPU system just because it has two CPU's, then it's not worth it. Other aspects are far more important than having two CPU's. CPU cache is extremely important with SMP, because cache its used to coordinate operations between the CPUs. That's why cheap dual-Celeron systems perform so poorly. :)
SMP with two AthlonMps is prabably the best value system, (at least according to the linked article). The AthlonMP has a lot of cache, and doesn't cost that much. But IMHO a single AthlonXP would probably would be even better, because then you could afford more Mhz and RAM (which is what you want). Most also overclock easily
Commercial software packages (3dstudio etc) would not be of much use of a very cheap system because of the harsh requirements. There are lots of excellent free software packages that do the job just as good. Blender and Moonlight3d are free, and they run on Linux! (Blender runs on almost anthing Python runs on).
My experience with running Moonlight 3d in Linux is that there is not much performance difference with SMP. There is simply too much overhead when coordinating two CPUs, so it's a waste of money.
Just dandy! How about yourself?
I dunno, but decoding an MP3 while playing Unreal isn't exactly a punishing task for two 1.2GHz CPUs, and it certainly isn't one that offers numbers you can use to compare to other mobos.
I keep an elderly PCI Pentium 100 box around as router and to play MP3s -top sez mpg123 usually has less than 10% of the CPU at all times.
In fact, there's nothing in either Slashdot's article or Ace's that really helps poor 3D artists. This is what's keeping Slashdot's editors so busy, eh?
What's up with that?
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Choices are getting slightly better with some free and/or inexpensive modeling tools.
The top of my list has to be Blender Creator which is a free (as in beer but not speech) and sports a very impressive features list.
OpenGL Renderer
Standard Polygon Primitive modeling (w/lattices etc)
Bez Curves
Nurbs
Multi texturing (up to 16 per object)
Texture UV Mapping
Environment Mapping
Bump Mapping
Spec Mapping
Catmull Clark Surfaces for nicely subdivding meshes
Bones and Armature system for character animation
Particle Effects
Global Illumination with radiosity capabilities
Super fast renderer
Very very low system requirements and compact size
Python Plugin Interface for extending Blender
Large and enthusiastic user base eager to answer questions
...and lots of other stuff I'm forgetting
speed bumps for Blender are as follows:
Absolutely bizarre (but incredibly efficient once you learn it) user interface
Limited import and export capabilities (import/export of DXF and VRML) although I hear that improving this area is their 'top priority' to fix
So if after trying a few of the tutorials you decide you like Blender do yourself a favor and pick up the Official Blender Guide. Chances are your local "mega mart type book store" has a copy and you'll save yourself tons of aggravation and time.
Course if you're just into mods for quake type games etc then you should try Milkshape ($20 last time I checked) but its windows only and I didn't particularly like the interface. One the bright side it can import/export just about any kind of format you can come up with.
Discreet has some freebie as well called Gmax which I've never tried mostly cos I despise 3DS' UI. Its supposedly a character designer / level editor for the mod community to play around with.
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
I ask because Linux is a very bad choice, if that's what you're planning on using. How many professional 3D packages are available for Linux? Besides PovRay and Blender?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Codewarrior benefits from SMP, as do typical "make -j " project builds under unices.
You are correct about the CPUs. Historically, AMD has been excellent about acheiving instruction set compatibility with Intel processors.
However, there is more to a system than the CPU. And chipsets for AMD processors are generally far below Intel chipsets with regard to stability - at least initially.
My beef with AMD setups is that VIA and SiS and friends generally turn out pretty shitty chipsets. Performance is usually fine, but it can take them several months before their drivers are up to par with Intel's on stability.
Maybe things have changed recently, but that has been my experience in the last few years.
Maybe you've just never used a well-built AMD system. I've gone through 3 AMD systems now, and the only two times that mine have been unreliable have been: 1. When the memory went south. and 2. When the Heatsink fan died.
Otherwise they didn't (and still don't) crash unless I do something stupid.
And perhaps you didn't notice that in the benchmarks where the P4 does show up, it had it's ass handed to it. In terms of actually getting work done, AMD is winning hands down. The P4 SSE-2 optimizations found in some programs only let them catch up. The only places I've seen the P4 be a runaway winner are in Quake3 and some synthetic benchmarks. Everywhere else, AMD wins.
