help with compatible hardware

Dastan

I am a Mac user and I don' t know if is possible to do what you guys do on a Mac, since there is a lack of softwares and compatibly. There is no 3DS Max, XSI, xNormal or UDK3 for Mac, and there is a long list of softwares and plugins that will not run on it.

I can work fine in Maya or Photoshop, as long as I don' t open them both together, and the same goes with Unity. But I started to work in Mudbox in order to learn it and as level of details increases the software stops responding or camera gets heavy and slow and it makes impossible to work.

My current system is an iMac Core 2 Duo 2.8 GHZ with 2GB DDR2 800MHZ and ATI Radeon 2600 PRO with 256MB.

Would like to know if an Imac 2.93GHZ Quad Core i7 with DDR3 8GB of memory and ATI Radeon HD 5750 with 1GB would do fine. Maybe a power mac?

MoP

Yeah, I imagine that machine spec you posted would be more than adequate.

My PC is slightly lower spec than what you say there (not a Mac though, and I don't know how OSX or whatever measures up against Win7 in terms of resource management, I assume they're fairly similar) but it runs Maya, Photoshop and ZBrush together just fine, no slowdown or anything.

I reckon you'd be fine with that spec. Are you going to dual boot or continue just using Mac OS? Any reason why you're not choosing a PC? Last time I checked I could get a PC of the same spec as a Mac for much, much less money... plus then you get to run more software

I'm not a Mac hater or a PC evangelist or anything and I don't want to start a flame war, I'm just curious why you'd choose to spend more money on what is essentially the same hardware, and an OS that only limits your options for applications to work with?

ZacD

Personally, I don't know why you'd want to spent $2,500 or more for a computer with those tech specs. You could get a PC just as good for $1,500.

Macs are awesome for iphone games (which your current computer should be fine for) and graphic design and fine for animation, but currently lacking for video game engines and software. There's options and alternatives for osx, but the majority of jobs and game artists work in 3ds max and software/engines that are windows only.

There's always the option of bootcamp, and being able to switch back and forth between the 2 operating systems.

I'm not saying you need to switch to windows, but I'd look at all the options, and don't rush to spend $2,500.

Dastan

I was a windows user until I became a photographer and started graphic design college. It was mostly because I could n' t find a good monitor with a very large screen and all the benefits of a CRT. The iMac was the only computer with an LCD screen that had perfect colors and near perfect angle of vision. Even now as I use it I get impressed with the overall quality of the screen of this 24" iMac.

As I started to use Mac OS X I kind of got amazed by its speed and stability. It is so quiet. Even now after 25 months and running for 12 hours a day with no antivirus, the system has never crashed once.I am sure that if I was not in a Game Design College and trying to make my way into the game industry I could get along with my old iMac for another couple of years.

Now I don' t know, I feel so thankful for the experience of owning a Mac that I fear going back to a windows based computer.

ZacD

any ips monitor is a lot better than the typical TN lcd monitors, get one or 2 of these if you go with a PC, or you get get a better IPS. I wish they had dell monitors next to apple's somewhere so you could compare, but I bet they are pretty much on par.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Displays/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=320-9270

I used OSX, not a big fan, my pc is quiet and stable, running windows 7 64bit, using only free antivirus from microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ was using avg before). 3 years old and no problems.

Dastan

Where I live you can only get Dell monitors on its website, so it is impossible to check it. My last PC was shipped with Windows Vista, I hate it, but I have heard a lot of good things about Windows 7.

Do you think I could stick a few more months with this computer if I upgraded its memory up to 4GB, or the real problem is its week Radeon 2600 Pro GPU? U$150 for that.

If I can deal with Mudbox and Unity and may have time to do some research.

MoP

Yep, I have to say, running Windows 7 has been a breeze so far. I got it when it was released and haven't had a single crash or blue-screen yet. I got the occasional bluescreen back on Windows XP, and I've seen similar issues on Vista, but 7 has been rock solid.

Personally I'd save my money and get 2 good monitors like ZacD says with the money that you'd save from getting the Mac... but it's your money and your decision, I imagine you will be able to work fine either way

Dastan

I am trying to bake a normal map of a brick wall in Maya and it overload the system and Maya stops responding.

Is this a memory problem or week GPU?

ZacD

Weird... post some screen shots, how many tris is the highpoly brick?

Dastan

The brick wall is 180.000 tries. I want to bake the diffuse and normal maps on a low resolution plane.

The maps are being baked with 1024x1024.

ZacD

its probably the ram, can you lower the polycount of the wall and try again? 40,000k tris should be fine, I just want to make sure its the ram.

Shogun3d

nope its your Radeon 2600. You're running an AGP card, you'll need to make some very cheap and affordable updates that will easily get you a nice PCI-X card with a whole lot more for video memory.

Dastan

ZacD, I did what you told me to and I had no problems at all. Do you think I m going to be able to bake 1024x1024 4x4 quality maps if I upgrade the RAM from 2GB to 4GB?

It is no APG card, look the system specs:


ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro:

Modelo do Grupo de Circuitos Integrados: ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro
Tipo: GPU
Barramento: PCIe
Largura Lane PCIe: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB

ZacD

is the view port performance okay when your working with high polycounts?

Read this before buying ram http://guides.macrumors.com/Buying_RAM

it should be a cheap upgrade.

Dastan

Yes. When using Maya I can hold a 2 or more million tries scene with no problems, even more if there is no textures and maps. I just can' t say the same with Mudbox though.

My Mac uses SODIMM DDR2 800MHZ and I would need 2x2GB. Do you know if there is any difference in quality btw Kingston and Corsair?

ZacD

They are both good major brands, you can run a memory tester when you get it to make sure.

Dastan

which one is the best?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104148&cm_re=so_dimm_ddr2_800_kingston-_-20-104-148-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134671&cm_re=so_dimm_ddr2_800_kingston-_-20-134-671-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145598&cm_re=so_dimm_ddr2_800-_-20-145-598-_-Product

ZacD

well 2 of them are under "laptop" memory, I never bought ram for a mac before so I don't know what you need exactly.

check the "Which RAM to Buy" section of the link I posted.

Dastan

It says it uses high quality SODIMM DDR2 800 memory, same as notebooks.

ZacD

After reading about what you needed and the reviews, the last one you linked should be fine
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145598&cm_re=so_dimm_ddr2_800-_-20-145-598-_-Product