Softimage 3D: Irix performance

[meloncully]

that is a good question. i wanted to know how the performance on something like an sgi octane would be. because i know a lot of big companies are just switching to pentium/amd based machines running linux, and i hear maybe those are faster than some of the sgi's for the price.

[StefanA]

it's slow. An octane is equal to a PII266 or PIII550 (depending on which processor the have). The 3D feedback is slower than a GeForce2.
So prepare for a nightmare :) It there any special reason why you can't have a PC instead?

best regards

.stefan andersson

[wmendez]

My how times have changed :)

[Jinxo]

Ouch. I've always had a very romantic view of SGI boxes. I've never used one, since they were the norm before my time, but I've always thought of them as The Thing to use for cg. Hardware build -just- for the techie artist. I was quite disappointed when SGI released Wintel boxes a few yrs back, despite the still largely custom harware.

Granted, the PC I built for a friend, who only surfs online and writes reports while going through her degree, is faster than the SGI stations of 3-4 years ago, but I still respect the SGIs.

As a matter of fact, a couple of years ago I came very close to buying one of a bunch of used O2 + 17" screen boxes that I found at a stire, just for kicks (and the undeniable coolness factor :) ). It still cost about as much as a new T/Bird box, and I couldn't really afford it...


cheers
Alex

[wmendez]

the good thing is that if you really wanted to by a used SGI they are widely available now and at good prices check out www.reputable.com I bought an Indy from them back in the days.

[john]

It's an Octane Dual 400MhZ (?) MXE graphics, digital video option and 4GB ram. There may be an Origin 2000 deskside with either 4 or 8 processors (no idea which). Is this system really pants? I'm going to ask for a PC! If it's really bad I'll bring my own or better yet...work from home, now there's an idea!!!

Thanks for the info.

Regards

John

[ggg]

for 3d yes they are slower but for video especially composting in 3D some sgis have a unique architecture that helps.

Its been a while since I used Flint/Flame. The winner of a contest between an old O2 with Flint up against one of the faster PCs today with combustion would be?

[KEKS]

i have Octane old one :) and it cant even make a primitive sphere
now if you ahve dual 400 and that much ram and that top card you might be going actually pritty fast. I have seen maya in action with single 350 with that board and 1 gig ram and it was same as Oxygen gvx1 pro with 1 gig ram and amd 1800+ but that was running Maya. Maya was written on Irix and xsi was writen on NT platform so PC would be much faster ....

[thomaspecht]

well that octane should be quite cool for running Softimage|3D although it won't outperform a modern Ghz PC. don't get confused: Softimage|3D was developed and optimized for IRIX and (in my experience) runs more flawless on SGI boxes (display refresh, crashes) than on PC based machines while XSI runs super-slow and super-buggy on IRIX since it was developed for Windows and then ported.

even on my (6 years old) Indigo2 Maximum Impact (nearly identical graphics subsystem as the one in your Octane MXE) Softimage is running like a breeze.
probably the 400 mhz cpu will be a bottleneck for rendering but for modelling/animation performance it won't be unusable.

regarding the ease of use of the IRIX desktop: it's aged but usable - so is Softimage's ;) although not really up to the GUI standards of Windows 2000+ or MAC OS X.

i'd say better prepare for a very stable work environment. really want to trade that in for a PC?

[john]

Thanks to everyone for all the helpful information. I am a real novice when it comes to file / project management using IRIX. I'm gonna get myself all worked up over nothing probably.

Although I have made the transition to XSI and enjoy working with it I still really enjoy working in SI 3D.....don't know why but the interface seems really familiar and comfortable and familiarity is what I need right now when trying to learn a new OS.

I don't even know what video editing / compositing environment I'll end up using...anyone any ideas what to expect using an Octane for video capture / editing / compositing?

I dont start working on the project for another few weeks and really wanted to try and inform myself fully before I start.

Thanks again for all the info.

Regards

John

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