Pax, Ardax
Well, from a poor starving artist prospective, (and one who has had the terror/(privlidge?) of having to use numerous OS for graphics, the solution is quite simple.
Use paper. Saves time, saves hassle and pencils are only a buck a piece if you are going for the most expensive in the market... and Pencils don't need to be upgraded.
But seriously, I use a gig athlon machine with Debian installed, and I use the GIMP for most of my art stuff... and in all honesty, art takes patience... if you're modelling something and your machine is *that* slow, then go ahead, upgrade, but anything above 800 mhz is and 128 meg of ram can handle it... and the more ram the better. Maybe it isn't a processing problem afterall... ram helps too.
Any athlon would be a expensive paperweight without ram to back it anyway. (And cooling fans.. lots of them)
-- RJ
Well, these "metrics" you claim to trust so much also indicate that the IBM 75GXP drives have a "normal" failure rate. And we all know the truth about that, don't we?
You see this really is humorous: You see a Slashdot story with a couple of people saying that their 75GXP failed, and you're sold (obviously just like the AMD issue). I actually HAVE a 75GXP that hasn't failed, and I am prone to believing IBM that the failure rate is normal. Let me put it another way: I know lots of people who are sure that Honda cars are the biggest POS out there because they had a lemon that had 27 faults, but the industry statistics say that they're the exception, not the rule. If there was more than anecdotal evidence (or biased polling) that the IBM drives were unreliable then I would be extremely happy to listen and take action based on it.
which, by the way, you haven't even tried out
I remember back in the BBS days asking a sysop to remove a "CPU Speed Up" program that promised to "convert your 386 to a 486/66!". The Sysop refused claiming that lots of people claimed that it really did vastly improve the speed of their systems. It's called the placebo effect, and it's one of the biggest truisms about people: People are extremely unreliable metrics of anything, because most people go into an evaluation with preconceived notions. As such, I'll be a little more trustworthy of site after site after site after site giving methodologies and performance metrics that show the Athlon XP winning. Again when Intel comes out with a cost effective (meaning cost effective all around: Memory, MB, etc.) high performing chip then I'm there, but as it stands there is a clear winner.
You're an asshole. Why can't you post something funny like the other crapflooders, to brighten the days of the -1 browsing slashbots?
It was nothing to do with affordable, cheap 3D workstations. It was about the latest and greatest x86 CPUs - and the latest and greatest, high-end software.
/. is a pretty sad statement about what has become of this once useful and interesting site.
There are better machines out there - SGI Indigo2s and Octanes with OpenGL (and more!) in the hardware, many decent Macs - all of which are more affordable 2nd hand than the wunderboxen on display here.
And if you're looking for a career in 3D animation/design, are you going to use some x86 toy, or would experience with what the rest of the industry uses be a bit more helpful in your career?
A vanishingly small amount of 3D work requires a fast CPU - it's about shoving large amounts of data around. It doesn't matter how many mhz your bus does - it's still a data bus, and it's inherently unsuited to this type of work.
Look at the Octane's Crossbar. Look at the O2s UMA architecture.
Apple continue to make the same mistake, and are going to cripple their G5 machines. Lovely fast processor, crap bus to the gfx, memory and disk.
And I just loved the way this compares the Shake results to a 4 year old Octane. Nice. I notice we don't see any playback information at high resolution - what's the point of fast render speeds if you can't *view* what you've just created?
Never mind that 4 year old Octane can be bought for a fraction of the price of the systems under discussion.
This was a truly laughable article that, while demostrating an understanding of consumer x86 toys, showed a clear lack of clue about 3D graphics needs.
That this article ever showed up on
I'm surprised we haven't see the Linux kiddies moaning about how the tests were run on Windows 2k.
How dare you bring facts into this - even going so far as to suggest others do the same!
For shame - what's left to argue when everything is "statistics" and "valid reasoning"?
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
fast cpu doesnt help it to be a fast workstation, without a pro graphics card, it is still a faster toy for animator.... but it could help rendering..........btw
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My VAIO, My Style ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If the P4 is such a good deal, meet me in this challenge: build a dual-processor P4 that isn't at least $500 more expensive than the dual Athlon. Bare bones dual-processor, the Athlons are a bit over $1000... you'll be paying at least $2000 for the dual P4. I know this, since I've built a number of each.
