Mac Pro Advice for 3D Rendering

[Tucom]

Irrelevant.

DAWs are not OpenCL accelerated. Therefore the second GPU in the nMP will remain idle when using such applications. That's a ton of silicon you've paid for that is doing absolutely nothing, when you could have had a second CPU instead that would actually contribute to running a DAW.

If you're going to try and compare the nMP to a "regular workstation", then it's a sub par machine at best. It was designed for OpenCL applications, of which there are very few out there (FCP being one of those programs). If you're not running OpenCL workloads, you're not getting the most out of your hardware.

I stand by my original statement. It's a FCP dongle. If you're not running that, you can do way better.

-SC

How's being one of the best DAW workstations out there "irrelevant"? It's one of the quietest, if not THE quietest workstation out there, and the specs of which are able to be one of the best DAW workstations out there.

The DAWs don't NEED to be OpenCL capable, but it's software, that the Mac Pro excels at.


Again, you seem to totally disregard the fact that Dyson is using the NMP for modeling, as in the video.


I stand by my original statement. You're statement is ignorant. It's a killer machine for DAWs, and evidently works great for what Dyson uses their for.

 

[handsome pete]

How's being one of the best DAW workstations out there "irrelevant"? It's one of the quietest, if not THE quietest workstation out there, and the specs of which are able to be one of the best DAW workstations out there.

The DAWs don't NEED to be OpenCL capable, but it's software, that the Mac Pro excels at.


Again, you seem to totally disregard the fact that Dyson is using the NMP for modeling, as in the video.


I stand by my original statement. You're statement is ignorant. It's a killer machine for DAWs, and evidently works great for what Dyson uses their for.

No one is ignoring your Dyson mention. They've just tried pointing out that the video you posted isn't relevant to the the type of rendering the original poster is looking for. As someone else pointed out, we probably do need more info on exactly what he's looking to get out of this machine, but he did mention the use of GPU renderers in his inquiry and the Mac Pro is not recommended for that (at this time).

Yeah, it's cool to see it in use in a company like Dyson's video, but I wouldn't recommend to anyone to just get a product because so and so uses one, especially if you're potential use differs.

 

[Tucom]

No one is ignoring your Dyson mention. They've just tried pointing out that the video you posted isn't relevant to the the type of rendering the original poster is looking for. As someone else pointed out, we probably do need more info on exactly what he's looking to get out of this machine, but he did mention the use of GPU renderers in his inquiry and the Mac Pro is not recommended for that (at this time).

Yeah, it's cool to see it in use in a company like Dyson's video, but I wouldn't recommend to anyone to just get a product because so and so uses one, especially if you're potential use differs.

Yeah, that makes sense. There's some killer MiniITX cases out there from Lian Li and Silvestone that would house a killer rig if nVidia is really the only way to go for the type of rendering the OP is trying to accomplish, and still keep that small form factor. I just figured a Mac Pro would be plenty of an upgrade for what he is trying to do, and, you know, still be using a Mac.

Check out the Maingear Potenza or the Velocity Micro Z30 if you want SFF and nVidia, though the max core count on the CPU will be 4/8 threads total.


Was an interesting read. Good info on these forums!

 

[handsome pete]

I just figured a Mac Pro would be plenty of an upgrade for what he is trying to do, and, you know, still be using a Mac.

You're right. It probably considering what he's upgrading from. I think at this point we just need more info on what he's really looking to get out of a new machine.

 

[LoftyHammond]

Appreciate your help guys.

I guess I'll be a little more specific on what I need from a machine.

I mainly use Maya and C4D for modeling, rendering, and animation. My laptop can handle the modeling just fine, however rendering and animation is where my troubles begin. For starters, it takes forever to render. Not only that, I end up having to leave my laptop on for the night while it renders. Since I am in a studio apartment, the fans are quite audible. Also, I really doubt that running my laptop at full steam for 10-12 hours straight is good for it's health.

I recently came back home for break, and began using my Alienware to render. It's has a GTX670 and an i7 over clocked to 4ghz. Renders a hell of a lot faster than my macbook (as expected), however it's super loud and super heavy/large.

I heard about GPU rendering from a friend, and seemed impressed. However, I really can't find any benchmarks or real world info about it on the web. Is it really as fast as it is said to be? Any difference between GPU render and CPU render quality wise?

Aside from 3D rendering, I do use FCPX a lot for my website and hobby.

Basically, I'm looking for a machine that will improve my render times, as well as be small and quite enough for my apartment. I'm capping my budget at $4000.

