The benchmark i've been waiting for (aftereffects on G5)

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Many know the story of the "Questionable" benchmarks by /Adobe-DV Magazine- The orhphage/ claiming the mac's rendering speed on after effects was so bad they had to switch to pcs. (not one in the add mentioning that AE does not take advantage of the dual processor in the dual processor mac.)



http://www.macedition.com/op/op_astroturf_20030516.php



The Orphange the appeared in this ad:



http://www.macedition.com/op/op_astroturf_20030516.jpg



Unless i am mistaken, was Adobe selling Dell systems from their site for a few days until taken down?



We now we have an early report on the speed of an unoptimzed copy of After Effects on a G5



http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/



Quote:

After Effects (short) Comparison Test with G5 Dual 2GHz - I'm getting this 2nd/3rd hand, so I can't verify this, but just a FYI since in the past Mac vs PC After Effects tests (G4 duals vs PCs) showed the PCs much faster as I remember (reportedly Adobe's software didn't seem to take advantage of dual CPUs nearly as well as Apple's Final Cut Pro - but that app is not cross-platform). I personally despise the platform war debates (it brings out the worst in everyone it seems) but here's an email I received today. (Note also it's not a full Night Flight test - only the first 10 frames.)







" Hi Mike, I belong to the After Effect-List, which exchanges information, tips, and techniques for both the PC and Mac versions of Adobe After Effects. One of the listees was at WWDC, and ran a specific AE project that we all use to evaluate processor speed and performance.

Here is a copy and paste from his post this morning (Thursday):



==============================================

"Hey everyone, I've been at Apple's developer conference and had a chance to install and try out After Effects on a new G5.

I ran the Night Flight file that has come to be the standard for AE benchmarking. Since I didn't want to sit there and watch it render for hours, I ran just the first 10 interlaced frames from the project's pre-set render queue...

http://www.aefreemart.com/tutorials/...ghtflight.html

Here are my results for this test on the three computers I have available to me:



1 x 1.0 GHz G4 PowerBook 17" - ~30 minutes (3 min/frame)

2 x 2.66 GHz Pentium Xeon from Boxx - 11 min, 39 sec (1.2 min/frame)

2 x 2.0 GHz PowerMac G5 - 6 min, 1 sec (0.6 min/frame)



I ran the Xeon test on a couple different identical machines to make sure mine wasn't just running slowly, but got identical results.

Of course my Mac bias is well-documented, but I'm sure many people here can vouch for me as an honest person. If the results had gone the other way, I'd just keep my mouth shut and let someone else break the bad news.

Other observations about this test that may ultimately work in the Mac's favor:



1) The machine was not running 64-bit Panther, but only a tweaked version of 32-bit Jaguar. Likewise, AE is obviously not yet compiled to take advantage of the G5 chip in any way. Both or these situations will automatically be rectified in the future.



2) Night Flight is very CPU-intensive, but not very disk I/O intensive. I think the 1 GHz system bus and other details on the G5 will provide greater gains for typical projects that rely more heavily on I/O."

==============================================



All pretty interesting!!!!

DAVID S.

pixelcraft studios "








It will be interesting to see the results of more complete tests when the G5 systems ship.I hope the results not only hold true but further embarrass those involved with the original laying of astroturf.



So is the orphange going to switch back? Let them wrought with their PC for all I care....
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 38
    ipeonipeon Posts: 1,122member
    Yes, what was up with Adobe back-stabbing Apple by advertising at their site that After Effects ran faster on a PC? While this was true, it wasn't due to the Mac's hardware but instead because After Effects lacked features to take advantage of dual processor Macs. Adobe's fault, not Apple's. Interestingly Adobe has now removed that page. Adobe surely would have known during that time that Apple was set to release the G5, no? And having it's company owe it's existence to the Mac one would expect a bit more support for Apple, no?



