Apple falling even further behind in the highend DCC market...?!?

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Bitchin' new Boxx system, due end of September 2005...







Quote:

Another interesting capability is support of what's called a mezzanine card where four more dual core processors can be added along with 16 more DIMM slots for 32 more gigabytes of RAM. Imagine that -- 64 GB of RAM and 8 dual core processors.



Comments?!?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 36
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacRonin

    Bitchin' new Boxx system, due end of September 2005...











    Comments?!?




    Too many cooks, spoil the soup :-(
  • Reply 2 of 36
    macroninmacronin Posts: 1,174member
    According to the article this beast is designed as a workstation main logic board, not a server board...



    Think about it, eight dual-core CPUs & 64GB of RAM...?!?



    That is crazy!



    I am in awe of the raw power this thing represents...



    And think of this, you wouldn't have to run the heat in the winter, just crank up the old Octo Workstation...!



    ;^p
  • Reply 3 of 36
    Hello there !



    ?I think that besides hardware, apple is in big trouble with DCC app because there is no 64bit GUI osX?



    All 3D companies have announced there 64bit app, but they can't release a mac version because 64bit computing with mac osX have to be done in a command line app behind a 32bit GUI through a message passing interface. This is ok for a render engine, but there is no way to VIEW in REALTIME "64bit data" like gazillion polygons?



    For instance, I'm a lightwave user both on osX and windows, and in a few weeks newtek will release LW 8.5 in three flavour : XP : 32bit and 64bit / osX : 32bit only?



    paradox : my PC aren't 64bit, so I will have to stick with XP 32bit, my macs are 64bit but can't run a 64bit app that needs a 64bit GUI?



    So I hope that apple is doing something on the GUI side to include 64bit versions of Aqua, openGL and QuickTime?



    toma.
  • Reply 4 of 36
    macroninmacronin Posts: 1,174member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by toma

    So I hope that apple is doing something on the GUI side to include 64bit versions of Aqua, openGL and QuickTime?



    I think Mac OS X v10.5 (aka Leopard) is going to take care of this...



    But I am not sure...
  • Reply 5 of 36
    macroninmacronin Posts: 1,174member
    Here is a pdf on said monster MLB...



    ftp://ftp.tyan.com/datasheets/d_s4881_104.pdf



    And the case Tyan makes to go with it, but I am sure Apple could do a better design...



    http://www.tyan.com/products/html/vx50b4881.html



    Expensive, yes...



    An Apple-designed Intel-powered version with Octo quad-core Whitefield CPUs anyone...!?!



    That would be 32 cores & (if using 4GB DIMMs) 128GB of RAM...!



    Let's say 2GHz speeds for the cores (being pessemistic), that would be a 64GHz workstation!



    Madness! Madness! Madness!
  • Reply 6 of 36
    1. What is DCC?



    2. Apple hasn't ever been a player in industrial CAD.



    3. At this point, you can do movie-grade 3D modeling on dated hardware.



    4. Generally, it cheaper to render on a cluster of $500 PC than it is on one big, expensive rig.



    5. Lightwave sucks. If it's the only 64bit 3D app, I'll pass.



    A lot of 3D artists do the design on the mac and render on a cluster of cheap PCs. Hell, it's almost cannon these days.
  • Reply 7 of 36
    cubistcubist Posts: 954member
    The Boxx is an Opteron machine, of course. The title of this thread should be "Intel falling even farther behind..."



    Apple could have built something like this with a 970MP, but now they will have to wait for Intel... and it will be at least two years before Intel has anything comparable to today's Opterons.



    MacRonin, you could have anticipated questions by including a teeny bit more text in the original post...
  • Reply 8 of 36
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    1. What is DCC?



    2. Apple hasn't ever been a player in industrial CAD.



    3. At this point, you can do movie-grade 3D modeling on dated hardware.



    4. Generally, it cheaper to render on a cluster of $500 PC than it is on one big, expensive rig.



    5. Lightwave sucks. If it's the only 64bit 3D app, I'll pass.



    A lot of 3D artists do the design on the mac and render on a cluster of cheap PCs. Hell, it's almost cannon these days.