I do not make money off my work, however I am getting interest so you never know.

If you need more specific answers or have other questions, do not hesitate to ask
-Lofty

 

[ScottishCaptain]

How's being one of the best DAW workstations out there "irrelevant"? It's one of the quietest, if not THE quietest workstation out there, and the specs of which are able to be one of the best DAW workstations out there.

The DAWs don't NEED to be OpenCL capable, but it's software, that the Mac Pro excels at.

And you're continually ignoring the fact that the second GPU has absolutely nothing to do with DAW software, and never will because CUDA and OpenCL are not audio oriented APIs.

Furthermore, even though the nMP has two GPUs, the second one is restricted to OpenCL workloads only (unless you boot into Windows). So it's not even useful for modelling or rendering, unless your renderer supports OpenCL, and I can count the number that do on a single hand.

Even the whole "quiet PC" thing doesn't matter these days. Just buy 4 pin PWM fans and invest in a decent motherboard that supports them properly. I built such a system for a friend two weeks ago, and the fans don't even spin until the machine is under load (with an SSD and passive PSU, the machine is totally silent until it's placed under load). It's hard to make a computer any quieter then dead silent.

Again, you seem to totally disregard the fact that Dyson is using the NMP for modeling, as in the video.

I stand by my original statement. You're statement is ignorant. It's a killer machine for DAWs, and evidently works great for what Dyson uses their for.

You want the facts? Fine, here are the facts:

1) The software pictured is Modo 801. It is a CG modelling application, not a CAD oriented package. You do not design a vacuum cleaner in Modo because Modo lacks the precision required to do so. You would want to use CATIA or Siemens NX instead, which is what Dyson uses. The shots shown in the Dyson video are for a marketing render at best, with data being imported from another CAD application.

2) Paul Beards himself (the guy in charge of quite a few Dyson renders) uses Maxwell Render. Maxwell is a heavy CPU bound application. It produces brilliant and physically accurate renders, but it's dog ****ing slow. You would not believe how insanely and utterly slow Maxwell is. If you have the choice to run Maxwell on a render farm or a machine with more then 12 CPUs, you will leap at that chance. It is very unlikely that Dyson is using the nMP for rendering.

At best, they're using that machine to texture and material various parts inside Modo before shipping them off to Maxwell or some other renderer instead.

Furthermore, you keep clinging to DAWs even though the op has zero such requirements. You're only really proving that this isn't the machine for him. If the op wants to render CPU bound workloads, then the nMP is isn't the best choice because you can buy better bigger machines with options for dual CPUs.

-SC

 

[Tucom]

And you're continually ignoring the fact that the second GPU has absolutely nothing to do with DAW software, and never will because CUDA and OpenCL are not audio oriented APIs.

-SC

And YOU'RE continually ignoring the fact that the Mac Pro excels at being a DAW workstation. Even if that's the only other thing it excels at, which it isn't, it's still much more than only being for FCP. Which is what I'm debunking. And, again, Dyson obviously found a use for the nMP as well for their very serious, on-the-line workflows. So, again, it's MUCH more than a FCP machine.


I think you're thinking that I'm suggesting OpenCL is being used on the nMP for much more than FCP, which I was never suggesting. So yeah, that's that.

 

[ScottishCaptain]

I heard about GPU rendering from a friend, and seemed impressed. However, I really can't find any benchmarks or real world info about it on the web. Is it really as fast as it is said to be? Any difference between GPU render and CPU render quality wise?

Yes, they're fast, but somewhat limited.

A lot of GPU renderers don't have the usual multipass outputs that you'd find under C4D or any other renderer. Furthermore, sometimes the material systems can be a bit limiting (especially if you're used to C4D's procedural shaders).

A lot of people like them because they work really well as an IPR. You get to see your image being rendered out almost instantly and can immediately get a feel as to what the final image will look like. Think of C4D's progressive renderer, but 1000x faster. If you're happy with what you initially see, you just let it run until it's done.

Aside from 3D rendering, I do use FCPX a lot for my website and hobby.

Basically, I'm looking for a machine that will improve my render times, as well as be small and quite enough for my apartment. I'm capping my budget at $4000.

IMHO; I think the nMP is a bit overpriced for you. If you're rendering things on the CPU, the more cores you have the better (I find my 12x2.93ghz Mac Pro slightly limiting these days, and I use C4D/Modo daily). By the time you add a 12 core CPU to the config, you're looking at a $7K+ machine already.

