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Foxdog175 · 09:24 PM

I just received the following computer (mostly used for 3d):

2x3.2 8core
4 gigs ram
8800GT

And I must say I'm a little disappointed in the rendering tests I've done in 3DS Max 9 (32bit). Most of my initial tests have shown that this Mac is aprox. twice as fast a really old piece of junk pc laptop. The specs are as follows:

1.8GHz
1 gig ram
GeForce FX Go5650

The best result I got was a render that was nearly 6 times as fast as the laptop. However, every other render only completed the task in half the time. The two computers are hardly even comparable. The Mac should completely blow the pc laptop out of the water. Am I missing something here? I installed XP on my second internal 500g, giving windows its entirely own HD. All of the renders/3d scenes were originally created on my laptop.

For all of you video editors or 3D artists, is anyone else miffed by these results?

On a side note, I also installed World of Warcraft on this baby, and I must say I'm blown away by those results. I was averaging 70fps everywhere, sometimes reaching over 100fps, with all of the settings maxed out.

Edit: (Great) new results below.

silver · Feb 19, 2008, 08:29 PM

You might want to try this from MS WindowsXP-KB896256-v4-x86-ENU.exe . Apparently XP has a difficult time with anything with more than 1 processor.

After installing that try to render out a scene, should be much faster. I'm a Maya user and after the install my renders are much faster.

Cheers

mr. burns · Feb 19, 2008, 10:58 PM

if you're trying to render in 32-bit windows xp, then it only recognizes one of the processors and 2-3GB of ram. if you want a 64-bit windows OS you have to use vista because 64-bit xp doesn't work.

svtcontour · Feb 20, 2008, 12:56 AM

Where are you guys getting your info about XP having difficulty using more than 1 core? or one processor?

At our work, we have a bunch of pro boxes for after effects and work in Avid stuff and we have no such issues.

1 HP workstation with 2x dual 3Ghz xeons (so four cores total) and 4GB RAM
1 HP workstation with 2x quad 2.66 xeons (8 cores) and 6GB RAM

1 Mac Pro (last gen) with 2x quad 3Ghz xeons with 5GB RAM.

We're running XP Pro 32bit on all of them. All cores used and done so well. Are you guys thinking that maybe the OP is running it virtually or something?

bballe336 · Feb 20, 2008, 01:05 AM

Originally Posted by svtcontour

Where are you guys getting your info about XP having difficulty using more than 1 core? or one processor?

At our work, we have a bunch of pro boxes for after effects and work in Avid stuff and we have no such issues.

1 HP workstation with 2x dual 3Ghz xeons (so four cores total) and 4GB RAM
1 HP workstation with 2x quad 2.66 xeons (8 cores) and 6GB RAM

1 Mac Pro (last gen) with 2x quad 3Ghz xeons with 5GB RAM.

We're running XP Pro 32bit on all of them. All cores used and done so well. Are you guys thinking that maybe the OP is running it virtually or something?

Why are you running 32bit XP? As far as I know it is only able to address 3.5gbs of ram, wouldn't that be a disadvantage, especially considering the boxes have more ram than that in them?

mr. burns · Feb 20, 2008, 01:10 AM

well XP home edition doesn't have support for multiple processors. professional does. 32-bit XP is still limited to 4GB of system RAM and 2GB per process.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/6...cts/top10.mspx

Foxdog175 · Feb 20, 2008, 01:26 AM

I may take XP Home back to Best Buy and try to exchange it for Pro to take advantage of the multiple processors.

I wanted to stay away from Vista, seeing as all I hear about it is negative feedback. Would you recommend I get Pro or Vista? I want to get the most efficient rendering times virtually possible here. If vista, which version would be most beneficial? If I purchase vista, I'll probably just buy the upgrade for it and keep xp home.

Silver, I did download and install that very quick update, but that didn't seem to improve performance.

silver · Feb 20, 2008, 02:25 AM

@Foxdog175, sorry it didn't help.

Try to get the Pro version of XP much better than Vista and it shouldn't cost much more than Home.

@svtcontour, don't shoot the messenger. Just relaying what was said on MS own site regarding Multi core systems. Here's the link MS description of multi core system performance issues.

Foxdog175 · Feb 20, 2008, 07:45 PM

I called Best Buy and I was told that even though the box is opened, they'll still accept an exchange; I'll just pay the difference for XP Pro. Can I get a final confirmation to stay away from Vista? I want to make sure I'm making the right choice here. I'll be taking XP Home back tomorrow.

silver · Feb 20, 2008, 07:55 PM

Yes do stay away from Vista, it's so bad that there's a rumor that Windows 7 will be coming out in 2009.

Also since your going to be picking up XP Pro make sure your using the 64bit version as it's able to see more ram than 32bit XP. Be aware though if you use Illustrator in 64bit XP you will run into a few problems but aside from that all 3D apps should run fine.

Cheers

mr. burns · Feb 20, 2008, 08:36 PM

64-bit XP isn't supported and apple's drivers won't work. i tried installing it once. it 'works' but not well and it'd probably be too much of a hassle for the average person to get it running decently. 64-bit can see more ram but that's irrelevant since you have 4GB, which is the max 32-bit windows can see. it will show up as 3.3-3.5GB, though.

64-bit vista is officially supported on the newest mac pros. if you ever get more ram and if microsoft ever gets vista running well, i'd go for that.

Foxdog175 · Feb 21, 2008, 09:23 PM

I'm now a happy camper. I made the exchange today for 32bit WinXP Pro, reinstalled Windows/3ds max and on the first test render frame, I got the following results:

PC: 3:20s
Mac: 30s flat

On that same render, the WinXP Home version finished it in 1:19s. Huge, huge improvement. Most test renders are showing about a ~600% increase in efficiency.

Thank you all for the feedback. If it weren't for you, I would have been missing out on a big performance boost.

silver · Feb 22, 2008, 01:21 AM

Super cool results, glad everything worked out.

Cheers

Drakino · Feb 22, 2008, 05:16 PM

Slightly off tangent, but all this talk of XP Home vs Pro vs 32 vs 64 vs Vista just makes me glad Apple decided to not go down the same route and instead ship one client OS that works on 2 processor types, 32 and 64 bit, with no issues.

To clarify on the Windows XP Home and Pro division, Home supports one physical processor, while Pro will support two physical processors. IE, on an 8 way Mac Pro, running Home will show 4 processor cores in task manager, while Pro will show all 8.