Hi all, I'm in the process of deciding on a new computer. I'm a long-time mac user, but I'm not sure I can afford a nice shiny new G5, so I'm looking into PCs. I basically would like comments on how Carrara runs in windows, or comments from anybody who has used Carrara on both platforms. How it compares. Thanks for the input. Cheers, Max

Max,

I move back and forth between Mac and PC all day and once you're in Carrara, you'll never notice a difference between similarly spec'ed machines. Based on a few benchmarking threads around here, the Athlons respond really well to Carrara and are probably a great choice for someone on a budget.

Good luck,
Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
3D plug-ins for Carrara
http://digitalcarversguild.com

Thanks Eric, I appreciate the input. Max

If a pile of cash happens to fall in your lap, one nice thing on the Mac side is that Carrara works well with dual processor machines. When you're rendering, the yellow block that moves across the image is joined by a red block, each showing what a single processor is doing. I don't know what dual-processor PCs cost, but if they're affordable, you might want to spring for that boost.

Hey Eric, Can you give us a price/feature breakdown of the similar Mac and PC you are comparing. This is a question I've thought about myself and the one thing I keep hearing is that PC's can cost less but by the time you get them up to the same specs (videocard, DVD, firewire) as a Mac then the pricing isn't all that different. I know a lot of Mac guys and I know a lot of PC guys but what I don't know is someone who uses both on a daily basis. I know that some of the things that I mentioned-DVD, firewire- don't really come into play when working in Carrara, so I'll keep that in mind. Also, how do the PCs compare with ease of use?

Robert,

It's not entirely true, but in some cases you're right, you probably won't see much difference in price between fully loaded top of the line machines. If I go to Dell and pick out a top of the line precision with dual Xeons and match it to a Dual 2.0 G5, there won't be much difference in price.

However for lower than top of the line, it's a bit of a different story. For example precision 450 vs. a dual 2ghz G5.
450 G5
CPU dual 2.4 xeon dual 1.8 G5
video Quadro FX 500 128 meg Nvidia FX 5200 64 meg
RAM 1gig 512meg
HD 120meg 160meg
DVD-burn8x 4x
Firewire yes yes
Price 1849.40 2499.00

Each has a couple of points in it's favor and you might say that the G5 is a better chip, but I will get to that latter. There are advantages the G5 has that aren't listed above like 64bit, comes with the iLife apps, and PCI-X slots, but none of those will help Carrara, though they may be things that are important to you.

Another advantage comes when you can pick and choose parts or you do a homegrown. For example if I'm just looking for a render monster for Carrara, I can strip down that Xeon to a plain CD-ROM, small hard drive, and a cheapo video card saving a nice chunk of change. For some of those things even if I want them top of the line, I can buy after market and still save money over upgrading the base model from dell. However if I buy from Apple, I don't have the choice of a 40gig hard drive.

For homegrown systems, you could build a dual Athlon MP box for probably about 1k + cost of windows that would be good for games and would be as fast if not faster than the top of the line Mac rendering.

If you're looking in the portable arena right now, the G4 has really fallen behind compared to the Pentium mobiles. Compare a Dell Inspiron 8600 to a 15" powerbook, similarly equiped, both 15 widescreen, firewire, dvd burner, 80gig hd, 512meg ram, ATI 9600 video, and about 4 hrs real world battery life. The 8600 would be a few hundred cheaper, will have a higher resolution screen, faster burner, more video ram, come with a 3 year warrenty, and render nearly 2x as fast as the 1.25 G4 (this is based on Cinebench scores, mileage may vary with Carrara). Now the 8600 is a couple of pounds heavier and only has 4 pin firewire so doesn't win on all points.

This is not to say that the Mac doesn't have it's strengths, but as far as Carrara is concerned the platforms are about on par. A equivalently clocked PIII, P4, or G4 will be within 5 to 10% render time. I have not personally run Carrara on an Athlon or a G5, but from results posted in various "how fast is my machine" threads, Carrara renders a bit faster on the Athlons, and the G5 runs about the same as a G4, except of course it's clocked faster. There just isn't anything in Carrara that needs the G5's delightfully outragous bandwidth. Maybe something with really big textures and tons of geometry would show a bigger gain, but I haven't seen anyone try that.

Ease of use is entirely subjective so I'm not sure how much feedback I can give here, but it really doesn't bother me to move back and forth. There are things and tools I like on both platforms, each has something to learn from the other. Neither one strikes me as better, just different. I find typing on a Mac keyboard a little awkward because of the positioning of the cmd key vs. the ctrl key and because of how Home and End behave so I tend to type most of my code on the PC. I bought my wife a G4 ibook recently which also allows me to maintain both platforms on the road via Virtual PC. I love it. It's convinced me that I need to take a serious look at the powerbook when it becomes time to retire the inspiron I use most of the time now. However after a few months with it, the wife prefers Windows and still finds OSX frustrating.

Regards,
Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
3D plug-ins for Carrara
http://digitalcarversguild.com

Excellent, excellent. Thanks so much Eric. Really good information.

Just a couple notes on the whole PC vs. Mac thing. I think Eric hit it pretty much on par, with Carrara, you won't see to much of a difference in similarly configured computers. I use both PC's and Macs on a day to day basis. I have a P4 2.5 GHz with Nvidia 4 128MB Video Card, a Pentium 4 1.8 server and a Dual 1.8 G5 with 1GB ram. I will say that Carrara seems faster on my Mac, but hey it is a bit more powerful. ;-) Other things to consider are your software investments. With Carrara, you get both Windows and Mac versions, so no big there. But other apps like Macromedia (pre MX 2004), Adobe, Microsoft, and others, you will have to re-purchase these, which, can be very expensive. Macromedia, will not even give you an upgrade to a PC version from a Mac or visa-versa, you have to buy the full version. I think it is the same with Adobe. Another plus for Mac owners, is that Macs are worth more used, as they hold their value longer. As an example, before I bought my G5 ($2499) I first sold my old G4 (A Humble Dual-450, circa 2000 or 2001). I didn't think I would be able to get much for it, but was surprised to learn that they were going for $600+ dollars. I ended up selling my G4 only, for $950, making the G5 very attainable. I then just bought the new G5, used my existing peripherals, and display and am shocked at the difference in speed. I realize I am going on, but another factor is the system itself. Some people are more comfortable using Windows or Mac OS. I did OSX for it's UNIX underpinnings, and tweak-ability. But I also like some of the nice touches that Windows XP has. Bottom line is you can definitely build a PC for cheaper then a shiny new Mac, I build them for people regularly, but there is something to be said for the details and polish of a new Mac, Apple is unmatched in presentation and "Trim and Finish". Regards, Paul