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Apple vs. PC in Adobe After Effects
An anonymous user wrote, "Digital Video Editing ran some tests to compare the Dual G4 with the Athlon MP in After Effects. They didn't use the fastest Athlons, but the results are pretty clear anyway. This is especially interesting after Apple announced that they would be killing Shake for x86 platforms. If Apple really wants to position the Mac as an alternative to x86 on the film / video effects market, they are going to need to improve their hardware, especially with AMD's 64-bit CPU just around the corner. From the article: 'Not one of the objective tests we conducted using After Effects bore out Apple's claim of Mac superiority. In fact, in most of the tests, the Mac was left lagging far behind.'"
I couldn't find it in the article, but is AfterEffects AltiVec and/or 3DNow! optimized?
[I'm assuming that the systems were running OS X and XP, respectively]
How much could OS overhead play a part in the results? Does XP eat up an equivalent number of CPU cycles to OS X?
I really like the Mac. Honestly.
But I'm glad to see some independent testing on this front. I think those contrived Photoshop bakeoffs are an embarrasment.
I personally don't think Apples are as fast as PCs. I think most people agree. That's really not the point. There are many good reasons to buy a Mac. But a Mac running OS X is slow and everyone knows it.
Who cares where the slowdown is coming from? Slower is slower. Apple has to speed up their machine/OS combination, and fast.
How is dual 1.533GHz Athlon processors anywhere equal to dual 1Ghz G4 processors? The combined processing power of the Athlons is over 1Ghz greater than the combined processing power of the G4s. Again, I ask, how is this equal? Also, we know the amount of ram in each system but what type of ram was it. The G4 had PC133 but the Athlon? It was likely using 266MHz PC2100 DDR ram, far superior. What about the hard drives? Apples was probably a DMA 66 5400 or 7200 RPM drive while the PC was likely supplied with a DMA 100 7200 RPM drive. With the processors aside, there's a lot more to consider when comparing apples to oranges.
Let me state the obvious - Apple needs to release G5 based systems soon, or it will be in deep do do. It needs to be cutting edge - DDR266 ram! Dual processors well over 1GHz! Oh wait, I meant "cutting edge as of a year ago". It should be said, though, that the dual G4/1GHz system they tested did OK considering the system and processor speeds. It has me drooling for one of those Dual 1.6GHz G5 system! MacWorld NY will tell...
I suspect that those people who are still using Macs either:
1. Don't have speed as their first priority, (maybe they are more interested in tightly integrated hardware/software, for example)
2. Simply don't realize how much faster Wintel has gotten because they haven't used one lately, due to bias and/or choice.
You can run Shake on x86 to your heart's content, as long as you run it on Linux. This being slashdot, you'd think the story editors would be clued up on this sort of thing...
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
It's really silly to think that Apple has anything other than its own video editing software in mind when it makes claims about itself in that market.
Apple makes sure that Final Cut Pro works just as well on their hardware (or better) than any other comparable editing solution on any other platform. Lots of professional editors have moved to it.
Apple aquired the sofware that would later become FCP from Macromedia. Look at what happened with Apple aquired Zayante. Now look at how they used them.
The same thing will eventually happen to Shake too; it will be Applefied -- a new skin and some new features added and, most importantly, its useful pieces integrated in other Apple products where it will increase product value.
That's Apple's thing:
Apple Hardware + Apple Software (original or aquired and retooled) = better overall product/user experience. At least, that is what it looks like they are doing to me, and until you get a benchmark to measure that, I can't trollbait like this too seriously.
after Apple announced that they would be killing Shake for x86 platforms
No, Apple announced that they were discontinuing for Windows. They are continuing to support of x86 operating systems until at least 2003, at which point they would re-evaluate the market. This is not killing it, just leaving their options open.
These are some benchmarks the scientific community will be interested in:
(1) See how long it takes each machine to completely align a large gene (i.e., 500+ nucleotides) for a large number of isolates (i.e., 30+).
(2) See how long it takes each machine to complete a maximum likelihood hueristics search using a large gene and a large number of isolates, to determine the phylogeny of the isolates.
(3) Etc.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
These guysuse openGL to speed up video compositing (to the point where it's real time!). It's interesting to see what is esentially gaming hardware used for professional video production.
Apple has always been careful to compare the G4 to the Pentium 4 and not Athlon. The tests I have seen comparing all three (even by MacAddict) tend to more than validate AMD's claim that the Athlon is faster Mhz for Mhz than the Pentium.
