I would have to look into it, but it doesn't make sense to use a mac for rendering. The artistic work may be done on Macs, but I imagine its more a statement than actually making sense as a platform. When it comes to rendering, you should never create a render farm from Macs. It would not be cost effective since you just need the processors.
Back when XGrid was a thing, there was a strong case for putting together a Mac Mini cluster. It let pretty much anyone take off-the-shelf consumer hardware and put together their own server cluster. It was kinda neat. And Apple had XServe for a while, which was a 1U rack server, that for the time would have made a nice render farm. XGrid and XServe have been discontinued for a while now - you could still cluster a group of Minis if you really wanted to...
But yeah, your right, you wouldn't use Apple products today in a render farm. Mini ITX stuff is out now that is cheaper to put together than a Mini, which wasn't the case 5 years ago, and a serious render farm is going to have dozens of units in racks.
Apple hasn't been a gaming platform since the IIe,
Good thing VR is about so muc more then gaming....
But for what it is worth i think people are right. When Apple does VR they will do their own thing... and like every Apple product this day and age it will but simple to use and entirely user-unfriendly on it´s own.
Anyone who owns a i-mobile device but not a macintosh will understand. =P
I do think their VR device will be fantastic when used with Mac products and i have no doubt it will have a massive install-base. And that in it+s own right will be awesome for VR as a product just as in many ways the iPhone was for the smartphone bracket.
As a avid PC user otoh i will try to do my best to avoid iVR since force of habit makes it actually painful to work with Mac products.
What I don't like about this day and age is that I feel like I'm trapped by my technology. I've been firmly against Apple products my whole life. Then my wife got an iPhone... then she got me an iPad...... After that, try getting out. All your shit is already on the device. I'm not paying another $18 for FF1 ffs, so I guess I'm using APPLE! Now we've got double-digit Apple products in our home. No Apple computers though!!!!! I don't now if that's a victory or not.... I still have over 10 apple products. It's actually the one thing that I think Apple understood before anyone else. Even Microsoft..... oh Zune, we have such fond memories.....
So, yeah, I'm sure an iVR would be do a great job doing whatever it does. However, I think it's more of a question of whether or not Apple even thinks VR is beneficial to add to their devices.
If VR proves popular, then apple will probably make a Mac that can support it, whether they will make their own device or not, i don't know, chances are by the time that happens there will be so many varieties of VR that apple will have a hard time standing out from the crowd, there is also of course, the whole problem with popularity, while ipads, iphones etc. are fairly popular, Macs aren't, so it may just be that apple would stand to lose too much money if they attempted to make a move on the VR market. Apple is not really serious about the PC market, they are more geared to the mobile/tablet platforms, i think VR would have to do really well for them to change their stance to include the PC market again.
And the mac/pc war is on again! Welcome back to 1984, ya'll. Somebody throw in a little Amiga, just for the nostalgic teardrop?
Agreed. I think it is a silly debate.
Fact is if Apple decides to go into VR they will do it on their own terms with their own tech. They release iPads with Quad Core GPUs and this will only continue to become more powerful. VR is a gaming toy right now. It will not always be if it even takes off at all. If it does, Apple will do their own thing same as everyone else. By then VR will not have such high hardware requirements. I seriously doubt VR will take off and be a thing anyway.
Whether the gaming industry is the driving force or not, the porn industry definitely will be. Lets face it, while people mention medical and education applications, the reality is that the porn industry will embrace it wholeheartedly and if anyone can make it work, they will.
Oh look, another stupid statement from a twenty-something who has no business running a tech company. Luckey has always had the emotional maturity of a toddler. His comments are just noise. The PC/Mac war is over and has been for quite some time.
I'd call him up and say, "Hey 1990 called, it wants the PC-Mac war tanks back", but then then the little twit wasn't born yet.