    My point, kudos to Apple for developing kick-ass pro apps like Final Cut since apparently it's "partners" are no more then high paid sluts. Apple's history is full of back-stabbing partners. I say let them all go play on their PCs and lets get on with our game.
  • Reply 2 of 38
    lemon bon bonlemon bon bon Posts: 2,383member
    Y'know. I'm getting slightly worried by the tone of Adobe the last few years. The delay over Photoshop for 'X' really seemed to hold the 'X' transition to hostage.



    Certain apps for PC only... I can understand it to a certain degree. When Apple do something. They do it very well. It makes it hard for Adobe to compete against iPhoto/MS to compete ala IE vs Safari etc.



    But if Apple wanted to get to 10% marketshare...I wonder, could they buy or merge with Adobe. It would certainly hasten their transition to a software revenue dependent company. And if they wanted hardware growth at a faster rate they could hoik the PC versions...?



    The noises made by Adobe and Quark at certain points of the X transition made me feel very uncomfortable. Like they could see the writing on the wall...or had written off Apple. Apple market share has been declining relative to...



    Even buying out a company like Quark...it would give, in my eyes, the Mac platform a little more security.



    I don't think they will do either at the moment. Or afford to. They need to get a bit more cash in the coffers first.



    That means selling loads more G5s.



    re: the thread. Aftereffects...the initial noises say twice as fast as a Xeon. That's fair enough. No doubt Apple will have a 2.5 970 in 6 months that will do even better.



    Lemon Bon Bon
  • Reply 3 of 38
    keyboardf12keyboardf12 Posts: 1,379member
    I know, adobe acts like 40% of there revenues DOn't come from the mac.



    the problem is partly due to the fact they have so many pc people in charge of softtware. i know this is the case for acrobat.





    the panther preview scrolling the pdfs should SHAME adobe. SHAME I SAY!



    there is no excuse as to why they can't make a faster version.
  • Reply 4 of 38
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon

    Y'know. I'm getting slightly worried by the tone of Adobe the last few years. The delay over Photoshop for 'X' really seemed to hold the 'X' transition to hostage.



    Photoshop wasn't delayed for Mac OS X - PS7 was released when it was supposed to be released, and Adobe's schedule concerning PS6 just didn't match Apple's Mac OS X release schedule.





    Quote:

    Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon

    Certain apps for PC only... I can understand it to a certain degree. When Apple do something. They do it very well. It makes it hard for Adobe to compete against iPhoto/MS to compete ala IE vs Safari etc.



    AFAIK Photoshop Album will be released for Mac when it reaches v2, and I think that Adobe is testing new apps on Windows first because even if a new app don't succeed, the market is so huge that they will probably cover the development costs.
  • Reply 5 of 38
    Quote:

    Photoshop wasn't delayed for Mac OS X - PS7 was released when it was supposed to be released, and Adobe's schedule concerning PS6 just didn't match Apple's Mac OS X release schedule.



    Yeah. I'm aware of that. But I remember the 'transition' time very well. Almost as if a 'cool wind' was blowin' through the Adobe/Apple relationship...



    The same undertones we heard from Quark's upper powers that be...



    40% aint bad for 5%.



    If Maya can survive on 25% then I'm sure Adobe will support the Mac long enough until Apple can get in the position to buy them...



    Just bought the Adobe Design Collection 6. Very nice. Like PS7 in Aqua...



    Lemon Bon Bon
  • Reply 6 of 38
    the cool gutthe cool gut Posts: 1,714member
    You can't really take all this "political" stuff to heart. The last couple of years have been tough for EVERYONE.... OS transition or not. When you make the worlds #1 photo editing program, you don't hurry a release for the sake of another companies launch plan. Plus, Adobe was getting alot of TLC from Apple during the transition.



    I should also point out that this whole transition to OSX has given Adobe a once in a lifetime opportunity to launch InDesign ... esentially getting almost a full year advantage on Quark. That should almost make up for that little "Final Cut Pro" incedent Apple pulled on them.
  • Reply 7 of 38
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by keyboardf12

    I know, adobe acts like 40% of there revenues DOn't come from the mac.



