SJD Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 Hi there used to be a thread that showed performance levels between different computers - I think it was a sample file that was rendered and timed by users does that still exist? (or is it so old now that most of the machines are obsolete!) thanks steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Montoya Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 Hi Steve- I'm not sure what thread you are referring to, but I agree, this could be a big help for users when considering computer upgrades. I wonder if FormZ RenderZone could have a Benchmark render test and database similar to Maxwell's Benchwell. A good rule of thumb I try to share with people is that if you are rendering every model you build, the more cores the better. If you are mostly visualizing wireframe and lightly shaded/rendered forms, then a fast single core is more important. But honestly, even the slower 8,10,12 core cpus are going to handle the relatively simple single core modeling procedures with ease, and it's always nice to have the most multi core horsepower you can afford when it comes time to render. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJD Posted December 1, 2014 Author Share Posted December 1, 2014 thanks Justin it was a very useful thread at the time but thinking about it, it was probably a few years ago my quandary at the moment is that I need to upgrade my system - I've only ever used macs so that's what I want to stay with. I'm keen to buy new - I'm a little out of touch with specs as the last mac I bought was over 5 years ago - I currently use a 2008 Mac Pro 2.8 Ghz Quad it appears the 2 options for me are either a new Mac Pro (entry level) or a higher spec 27" imac - this would be used almost exclusively for 3D work with FormZ I don't know if the extra expense is worth it for the Mac Pro - would the performance be that different to that of a mid/high spec imac? any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 Hi Steve, Yes, that file itself most likely needs to be updated to "take longer to render" to give a more valid test with todays hardware. In the mean time, have you seen this thread? http://forums.formz.com/index.php?/topic/153-hardware-explanation-before-buying/ It (and Justin) give some good advice about Mac hardware there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJD Posted December 1, 2014 Author Share Posted December 1, 2014 thanks Tech yes, I'm looking at it now - it will prove very useful as soon as I figure out what most of it means Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Montoya Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 Hi Steve- I'm personally not a fan of the iMac, although it is a pretty good deal for what you get. I do not like the glossy screen, and without proper DPI setting in OSX, the fonts look really tiny on the 27" editions. I much prefer a multi monitor setup with larger standard dpi and a resolution of at least 1920x1200 - higher than 1080p. Putting a second monitor with that iMac can be troublesome as it just looks strange and is awkward to use when they are not identical. I feel like the iMac is really geared toward the photography professional when staring at tons of tiny pixels is advantageous. I still recommend the 2010-2012 Mac Pro, which you can still buy Upgraded with a warranty online through several sellers. But if you just have to buy new, atleast with the new Mac Pro you could upgrade CPU later. If all you can afford because buying new is the base model, then the CPU can be upgraded pretty easily according to OWC. But then you're going to have to deal with the hassle of Thunderbolt monitors or adapters. Plus the lack of internal expandability means you'll need to spend extra money on some sort of external storage solution, so make sure you factor that into the expenses of both the iMac and the new Pro. That eats up the USB ports pretty fast, and the thunderbolt accessories are all way over priced compared to the USB 3.0 and not noticeably faster unless you are working on 4k video files. Like I said before, the new Mac Pro is really geared more toward the video professional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJD Posted December 2, 2014 Author Share Posted December 2, 2014 thanks again Justin so much seems to have changed since I last had to upgrade - I think my brain is beginning to melt! I have always used towers and preferred flexibility of upgrades etc. - I'm not confident buying refurbished unless direct from Apple plus there doesn't seem to be too many around in the UK unless you buy from ebay. That just leaves the latest imac and Mac Pro. Gut feeling says the latter - I know it's probably due for an update but I may not be able to wait that long. I suppose it boils down to this - which one is likely to provide the best performance when using the latest FormZ 8? Rendering is probably the most important to me although I intend to increase my skill set where modelling is concerned. Is FormZ optimised to take advantage of the latest Mac Pro? I know it's a difficult question but what sort of improvement might I see in render times from using a 2008 quad core using FZ 6 compared to the latest macs using version 8? once again, thanks for all the advice - this forum really is a gem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jordanmurry Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 I'm running a 3.5GHz 6-core mac Pro with the Dual D300 2GB graphics cards and 32GB of ram. I'd be happy to do a test render of a file you you'd like to compare from your machine to this one. I went with the 6-core due to the fact that I was coming from a dual quad core 2.26GHz and from what I read, the 8cores at 2.26 (maybe it was 2.66, but