    DCC stands for Digital Content Creation > Computer Graphics? this is not the same thing that CAD, and no, you can't do "movie-grade 3D modeling on dated hardware".



    I agree with you about the cheap PC render farm, but the point is that you can't set up your renderings on a mac because of that 64bit GUI issue?



    Lightwave sucks ? that's your POV? but maxon can't release a mac version of cinema4D 64bit because of the same osX limitation.



    tomas.
  • Reply 9 of 36
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Apple will likely never create such a motherboard. If you look at their directions for high end software they are slowly integrating Xgrid into the OS and Qmaster for distrib rendering. There is not need to have a huge honkin' computer/mobo when you have a decent clustered rendering system racked up. This does give me geek wood though to see Tyan push the envelope.



    64-bit is still in its infancy. Sure I can buy windows 64-bit and Cinema4d and LW 64-bit but the problem right now is 64-bit drivers. I don't see 64-bit being mainstream until 2007



    Quote:

    Apple could have built something like this with a 970MP, but now they will have to wait for Intel... and it will be at least two years before Intel has anything comparable to today's Opterons.



    The Opteron is a good chip but other than an ondie memory controller there's nothing in the Opty's that I can't see Conroe and Woodcrest competing well against. Intel has seceded the current market to the Opteron in a way but it's obvious from IDF that they're going to push the merom core very heavy in a year...not two as you state. I wouldn't bet against the Israeli Intel team myself.



    Apple should focus a bit harder on DCC. Buy Luxology you idiots! However things aren't too bad. Soon Apple will have parity in hardware with PCs so it all boils down to software which we're still behind in.
  • Reply 10 of 36
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison Soon Apple will have parity in hardware with PCs so it all boils down to software which we're still behind in. [/B]



    that's what I mean? so let's hope that the drivers and the OS will soon have parity to (I hope apple doesn't wait for the mactel to introduce a 64bit GUI to osX)?



    tomas
  • Reply 11 of 36
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    I'm under the agreement with MacRonin that Leopard will be damn near fully 64-bit. Kinda makes sense when you think that Merom will be Intels first portable core that supports EM64T.



    Give it a couple of years and FBDIMMs may have a portable form factor that supports 2gbyte and 4gbyte chips. Drool.
  • Reply 12 of 36
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by toma

    For instance, I'm a lightwave user both on osX and windows, and in a few weeks newtek will release LW 8.5 in three flavour : XP : 32bit and 64bit / osX : 32bit only?



    paradox : my PC aren't 64bit, so I will have to stick with XP 32bit, my macs are 64bit but can't run a 64bit app that needs a 64bit GUI?





    That's not paradox, that's irony.
  • Reply 13 of 36
    macroninmacronin Posts: 1,174member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    ...give me geek wood...



    See folks, that is what this type of thread is all about...



    Most here figure Apple would never make something like this, but I would bet most here would instantly jizz in their shorts if such a beast appeared on the front page of the Apple website...



    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    Apple should focus a bit harder on DCC. Buy Luxology you idiots!



    I wish the same thing would happen... But the folks over to the Luxology forums got riled-up when I mentioned it...



    Could you imagine an Apple version of the commented machine, preloaded with integrated Final Cut Studio, Shake & the full goodness of Luxology...!



    Yes, I mean a full end-to-end pipeline of Lux/modo/Nexus goodness; modeling, surfacing, rigging, animating, dynamics, rendering, all that jazz...



    One stop studio shop...



    ;^p
  • Reply 14 of 36
    dave k.dave k. Posts: 1,306member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by toma

    ?I think that besides hardware, apple is in big trouble with DCC app because there is no 64bit GUI osX?



    What is a 64 bit GUI?
  • Reply 15 of 36
    smalmsmalm Posts: 677member
    Originally posted by MacRonin

    Expensive, yes...



    Yeah, I know at least 9320 reasons not to buy such a machine.



    Let's say 2GHz speeds for the cores



    And now already 12112
  • Reply 16 of 36
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacRonin

    Madness! Madness! Madness!



    ...and yet totally desirable.



