Switch to Mac

[SheepFactory]

3 years zero crashes so far.

I work with maya\AE\PS and various other apple apps daily. I would highly recommend it. Osx is a great os in my opinion.

[Terun]

3 years zero crashes so far.

I work with maya\AE\PS and various other apple apps daily. I would highly recommend it. Osx is a great os in my opinion.

What is your computer specification?

[scrimski]

Bought a Mac Pro two years ago and no system crash so far - which is quite the same amount of crashes I experienced on my XP workstation the last two years.

Instead of blaming something, check your hardware, save your data, reformat your discs and reinstall Windows.

[705]

agree, os x is like having a special anti-crash division :D (but of course no software has no bug) :)

my only warn is maya in os x come up with (minor) bugs, but its not that much annoying.

[SheepFactory]

Mac book pro. 2.4

2gb ram

ATI video card which works flawlessly with every app. Apple make their own drivers so the shitty ATI drivers on the windows side is a non issue. I also run windows on this machine and the only software that has an issue is XSI 7.x.

[DuttyFoot]

So i have this huuge problem with my computer (Windows).
If i work in AE, my computer freezes.
Working in Maya, my computer crashes and so on,
still Windows Movie maker works... yeah...

i have those running on my pc at home and on my dell laptop and i have never had those problems. i have xp on my laptop. i actually just built my pc with vista and it has the same card you are running. i guess your probably right, it could be the OS.

[Terun]

i have those running on my pc at home and on my dell laptop and i have never had those problems. i have xp on my laptop. i actually just built my pc with vista and it has the same card you are running. i guess your probably right, it could be the OS.

I had my hardware checked at the store i bought them,but they couldnt find any problems with them. they told me it was the software for sure (and yes i trust em at the store ;)

It can be something f'up with my Vista. But as i said, same shit happens with the computers at school (with XP!).
For example while playblasting a pretty heavy animation everything crashes... and so on...

[biliousfrog]

The reason that Mac's have a reputation for reliability amongst some people is because they are well built and restrict you to certain components, reducing the risk of anyone installing something that will cause a problem.

PC's hand all responsibility to the owner, you can upgrade them all you want and have millions of applications that you can install but don't whinge when you break it.

Professional PC workstations have the best of both, solidly built, tailored to your requirements and very upgradable...but, unless you follow the manufacturers guidelines, you can't guarantee reliability.

Personally, I use a BOXX workstation for 3d and compositing without any problems but I'd happily switch to Mac if needs be. Neither is better or worse than the other, just that one offers slightly more flexibility at the expense of more possibility for the user to break it.

[Terun]

The reason that Mac's have a reputation for reliability amongst some people is because they are well built and restrict you to certain components, reducing the risk of anyone installing something that will cause a problem.

PC's hand all responsibility to the owner, you can upgrade them all you want and have millions of applications that you can install but don't whinge when you break it.

Professional PC workstations have the best of both, solidly built, tailored to your requirements and very upgradable...but, unless you follow the manufacturers guidelines, you can't guarantee reliability.

Personally, I use a BOXX workstation for 3d and compositing without any problems but I'd happily switch to Mac if needs be. Neither is better or worse than the other, just that one offers slightly more flexibility at the expense of more possibility for the user to break it.

But it can also be that Mac is more secure against viruses?
And yes, my computer was build from parts all over the world, and was
build together by me. Same shit happens to the computer bought at school thoug.

A little problem i have with mac, is the price. Big difference between a Pc spec and same spec with Mac.
Have to check out more deeply into the boxx solution...

[TAVO]

in my own experience, AE and Photoshop will run just fine, it never crashes with heavy jobs but Maya on a Mac, hugh, very unestable and some anoying bugs.

edit:
Maybe do a dual boot with Linux and try Maya there, it runs smoothly IMO.

[biliousfrog]

But it can also be that Mac is more secure against viruses?
And yes, my computer was build from parts all over the world, and was
build together by me. Same shit happens to the computer bought at school thoug.