- Free tabletop fantasy gaming! Grey Lotus
A single P3, 512M RAM, with a GF2MX is plenty for running MAX or Maya fast enough for people not already employed by a high-end studio. You can model and animate to your heart's content, generating low-res, low-quality proofs as necessary. You don't *need* photorealistic, hi-res, 30fps proofs to get good work done. It's a luxury for the folks at Pixar.
Don't confuse the needs of an animator with those of final production rendering.
We're not talking about cars or DVD players. So I don't see how that's relevant.
First thing is, heatsinks are much larger today and probably have a much greater risk of falling off. Not to say that risk in itself is very high. Furthermore, the fact is that Intel does offer this kind of protection now and AMD does not. It's simply one area where the Intel chip beats the AMD, and makes it (to me) seem of higher quality.
There are two reasons I'm using an Intel chip and motherboard: Stability, and RDRAM. I know everybody hates it, but some of the things I use are memory intensive and DDR RAM just does not compare.
Despite this I have an Athlon computer as well which I use as a general purpose machine. Works fine, no complaints, very fast. All I'm saying is that each processor has its own uses, and one should make an informed decision rather than saying Intel or AMD sucks and going with the other company. It's like all the people out there who vote for political parties instead of the person who is representing them.
Comparing cpu MHZ is like comparing engine RPM. It dowsn't matter how many times you go around each second. What matters is how much you get done each second - more directly, how much you get done per cycle.
I've based a renderfarm on this little baby (Lightwave and 3DSmax), the only bad thing I can say about it is that with the new MP-X chipset around the block, it's kinda expensive (motherboard) compared to the price that competing products will probably have. Also the fact that you need to use ECC DDR SDRAM doesn't help the price tag when you multiply that by many nodes and trying to save every penny possible (for a single workstation it doesn't matter much though).
For the power it gives, it's still "relatively" cheap (especially if you're looking for a more powerful intel solution) and *STABLE* (stable being one of the most required feature for a renderfarm, with power of course). The TigerMP is a mature product, we don't know how the MP-X will perform or how stable the implementation will be (we can assume it's going to be good tho). But to do the job TODAY, I didn't see anything touching the XP1700/1800 + TigerMP combo for the price/performance/stability.
Still, the real power is going to be with the Hammer... that's a beast I can't wait for.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
wow you dont do much in computing power then do you.
:-)
povray renders 67% increase.
BMRT renders get a whopping $75% increase.
Heck I get a 50% speed increase on compiling anything on my lowly PIII850 SMP box. (I know I should trash it, it's almost 8 months old now.)
I see major increases by going SMP, but then I do things that take advantage of both processors. (BTW, make -j2 will speed things up nicely
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Maybe the dual Athlon motherboards haven't done well due to their price: at least double or thrice that of the low-end Intel equivalents. I'm using a Tyan Tiger 100 (BX chipset), and it's been rock solid for two years now. It cost me about $100 new. I guess I'm concerned about the stability of the more immature dual AMD products, and so wonder why I would pay for the more expensive motherboard. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Intel motherboards are very reliable, and the price is right.
Um, what's XSI?
Reboot macht Frei.
Your other points are valid, but personally choosing Intel because they don't burn up when an incredibly rare event occurs seems a bit silly to me. You're probably more likely to have an entire RAID array fail.
If you've got a Mac...
The Strata product is free. It has some disabled functions (for example: it only does single light sources), but it renders very nicely. POVRAY has a more difficult UI. RenderBoy is $25 shareware.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
The dual-BX boards might be fairly cheap, but there also rather dated, in that they've been discontinued for about a year now and Intel hasn't made a new processor that will work in these boards in a while either. The fastest chip that will work in a dual-BX board is the 1GHz PIII, which is quite a bit slower then most of the chips in the comparison article. The system itself is also limited to a 100MHz bus speed (assuming you don't overclock your BX chipset), as compared to the 133/266MHz DDR bus speed of the AthlonMP or the 100/400MHz QDR bus speed of the P4 Xeons. Combine that with lower speed memory, and the system just isn't in the same performance catagory at all.