I should think that you'd be able to find a 2010 or 2012 Mac Pro with 12 cores (2.93ghz or 3.06ghz) for under $4K. A new eVGA 680 GTX Mac Edition card would set you back about $500 (or you could flash an existing card, but I'm not sure if you can do that from a Mac Pro). This would more or less put you on parity with the 12 core Mac Pro, which is only about 5-10% faster then the 12x2.93ghz 2010 Mac Pro.

And YOU'RE continually ignoring the fact that the Mac Pro excels at being a DAW workstation. Even if that's the only other thing it excels at, which it isn't, it's still much more than only being for FCP. Which is what I'm debunking. And, again, Dyson obviously found a use for the nMP as well for their very serious, on-the-line workflows. So, again, it's MUCH more than a FCP machine.

I'm not ignoring it.

I'm simply saying that if you're after a DAW workstation, there are better alternatives out there that don't have a second GPU sitting around doing absolutely nothing 99% of the time. You know, like the former machines, which still run OS X, and can be upgraded CPU wise to kick the pants off the 12x2.7ghz nMP.

Also, I'm not quite sure that the machine excels at being a DAW workstation. Could you tell me one more time again please? I think that'll clear a lot of things up.

-SC

 

[Tucom]

You want the facts? Fine, here are the facts:

1) The software pictured is Modo 801. It is a CG modelling application, not a CAD oriented package. You do not design a vacuum cleaner in Modo because Modo lacks the precision required to do so. You would want to use CATIA or Siemens NX instead, which is what Dyson uses. The shots shown in the Dyson video are for a marketing render at best, with data being imported from another CAD application.

2) Paul Beards himself (the guy in charge of quite a few Dyson renders) uses Maxwell Render. Maxwell is a heavy CPU bound application. It produces brilliant and physically accurate renders, but it's dog ****ing slow. You would not believe how insanely and utterly slow Maxwell is. If you have the choice to run Maxwell on a render farm or a machine with more then 12 CPUs, you will leap at that chance. It is very unlikely that Dyson is using the nMP for rendering.

At best, they're using that machine to texture and material various parts inside Modo before shipping them off to Maxwell or some other renderer instead.

Furthermore, you keep clinging to DAWs even though the op has zero such requirements. You're only really proving that this isn't the machine for him. If the op wants to render CPU bound workloads, then the nMP is isn't the best choice because you can buy better bigger machines with options for dual CPUs.

-SC

YES. FACTS. GOOD.

Well that's cool and all, but again, it still shows that the nMP is great for other tasks, and is a true workstation for more than FCP.

As I said a few posts up, the Mac Pro would have been a great upgrade from what he is currently using, but if nVidia really is the way to go, then so be it. The other factor that the OP mentioned was space, which the Mac Pro is killer for. There's a few MiniITX cases for PC's to run nVidia hardware in, though at the space setup of those, you'll be running a 4 or 6 Core i7 at best. However, yeah, if it's GPU accelerated for the most part, then that shouldn't matter.


Really interesting info here. If anything, it's cool than you know about what Dyson uses.

 

[Tucom]

I'm not ignoring it.

I'm simply saying that if you're after a DAW workstation, there are better alternatives out there that don't have a second GPU sitting around doing absolutely nothing 99% of the time. You know, like the former machines, which still run OS X, and can be upgraded CPU wise to kick the pants off the 12x2.7ghz nMP.

Also, I'm not quite sure that the machine excels at being a DAW workstation. Could you tell me one more time again please? I think that'll clear a lot of things up.

-SC

Look, lose the attitude dude. How is a louder, heavier, older architecture machine better? It's not. In any way. The noise floor is lower with the nMP, has faster I/O, and with music projects being all over the place at times, the ease of moving the nMP absolutely MOPS THE FLOOR with the older machines. Who cares if the second GPU is idle? At least it's there if you DO decide you want to use it for other projects. That's a pretty lame argument, tbh.


"Kick the pants off" - Hardly.

 

[ScottishCaptain]

Look, lose the attitude dude. How is a louder, heavier, older architecture machine better? It's not. In any way. The noise floor is lower with the nMP, has faster I/O, and with music projects being all over the place at times, the ease of moving the nMP absolutely MOPS THE FLOOR with the older machines. Who cares if the second GPU is idle? At least it's there if you DO decide you want to use it for other projects. That's a pretty lame argument, tbh.

