I posted this in the other thread, thought it might help some people if they are in the same boat of thinking about getting the new rev b Macbook Air for using Maya and other 3d apps... In short, I have the new rev b, 1.86 Ghz 128 SSD drive version and so far, Maya runs well on it. I was so happy Apple decided to use Nvidia chipset and gfx card for all their notebook, making them much more powerful for 3d usage. And most moderate games run well on it so far as well...
Here is the post from the other thread:
I work in the film visual effects industry so I use maya and other 3d apps extensively.
The main issue usually with running Maya is the graphics card. A more expensive notebook doesn't mean it will run it well versus a cheaper one!! It all depends on the graphics card in the machine.
Typically, an Nvidia graphics card will run it well, even mobile versions. ATI cards' opengl drivers tend to be not very stable and hence why 3d used to run real bad on the Mac because it used to be the only graphics card option. Intel chipset with on board graphics is the worse, it does not support 3d well at all. Drivers are bad for opengl and they are very slow anyway so that is why they are not even supported on the autodesk website.
I used to have a Sony Vaio from 4 years ago and ran maya very well because it used an nvidia 6200m mobile graphics card. That machine is by no means beefy at all, but 3d wise, it ran fine! I have even done lectures and classes on it many times with no problem. So don't misunderstand you have to have a macbook pro to do 3d. Again, its more related to the graphics card and its drivers.
So this leads to the question, does Maya run on the new Macbook notebook and the answer is: Yes!! I just got the new macbook air with the nvidia 9400M chipset and from the brief test I tried, it runs fine and surprisingly didn't have any artifacts I have seen so far... It used to have in past maya versions, especially on OSX.. very prone to display issues. I am running Maya 2009 on it right now, and Zbrush (but zbrush is more cpu bound than gfx card). But typically, if you were using Windows on the Mac with a nvidia graphics card, Maya will run fine. Except a few things like paint effects and whatever else the autodesk website saids.
Also the comment with the video card Ram... I remember the days when even professional open gl cards were only 64mb and Maya ran fine. Video ram isn't as important in 3d content creation software as oppose to gaming. That is unless you do very high resolution complicated work. So don't trust all the hype and talk people and company throw out. Typically, with Nvidia graphics card, Maya and other Opengl application should run fine. If any issue they have on the Mac, its usually because of their drivers on OSX and not the hardware themselves. Doing 3d is probably still more reliable if you had bootcamp and run it on Windows on your Mac. But so far so good for me!
Personally, I am REAL happy they finally switch all their notebook from bottom and up to using Nvidia graphics card and chipset. And I LOVE the new macbook air!!! Its awesome! So light and portable yet, quite fast and does the 3d work when I need to. I am a real happy camper!
Hope this helps.
