supernovavfx Posted September 26, 2014 Report Share Posted September 26, 2014 I've done a bunch of tests on my iMac and was happy... my question is this. Other than Tomas handwriting a list... how much of 64 bit EI is multithreaded. and what ISNT. Bullet simulations for example.. i believe benefit greatly with more cores. But online the discussions are about what PARTS of the app benefit from 6 - 8 - 12 cores and which parts or functions does the app see or use just ONE processor. Im trying to weigh the "value" equation. Im still not positive on which is best for camera... 8 32 bit cameras with 2 threads assigned to each... or just one 64 bit camera using 64 gigs of ram and all 8 cores and 16 threads. I get good results both ways but not sure when to go one way or the other. With EI there is not a lot of info out there thats up to date with the new Mac Pro. 8 core 3.3ghz mac pro for 5k or 4 core 3.5 ghz iMac for 2.5k? tough decision. Any insight would be great... we all know these times are costly and we want to buy the right product. I can't do windows now.... thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Egger Posted September 26, 2014 Report Share Posted September 26, 2014 Ola Scott! Only a detail, try to buy a SSD drive, Helps a lot in both machines. Im running the new mac pro with 12 cores, SSD drive and the better Video card option. EIAS 9.1 have lots of benefits running on it, but the next upgrade will love these machines even more :) Thanks Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supernovavfx Posted September 26, 2014 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2014 LOL... we spoke about this months back Tomas... I went SSD very early. I have the OWC Thunderbolt product with an internal SSD raid and an internal HDD raid... set up as 2 volumes... a great product... and with my iMac I went even more 'daring' I have the newest super skinny one... and a local company 30 minutes from me in California - Extreme mac I believe their called... they tell you to buy the iMac with just a normal 1tb hdd... they remove it... and made a kit that connects to the internals directly... just like the new mac pro does... and then they found room for 2 'bays' inside this insanely thin mac... so for less than half of what apple charges... I have a 2 TB INTERNAL SSD RAID!! apple does not even offer that and its 'direct' connection is just insanely fast... only mac pro owners 'get that' speed. Its addicting. --- so your running the best mac pro made! how cool. I was concerned about the processor speed when tasks were forced into single processor - 2.7ghz I believe... I WISH you could say more... are the video cards part of the rendering solution in future releases or can't you say?? apple just discounted the mac pros 15% (refurbs) so for about 7k I could get that 12 core... but I can't find any speed EI related comparisons... 4core 3.7 vs 12 core 2.7 50% faster would be nice... 70% and i would go mac pro... otherwise the $2500 Imac is a great speedy bargain... I could get 2 of those... VERY happy and excited to hear anything about what you are all up to with the next version... I personally appreciate your work more than words can say. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwcc Posted September 26, 2014 Report Share Posted September 26, 2014 Tomas - any info on how EI works with the dual graphics in the nMP - does it use all the memory from both cards or just one? Do you have any rendering specs compared to 12 core mac pro tower? or other mac pro? also, when you say "but the next upgrade will love these machines even more" is there something unique to the nMP over a 2012 MP Tower with upgraded CPU's and graphics card? thanks, brian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Egger Posted September 26, 2014 Report Share Posted September 26, 2014 Ola Scott and Brian! Please, Download these scenes from EIAS Benchmark and post your results with Machines specs, it will be easier to compare. http://eias.groothuis.com EIAS 9.5 have even more optimizations and a lot of new code, it will benefit from New and old Macs / Pcs. We didnt finish yet the features additions, so, I can't share exactly if it will benefit even more from the new power of Mac Pros. It already runs a lot better with new video card, lets see what will happen when we add all the planned features we have. Thanks Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supernovavfx Posted September 26, 2014 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2014 I'm mega swamped with production work now... a good thing. But I'm happy to help share my results when I can. Anything to help us use EI to its fullest. I think one question I can't answer but maybe you can right now is simulation based. I had EI error out when a simulation seemed too complex... I had to lower the number of "pieces" the model was cut into, to get the simulation not to bomb EI. my guess is I hit a memory wall, but no error message produced... the app just quit. as I have only 32... but I have no way of knowing if thats true or if you all can answer the question... does having 64 gigs of ram vs 32 allow you to process more complex simulations or is memory not an issue. Thank You. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Egger Posted September 27, 2014 Report Share Posted September 27, 2014 Ola Scott! 64GB helps Camera for now a lot! but still not help Animator, since it still 32 bits (Its in our to do list), but I can't share our plans :) You can open the Mac Utility folder / Activity Monitor and look when Animator quit, if it loads more than 2.5GB of Ram, it will close for sure (we optimized a lot EIAS 9.1 to run at maximum using 32 bits btw). Thanks Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KurtF Posted September 27, 2014 Report Share Posted September 27, 2014 Scott, proxies on your simulations. It's fairly common to use low resolution proxy objects, with high polygon hero objects parented to the proxy. Hide the high rez stuff, simulate, then hide the proxy and switch on the hero pieces for rendering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supernovavfx Posted September 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2014 Kurt... you are the man!!! I'm just starting to get "addicted" to these as graphic moments in my animations and naturally pushing way past my knowledge level and off a cliff!! LOL I got the project in question handled... one other interesting fact that I found when I MANUALLY duplicated an object, say 1000 times, that is calculates it just once or something like that... super fast simulation.... which at times I may manually create little walls or shapes for 'debris' but that proxy thing sounds interesting. I use pro modeler for all my modeling and their new 'shatter' model then export it has made a novice level modeler like me able to get 'pre cut' stuff into EI ready to simulate.... lots of fun and bang for the buck to clients. thank you all for prompt responses. Sadly, it does sound like animator may be my roadblock simulation wise until its 64 bit. IF I understand Tomas correctly. If I can't simulate it... i can't get to the render part obviously... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Egger Posted September 28, 2014 Report Share Posted September 28, 2014 Ola Scott! If you use Kurt's trick for simulation, you will be able for sure and Camera will render with no problem. But don't forget to check the Activity Monitor on your Mac, maybe it's not memory, maybe it's a bad geometry making bullet crash, but to be honest, I don't remember seeing bullet crashing. Btw: I personally did huge amount of groups simulations, I don't know if it's memory. Thanks Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Egger Posted September 28, 2014 Report Share Posted September 28, 2014 Ola Scott! An Example, 32k cubes simulation: Thanks Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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