I think not...) was more processing power overall than the 4-cores of the new mac pro. The 6-core was noticeably better than my old setup. You'll for sure notice an overall increase in the speed of day to day tasks, like startup, shutdown, restart, file saves, searches, etc. with the new mac pro. It's undeniably snappy due to the PCI Express bound SSD hard drives. My machine starts up in less than 20 seconds – fully ready to use and do work. One thing I'd mention is that the new iMacs have a 5k resolution screen option that everyone talks about, but I'm more interested in the ability to outfit it with a 4.0GHz i7 with turboboost to 4.4GHz. That single core speed is going to be more helpful during modeling (modeling environment among other tasks are only a single thread, thus can only use one core) than my 3.5GHz or the 2.8GHz you're currently using, while the 4 cores across at 4.0-4.4GHz will still net you a pretty good rendering time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Montoya Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 A test rendering benchmark would be really helpful for people upgrading! Hopefully FormZ Tech can help us with this soon, and we can all use a standard one, maybe even with a comparison log a la Benchwell? Jordan- I respectfully disagree about the 5k i7 iMac. While the single threaded performance is stellar, it's not going to be really noticeable in FormZ. Modeling takes so little power that you can easily get away with using the lower single threaded performance for the job. However, having the most cores, even if a bit lower clocked is going to be VERY noticeable when rendering, which is what really takes the most time in the workflow anyways. According to Benchwell, Maxwell's rendering benchmark, the new iMac 4.0ghz i7 renders the scene in about the same time as your 6-core new Mac Pro, which coincidentally is very similar in rendering speed to a 2009 Mac Pro 8-Core 2.67. - http://www.maxwellrender.com/benchwell Looking at this benchmark a little further, you can see that even a 2012 12-core Mac Pro at 3.0ghz is almost TWICE as fast at rendering the scene in Maxwell than the new 6-core Mac Pro. The lower clocked 2014 Mac Pro 12-core is only marginally faster, and if you compare it to a higher clocked 2010-2012 12-core tower, say 3.33 or 3.46 it's going to practically the same. For less than half the cost... with much greater flexibility and expandability. But like I said before, if you just have to buy new, or Apple refurbished, at least with the new Mac Pro, you can upgrade the processor later. Unlike the iMac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsOne Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks I have found this site to be very reliable in terms of speed comparisons. v6 is 32 bit and v8 is 64 bit. Find your old cpu and then find your new ones to compare. Your machine seems to be the Intel Xeon E5462 2800 MHz 4 core and scores 1530 single core and 5235 multi core. You are going to see a 2-3 times jump in single core speed and a HUGE leap in multi core - 4-5 times as fast (for either a new iMac or a Mac Pro) I don't know if you have a solid state drive, but that will increase speed (especially booting, opening programs and saving) immensely. You can use those benchmarks to compare models. As mentioned before modeling will be single core and modeling will be multi core. If you are doing a lot of rendering I would go with a 6 or 8 core Mac Pro. Or if you have the cash get a 12 core. Personally I don't like the glossy, reflective iMac screens and they are very hard to upgrade. Justin is right in that for most modeling any of the new machines you are looking at will be very fast for most modeling operations. If you are doing a lot of intense operations or have a huge model though the single core speed will come in handy. Which is why I think the 6-8 core Mac Pro is the best option for balancing single core and multi core speed, upgradability, and price. You can also use your existing screens or get your own. You end up paying for an extra graphics card you won't use unless you work in video editing, but it should be a machine that should last you a long time and can be upgraded later on. I would second Justin in recommending an older 12 core Mac Pro for fast render times. Pretty much just as fast as the new Mac Pro. It will be slower in single core performance and I'm not sure you will be able to upgrade the CPU any further going forward (someone correct me if I'm wrong on that). However it still should serve you well for years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jordanmurry Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 Justin – You say you disagree but your point is exactly my point. I was in a situation where I had to buy new. Company money– Apple Business account. So the 12-core 2010 machine were no go, and so is doing user upgrades. They'd rather repurpose my existing machine to someone else (and on and on down the line until the worst machine is eliminated from our ecosystem), and get me a new machine. I frequently stall my machine at 100% usage on single core operations in FormZ. Booleans, Converting to faceted objects, having one too many snap points selected, importing STEP files from colleagues, and calculating shadows before a Renderzone rendering are all single core processes that hit 100% usage on a single core of my machine. If I were working on a 4.0GHz that turbo boosted to 4.4GHz instead of the 3.5GHz that goes to 3.9GHz, I'd had "that much more" computing power in those instances, while still rendering in about the same amount of time. That was my point, the rendering times would be about the same for the 6-core pro vs the 4 core i7 iMac, with higher single core speed going