Apple has tended to fulfill Moore's Law in fits and starts rather than the smooth curve you see with the x86. They pulled well ahead about 3 years ago and then hardly moved until just recently. We'll see how far the current surge takes us.
Speaking of 64-bit processors, I suspect that the more portable UNIX core of Mac OS X will allow Apple to support a 64-bit machine at the consumer level before Windows can.
Sure enough, even the Mac lovers can agree that for the same cash a PC is gonna be faster than Mac. Intel and AMD have big incentives to keep those clock speeds as high as possible. ... where are the studies about the entire work flow? Just because the machine is faster at grinding thru certain processes, it doesnt mean that the same job will get done quicker. What's the time to import/export files? What about saving those big files off to another disk? What about the learning curve for new apps (or OSs for that matter?) What about downtime for repairs and upgrades? What about end user training? These all "cost" in the end. I'm not saying that Apple would win this kind of study but I know from personal experience I do "get more done" on my Mac than on my PC.
But
"Corporate rock still sucks. What are you gonna do about it?"
This sums it all up nicely. This guy was looking at getting a PC, then decided to get a Mac despite his benchmarks.
I don't know about the Mac being slower. You've got to look at the x86 processor vs. the G4 and how they differ in fundamental design. The x86 architecture tries to squeeze out more processor cycles per second. The G4 architecture tries to squeeze out more processing per cycle.
If you're looking to do a large quantity of small things (like playing games, for instance, where you need to process a large number of processor unintensive tasks) sure the x86 is going to be better. However, that's not what I'm doing. I want to process fairly CPU-intensive data efficiently, and the G4 does that for me. So, I buy a dual CPU system and eat through full motion video because I can process at nearly 30 frames per second.
One thing I'll say in Apple's favor: Their hardware is good. I buy a mac, I know I'm going to pick up reliable hardware that will take a beating. True, my UI may not be as snappy, but that's not what matters to me. I want a kick ass processing behemouth, and that's what I got.
--Bennett Prescott
Former Lord Of Packets
Or were they running it in Classic mode?
That may take a hit or two...
Does After Effects out of the box handdle MP machines?
This marks a big difference. The Animation codec is NOT uncompressed, and does add processing time. I would like to have seen them run the tests with equal conditions. They said they also ran it on both platforms rendering to QT Animation Codec. But as presented, it is not an equal comparision.
My personal experience with the Animation codec was, it didn't save much space, but sure ate a lot of cycles.
People see these comparos, complain about how slow the system is and how Apple needs to make it faster. Apple doesn't develop the processor or motherboard architecture that they use. That's Motorola. Apple manufactures the stuff, but doesn't create it. And when Motorola is hurting financially, Apple hurts and has to wait longer for processors. Look at the G3 and how long it took for us to get the G4! The x86 has two _competing_ companies who make sacrifices to get faster products out the door (i.e. they cut profit margins). Motorola doesn't have that pressure. Moreover, look at Intel and AMD: they make only processors. Moto makes all kinds of different devices, including my cell phone next to me and the G4 running in my TiBook. So if these computer shootouts are ever going to be even, Apple does need faster products, but if it can't have access to the faster technology to make faster computers, everyone's just going to have to wait until it becomes available.
Charlie White published the following after MacWorld NY last year:
"Worse, he (Jobs) engages in downright fraud. Consider the tired old "smoking Pentiums" routine. Funny that when Jobs compares the new G4 with the Pentium, he picks Cleaner, an application that runs significantly faster on a Pentium 4 than a Pentium 3. But lo and behold -- it's a single-processor Pentium 3 that's compared to the mighty G4.
What would happen if a dual processor Xeon 1.7 GHz machine (based on the P4 chip) were tested against the G4? Guess. Another odd
occurrence: Where was the AMD Athlon chip, another "Pentium Smoker," in this carnival? I say, next time, Jobs, get a copy of LightWave up there and render a few frames with that G4 against the fastest PC and we'll see who gets smoked.
Charlie White Senior Producer Digital Media Net"
Of course what Charlie didn't say was that he had not watched the Macworld P4vs G4 shootout himself, which was was he missed the big P4 signs and the apology from Jobs that though they knew P4 1.8ghz models were shipping, Apple was only able to obtain a 1.7ghz model for the NY Macworld. He also missed the explanation that both the Photoshop and Cleaner apps (optimised for P4 and G4) were running a series of processes common to complete a real world job and that the P4 and G4 were both running equiv RAM and HDs.