A little problem i have with mac, is the price. Big difference between a Pc spec and same spec with Mac.
Have to check out more deeply into the boxx solution...

That's the problem, the price difference isn't much at all, in fact the Mac Pro's were cheaper than comparable PC workstations before Christmas. Professional computers, Mac or PC, are built with reliability in mind first where-as home-built PC's are almost always built with price as the main factor.

PC's aren't cheaper, there are cheaper PC components available but that's not the same thing. Mac Pro's are built from server grade components in order to be reliable, so are PC Workstations...don't confuse them with home-built gamers PC's or cheap Dell desktop's.

The memory, CPU, motherboards, hard disks are all of a higher quality and better specification than standard consumer components because they're designed to be reliable not just fast. It doesn't mean that consumer parts aren't equally capable but the differences are enough to make a difference when choosing a 'professional' workstation.

[Terun]

in my own experience, AE and Photoshop will run just fine, it never crashes with heavy jobs but Maya on a Mac, hugh, very unestable and some anoying bugs.

edit:
Maybe do a dual boot with Linux and try Maya there, it runs smoothly IMO.

Yes , heard that maya is unstable on Mac. In what waay??

[Micah-H]

I use imac 3.o ghz 2 gb ram maya ae ps works great

[Bharris]

I don't know about after effects, but I have been forced to use Maya on a Mac and in my opinion it's very terrible. I have more crashes on a Mac in Maya than I have ever had on a PC and there are a lot of weird bugs and such that go with it. (Scrolling down the playblast settings and all the fields going blank, script jobs not functioning properly on a Mac, etc)

I am a huge fan of Boxx and believe they offer one of the most reliable workstations. I wouldn't recommend a mac unless your main work on it was photoshop, video editing, or surfing the internet.

A linux system may also be the way to go, but I haven't used it to know. And on the subject of Mac getting less viruses than a PC, that is definitely true. I don't think there are hardly any people able to build a really effective virus on the Mac. However I have never had a problem on my PC. I don't even use an anti-virus. Just avoid the pron sites and limewire and you should be good to go.

[Geta-Ve]

Great thread! I recently bought my first mac last week. I bought the lowest priced iMac with the wireless keyboard and mouse.

I have to say, the fact that all I had to do to set up was use one chord had me VERY impressed and happy. Coming from an obvious windows background things were kind of disorienting at first, I have had to get used to the dock, and the toolbar always being on the top of the screen, but I find it works out really well actually.

I would also say, for anyones FIRST computer a mac would be the best way to go. Very user friendly. The only thing that has me kind of confused at this point is the install procedure of programs. I have to open the .dmg file, and then drag the program to the applications folder, but then a disk drive icon is displayed on my desktop that I can use to open up the same window to drag the program to the app folder again.

Not quite sure the reasoning for that, or if I am doing something wrong, but I have just ejected those disk drives afterwards and things seem to run just fine.

Also, I bought this mac to learn to program for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Signed up for the iPhone SDK and everything too! Got me some xCode, and interface builder happening. lol. Having a tough time learning Objective-C though. However the Dev-Center has been a huge help, I am slowly making my way through the documentation. I finished my first tutorial the other day too! Hurray for me. :p What I really need though is some kind of reference dictionary or something where I can look up what each, umm, piece of code, or syntax (whatever it is called) means. ie. Why is the @ symbol used, or what does (void) mean, that type of thing.

I realize the last paragraph is kind of off topic, but my hope is that some kind folks can point me in the right direction for iPhone game basics. ^_^

Anyhow, to sumerise, I really like the mac experience so far. Love that the mic and cam is built in to the computer, and I love that I only have one cord coming out of it. Very, very suave.

[SheepFactory]

I must be using a different version of maya than you guys because maya never crashed once here.