Let me count the ways:

1) PCI-e slots
2) 8x RAM slots
3) 2x 5.25" optical drive bays
4) 4x SATA disk drive bays
5) Dual CPUs (double the cache, double the turbo boost capabilities)
6) Firewire without an adapter
7) Optical audio input AND outputs without an adapter

I still don't know what DAWs have to do with CG work. You keep telling us how awesome the machine is for something that: A) the op isn't interested in, and B) wasn't featured in the Dyson video. It's like you're struggling to find something the machine is actually good for?

-SC

 

[sirio76]

1) PCI-e slots
That can be fitted in external thunderbolt enclosure(even in a separate room without getting a louder machine).

2) 8x RAM slots
Which can accommodate the same amount of RAM of the new machine, even though the old machine memory is much slower.

3) 2x 5.25" optical drive bays
Again that can be fitted in fast thunderbolt enclosure(and BTW I can not imagine who still use those bays, on my old MP they have been just used to collect dust over the years).

4) 4x SATA disk drive bays
Again, you can have as much disks as you want in faster separate external enclosure.

5) Dual CPUs (double the cache, double the turbo boost capabilities)
LOL the new machine turbo boost eat the old machine one for breakfast and that is the most important thing while working in Cinema(and most other software when you are not rendering becouse the wast majority of tasks are single threaded or poorly optimized for multiprocessing). For everything involving serious rendering both new and old machine performance are inadequate, you can do what every other serious 3D artist is doing, offload the render tasks to render nodes, is the best/cost effective way to get render power.

6) Firewire without an adapter
Disappointing... is not have USB1 neither... and is missing serial port too.

7) Optical audio input AND outputs without an adapter
I've never used those ports so I can comment on this, but I do not think OP is interested.

 

[EdDuPlessis]

Haha all those external enclosures. Absolutely dreadful mess, expensive and requires more energy consuming PSUs. This is a perfect example why the Mac Pro should come in two designs or you should just add PC workstation to your workflow and buy a cheapo Mac for OS X specific work.

 

[Macsonic]

Appreciate your help guys.

Basically, I'm looking for a machine that will improve my render times, as well as be small and quite enough for my apartment. I'm capping my budget at $4000.

I do not make money off my work, however I am getting interest so you never know.

If you need more specific answers or have other questions, do not hesitate to ask
-Lofty

I should think that you'd be able to find a 2010 or 2012 Mac Pro with 12 cores (2.93ghz or 3.06ghz) for under $4K. A new eVGA 680 GTX Mac Edition card would set you back about $500 (or you could flash an existing card, but I'm not sure if you can do that from a Mac Pro). This would more or less put you on parity with the 12 core Mac Pro, which is only about 5-10% faster then the 12x2.93ghz 2010 Mac Pro.

-SC

Hi LoftyHammond. There are some good deals on 12 core classic Mac Pros like this one, a genuine Mid 2010 12 core upgraded 3.06ghz for $2k plus a 30 day warranty HERE If you can spend less money would be favorable in the long term. Gives you some "elbow room" to upgrade and advance later on.

 

[ScottishCaptain]

Hi LoftyHammond. There are some good deals on 12 core classic Mac Pros like this one, a genuine Mid 2010 12 core upgraded 3.06ghz for $2k plus a 30 day warranty HERE If you can spend less money would be favorable in the long term. Gives you some "elbow room" to upgrade and advance later on.

Gotta be careful about eBay sellers. Some of those machines are cobbled together from various parts and are actually cross-flashed 4,1 machines (to a 5,1). There shouldn't be any issues with this, technically, but it's not a supported configuration from Apple.

1) PCI-e slots
That can be fitted in external thunderbolt enclosure(even in a separate room without getting a louder machine).

Just curious, but how do you get an 8x or 16x slot (electrically, not mechanically) on a nMP?

-SC

 

[EdDuPlessis]

Gotta be careful about eBay sellers. Some of those machines are cobbled together from various parts and are actually cross-flashed 4,1 machines (to a 5,1). There shouldn't be any issues with this, technically, but it's not a supported configuration from Apple.


-SC

Almost nobody has a warranty or support with Apple anyway. As long as the seller offers a warranty (like Ocw, Create Pro and Editbuilder) that's the best support one can get.

Btw your Mac is one of the only ones on this forum which isn't cobbled together. Most of us have changed or added enough to be considered a Halfway Hackintoshes

 

[Macsonic]

Gotta be careful about eBay sellers. Some of those machines are cobbled together from various parts and are actually cross-flashed 4,1 machines (to a 5,1). There shouldn't be any issues with this, technically, but it's not a supported configuration from Apple.