In any case, the Dual-AthlonMP boards aren't really all that expensive. The Tyan TigerMP sells for a bit over $200, and there are a couple new dual AthlonMP boards coming up from a few other vendors that are likely to be cheaper still. For comparison, the dual P4 Xeon boards in the article, based off the i860 chipset, start at $550 and go up from there.
Now, as for stability, that's another question altogether. It would be real nice if it were actually possible to measure how "stable" a system is without requiring a few months of use. Unfortunately that isn't likely to happen. Intel boards have traditionally been very stable (and the 440BX chipset mentioned above is an excellent example of this, probably the most stable platform ever released for a PC), but even they have had more then their share of ups and downs recently. I think the fact that none of the major OEMs are selling servers based off P4 Xeons is perhaps somewhat telling that they aren't 100% certain about the reliability of new Intel platforms any more then they are about new AMD platforms.
First thing is, heatsinks are much larger today and probably have a much greater risk of falling off. Not to say that risk in itself is very high. Furthermore, the fact is that Intel does offer this kind of protection now and AMD does not. It's simply one area where the Intel chip beats the AMD, and makes it (to me) seem of higher quality.
I believe that recent AMD chips do indeed have thermal overload protection, though it does require the involvement of the motherboard (I haven't looked into it, but it could be that Intel is just the same. Anyone know for sure?). Nice feature, sure, but to call it a quality issue just seems silly : If they put a titanium case around the processor to allow it to survive 4000G impacts, would that be a quality issue or a unnecessary gimmick?
There are two reasons I'm using an Intel chip and motherboard: Stability, and RDRAM. I know everybody hates it, but some of the things I use are memory intensive and DDR RAM just does not compare.
Totally agree. Dual-channel RDRAM is expensive, but very fast. That solution scales too, doesn't it? (i.e. technically can't they easily make quad-channel, octuple-channel, etc.).
It's the next generation animation package from Softimage. The first generation was called Softimage 3D. The second generation is called now Softimage XSI (the code name was Sumatra). XSI took it's name from one of their new file formats which has the extension .xsi.
You can talk about "UMA architectures" and the like all you like, but it doesn't beat cold hard benchmarks. From all I've seen on the spec benchmarks, the x86 processors perform respectably, and certainly beat the pants off a 4 year old Octane. See for yourself on spec.org. Or any other benchmark. They are certainly not "toys".
I believe they just released a version of Blender 3D for the Mac. Its not as costly as Maya or 3D Studio. Its free try it.
We had a similar problem to this when my friend was rendering a project for one of his classes. It took 4 hours to render, but immediately crashed upon completion. Damn.
What we decided to do (upon suggestion by another friend who is a pov-ray master) was to write distributed render farm for pov-ray. Since the pov engine can be told to run only one part of a scene, writing a little app that auto-discovered clients on the network and then gave the scene and told them what to render wasn't all that hard.
A pov scene that once took and hour or so on a Athlon 1.1 was cut a LOT shorter on multiple machines (BP6/2x533, P2/450, 2xP2/333, K7/800, Athlon/1.1). Granted, these aren't the fastest machines, but it worked nicely.
Maybe a haus machine isn't the answer, but several smaller machines. The ones above were in a college dorm, maybe office setting might provide the same type of environment?
"liberty and justice for all those who can afford it"
If you don't mind Unix, you might consider picking up a used SGI Octane. They're very fast, have multiple (4?) crossbars (instead of a bus), and very nice ones can be had for under $1500. For smooth animation, $1500 is very reasonable (and personally, I find SGI's and IRIX to be great machines).
There are a few ongoing Linux MIPS ports (though nothing solid and fully supported yet), but IRIX is very nice, and has been the defacto standard for studio graphics and animation until recently.
Just my $0.02
Since you are too lazy to go look it up yourself read this instead. I think Dave Miller knows a hell of a lot more about this than you do.
n el /0111.1/0241.html
http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/ker
up the starfish and down the jap-eye
> And Athlon-based systems should be *much* cheaper than their Intel counterparts ...
> if not then your PC manufacturers are shafting you
I've resently bought an athlon MP system. Compared to P3 cpu prices, athlon MP are cheaper, but the motherboard is more expensive, atleast twice as much. Taking 2*cpu and a MB, the price is about the same. DDR memory is more expensive though, especialy because the dual athlon MB requires registered memory. (i've only seen tyan make dual athlon MB's). Here a dual P3 system can use regular sd-ram saving you money but for lower performance. I dont know about P4 systems, we havent tried those at work.
ion++
This seems like a silly question, but do any 3d programs use the videocard as a render processor. It seems the 3d video cards have a dedicated 3d rendering processor built in.