[JamesMcPhail]

I use a 2.5ghz Mac Book Pro as my personal computer. It runs Maya, Houdini etc just fine. I don't use it for CG that heavily at home though. I do a lot more photography work in lightroom and photoshop and it blazes along.

At work though I am a big linux fan. I have no complaints there when it comes to stability and speed in Maya.

[Terun]

Great thread! I recently bought my first mac last week. I bought the lowest priced iMac with the wireless keyboard and mouse.

I have to say, the fact that all I had to do to set up was use one chord had me VERY impressed and happy. Coming from an obvious windows background things were kind of disorienting at first, I have had to get used to the dock, and the toolbar always being on the top of the screen, but I find it works out really well actually.

I would also say, for anyones FIRST computer a mac would be the best way to go. Very user friendly. The only thing that has me kind of confused at this point is the install procedure of programs. I have to open the .dmg file, and then drag the program to the applications folder, but then a disk drive icon is displayed on my desktop that I can use to open up the same window to drag the program to the app folder again.

Not quite sure the reasoning for that, or if I am doing something wrong, but I have just ejected those disk drives afterwards and things seem to run just fine.

Also, I bought this mac to learn to program for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Signed up for the iPhone SDK and everything too! Got me some xCode, and interface builder happening. lol. Having a tough time learning Objective-C though. However the Dev-Center has been a huge help, I am slowly making my way through the documentation. I finished my first tutorial the other day too! Hurray for me. :p What I really need though is some kind of reference dictionary or something where I can look up what each, umm, piece of code, or syntax (whatever it is called) means. ie. Why is the @ symbol used, or what does (void) mean, that type of thing.

I realize the last paragraph is kind of off topic, but my hope is that some kind folks can point me in the right direction for iPhone game basics. ^_^

Anyhow, to sumerise, I really like the mac experience so far. Love that the mic and cam is built in to the computer, and I love that I only have one cord coming out of it. Very, very suave.

yeah i think a mac looks nice and is very userfrendly (what I have seen so far).
BUT now im wondering if it something to spend so much money on, if Maya has so many bugs (cause Maya is the main reason of buying a new stable OS).
I thought Mac was stable with maya, was wrong there then...

Looks like mac is the right choice for video and photo editing, more than to a 3d artist.
So my search will continue on other OS. Like í said i should check out this Boxx, but thats sounds quiet expensive though..

[Terun]

I must be using a different version of maya than you guys because maya never crashed once here.

Have you been working on heavy projects? Cause if im on more simpler 3d things, PC works fine. But animating heavy skeleton with much stuff going on in the background, thats when my PC fails...

[RockstarKate]

What version of AE are you using? Because I have been experiencing a lot of crashes and extreme clunkiness that I never used to have ever since I switched to CS4 (Dell Precision and Windows XP)

[Boone]

Re: Geta-Ve

Let us know how you get on with the iPhone development, as I hear you can make a fair bit of pocket money by doing so. :cool:

[bobtronic]

great, another OSX vs WIndows thread :rolleyes:

[DuttyFoot]

Having a tough time learning Objective-C though. However the Dev-Center has been a huge help, I am slowly making my way through the documentation. I finished my first tutorial the other day too! Hurray for me. :p What I really need though is some kind of reference dictionary or something where I can look up what each, umm, piece of code, or syntax (whatever it is called) means. ie. Why is the @ symbol used, or what does (void) mean, that type of thing.


i am in the same boat as far as learning C. is it possible to do games for the iphone or touch but with a pc

[Terun]

What version of AE are you using? Because I have been experiencing a lot of crashes and extreme clunkiness that I never used to have ever since I switched to CS4 (Dell Precision and Windows XP)

Yeah it's the CS4 version, but still i had problems with the earlier versions to.

[Geta-Ve]

i am in the same boat as far as learning C. is it possible to do games for the iphone or touch but with a pc

Unfortunately, at this time, and I suspect for a long while, you can only create apps for the iphone/touch on a mac, since that is the only OS that the iPhone SDK works on.