    You may be thinking of the Mac percentage of photoshop sales for which the 40% figure was valid a few years ago. Since then, the percentage has dropped even more. Once you figure in all the other software they make, Mac platform sales account for a scarily small percentage of total Adobe revenue. Its official now, if it wasn't already a few years ago, Adobe is a windows software house.





    I guess this is why Apple is starting to offer alternatives to the increasingly under whelming Adobe line-up. Remember the days when you could hold up an Adobe dialog box as an example of good UI design?



    Back when they were Mac oriented, Adobe routinely surprised us with elegance, speed, and features.



    Since then, Adobe jumped the shark and pulled a Quark.
  • Reply 8 of 38
    keyboardf12keyboardf12 Posts: 1,379member
    Quote:

    Overall, revenue from our application products on the Windows and Macintosh platforms decreased 4% and

    10%, respectively, in fiscal 2002 compared to fiscal 2001. In fiscal 2001 compared to fiscal 2000, revenue from our

    application products on the Windows platform increased 9%, and revenue from our application products on the

    Macintosh platform decreased 21% during the same period. In fiscal 2002, the Windows and Macintosh platforms

    accounted for 71% and 29%, respectively, of application products revenue, excluding platform-independent and

    UNIX products, compared to 70% and 30%, respectively, in fiscal 2001, and 63% and 37%, respectively, in fiscal

    2000. We expect the trend towards the Windows platform to continue in the foreseeable future.



    Its 29%.



    And they should treat the company that brings them one out of every three of the dollars of revenue much better then this.
  • Reply 9 of 38
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    OK, totally OT, but what really unnerves Adobe, I'm sure, is Apple including PostScript to PDF conversion in Panther. If Apple sets this up as a OS-level standard, it opens the door for MS to do the same in Longhorn. That would be devastating to Adobe's increasingly important Acrobat/eBook business model.



    I imagine Apple is walking a fine line with this one -- publically tweaking Adobe's nose on Preview being a better PDF reader on Mac or Windows, but purposely not providing as many options for PDF output in Panther as Distiller. And keeping iPhoto's editing tools extremely basic.



    Anyway, it cuts both ways. Adobe's priority for the Mac can slip, but Apple can hurt Adobe right back.



    Back to your scheduled topic.
  • Reply 10 of 38
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,425member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Hobbes

    OK, totally OT, but what really unnerves Adobe, I'm sure, is Apple including PostScript to PDF conversion in Panther. If Apple sets this up as a OS-level standard, it opens the door for MS to do the same in Longhorn. That would be devastating to Adobe's increasingly important Acrobat/eBook business model.



    I imagine Apple is walking a fine line with this one -- publically tweaking Adobe's nose on Preview being a better PDF reader on Mac or Windows, but purposely not providing as many options for PDF output in Panther as Distiller. And keeping iPhoto's editing tools extremely basic.



    Anyway, it cuts both ways. Adobe's priority for the Mac can slip, but Apple can hurt Adobe right back.



    Back to your scheduled topic.




    Good point. However I think PDF could be the one format to beat Word. It's available for all major platforms. While not a feature rich as Words format it's a better and all a person needs for portability.
  • Reply 11 of 38
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Hobbes

    OI imagine Apple is walking a fine line with this one -- publically tweaking Adobe's nose on Preview being a better PDF reader on Mac or Windows, but purposely not providing as many options for PDF output in Panther as Distiller. And keeping iPhoto's editing tools extremely basic.



    Anyway, it cuts both ways. Adobe's priority for the Mac can slip, but Apple can hurt Adobe right back.




    If Adobe didn't want competition on the PDF front they probably wouldn't have published the format specs.
  • Reply 12 of 38
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dfiler

    Since then, Adobe jumped the shark and pulled a Quark.