I think its funny what IBM does now compared to the tech giant they were in the '80s. What hits the public eye are things like Watson and outlandish R&D research that is paving future developments. Almost every technology we enjoy today was pioneered in part by IBM. They also beat Microsoft in filing patents. Like Microsoft they don't use the patents to stifle competition. In IBMs case they use it to force relationships.
Your right, in that Mac Pro's are competitive in the Workstation class. But a business usually won't use workstations for their day-to-day rendering, that's what the farm is there for. Sure, a Workstation can render, but they are typically used for content creation and rapid prototyping, then once that looks good, it goes to the render farm for the final, high detail scene.
Just a for-example, here was what it took to make Square's last full-feature rendered movie "Final Fantasy, The Spirits Within", which took a crew of 200 people 4 years to create. It released in 2001 (so take the hardware specs in relation to that). I don't know the specs of Pixar's render farm, but just looking at the pictures, it's certainly an upgrade to Square's.
4 SGI Origin 2000 servers and 4 Onyx2 systems tied everything together and acted as file servers
Artwork, motion capture, and scene creation were done on 167 Octane Workstations (And this is what the Mac Pro is roughly comparable to today)
The render farm consisted of 960 PIII-933Mhz CPUs, which averaged 90 minutes per frame to render the final movie, which clocked in at 15 TB's in size, and 141,964 frames total.
@Ridelynn - That is the information I've been searching for. That was awesome. The Pixar setup is amazing. I wonder what that will look like in 15 years the way we look back on the SquareEnix setup.
At the rate we're advancing, in 15 years that'll be the equivalent of about two iPhones, or 1/20th of a home PC.
Apple products will still be overpriced though.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
Comments
Back when XGrid was a thing, there was a strong case for putting together a Mac Mini cluster. It let pretty much anyone take off-the-shelf consumer hardware and put together their own server cluster. It was kinda neat. And Apple had XServe for a while, which was a 1U rack server, that for the time would have made a nice render farm. XGrid and XServe have been discontinued for a while now - you could still cluster a group of Minis if you really wanted to...
But yeah, your right, you wouldn't use Apple products today in a render farm. Mini ITX stuff is out now that is cheaper to put together than a Mini, which wasn't the case 5 years ago, and a serious render farm is going to have dozens of units in racks.
Apple is not really serious about the PC market, they are more geared to the mobile/tablet platforms, i think VR would have to do really well for them to change their stance to include the PC market again.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Lets face it, while people mention medical and education applications, the reality is that the porn industry will embrace it wholeheartedly and if anyone can make it work, they will.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
I'd call him up and say, "Hey 1990 called, it wants the PC-Mac war tanks back", but then then the little twit wasn't born yet.
~~ postlarval ~~
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Big render farms are just walls of CPUs essentially.
http://www.slashfilm.com/cool-stuff-a-look-at-pixar-and-lucasfilms-renderfarms/
Your right, in that Mac Pro's are competitive in the Workstation class. But a business usually won't use workstations for their day-to-day rendering, that's what the farm is there for. Sure, a Workstation can render, but they are typically used for content creation and rapid prototyping, then once that looks good, it goes to the render farm for the final, high detail scene.
Just a for-example, here was what it took to make Square's last full-feature rendered movie "Final Fantasy, The Spirits Within", which took a crew of 200 people 4 years to create. It released in 2001 (so take the hardware specs in relation to that). I don't know the specs of Pixar's render farm, but just looking at the pictures, it's certainly an upgrade to Square's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy:_The_Spirits_Within
4 SGI Origin 2000 servers and 4 Onyx2 systems tied everything together and acted as file servers
Artwork, motion capture, and scene creation were done on 167 Octane Workstations (And this is what the Mac Pro is roughly comparable to today)
The render farm consisted of 960 PIII-933Mhz CPUs, which averaged 90 minutes per frame to render the final movie, which clocked in at 15 TB's in size, and 141,964 frames total.
Apple products will still be overpriced though.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic