[Radiance-general] Radiance - Mac Performance

[Rob Guglielmetti]

Lars Grobe wrote:

> First, I have just ordered my 12" Powerbook ;-) 

Congrats!  The new 12" ones are so very adorable.  The aluminum cases 
are georgeous; the finish on my Ti PowerBook started flaking pretty 
early on, I'm glad they did something about it.

Second: my
> experience is that rendering speed depends on memory (nothing 
> is as stupid as a rendering process on a fast machine waiting 
> for data from the swap!!!)...

Oh definitely; I think we're all making "rendering comparisons" of 
machines that are *not* relying on virtual memory at all.  At least I 
was always talking about relatively small models.

> However, one thing to mention - a stable 800MHz machine doing three 
> renderings over night is much more performant than a 3200MHz 
> machine which crashes three timer per rendering ;-) 

Agreed, but stability has not been an issue for me at all.  The 
computer, I mean. =8-)

Also, Greg and Jeffrey mention one BIG thing about OS X that I did not: 
  the OS is just so darn easy to administer!!  So, that should surely 
weigh in to the equation.  With OS X, all I did was load the Radiance 
binaries and start using Radiance.  I was able to jump into Radiance 
without spelunking into the depths of /etc, learning enough unix to get 
by, and experimenting as time allowed.  It's like unix with training 
wheels.  It's just that for me, speed is king and money is in short 
supply, so I put up with Linux.  Still prefer working on the Mac tho. 
Jeffrey, if you find any good CAD applications that run on OS X do let 
us know.

----

      Rob Guglielmetti

e. rpg@rumblestrip.org
w. www.rumblestrip.org