    Jerks!!!



    Seriously though, I have been hearing a lot about the PostScript to PDF conversion, but I am really not quite sure what postscript is. Can anyone clue me in on this? (Without making fun of me TOO much if possible heh)
  • Reply 13 of 38
    wfzellewfzelle Posts: 137member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Jeremiah Rich

    [...]but I am really not quite sure what postscript is. Can anyone clue me in on this? (Without making fun of me TOO much if possible heh)



    Postscript is a programming language designed for document layout. This allows you do to very advanced things. For instance, you can draw complex pictures as lines, circles, bezier curves, etc. This allows you to scale a picture up without the artifacts that you would get if you scale up a jpeg/gif picture.



    Postscript can also be used to describe font layouts (using mathematical formulas to draw curves to form letters). This was later copied by Truetype and Opentype.
  • Reply 14 of 38
    keyboardf12keyboardf12 Posts: 1,379member
    Another benchmark (nasa) that showing the G5 kicks Ass.



    http://members.cox.net/craig.hunter/g5/
  • Reply 15 of 38
    scottibscottib Posts: 381member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by keyboardf12

    Another benchmark (nasa) that showing the G5 kicks Ass.



    http://members.cox.net/craig.hunter/g5/




    Interesting points of this (from a layman's perspective):
    • The Jet3D test only needed 1MB of memory to run, so system bandwidth may not have come into play(?).

    • The G4, when averaged to MFLOP/MHz, is on par with the G5, pretty much.

    • The author comments that if the test were compiled for the G5, a 20% boost in performance is feasible.

  • Reply 16 of 38
    gizzmonicgizzmonic Posts: 511member
    I can't wait for the G5 to be released, so we can see exactly how this "Night Flight" thing turns out. While it looks impressive, I'm how the test would end up if he let it render all the way through. Rendering the first ten frames doesn't give us the whole picture by far.
  • Reply 17 of 38
    johnsonwaxjohnsonwax Posts: 462member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by scottiB

    The author comments that if the test were compiled for the G5, a 20% boost in performance is feasible.



    Well, I think that's a generous interpretation. He instead says that the G5 should be 20% slower than a 3.2GHz P4 (extrapolating from a 2.66 P4 to a 3.2 P4) in scalar FP but that until specific code gen is available for the G5 that we shouldn't draw any immediate conclusions. He makes no reference to what kind of speedup the G5 might see if any.



    The vector performance is quite astounding. 10x-13x improvement over the scalar code. Yow.
  • Reply 18 of 38
    scottibscottib Posts: 381member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by johnsonwax

    Well, I think that's a generous interpretation. He instead says that the G5 should be 20% slower than a 3.2GHz P4 (extrapolating from a 2.66 P4 to a 3.2 P4) in scalar FP but that until specific code gen is available for the G5 that we shouldn't draw any immediate conclusions. He makes no reference to what kind of speedup the G5 might see if any.



    The vector performance is quite astounding. 10x-13x improvement over the scalar code. Yow.




    Yep. I misread.
  • Reply 19 of 38
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    The more interesting point of these test is the altivec benchmark.



    The file have the size of only 1 MB, and therefore the L3 cache of the G4 was sufficiant to avoid most of the main memory acess.

    That's not the case of the G5 even with his bigger L2 cache.



    The conclusion is that the VMX engine of IBM scale lineary altivec stuff on small files, but should smoke the G4 for large altivec files, when memory bandwitch come into play.
  • Reply 20 of 38
    geertgeert Posts: 4member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JLL

    If Adobe didn't want competition on the PDF front they probably wouldn't have published the format specs.



    Actually Apple licensed the core of Distiller from Adobe for Panther. Here is a quote from the article ""Apple licensed the core of Acrobat Distiller--Adobe Normalizer, which turns PostScript into PDF--and it's shipping with Panther," Rosenthol says."



    The whole story is here: http://www.pdfzone.com/news/101846.html
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