/// but setting up the vidoe card to do 1 frame every minute at a very high quality setting and then doing a frame grab.......
If you can get 90 + fps in quake
Maybe the cards can't handle this because there designed for games....
an important thing to remember is that, although macs are often easier to use, their floating point processing speeds aren't always too good. it's best to stick to an amd processor for speed to price ratios.
as for software, everything that's ever been of any real use on sgi's irix is eventually being ported to windows and most things are continuing to linux for render farms (if not the whole application then the rendering client at least) so that should work out cheapest for rendering.
however fast your graphics card is, you're going to need some sufficient rendering power soon enough.
free (as in mp3s) electronic music
Blender has matured A LOT in the past two years. I'm not a regular Blender user, but I introduced it to a friend and he became quite attached to the thing in less than a month. The interface is extremely weird, but it really shines once you get to understand it. Its main purpose, I think, is to keep you focused on the work at all times, and with one hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse, kind of what Macintosh or Linux do with their CTRL/APPLE+Left click interfaces.
;-)
One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the size of the program. It is hardly more than one Megabyte!!!!! and once you get to know how to use it, there's practically nothing you can't achieve with, say, 3dStudio that blender can't do one way or the other (considering 3dS's signature of around 300 megs, that's saying something).
Finally, for those interested, it's a free download in here: Blender site (no, I'm in no way associated with the company that makes it, I just think it's one hell of a product). Plus, there are a lot of tutorials at their site you can check out to sort out that freaky interface. (oh, and it runs on linux quite well, too)
Overcaffeinated. Angry geeks.
Heh-heh. RAID array = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks array.
We need more Comedy Fiction around here!
Try here: http://www.softimage.com/. This 'web' thing is amazing. You should give it a whirl.
In fact, having rebuilt my kernel with the new Intel compiler, the P4 just screams and leaves the Athlon in the dust.
AFAIK, the linux kernel can not be compiled with a compiler other than gcc. It has too many gcc specific optimizations. I'm not sure about *BSD or other OS's, maybe one or several of them are less compiler specific. Anyone know specifics?
Not *all* 3D apps.. figures it would be the only one i use now..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Don't confuse the needs of an animator with those of final production rendering.
Hear, hear. For final production rendering, there's services like NetRendered that can take care of it for you. You don't want to run that on your own desktop, unless you don't want to use your desktop for anything else for a few days (depending on the length and quality of the animation).
ok , I gotta say something to this one.. First THEY DON'T MAKE A DUAL p4 board, The new dual boards are for the new Xeons ,and Yes I've played with both , and the P4 Does smoke the AMD, however the price on the Xeon box makes it hard to swallow,But if you REALLY NEED dual procs,why are you trying to do it cheaper ?
Why isn't this comment modded up as funny??? Oh, of course, Captain Moderator is too stupid to get the joke. Go smoke some more cheap crack.
Yeah, it meant stops for coffee on occasion, or an overnight render on its sister box.
Just deal.
In about 5 years, everyone will wonder how they dealt with copper chips and less than 75GHz.
It's all perspective. Just learn how to do the work; it's the process that's important to know, not the outcome.
$500? Is that the shipping cost?
Actually there are many high-end programs (in fact MOST) for Macs. I am aghast at all the peopel who state there are none without simply checking the vendors sites!
The best value for the money is still pricey but under $1000: Electric Image Universe 4.0 is on Window NT & 200, Solaris, and OS9/OSX. Resolution independent modelling. It is claimed to be the staple at IL&M.
Check out http://www.crewoftwo.com
to see what it can do.
The "industry" is moving towards Linux. There was an article about it a few weeks a go, btw.
A vanishingly small amount of 3D work requires a fast CPU - it's about shoving large amounts of data around. It doesn't matter how many mhz your bus does - it's still a data bus, and it's inherently unsuited to this type of work.
Bull shit. Ray tracing, for example, is purely CPU limited. On the other hand real-time animation is mostly limited by the graphics card.
