No most modeling apps are NOT well threaded - if at all. DL some free trials and try it - you'll see. Rendering is different of course...
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Trying to decide on Mac Pro setup, need advice please!
- Thread starter Anastasia72
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
No most modeling apps are NOT well threaded - if at all. DL some free trials and try it - you'll see. Rendering is different of course...
There is a huge difference between what they are now and that being a requirement. MacPaint and MacDraw aren't well threaded either. That doesn't mean they were required to be.
Most modern Apps are threaded these days just on the GUI and basic framework functions (clicking on a menu at the top doesn't necessarily stop processing in the windows). The issue largely is inserting parallism in old code bases that were optimized for single threaded Pentium 4 contexts.
Yeah, what do I know... My name being in the credits of a major 3D creation package doesn't mean much I suppose.
Anyway, I was only commenting on the current state of things. It's not likely to change anytime soon. 
The hip bone connected to the knee bone and the knee bone connected to the ankle bone and the ankle bone connected to the toe bone...In all seriousness, many things can't be solved with parallelization. You must let a perturbation to the domain work it's way through the domain. So, 3D modeling can often be linear in both space and time.
. It's not likely to change anytime soon.
One reason it won't change soon is if customers are deluded into thinking it can't change. Once a competitor breaks out and takes better advantage of modern hardware to achieve significantly better functionality things will change much more rapidly. But as long as threads are fulled with "status quo is all that is possible" then vendors will tend to squat on their legacy code.
Well it might happen that someone breaks a mold and sets a trend - that happens. But developers don't develop based on customer expectation. Designers take these things into consideration - or should but devs don't. We make the fastest code possible all the time under every circumstance only considering cost (time) to benefit within our abilities. And we know what's possible and what's feasible. This particular topic has already been thoroughly investigated (over and over even). For someone to come out with a system that scaled all, most, or many modeling tools linearly across all the available cores in a closed system at this point would be approaching miraculousness. Not to mention only be of interest to a truly minute audience. Also, just to set the record, almost no sane developers consider threads like this one like, at all - ever!
But like you say, **** happens...
But like you say, **** happens...
Last edited:
dunno..i'm just saying what i see.. i use 3 modeling apps.. 2 of them very seriously.. (the majority of my computer work)..
and none of them utilize multiple cores nor have i ever heard of one which does..
(activity monitor during a crazy boolean attempt)
and really, i don't think it's possible or beneficial to multithread these apps.. the developers would do it if it were..
Last edited:
i hear you.. i don't need the latest & greatest..
but one of my most used apps is already lion and up.. it's still in development and will possibly drop lion support soon.. in which case, i'll definitely be screwed
i hear you.. i don't need the latest & greatest..
but one of my most used apps is already lion and up.. it's still in development and will possibly drop lion support soon.. in which case, i'll definitely be screwed
thanks for all your info. The once concern I am starting to have is that Maya is gonna drop OS X support it is already happening for 2013 edition so idk I would be now buying a MP to have to bootcamp or parallel it. I do love the OS X, but I really do not know anymore with 3d programs moving away from mac
I know pros use linux, but I was hoping MP was the answer with the 6 core and I was thinking exactly the same thing you mentioned earlier with the rendering overnight while sleeping, over the 12 core for slower speed during use at the desk.