-SC

Yep. Trying to be careful too on these sellers. I checked the sale ad details like the serial number provided and thru serialnumberinfo.com its a mid 2010 model. The cpu was upgraded to a 12 core as indicated in the ad. The smc firmware is also 1.39f11 and not 1.39f5. Thanks

 

[Derpage]

1) PCI-e slots
That can be fitted in external thunderbolt enclosure(even in a separate room without getting a louder machine).

The frustrating part about this is that the enclosures cost about 300-400 dollars for a single addition. This cost seems unreasonable to me at this time.

 

[sirio76]

Enclosures starts from 200$ AFAIK. Yes it's additional cost, but probably who can afford a 4.000$ machine can easily afford that too if that's really needed. Also consider that not everyone of us add PCIe extensions or other upgrades to their machine(Mac or PC), so this does not automatically translate in additional costs.

 

[reco2011]

Enclosures starts from 200$ AFAIK. Yes it's additional cost, but probably who can afford a 4.000$ machine can easily afford that too if that's really needed. Also consider that not everyone of us add PCIe extensions or other upgrades to their machine(Mac or PC), so this does not automatically translate in additional costs.

Additional cost? Perhaps I would agree with you if the nMP was somewhat lower cost than the cMP.

 

[sirio76]

Brand new machine usually cost more than 5 years old used one(without proper warranty and which BTW will probably needs new GPU, PCIe SSD upgrade, USB 3 cards and so on to keep up this days, all of this costs money). Of course you can save a lot more buying even older machine, but in the end you'll got what you pay for.

 

[Derpage]

Enclosures starts from 200$ AFAIK. Yes it's additional cost, but probably who can afford a 4.000$ machine can easily afford that too if that's really needed. Also consider that not everyone of us add PCIe extensions or other upgrades to their machine(Mac or PC), so this does not automatically translate in additional costs.

All the hidden costs involved with these computers is just really silly if you are trying to make money. I'd rather put OEM parts into a regular computer and not pay the external enclosure tax or the external drive tax. How many spiders must one swallow to catch the fly?

 

[sirio76]

Don't know what hidden costs and external taxes you are talking about, just because you can add expansion via thunderbolt it doesn't mean that you have to, for the same reason you don't have to fill up all the available bays in older machines.
This is my office desktop, only things attached on my workstation are the power cable, the network cable(which provide connectivity to my farm, NAS and backup disk), and my monitor(all things that I've already connected on my old machines). That's all I need to do my job(using same OP softwares).
http://forum.vrayforc4d.com/index.php?attachments/14902/
There's a big difference between "you can add expansion" and "you have to add expansion".

 

[Upgrader]

So far, it takes around 45min-1 hour to render stills (@ 3000x3000), and around 12 hours to render a simple animation @720p upto about 90 frames. If I do a close up (say on the rims of the vehicles which are really detailed) I'm lucky if I get done with 15 frames in 12 hours.

Hi lofty,

How much have you done to optimise your scene before rendering? Do you absolutely have to render at 720p if your end format is for web - can you not render at your end format dimensions? Is your geometry as efficient as it can be? Are you relying purely on GI to light your scene? What are your ray depth and reflection settings doing? And are you using the Physical Renderer? It could help you control and optimise your scene settings and reduce your render times by quite a margin if you have several area lights, shadows, ambient occlusion and all their inherent anti alias settings to contend with.
Also, why not consider using an online render farm like Rebus Farm? You're not on a paying deadline so just get a bunch of render points, go for the economy renders and sit out the waiting time overnight.

A lot of speed in C4D/any app comes down to knowing how to get the best out of your software and working as smart as you possibly can before hitting render.
Apologies if any of this comes across as patronising - I have no idea of your actual knowledge level.

Cheers.

 

[librarian]

Hello Lofty,
I think your scenes can use a lot of optimizations, your rendertimes seems very long for the results you get.
Since you mentioned Maya, try working with it and pratice MentalRay as you can get good results for automotive render without the need of Global Illumination. This means you can have super fast rendertimes (2/3 min per frame average @ 1080p with a single car) with decent results (no flickering and proper antialiasing).
I've attached a couple of screenshots of a project I'm working on (still early work and unfinished), check render time and resolution on second screenshot timestamp. These are made on a 2012 i7 iMac with maya 15 and osx 10.8.5. I'm pretty sure you can have fast results on your macbookpro machine.
I can help you on basic scene setup for similar results if you want, just let me know.

Oh and don't get a mac pro for this. I mean do not invest money at all on any Mac for 3d work. The direction the 3d industry is moving is completely opposite of mac products at the moment, maybe it will change but for now is really a bad investment.