Never mind that 4 year old Octane can be bought for a fraction of the price of the systems under discussion.
There is a reason for that. They are pathetically slow. Easily outperformed by a celeron with GeForce 2 MX. I know. I just took a graphics course at my university. Guess what? They will be replacing Octanes with Linux boxes soon.
That this article ever showed up on /. is a pretty sad statement about what has become of this once useful and interesting site.
That this post showed up on /. (and even got moderated up by clueless moderators) is a pretty sad statement about what has becom of this once useful and interesting site. I guess people are really gullible when they swallow any post that has words "crossbar" and "UMA" inserted out of context, but contains no information.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I'm sorry - would a nice penis bird make the day better?
This penis bird?
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
I have done similar tests comparing SGI Linux boxes, HP Linux boxes, Octanes, Octane2s and my home built Linux box.
All tests were done under Maya 3.0 doing animation scrubbing on some average scenes.
The conclusion I came to was that the Octane2 was far faster than the Octane. This was a no brainer. The Octane 2 was a much needed improvement to both graphics speed and MHZ for the SGI line. The suprise was that the Intel based linux boxes were faster than the Octane 2.
This was accounted for by the raw MHZ needed by todays graphics workstations. The graphics card was being under utalized because the CPU couldn't push polys to the card fast enough. This was not because of bus speed but because of the way the software is setup.
Most animators want special controls over what they are animating. They almost never move a CV at a time, unless tweaking something. All of the CV positions are determined by a series of nodes of input. Each node needs to be computed. This takes lots and lots of MHZ.
Because the tests show that the "work" speed of a system is locked into MHZ, it is easy to tell where to put your money when buying a system. A home built system can compare to a highend graphics system when it comes to CPU power. There will be cases where a better graphics card will make some difference.
Also, not all animation software uses the second processor. Some will use it for rendering but not for the front end. If you plan on animating on the machine and rendering else where, you can again save some money. I prefer the second CPU because I have the habit of leaving Xemacs and Mozilla open when I am using Maya. A second CPU is a must for a render farm.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
I figure I will put this out there because it needs to be said. For anyone getting into 3D, this is the process that you need to take.
You need a computer, make it a x86 PC running windows 2000 Professional, this is the best way to go right now. Linux, Mac, SGI, are not options for you in terms of money and ease of use. A PC will be low cost and dynamic. If you already have a computer, there is nothing wrong with using that, unless you can't put more than 128 MB of RAM in it.
Put as much RAM in it as you can 128 will work, 256 will be comfortable and let you get into more complex projects, 512 will probably be more than you will use, but it isn't a bad thing.
Your processor speed matters, but if it can run windows 2000 you will be fine. Renders may turn out to be slow on a slow computer, but with enough RAM they will be slow and steady, and still allow you to get work done. If you can get a fast processor, good, if not, don't sweat it.
Get a good gaming graphics card. Go for a Geforce 2 MX or Radeon or a Geforce 3 if you can afford it. They will all work very very well. It will increase interactivity and minimize frustration.
Get access to broadband and use morpheus to pirate all the goddamned software you can find. Look for Lightwave 6.5b or 7.0, 3DS Max R4, Maya 4, Softimage 3D (rare), Softimage XSI 1.5 (rare), or Houdini (super mega rare). - (The magic five, 95% of studios will own at least on of these programs) Finding good 3D software for the Mac is very difficult, Lightwave and Maya are the two programs you should be concerned with, and Maya for MacOSX was just recently released and will be extremely difficult to find, if not impossible.
Look for Photoshop 6.0, After effects 5.0, and Painter (rare) to compliment your 3D software.
Get Sound Forge 5.0 and Cool Edit to mess around with any sound you might want.
Take the time to click every button in every program you have and figure out what it does. After you know the features pretty well start a project, if you are enthusiastic about 3D you will certainly have something you want to achieve.
Try to make it look good, but don't get frustrated if it doesn't. Completing something is much better than keeping your standards so high, you freak out and don't progress.
Reading is good, experience is better, make sure you have both read about animation and do as much as possible.
While you are doing all this, save up to actually buy the educational, or full version of the software, it is worth it. I am not just saying this so I don't look like an ungrateful pirate, I truly mean it, all of that software is worth every penny.