If you do decide to get a mac, keep in mind that not only do you have to buy the mac but also the SDK which costs $100. In total I spent about $1700 (cad) for the mac and sdk. Oh and you need an iphone/touch as well.. lol

@Boone: I shall indeed! But I doubt I will produce anything worthwhile before christmas. My tentative date at this point is christmas release. But we shall see how the learning process goes. I already have a fairly detailed plan/idea of what I want to create, so it is a matter of getting a firm grasp on Objective-C and such.

FUN!

[cowtrix]

I run Vista virtualised on top of Ubuntu. Works great, if a bit tricky to set up.

I should add that I patched the hell out of Vista to make it less annoying.

[Imhotep397]

I've worked with Maya on the Mac and Maya on Windows since version 3.5. Dude...I don't care what kind of annoying glitches Maya may have on the Mac my experience on multiple workstations is that Maya is FAR more stable on the Mac than on Windows. That's working on Dells with Quadro cards, HPs, Boxx workstations etc. I never really invested any time into Vista, after I completely switched to the Mac but I recently was installing some software for my uncle on his Vista machine (basic router software) and the damn thing crashed twice. (I can leave my Maya scene/session open on one workstation and not touch the thing for a month except to put it in "Sleep" mode and I can come back hit the space bar and with no problem continue working and I was never able to do anything even remotely close to that on Windows.)

My sense about a lot of Windows users is that they've become so desensitized to the crashing that they just don't register 3/4 of the crashes/freezes as a stability issue and they just restart and move on without thinking much about it. So they could have a crash free Maya session one day and then have the system lock up doing some internet browsing later...they just restart, view the crash as a minor issue and move on and it's acceptable, because mostly everyone else is in the same boat. When someone asks them, they're like "Yeah, my system's GREAT and really stable." Of course those are relative terms.

If the crashing and general instability bothers you to the point where you're on here asking...it's probably time to switch.

[tfortier]

I think you got some hardware problem. Bad memory module maybe? Or your computer is heating too much, causing crash in render... (dust in the heat sinc) Be aware that After Effects is slower on mac side and will crash if you use more than 6 cores. Also if you render everything in Quicktime on pc, this may be the problem. I used to render everything in qt format but I had more and more problems after QT 7. Crashing render, white frames... Its all fine if you render in images sequence or AVI though. Images sequences are really the best!

I would personnaly look into a new studio XPS i7 station before considering going mac because its by far the best deal out there.

Also you said you changed your cpu... did you reinstall xp after that? you need a fresh install if you change the cpu.


@ biliousfrog:

Im sorry but a 800$ i7 pc will bring you just as far as a 2499$ mac pro. Both are 2.66ghz i7 quad. The only real advantage of Xeon is you can have 8 cores. Xeon are not faster or better build. (it was in the past but not since duo2core).


@ Imotep:

"If the crashing and general instability bothers you to the point where you're on here asking...it's probably time to switch."

hehe its exactly what made me switch to PC. G5 showing the rolling beach ball 50% of the time, internet always crashing on me, laggy wacom in AE, Lightwave refreshing super slow... I was a big mac fan before using a PC.

[Boone]

Unfortunately, at this time, and I suspect for a long while, you can only create apps for the iphone/touch on a mac, since that is the only OS that the iPhone SDK works on.

If you do decide to get a mac, keep in mind that not only do you have to buy the mac but also the SDK which costs $100. In total I spent about $1700 (cad) for the mac and sdk. Oh and you need an iphone/touch as well.. lol

@Boone: I shall indeed! But I doubt I will produce anything worthwhile before christmas. My tentative date at this point is christmas release. But we shall see how the learning process goes. I already have a fairly detailed plan/idea of what I want to create, so it is a matter of getting a firm grasp on Objective-C and such.

FUN!

"Objective-C"? lol, whatever will those boffins come up with next... :argh:

[Imhotep397]

...I have to open the .dmg file, and then drag the program to the applications folder, but then a disk drive icon is displayed on my desktop that I can use to open up the same window to drag the program to the app folder again.

