PC or MAC for ANIMATION?

[JJH]

Can somebody tell me which computer is better for doing ANIMATION? Why?

THANk u =p <3

[Fozzybar]

What kind of animation are you talking about? :traced:

[sparky | emily]

except for 3DS Max, almost all the programs work on each.

I'd use whatever you're more comfortable with.

[JJH]

HMm...
I will be using it for 3DSmax. Maybe some Flash.

[Fozzybar]

I don't know about the 3d-stuff, but for flash you have to watch the combination of your os, cpu and flash version on a mac. It will heavily slow down your swfs when you have a bad mix of them...on pc flash will run with no probs at all...

[Corduroy Squirrel]

I have never used a Mac for 3D animation, or even needed one for 2D drawing. However, I hear you can get an awesome new G5 for pretty cheap. The only reason I would go for a Mac is if that was the OS you were more comfortable with.

I use a PC for all my 3D work. I use Maya 5 right now and it works very well. At work though, when we're dealing with massive scenes, we have to tell the IT guys to hook up a Linux machine. The Linux user interface isn't that great, but when it comes to crunching massive scenes there's nothing that can beat it. Awesome memory handling capabilities. At school we used Dell Workstations that were all hooked up for 3D using Maya and they were exceptional.

It's your choice, just make sure that you get enough RAM and a graphics card that is oriented for 3D, CAD, Maya, 3dsmax, or whatever and not games. You will run into some nasty render and memory problems if you get a game card. Even though they may have the same memory badwidth, polygon fill rate, and all that jazz as a workstation card, they're just not the same. Something with the drivers? Who knows, all I do know is that they just crash your scene.

Faster the better, 3D workstation level card ($$$), as much RAM as you can fit (I'm at 1 gig, might need 2 gigs), and a 3 button mouse. Whatever OS you're more comfortable with and can readily find the software for (that's very important).

-C. Squirrel

[JJH]

Interesting! THank you very much, I will get a PC.

[blackbook]

Hi, (first post.. :))

For the same money as a G5 you can get a really hot PC right now. I'd go for a fairly high spec PC if its your first machine - that way you give yourself many more options should you want to experiment with different animation packages in the future.

[sparky | emily]

I disagree. I'd get a decent, fast computer, but not top of the line. Unless you know that you want to do animation for sure, it's stupid to buy a machine that's really high end and waste your money only to find out that you don't enjoy it as much as you expected. And that happens a lot.

Flash has worked fine on all my macs, just so you know (I know you already decided on PC).

[JJH]

Thank you for the continued replies, they really help.

[MuffinMan]

never lay a finger on mac when it comes to animation.
Macs are just too damn slow and stupidly built with low ram.
the G5 is nothing compared to the high-end PCs.
make sure your new pc is dual processing with AMD opterons, and get an ATI Fire GL graphics card or something. these parts will be very very exspensive , but they are definitley what you need for 3d animation and to render fast.
in my experience and knowledge, Mac has never made a faster computer than those of PCs. They never impress me...

[thebluepuppy]

i have a ibook thats g4 cost me total of 1250 for computer and memeory upgrade. i run maya great on my computer. im not going ot say mac is the best(thats naive), but its runs ps and maya at the same time. the reason people think macs are slower because theyre proceesing is lower then a pc. actually theyre faster because mac chips dont bottleneck. really macs are like a 2 lane highway with no traffic, while pcs are like a 4 lane highway at rush hour.(if the chips were in the same range. )
@muffinman- i upgraded to 640 and runs like a dream. i used to be a pc fanatic. hated macs. muffinman, join us. leave the darkside. pcs lead to anger. anger leads hate. and hate leads to darkside.

[Forge]

Macs are just too damn slow and stupidly built with low ram.


how can you say that ?? don't speak too quickly dude, especially if you never put a finger on a mac...

for your answer JJH, i have no problem with my mac with slow SWF (this thing is now fixed fozzy :wink: )
and lightwave 8 is running pretty fast... don't compare pc bus and mac bus, those are 2 different things...

what i love with my mac ?? having xpress,photoshop,flash mx and lightwave running at the same time without any crash... if a big part of the pro graphists works on mac, there is a reason, nobody like pay more for nothing :rolleyes:

ah, it was already said but 3ds max doesn't exist on mac

[JackalAnubis]

animation isn't restricted by the computer you're using man. generally I'd say pc because they're cheaper to purchase, but either one is perfectly fine.

