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View Full Version : Maya Performance, Linux vs. Windows

heipei
10-16-2004, 07:27 PM
I recently switched from using maya 6.0 under windows to linux, since i use linux for most of my daily tasks and was happy to see my favorite 3d app there too ;)

I did a few test and although maya seemed to be a lot more stable under linux (what surprise) it somehow had a problem when rendering with mental ray. I rendered the exact same image, one time with windows xp sp 2 and one time with linux 2.6.8, same machine (dual boot).

amazingly the windows render took 4:16 min and the linux 4:46. i shut down every unnecessary app with linux and even reniced the process, no result. the only thing i noticed is that under linux mental ray computed a few more reflection (585467 - 57935) and finalgather rays (1486605 - 1484952). i really dont know if this could explain the difference

is there a know difference in speed between the two (or is linux even supposed to be faster) or has it got the "something else" ;)

thanks in advance
chrisdude0000
10-17-2004, 11:33 PM
sometimes programs do better on one OS over the other because of how much time they spend porting it. Also Native apps work better than ported Apps. I run an apple and they are alot better for gaming but the programs that are ported to the apple ussually do not use all the abilities that the OS offers and it is running messy code.
mrgoodbyte
10-18-2004, 03:15 PM
Personally I've seen quite comparable render times between Windows 2000 and Redhat kernel 2.4.8-30 and Maya 5.0. In some cases Linux would be faster, some cases Windows.
I have found however the GUI on Linux to be slightly faster and more reliable than Windows'. ie when Linux Maya is processing some operation it will try to update the window that is changing ( Script Editor or Timebar) after you've looked at an other window and coming back to Maya. In Windows this would simply leave debris behind and would not update until the whole calculation would be complete.
For openGL performance I've seen no real difference (Nvidia FX5700), just make sure you got the right drivers. Sometimes in Windows I would have trouble displaying a textured viewport, it would make some objects/polygons half-transparent while no transparency was applied to the shader. I have yet to see this phenomenon happen on Linux. But again this probably is caused by drivers instead of Maya itself.

Cheers,

Ronald
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01-19-2006, 01:00 PM
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