It seems that Charlie White and Digital Media Net never let the facts get in the way of a good headline.
Having processors speed over 1ghz doesn't mean anything.
A dual 400mhz Sun Server comes in at $18,000 and I am sure it can blow away your PC with 2.4ghz chips.
What I want to know is how long it takes me to:
Start up from sleep
Read my email,
Surf some web pages,
Open Dreamweaver
Make edits to web sites
Open Fireworks
Edit some web images
Open QuickTime VB Authoring App
Stitch some QTVRs
Open Movie Editing Software
Download and edit some movie files
Render out movie for TV, CD and web
Upload web sites
Surf the web (web site testing)
Read some more emails
Put the machine back to sleep.
In 90% of this work (apart from Stitching the QTVR's and outputting Movies) I am not going to be waiting for the machine but waiting for me.
That is why the user experience on the Mac is so important. If you can get around quickly, moving data easily then the Mac will out perform the PC any day. For me this is what makes the Mac head and shoulders above any PC.
The simple fact that my Mac has stayed up for a couple of weeks now without rebooting (since the last update) is invaluable. It cuts many minutes out of my day.
Go out and get sailing!
for Trolls.
Inane.
I guess none of you are aware that there is a bug that currently affects After Effects Network rendering libraries which it uses even to use a 2nd local processor. This probably affected the results. Look for it to get fixed soon.
I think testing one piece of software doesn't exactly show the power of the processors. This is just as ignorant as Apple doing the Photoshop bake-offs. A true test would be a battery of software with similar hard disks and video cards. G4s can be fitted with 3rd party this and that as well. Out of the box isn't always what the professionals use anyways.
For the same cash, you ALWAYS get a better mac than PC. Every time I've done a comparison, if you look at a Dell, Gateway, IBM, or other non-fly-by-night manufacturer, you spend about twice as much as you would for a mac with comperabe specifications (I'm talking about hardware.) When you factor in the fact that the mac is about 4-6 times as fast at speed intensive things, you find that the mac is a much better deal on a price preformace scale.
Given that the largest installed base of open source software is on the Mac, and that the non-open source stuff kicks every other OS out there-- better video than real, better graphics than any desktop,(OpenGL implementation), faster application development, a vastly superior UI,etc. etc. I find it shocking that so many slashdot readers- obstensibly people that support opensource- continue to repeat the myths and outright lies spread by the evil empire.
Get a Mac. Run Linux on it if you want, dual boot with darwin and OSX if you want. But get one and see what it is that you're missing.
Only be evading actually using one or getting informed about the technology involved can you continue to hold the worldview you represent here on slashdot (and get moderated up for... hmmm.)
Why is Gosling, Joy, and every other big name unix guy I know not intimately involved with linux development of going to the Mac? The titanium powerbook, and other great hardware.
As I heard Gosling say yesterday "Mac OS X is unix with quality control and taste."
BitGeek
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
That is what Darwin on the x86 is all about. When the time is right, Jobs will pull the plug on the PPC Macs. It does not mean that Apple will make IBM PC compatibles. They will probably use a proprietary design based on the x86 chips. Don't expect to be able to boot Windows into one of the new Macs. Nonetheless, sooner or later, Mac will be aboard the x86 express.
This article was interesting.
I understand that OS X is slow.
I also suspect that After Effects does not utilize the altavec engine although I am more than happy to be corrected on this point.
I would like to see a review of the product running under OS 9. Also I am curious to know if any software out there other than Photoshop has been designed to use altavec.
I'm assuming that since the recent crop of Adobe apps are written as to run in both OS9 and X that the use Carbon. Has anyone done benchmarks on Carbon-based app performance in OS9 and X vs Cocoa based in X?
I only wonder because I've noticed a little sluggishness in Illustrator 10 under X AND 9 that I didn't experience various Cocoa apps(some quite large) under X.
Could the ease of platform transition that Carbon provides have a significant impact on performance?
But after mid-2003 it will be biting the dust as well along with the IRIX version.
Er, no. Nobody from Steve on down has said a damn thing about the fate of Linux/Irix Shake after 2003 other than that they'll evaluate it at the time.
Apple has been pretty consistant about being willing to publish non-MacOS versions of their top-end software (ie: WebObjects) when they know that there's a demand for it. I strongly suspect that if current Shake customers make their needs known, they will be tended to.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.