Interface Performance on OSX

[macmayaguy]

Ditto.

It's definitely gotten more responsive with each release but you're absolutely right. I used to use Cinema4D on the mac and the interface was AMAZINGLY responsive. Same as it was on a PC. As much as I love my mac I really think that it's playing red headed step child over at Alias. They port and bug fix, but then they go grab a beer and tell us we should just be happy to have it I guess :hmm:

[martinw]

Maya pushes OpenGL pretty hard, and uses a lot of different OpenGL calls. Apple has optimized some OpenGL calls but not all of them. Apple is optimizing more OpenGL with each release of OSX, so it is always worth keeping up to date with the latest OS versions.

Edit - oops, you're talking about the UI rather than OpenGL. Never mind...

[zallen27]

Ok... well I guess I'll just have to talk to the Alias reps next time I see them again in L.A. I'll do my part in pushing the idea of Maya needing an improvement for us OSX users still. Last time I talked to them was during the release of 6.5, and they were showing me how they "re-built" the Maya architecture to be faster for OSX users. I did seem a bit better, but the UI is still not up to par.

[macmayaguy]

If it had a super complicated interface i'd maybe understand. But when similar programs are running SO much faster (in terms of interface) maybe they should look at hiring a few people away from those companies. :argh:

[housewarmer]

But to be fair, each release of both Maya and OS X have been faster than the one before. I've got an older mac (2 years or so) that has actually improved in performance over time (for general ui type stuff - naturally heavy processer work hasn't changed).

[Nothingness]

the difference between mac and pc is making me loose my hair! I am a truly mac-fan and try to do as much as possible on my mac. I am using a temporarely Mac Mini until there will be a powerMac that i considder worth buying. But! Last i did a test with cinema 4d on my pc P4 2.6 GHz and a dual G5 2.7 GHz. The test were horrible. My 3 year old pc wasn't faster but it was a close one. Due to the fact that the G5 had 2 cpu's it was only a bit faster than double. A shame for a brand-new dual G5. But i believe it is beceause of incompatiblilty from cinema 4d. Next: when i did a render with a lot of photons the G5 was just a bit faster than the pc. Seems that cinema 4d can't use more than 1 cpu for photons. My next goal was to test maya on there 2 systems but they are still to come. But i realy hope the processor-speed for the G5 with maya is realy good. Beceause fot these reasons i am considering a nex pc. Maybe dual-Xeon. But it al depends on the 3d-app on the os.
Another conclusion: i don't trust the cinema 4d Benchmark but according to the tests my pc was much faster in openGL than the mac.
Apple als said that it wanted to make their os the best os for openGL. I hope theye do it by the next release of osX. It should be finished by the time win sells it horrible longhorn.

[macmayaguy]

I've noticed maya doesn't take full advantage of dual processors either. PaintFX doesn't I believe. Dynamics doesn't, but I believe that's for technical reasons, same for PC in that case. I read somewhere there's a bug where maya on mac won't use both chips in some raytracing either!

We use PC and Mac at work, more often than not the PC ends up letting us down and the mac bails us out. Final Cut rocks, the OS is stable, and usually the computer is faster, if the developers push it to the limits. But more and more often we're seeing the chip not getting fully utilized. Do a render and open your process viewer.

This is supposed to be one of the reasons Apple is moving to Intel. Even if the PowerPC is a better chip it's just to much work for companies like Alias to rewrite such huge apps like Maya to take advantage of it. I'm sure apple doesn't want to advertise this as a reason though :sad:

[Nothingness]

I am still considering a new computer that is heavy enough to do some serious work. Although i am just learning maya. Yet I feel that speed is also holding me down in making quality renders and scenes.
Final Cut is extremely good aswell as DVD studio and a lot more. But i still don't know if the Mac is the best sollution. I am planning on buying the new G5 comming up but theye will most likely be a dual- of maybe tripple-core cpu's. And if maya doesn't fully use both cpu's, then how is it going to handle dual-cores?

Macmayaguy: what version of maya are you using? and on what osX? I just have maya 6.5 and haven't tried it yet. Maybe i will even thest this on a dual G5 2.7 with Tiger. See what happens then.

I don't want to buy another pc for that microcrap it giving me grey-hair. And also everything else i do is on a mac.

by-the-way: raytracing on one cpu would be hell. I hope theye will have some darn good intels in a few years.

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