It's basically a convenience thing that software developers sometimes add in the installer; to auto-open the drive image directory for you. Some add that and some don't. Also some apps do have the drag and drop installation procedure where others have the more familiar double-click .PKG installer to run through and installation routine.

[Velk]

Setup correctly either platform will work well. I don't know why people think that AE or other programs run slower on Macs, I use it (and the whole CS4 suite) on my machine every day on some pretty big projects and don't have any issues with speed or crashes.

[Geta-Ve]

"Objective-C"? lol, whatever will those boffins come up with next... :argh:

:p

Well from what I gather, objective-c is a derivitive or an addition to the standard C language. I guess it uses more object oriented programming methods, or rather builds upon C with;

Anyhow, if there are any o-c devs out there or anyone starting out like me would be great to chat it up on msn or something. My email is in my portfolio if anyone is interested in sharing quirks ;)

[SheepFactory]

:p

Well from what I gather, objective-c is a derivitive or an addition to the standard C language. I guess it uses more object oriented programming methods, or rather builds upon C with;

Anyhow, if there are any o-c devs out there or anyone starting out like me would be great to chat it up on msn or something. My email is in my portfolio if anyone is interested in sharing quirks ;)


C# is fully object oriented like Java and Python. Its a pretty cool language from what I read. I am going to learn it as well after I learn jscript.

[Apoclypse]

C# is fully object oriented like Java and Python. Its a pretty cool language from what I read. I am going to learn it as well after I learn jscript.

I'm not sure if you know that ObjC and C# are totally different languages or if you are just stating that C# is pretty good. Objective C is the C language with a bit of smalltalk added to the mix. Its pretty good but it doesn't follow the normal OO paradigms that most developers are used to with C++. That's due to its smalltalk heritage.

C# is more of a Java like language, and it should be since it was developed when MS tried to screw SUN with their Java implementation. Putting that aside, C# is actually a pretty damn nice language and coupled with winforms and other cool things in Visual Studio, its pretty damn good to develop in.

[mnm|cg]

is it good idea buying a macbook pro 2.66 and use it like a desktop? I'm using cinema4d,ps and after effects only.

[Micah-H]

their screens are expensive and unless you have the new nvidia video cards it will slow your process down, if you want a desktop go with a refurbished imac 1gb 2.4ghz and upgrade to 4gb of ram for cheap, then your in business.

[olson]

But it can also be that Mac is more secure against viruses?
And yes, my computer was build from parts all over the world, and was
build together by me. Same shit happens to the computer bought at school thoug.

A little problem i have with mac, is the price. Big difference between a Pc spec and same spec with Mac.
Have to check out more deeply into the boxx solution...

OS X is not anymore secure than any other operating system out there, and is easier to exploit than Windows in this case.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pwn2own-mac-hack,2254.html

There's just not as many targets running OS X so there's not as many people trying to exploit OS X users. As for stability, I've had just as many problems with OS X as I have with Windows. Chances are the hardware or configuration of your system is bad. Randomly blaming the operating system is not the answer. Cheers!

[Boone]

C# is fully object oriented like Java and Python. Its a pretty cool language from what I read. I am going to learn it as well after I learn jscript.

Is C# a completely new language or is it like C++ where its basically C with extra commands? I've heard its copying Java but haven't had time to sit down and look at it... :shrug:

[705]

Is C# a completely new language or is it like C++ where its basically C with extra commands? I've heard its copying Java but haven't had time to sit down and look at it... :shrug:

well C++ and C# is very different. i cant tell it as a C with extra command. it is easier to understand java and then move to C# rather than from C++. the biggest difference (i think) is the memory allocation (which is more convenient in C# and Java if you get used to it).
im having trouble to do both programming at once since the concept is significantly different.

rumors on the street is that C# is ms counter for java ;)