[JackOfAllTrades]

this is only my second post.

the dual G5 finally arrived on sat, oct 18, the machine is loaded with 4 gig ram, 2 X 250G hard drive and 9800 pro.

with no other apps running, energy saver set to highest, i skipped photoshop tests on filters, this has beaten to death by everyone else.

i merely downloaded a test file from maya test center.

here is my disappointment... you can compare my results against the PCs at http://www.highend3d.com/tests/maya/...er/database.3d

Result: /Users/g5/Documents/maya/projects/default/images/rendertest.tga
Constructing shading groups.
Generating shadow map for pointLightShape1, with clipping values: 0.01 16.9577
Generating shadow map for pointLightShape1, with clipping values: 0.01 5.62456
Generating shadow map for pointLightShape1, with clipping values: 0.01 20.1439
Generating shadow map for pointLightShape1, with clipping values: 0.01 30.3247
Generating shadow map for pointLightShape1, with clipping values: 0.01 7.49242
Generating shadow map for pointLightShape1, with clipping values: 0.01 27.9196
Rendering current frame.
Glow: Filter Width = 25
Resolution = 1
Halo: Filter Width = 59
Resolution = 0.558935
Frame triangle count: 50268
====================================
Resource Usage At End Of Frame
Postprocessing rendering result.
Glow intensity normalization factor = 1.
Halo intensity normalization factor = 1.
Time For Tessellation (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:01
Time For Shadow Map (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:01
Time For Post Process (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:00
Time For Frame Render (hh:mm:ss): 00:01:34
Finished Rendering /Users/g5/Documents/maya/projects/default/images/rendertest.tga
------------------------------------------------------------
Resource Usage At End Of Rendering
Total Time For Render (hh:mm:ss): 00:01:34
Total Elapsed Time For Maya (hh:mm:ss): 00:01:35

my disappointment is that the fastest personal computer in the world can not render as fast as the xeons, athlons and P4s. my expensive G5 test took 1 minute 25 seconds, the fastest rendering time is 39 seconds on P4s.

it's no wonder steve jobs never talked about maya on a G5 platform in his speeches anymore. all he talked about is photoshop and itunes.

apple needs to keep up with the big boys. the issue i am having is price/performance. i wonder if i should have gotten an opteron instead. what do you think? i sure hope alias/wavefront will come out with an optimized version for maya on panther soon.

anyone who has any inside scoop on maya performance improvement, please post a message.

thanks!

[Link]

just for satisfaction here, if maya supports network rendering then open a network client on the g5 and have it serve to itself.. watch that performance go a bit better lol

[MindFad]

Has Maya even had any optimization done for the G5? You'd probably see a pretty large boost if it were, like they did with Cinema 4D.

[The Godfather]

Whatever Steve Jobs says in the Macworld shoot-outs, remains true for less than a week, like the Mac superiority in Maya renderings.

[cambro]

Originally posted by MindFad:
Has Maya even had any optimization done for the G5? You'd probably see a pretty large boost if it were, like they did with Cinema 4D.

Exactly.

There is definitely not enough attention paid to the importance of software architecture. One could write a program to make a 1 Ghz P4 look like GOD compared to a dual G5 if things are optimized for the P4 and just forceed through the G5. To the end user, it would look like the G5 sucks, but it would really just be crappy-butt coding.

If you don't believe this, remove velocity engine utilization from a piece of software. The exact same function on the exact same machine could see a peformance hit of more than 50%.

If you STILL don't believe this, look at Cinebench 2003. They recently provided a G5-beta version. Performance of the same functions on the same machines increased by over 20% with these optimizations....and Cinebench said that performance would increase even more with the forthcoming releases coded for the G5 architecture.

I would be very surprised if Maya performance didn't reflect poorly optimized (or even convoluted) G5 code.

[solagratia1600]

Has anyone manage to test the new Maya 6 for os X? Apparently it has been recoded from ground up in Apple's native code. Alias claims that it is at least 20 percent faster, and maximum improvement of 50 percent rendering speed.

[OreoCookie]

The OpenGL performance is also not as high as on Windows. The same graphics card didn't get slower on a Mac, it's also a lack of optimization (or I should rather say that on Windows, a lot of effort is spent on driver optimization).