    Extreme word processing, anyone?
  • Reply 17 of 36
    gongon Posts: 2,437member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by toma

    ?I think that besides hardware, apple is in big trouble with DCC app because there is no 64bit GUI osX?



    All 3D companies have announced there 64bit app, but they can't release a mac version because 64bit computing with mac osX have to be done in a command line app behind a 32bit GUI through a message passing interface. This is ok for a render engine, but there is no way to VIEW in REALTIME "64bit data" like gazillion polygons?



    For instance, I'm a lightwave user both on osX and windows, and in a few weeks newtek will release LW 8.5 in three flavour : XP : 32bit and 64bit / osX : 32bit only?




    Extremely graphics intensive apps will incur additional I/O overhead (how much, I have no idea) when they funnel the stuff to the GUI side to get it displayed. The machine will display everything just fine. You aren't going to send over ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO US in 64bit greatness, you are going to send the data that needs to be displayed, which is far less. If I understand correctly, in the normal workflow of a 3D app the preview and "real" rendering aren't usually happening at the same time, which would decrease the performance hit.



    The reason why OS X 64-bit graphics apps might lag behind is that most companies whose stuff is multiplatform are not going to be bothered to redesign it in those separate components, just to accommodate the Mac market which is in most cases smaller than the rest of the market... especially if they anticipate that Apple will upgrade its GUI libraries to 64bit soon enough and they'll be able to jump in with less work.



    In short it's not that the companies can't do 64bit for OS X, it's that they won't.
  • Reply 18 of 36
    I don't think it is true anymore that companies involved in 3D software ignore the mac market. Some do like avid but those that support both platforms have been surprised by the amount of mac people and switchers?



    Newtek, alias, luxology and even more maxon are great supporters to the mac platform, but?



    ?taken from http://www.maxon.net/pages/products/...edition_e.html



    Note for Apple users

    Even though the G5 processors of the Apple Power Mac series are 64-Bit CPUs, 64-Bit applications are not entirely supported by the OS X operating system. Only command line based programs can take advantage of the 64-Bit memory adressroom. Programs with a graphical user interface (GUI) can only run in 32-Bit mode. Therefore we can unfortunately not offer a 64-Bit version of CINEMA 4D for Macintosh. More information on this topic can be found here:

    http://developer.apple.com/macosx/64bit.html




    Of course you are right, I guess that they might do it, but it would involve a hudge effort, time and money, and anyway, by the time they finaly succed in making a 32bit GUI for a 64bit core, apple will update osX with full 64bit support? so they (and we) just have to wait?



    tomas.
  • Reply 19 of 36
    Quote:

    Originally posted by toma

    that's what I mean? so let's hope that the drivers and the OS will soon have parity to (I hope apple doesn't wait for the mactel to introduce a 64bit GUI to osX)?



    tomas




    The 64-bit GUI is not relevant. Any app that sets up renders for this kind of thing uses an independent backend and messages to it for rendering. The backend is 64-bit and the front-end doesn't need to be. Go look at Maya some time, when you do a render a new process is kicked off to do the work.
  • Reply 20 of 36
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kiwi-in-dc

    The 64-bit GUI is not relevant. Any app that sets up renders for this kind of thing uses an independent backend and messages to it for rendering. The backend is 64-bit and the front-end doesn't need to be. Go look at Maya some time, when you do a render a new process is kicked off to do the work.



    As I said, a 64bit backend is ok for rendering? but without a 64bit GUI you won't be able to view your mesh if it is too big, any 32bit app will stall or crash if you load more than a few million polygons while a 64bit GUI allow you to view even a billion polygons without a problem (and I mean openGL view : no nead to render)?



    from http://www.softimage.com/Products/Xs...es/default.asp



    Work with Ten Times the Detail

    Re-architected with a gigapolygon core that takes full advantage of both multi-processor and multi-core 32-bit and new 64-bit platforms, XSI now handles the tenfold increase in detail demanded by next-generation productions ? in tests handling a billion polygons on 64-bit systems. Critical functions are in many cases up to ten times faster than in previous versions of XSI, and a new memory management system makes it possible to render literally any scene that it is possible to load, regardless of physical memory limits.




    tomas.
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