PC or Mac?

[iamparkerwu]

For those of u who are character design major, do u use PC or Mac? And it would be better if u go into details. thank u.

And I think people who have different majors can share their opinions as well. (such as what kinda computer do u use for illustration major.)

[Elwell]

Since you posted this in the school section, I assume you are a student, or intend to be one? My advice is, if you don't already have a strong preference yourself, to get whatever your school has better support for. For many art schools, this will be macs, for most universities it will be PCs.

Also, do a search and read the 10,000 threads that have already been posted on this topic.

[Gory]

Neither is better. Period. The days when Macs were clearly better for producing art are long over. There are some programs that are only compatible with Mac, but for your average photoshop/painter uses it's pointless to split hairs between the two.

In my opinion there are only two relevant arguments to this discussion. The first is price. PCs are extremely cheap, especially if you build them yourself. The second is the OS itself. Mac OS X is undoubtedly a better, more stable, and less annoying OS than Windows Vista (XP is better than Vista, but its availability is diminishing)

Apple displays are also way overrated, I might add.

I'm a PC guy myself. But I custom build all of my own computers.

[Mirana]

There's no difference in type of computer used for a "character design" major (there IS such a thing?) or illustration. You'll have Hardcore Gamers / Pro 3D Artists > 2D Artists > Casual user in terms of how powerful the machine needs to be. The more the better, certainly...but that may not be necessary.

[NoSeRider]

PC or Mac?

Cintiq.

Computers are a circuit board in a box. Cintiq is a canvas.

[moroi]

Well the new Mac OS can run windows quickly & with stability. So if you don't mind spending the extra $$$ then you can just have "both" in a sense. ;)

[Viridis]

It does come down to preference, largely. While I've learned most of the workarounds for Macs because that's what my school uses, I'm a PC person myself. The two main reasons I prefer them is price (because Macs are expensive and most of it seems to be just because they're pretty) and the ability to tailor a PC to your own needs (which also makes them even cheaper).

I also appreciate the fact that I have ultimate control over my computer; if I need to, I can go into the registry and other such files and fix the problem. In hardware, too, you can open up the tower and fiddle around freely. With Apple, the computer does everything for you, which means you can't actually access a lot. So if it breaks, you have to get Apple to fix it instead of doing things yourself (or grabbing your nearest tech geek friend.) You can't really disassemble a Mac, either. Not without shredding the warranty, I would imagine.

Mind you, Vista is a terrible terrible thing, and if you are forced to buy a computer with Vista on it, go find a copy of XP somewhere and install that instead. Windows 7 is due out in 2009, and hopefully that will be better, but who knows. I can't say I really like the Mac OS, though. Sure, it looks pretty, but I don't find it very easy to work with. Again, though, that comes down to preference.

In terms of software, both of them can run any of the programs you're going to need (Photoshop, Painter, etc) so... you decide which works for you, I guess.

[ceera1231]

are you kidding?
Pc hands down.
Unless it is vista.
then get Linux
XD