Don't believe any nay-sayers or egotists, this is the way to go. I know about Blender and other free projects, just avoid them, pirate, and save up for the real version of what you like best. The free projects won't be ready for at least 2.5 years, probably more. Blue Moon Rendering Tools is a very good renderer and is free, but works off of the Renderman standard, and it will be very difficult to get anything to interface with it.
And lastly, remember, take it further, take it further, take it further!
If you want to get into 3D, save this comment and make it a check list. Flame me if you like, but I know that this is the best path to take to enter the world of 3D and computer animation, it will take you where you want to go.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
You can talk about "UMA architectures" and the like all you like, but it doesn't beat cold spec benchmarks, the x86 processors perform respectably, and certainly beat the pants off a 4 year old Octane. See for yourself on spec.org. Or any other benchmark. They are certainly not "toys".
Quite apart from the fact that x86 floating point performance compared to a similar era MIPS CPU (500mhz Pentium II was the equivalent of a 195mhz R10k at the time, I believe) is laughable, I don't dispute that at all - x86 processors are faster than MIPS, SPARC or other CPUs when it comes to raw number crunching.
So what?
If you have a very fast CPU, crippled with a bus to the memory and graphics peripherals, with most calculations being done in software, you will end up with a laughably slow graphics workstation.
An x86 toy is only fit for renderfarm duties - it is woefully inadequate for serious 3D work.
This is my issue with the article - which you would have understood if you'd read my post.
The article is not about comparing cheap 3D workstations - it's about whether or not an AMD or Intel x86 CPU is faster. This has very very little to do with 3D work, unless you're building a renderfarm.
If you want cold, hard benchmarks, I suggest you follow the links in the article to the Shake benchmarks. Instead of comparing a 4 year old Octane to the laster wundertoys, have a look at the comparison between the Octane and the then current top end x86 toys.
Look at *overall* performance - playback speed, for instance. The one benchmark that stresses all aspects of a system.
This is what is useful in the world of 3D.
You would do well to try and understand these very simple and basic issues - you'll find you'll learn a lot more that way.
Apple continue to make the same mistake, and are going to cripple their G5 machines. Lovely fast processor, crap bus to the gfx, memory and disk.
So it ain't true.
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
So it ain't true.
It's still a bus therefore anything that wants to do anything along the bus has to compete with everything else. The crossbar in the Octane provides a sustainable 1.2GB/sec connection to the crossbar with a peak of 1.6GB/sec.
For more information visit http://www.futuretech.vuurwerk.nl/octnarch.html.
I am still using this real nice Dual Pentium Pro 200MHz box with 512MB of RAM, a Voodoo3 3000, and I am thinking of paying $50 each for two Pentium Pro/II 333MHz Overdrive processors. This week I upgraded to a bigger IBM UltraWide SCSI harddrive and my system is fast, stable, and renders openGL verry smoothly with these simple 200MHz CPUs.
These Pentium Pro systems are real nice. Above all, they are stable with the latest 2.4.16 linux kernel and XFree86-4.1. Many people are complaining about this article not showing some cheaper hardware for 3D modelling well I have a suggestion... goto ebay. You can either purchase a complete Dell Optiplex Pentium Pro or Pentium II complete computer system or buy the parts separately at your discretion and build your own. I recommend buying the Dell Optiplex because it is complete nd you can buy one for a measley $100!!! Yes, you can buy them that cheap on eBay right now! Or, expect to build your own with the nicer parts and some nice SCSI drives as i listed the following with the cost of tax and shipping charges included:
$40 - Micronics W6li or Intel PR440FX; Dual CPU motherboard
$90 - two Pentium Pro Overdrive CPUs for 300MHz x 2 performance
$70 - 256MB Compaq EDO ECC DIMM
$80 - Adaptec or Mylex SCSI Ultra/Ultra Wide RAID controller
$50 - Two 4,500 MegaByte Seagate SCSI-2 Wide Harddrives
$100 - HP or Yamaha SCSI-2 Ultra CD RW Drive
$100 - SCSI-2 Ultra DVD Drive
$20 - Creative Labs SB128 or Ensoniq equivalent soundcard
$70 - 3Dfx Voodoo2 and Matrox G400 or Voodoo2 and ATI All in Wonder or a simple Voodoo3; depending on your neads / compatibility.
$50 - Antec 5 bay/3 bay ATX Tower and 250 watt Powersupply
$30 - Two Antec Harddrive Fans and two internal fans for circulation.
$100 - 17 inch SVGA Monitor
TOTAL: about $700 at most for a system like this... and if you want to use today's RAM, CPUs, videocards, SCSI drives, and soundcards, then imagine doubling this cost.
You can't go wrong with the Dell Optiplex systems you can get on eBay. They are nice and just need more RAM and maybe use a better videocard. $100 wow!
without prejudice
I just picked up the December issue of the UK magazine PC Plus, the only general interest PC mag that I ever find interesting these days. I do not find their reviewers prone to hyperbole or to glossing over negative points. Having said that, make what you will of the following...
The review was of a new 3D program Movie3D supplied by a company called Aist. From the review: "It is a full 3D modelling and rendering package and, without question, the best value one ever to come under the PC Plus spotlight. Bryce, trueSpace, Amorphium and Amapi all pale in comparison."
OK, but maybe not relevant to the aspiring professional or heavy-duty amateur artist, but then they say: "For a mere £129 you get a package that is both as powerful and flexible as many of the big names in the industry, such as 3D Studio Max or Lightwave, not to mention coming with some high-end features that you would ordinarily expect to have to buy a plug-in for, such as scene chareography." Heady stuff, if true. Any corroborating or contrary experience out there?
The program must be very new because it is hard to find a web page besides this one: http://www.aist.com/products/movie3d/movie3d.html on the Aist or any other sites.
All generalizations are suspect, except this one.
True.. though the Xeon isn't THAT much more expensive than a normal P4, oddly. And as to why do it cheaply... two words: Beowulf Cluster. Also, in my experience, dual P4 does not "smoke" the dual Athlon. Faster in certain matrix multiplies, etc. But only for situations using SSE2.
If you're looking for chaper Dual Xeons, it seems that they have a "bare bones" motherboard, but it's hard to find. The P4DCE, I think it was.
- Free tabletop fantasy gaming! Grey Lotus
Heh, I remember that 386 to 486 app, it added/checked for a 0 byte file in your C:\DOS directory. The CPU detection routine didn't work if you ran it on an actual Pentium.
Life is a psychology experiment gone awry.
Apple is part of the Hypertransport consortium. Crossbars surely are the future on 'low-end' machines. But currently none of the other desktop PC's or low-end workstations have a crossbar right now.
;)
I don't think it's fair to compare a desktop-machine to a SGI. Different price, different markets. It's just that Mac's and PC's are competing with workstations because most people don't need a SGI. SGI is indeed a better solution if you can fill that 1.2GB/s, but most people would rather have a desktop machine for 1/6th the price with half the speed (or 4-6 cheap Linux or OS X-machines for a render-farm).
But, this wasn't my point. My point was that the G5 will probably not suck in the bandwith it has, compared to a PC. The G3 and G4 do have this problem. So I would count the G5 as a good option. Plus, you can use Altivec for some serious rendering, Phong, Blinn shading and Global Illumination get a big boost from it.
PS. Why AC? Is there anything embarassing in your post?
.
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
Better.
What for ?
Stability ?
Power ?
Scalability ?
Or do you mean to compare the Gimp and the full collections of soft available on other platforms...
Better is not just a point of view. It's all in the adequation between what you need to do and the way you want it done and your budget.
If linux WAS better in this situation (as in all the others) it would come with a full "Dummy" mode and the option for advanced user to have a play (Hmm... MacOS10 ?)
BTW, this post is not anonymous. my mailbox is limited to 256k and I have (some) karma to burn, so I can afford a -5 - Asshole.
But the next oner telling me "Linux is better" will have to come out and discuss the finer points.
Linux is NOT better, it's just more to the point in a certain scope.
And yes I use Linux. And W2K. And W95. And yes I tried the old Slackware. So Troll me all you want, but please stop being Linux everything !!!
Because those people are looking for softs and functionnalities.
Ever seen 3ds Max on Linux ? yes there is PovRay, and Oh so many other tools. But nothing (I know of) coming close to Softimage and 3Ds.
I'm not an OS Fan, I'm just a guy that has a job to do and wants it done the better, no matter what the Damn Tool is!