[JJH]

thank u again for the advice, all of you. I will take this info into considerating when i purchase my computer for animation.

[MuffinMan]

@muffinman- i upgraded to 640 and runs like a dream. i used to be a pc fanatic. hated macs. muffinman, join us. leave the darkside. pcs lead to anger. anger leads hate. and hate leads to darkside.

give your self to the D4RKS1D3...
Grab your Screwdriver and strike the Mac down and your journey toward the darkside will be complete!
heh...i've always wanted to say that...
yeah, the main reason i don't like macs is they suck for games and i hate the one button mouse.

[Piru]

At school (Belgium - Brussels, Sint Lukas) we have more PCs than Macs in our atelier where we work programs like Premiere, After Effects, FlashMX, Photoshop, Maya and 3Ds max.
Capture computers are an Emac and a Pentium 4... Don't go Emac, that's utter crap, believe me. If you want to spend money on a Mac, choose a G5 or second hand decent G4 tower edition. Cause those Imac/Emac thingies don't believe in upgrading that much :p Extremely compact just means extremely unupgradable ^^. With the Emac we have constant problems (capture devices are Sony MiniDV cams), with the pc we just haven't got any problems on that matter (and capturing your 400th frame and crashing is not a thing you want to go through ;)) Might be those macs work just fine in 3D and flash, haven't tried that out yet :confident

Anyway, I'm not a mac fan at all and I myself have a good sturdy AMD 64 bit single processor, what imo is good enough to get a kickstart in modelling and animating. The Dual processor systems are just not student minded (€ 2000+). Single is just fine :)
Me sais PC :muscle:

[DCON]

Macs are made specially for art and design, so i have to go with Mac...

unless you wanna cruise the net or play video games then PC is awesome for that.

[Yiako]

give your self to the D4RKS1D3...
yeah, the main reason i don't like macs is they suck for games and i hate the one button mouse.

Perfect valid reasons for you, but completely unrelated to JJH's question...

[Fozzybar]

Macs are made specially for art and design, so i have to go with Mac...

Haha...10-20 years too late for this argument...

[Reotharmus]

at the end of the day this all could come down to a money issue..

you can get good mac's for the price of a fairly good pc, but a top notch pc will cost you more than any Mac but will undoubtedly destroy it...

i mean that quad processor PC's are now available on open market (no longer industry specials) and with ram upto 16gig in a single PC this would be a phenominal machine unfortunately comes in at around $30000.. yeah thats thirty thousand us dollars!!!!

PC's are infinitly more upgradable than macs.. but macs are less likely to need upgrading as often...

both have there advantages.. in my humble opinion if you want a computer for anything other than JUST design work PC all the way.. and deep deep pockets!!!

[Hamsta]

I learn in a college with both Macs and PC's we learn Maya 5 in the PC class because Mac's don't have all the Maya plug-ins. There's also something small in Flash that can't be done in Macs, although not critical.
Oh and macs have jigsaw compared to solitaire, freecell, hearts, minesweeper, spider... (Although the eMacs have THPS4 and some Shmup)
Games and sharing are really important to me so PC it is

[MuffinMan]

hmmm...i like pc becuase games work best on it and don't have bottle neck processors like macs. the macs i use at OTC are crap...they are the latest g4 desktop macs, but they are sdstill shittier than my pc, my pc's stats are this and can still beat a g4 or the cheapest version of a g5.
System Info Version:2.2

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP professional edition
Processor: AMD athlonXP Duron(tm) @ 1.84 GHz
Graphics Card: RADEON 9800 PRO 256Mb
Total Physical Memory: 1 GB PC3200 400fsb
Motherboard: (MSI K7N2 Delta 400)