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Maya 6 seems to be working OK on my Mac, but in-between revisions I also upgraded my processor from a G4/400 to and G4/800 with L3 cache, so everything is much speedier.

The big deal about Maya was getting in to the platform in the first place, no that it was the best performing: we can't even get FireGL cards for Macs!

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by cambro:
Exactly.

There is definitely not enough attention paid to the importance of software architecture. One could write a program to make a 1 Ghz P4 look like GOD compared to a dual G5 if things are optimized for the P4 and just forceed through the G5. To the end user, it would look like the G5 sucks, but it would really just be crappy-butt coding.

If you don't believe this, remove velocity engine utilization from a piece of software. The exact same function on the exact same machine could see a peformance hit of more than 50%.

If you STILL don't believe this, look at Cinebench 2003. They recently provided a G5-beta version. Performance of the same functions on the same machines increased by over 20% with these optimizations....and Cinebench said that performance would increase even more with the forthcoming releases coded for the G5 architecture.

I would be very surprised if Maya performance didn't reflect poorly optimized (or even convoluted) G5 code.

I still wouldn't be that surprised to find dual Xeons beating the G5. 3d rendering isn't exactly branch intensive, so the P4's long pipeline doesn't hurt it nearly as much as it does for say, compiling. However, a quick google search reveals that Maya uses SSE/SSE2 and is specifically optimized for the P4 since Maya 4 (Maya 3 wasn't, and was about ~44% slower on P4s, and 30% slower on x86 in general), but I'm not sure it uses Altivec. If I had a copy of Maya I'd run Shark and find out, but I don't right now, and I don't feel like downloading the PLE just to find out.

[ReggieX]

G4/800MHz, 1MB L3 cache, 100MHz bus:

Time For Tessellation (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:09
Time For Shadow Map (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:11
Time For Post Process (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:03
Time For Frame Render (hh:mm:ss): 00:05:20

[rhogue islander]

If you bought a new machine primarily to run 3D apps, then perhaps you should have gone with a PC.

Or you can do what I've done and get a KVM switch and build yourself a P4, Athlon 64 or Opteron rig (personally I'd go for the Athlon 64) to run your 3D modeling software.

I use my PC for 3D modeling and gaming and my G5 for everything else.

[bauhaus]

The 3D Modeling platform of choice these days is x86. If you are doing serious 3D work, it's the way you have to go. Some would say it happened when Softimage went to x86 or when Alias added x86 from its SGI roots. SGI once was the market leader here (and Alias was a part of them) and Softimage was part of IBM. Macs never really stood a chance in these fields and still don't. The fact there is any pro-software in 3D modeling available for OS X should just be looked at as gravy. Still, the best and most detailed features are only available on x86 (or SGI.)

[FredTheDead]

Oh gee, did you really have to wait another 40 seconds for you mac to finish the task compared to your PC? Man, what a waste of time that is. I mean 40 SECONDS!! With that much time you could probably scratch your chin two or three times and STILL HAVE TIME LEFT TO EAT A PRETZEL!!!
I can really understand why you are dissappointed with the performance of the G5.


Why does so little matter so much? I don't get it! Of course it would be great for bragging if the G5 outperformed everything else, but the difference is so small that it doesn't matter. Instead consider what pros. you get from using a mac: You get a sleek nice machine, that runs an OS that's much nicer to work with than windows will ever be.

[Spliffdaddy]

Although the Windows machine will render 2X the amount of work in the same time.

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by FredTheDead:
Oh gee, did you really have to wait another 40 seconds for you mac to finish the task compared to your PC? Man, what a waste of time that is. I mean 40 SECONDS!! With that much time you could probably scratch your chin two or three times and STILL HAVE TIME LEFT TO EAT A PRETZEL!!!
I can really understand why you are dissappointed with the performance of the G5.

You clearly do NOT know what you're talking about. That was the time for rendering a single frame.

Now multiply that extra 40 seconds by 24 for a 24fps film or 30 for a 30fps video, times again by, say, 300 for a 5 minute short animated film.