I am increasingly in need to take the jump to a more powerful Mac. Currently my dual 2.3 G5 is no longer cutting it as far as rendering times. I have to meet stringent deadlines and last night I came to the cold realization that my current setup is no longer up to snuff.  I had to complete two renderings for some advertisements. So I worked diligently setting everything up last night so that I could leave it all rendering. To my surprise only 34% of the first rendering was completed in a period of about 8 hours. It is a complex seen with lots of transparency.

I know there is a delicate balance between final quality of the render, rendering settings, and the time it takes to complete. Unfortunately I am under a lot of pressure to produce this art, and time is increasingly working against me.

My question pertains to anybody that has a MacPro 8 core. Is Carrara able to see all 8 cores? Could my projects rendering times benefit immensely with such setup? I think if I had upgraded this month, these two renderings would have been completed by now.

This morning I had to lower my rendering settings and hope for the best.

it is seeing my 2 core mac mini and its seeing my 4 core intel XP windows..
So 8 core i think it will see but im not 100% sure ...
Mark will know i think

Chris

 Yes, Carrara will use all of the cores. :D  Additionally, you could also include your current set-up in the render as well having 10 processors on the assignment.

like i sayed Mark will know...

 My current setup is being sold to help solvent the cost of this new setup. That is what I most like about Macs, they are easy to sell. I do have a MacBook that amazingly keeps pace with the G5 neck to neck. I should have set it up as a node last night, but I truly thought the G5 would suffice.

Thanks both.

 BAR-CODE, Are you mixing platforms as a render farm? I would not think this is possible?

euh..well not yet because it should not be possible .. but i did hear that it can be done ..
But i have the mac mini for modeling whitout bluescreens
The rendering etc etc i do on the 4core xp .. until i have MAC pro money  that is hahaha

So im a bit scared to add a windows pc to my mac...
maybe bluescreen is a virus :woot: haha

Chris

 Hey Pinket.  I sent you a message but also will post here.  I have a Mac Pro 4 core machine and am willing to help you render stuff for free until you get your new machine.  I'm currently doing a lot of creative writing and I can switch that over to my imac.

Message me if you want to take me up on the offer.

David

 Pedrith: That is a mighty generous offer. Let me see how things pan out. I think for this current project, we have missed our deadline. I don't feel to bad because the customer did not give me enough time, then he got wishy- washy about attempting to extend the deadline and today it's all but over. But I thank you immensely and I might have to take a rain check on that offer thou.  

 Your welcome.  Let me know if and when you need me and if possible a day's notice would be great.

Cheers,

David

 David, let me stress once again how grateful I am with your offer. I took the plunge and ordered a MacPro as soon as I got home this afternoon. I had a buyer lined up for my G5. And the client that I am doing all this work for is worth the investment.

I purchased it from Amazon, got free 2 day shipping, $150 dollar mail in rebate, 12 months with out interest and I paid no taxes. So the savings are close to $400 dollars all together.

This computer will have paid for it self in two months so it was a no brainer.

Thanks once again David,

Cristian

Comments I've read from owners of the new Mac Pro seem to indicate that the best platform for running Vista (among other things) is... the Mac Pro!.  I priced Dell and HP 8 core PCs, and the new Mac Pro beats them in price (and I think, quality).

I intend to buy the 2.8 Ghz 8 core Mac Pro soon, and use Boot Camp to run Vista.  BTW, make sure to use at least Vista Business 64 bit, if running Vista on the Mac Pro, 'cause Vista Home Premium will only see one processor.

No wonder Apple increased sales 60% last year, and now has 16% of the PC market (it was as low as 3-5 % not long ago.  This is great to finally have Apple producing some of the best bang-for-the-buck computers in the PC marketplace.

Thanks for your input. I really have almost 0 need for Windows. I have been using Mac OS since 1988. All my software is Mac compatible and even thou I have to acknowledge that as far as 3D goes, Windows has more choices, I have always preferred the Mac. To me this boot camp thing is really a safety blanket to diminish the fears of switchers. OS X is by far a better OS as far as multitasking and general purpose computing. Windows is still very good and doing one thing fast at a time, like gaming. Since I am not much of a gamer, I rally don't have any need for Windows and all the headaches it entitles. One possibility that  dose come to mind would be to be able to test my web site work on Windows, but I have a Windows box for that already.

This is purely anecdotal, but all the people that I have helped switch, installed Windows on their initial setup. Only to take it out a few months later realizing they did not have a need for it like they though they would. Companies like Adobe offer side-grade deals so you can switch your license from PC to Mac when upgrading. Macs don't have all the plethora of choices that Windows do, but almost in every case, you are able to find a Mac counter part for any Windows application that you may need. Since the Mac market for software is not that big, developers can not get away with crappy software, so usually all the Mac software is of top notch quality also.

The other curious point is that they have all become staunch Mac supporters (switchers). Almost like dealing with ex-smokers, who not only give up smoking, but end up hating it more then those that never smoked.

I will move my Win applications to the Mac OS, but right now, most of my apps are Windows based.  I purchased a Mac (128k) in 1984, and a Mac SE 20 in 1989.  I also had a PowerMac 9600 in 1997.

Unfortunately, with the Motorola CPUs, the older Macs just didn't have the processing power per dollar that the Intel-based PCs did.  That has changes in recent years, so I'm going back to the Macs.  My nephew just set up his Toshiba core2 duo laptop as a "Hackintosh"-- he runs OS 10.5 in a Vista / Mac dual-boot setup.  He loves the Mac OS, and is also planning on buying a new Mac Pro soon.

 I think more the processing power Apple had a pretty crappy bloated system. OS 9 crashed at least twice daily. Their towards the end it became increasingly unstable. Then came the first version of OS X, that really was not all that optimized in it's first incarnation. Once Panther OS X 10.3 came out things got a lot better and increasingly stable. The switch to Intel was a brilliant move that Apple had planned since they ported NeXT to the Power PC, but still developed  a secret version for the Intel architecture, as a brilliant plan "B" strategy, that apparently  is reaping huge benefits. The G5 was not a bad processor, but it was power hungry and ran hot .

I had the last of the Power G4 dual mirror door boxes, the wind-tunnel model. It was like working with a semi quiet blow dryer. I did get used to the noise, did not realize how annoying it was until I got my G5 that would on occasion  rev up those fans. But I though that was kind of cool sounding (on the G5, not the G4 that was incessant noise).

Now tomorrow I get the Mac Pro, from what I hear it is a very quiet setup so I am not to sure if I will miss the fans on the G5 :)

 And we never heard from Pinklet since.....

Wonder what happened?  Was it a happy ending?  DOA?

Dude, should I get a Mac Pro ...'er not?

 Well I got the system, and it's everything I hoped for. So you can say that Pinklet lived happily ever after...

Great news Christian.

I love happy endings!

I hope to get a Mac Pro soon too.