to the iMac. And overall I do agree though, if I had it my way, we'd have gone with this: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/MP10D293CTLB/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsOne Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Jordan, How is spinning the model around with the D300 graphics card? Do you feel upgrading to the 500 or 700 would be of benefit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jordanmurry Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 ASONE – I haven't had any lag or negative experience with the D300. I work in shaded full with antialiasing, textures, soft shadows, and 2x Multi-sampling without any issues spinning the model. I am, however, unsure of whether the processor or graphics card is most employed while zooming in with the scroll wheel. If I've got a lot of geomtery, or a few pieces of bad geometry from a model I've just comped into my scene or something, zooming with the scroll wheel can be tricky/slow/laggy. I think that also may have to do with my tendency to have too many snap points turned on though as much as anything. Again, same thing as for bonzo65, I'd be happy to play with a test file and let you know how it handles on my machine. I can video my screen to send along. It seems like there isn't much of a cross section of people using FormZ and people who have the new MacPro, so I'll try to help where I can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsiggia Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 I'm expecting a brand spanking new, iMac Retina early next week and would like to render a "standard" file. Z, do you have a modern version of the file we could use? Thanks, Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJD Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 +1 I think that would be a really useful reference point when making decisions about upgrading macs or windows machines Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Hi Jordan, Regarding the zoom, does this tech note help? Zooming with the Scroll whee works relative to the current view parameters, and how far it zooms is determined by the length of the line of site (which is the distance between the eye point and the center of interest for the active view -- whose values you can see in the View Parameters Palette). If you set the Center of Interest on or near the desired zoom location, then this can make zooming into that part easier. One way to do this is to use the Fit command -- and if you pick any objects and execute the (Command F) key shortcut, the picked objects will be fit -- and the center of interest will automatically be centered these objects. You can also try setting a smaller zoom in by percentage (closer to 100%) to reduce the zoom speed if you like. When simply zooming with the Scroll wheel alone, the eye point is moved closer and closer to the center of interest, and the percentage for this movement is controlled by the Zoom Options (palette): Zoom In By value. Thus, as you get closer and closer to the center of interest, you will notice that the zooming gets slower and slower. When this happens, zoom back out a bit until the zoom speed is moving you a reasonable amount. Then, hold down the Alt and try scrolling back in again. This will then move the entire camera forwards, and the rate of zooming (also controlled by the Zoom In value) will be constant (since the distance between the eye point and center of interest is not changing). ---------- Of course, if you have tools that snap and Key Point or Intersection snaps enabled, that could slow down a bit in a more complex file -- so disabling those snaps when they are not needed could help too. Steve, We are currently setting up a Performance Test thread, and will post that soon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJD Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 Steve, We are currently setting up a Performance Test thread, and will post that soon... cool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 I also notice the speed difference between spinning and zooming when my models get more complex. Support, thanks for the suggestions. Beyond these tips, can you comment on if there is an actual computational difference between rotating (pure gpu?) and zooming (processor and gpu?), should they be the same? Thanks, Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jordanmurry Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Tech – I've read that tech note and it definitely helped with the whole "why does the zooming slow down and not zoom as much" occurrence, but my experience that I was talking to is a scroll of the wheel, then the image does not change for a few seconds, then redraws wherever the end of the zoom was supposed to be. This gets compounded if I don't realize what's happening and then zoom in or out while the computer is thinking, because then it catches up and does the whole list of zooms and I end up waiting for each of those to redraw. Generally, this happens with complex models, or having something with bad geometry in conjunction with having too many snaps activated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Hi Jordan, Ok, the performance of the video card will affect this speed, but it is also possible that we could do something to better optimize this. If you have a case where this seems more slow than you would expect, if you can send the file, we will look into this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jordanmurry Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 I'll see If I can find something particularly painful for this. It's not often that this happens, but it does happen. I'm all for optimization Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.