You aren't kidding. I told the Mac Mini a bunch of secrets and it went blabbing them all over town.
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Apple Allowed Developers to Test a Prerelease Mac Pro Hidden Inside a Metal Box
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You aren't kidding. I told the Mac Mini a bunch of secrets and it went blabbing them all over town.
Only the lower end MPs.
While we'd all love to hear about Logic, no reason to expect that at a developer conference.
Any word from Audio developers? I guess Not.
Any words on Logic Pro X. I guess Not.
Does Apple even listen to the Audio community. My guess is NO!
I still use Logic once in a while, but I've mainly switched over to Reason since they finally incorporated actual audio recording.
I'm not sure there is actually a need for such a product. The iMac is a powerful computer
I hope Apple holds a "Pro" media event soon where they release the final version of the Mac Pro, a new rMBP, Logic X, Aperture X, and all the other "Pro" apps.
As a major studio who uses all Macs (even our windows software is run under Bootcamp). I had the same concern. We don't keep our machines that long though. 3 years is more typical for a studio (on a lease) so studios don't tend to change anything to the machine over that time. Apple is pushing hard and the industry and moving towards OpenCL and these will be very very fast for that. CUDA you can add visa expansion over Thunderbolt and you will get the best of both worlds because ATI tends to be better at OpenCL than Nvidia.
I disagree about performance. It varies app to app. Most of The Foundry's software runs better on OSX and Linux than Windows. Mari was never as good on Windows as it was on Linux and Mari was born on OSX and Linux. Nuke also runs better on OSX and Linux than Windows. Modo runs better on OSX than Windows (Linux version is in beta). Hiero runs better on OSX. The OSX versions of all the software obviously have much better Quicktime support for offline ProRes files. Maya it depends on what you are doing. Rendering tends to be faster on OSX and Linux, but Viewport response is better on Linux and Windows, but is not bad at all on OSX. We work with all the major vendors including some non-vfx CAD/Design companies and Apple is definitely on their radar.
We started out as a Windows (workstation) and Linux (server/farm) house. We had some Macs for running Shake (our pre-Nuke days) and everyone was fighting over those boxes. So when Maya matured on the OSX platform we made a whole pipeline shift. Originally I thought about Mac workstations and Linux server/farm, but my tests and price/benefit analysis took us all OSX (yes even OSX server). Despite higher server rooms costs, workstations were about the same if not cheaper (HP Z and Boxx), total cost of ownership over 3 years was significantly less than before and stability was much better. Go on set for a shoot and you will only see Mac laptops and Mac Pros.
As far as OpenGL goes, 90% of the apps, including 3D CAD apps are using OpenGL 2.1 still. Mari really pushes the bounds of OpenGL but even it is using 3.2. It is great that OSX 10.9 now supports OpenGL 4.1 but it takes software developers a long time to catch up. The hardware tessellation features along with OpenSubdiv might drive developers toward OpenGL 4.1.
So from a studio that does FX on movies like The Avengers and The Dark Knight rises, we are very excited about the new Mac Pro. Even when I worked for ILM on Pirates 3 I used a Mac Pro. Macs still have a strong presence on Hollywood features. We have been holding onto our old Mac Pro towers just waiting for this box.
And no VFX studios do not sit around building their own boxes, the man hours would negate any cost benefit. You lease them and have a support contract.
I disagree about performance. It varies app to app. Most of The Foundry's software runs better on OSX and Linux than Windows. Mari was never as good on Windows as it was on Linux and Mari was born on OSX and Linux. Nuke also runs better on OSX and Linux than Windows. Modo runs better on OSX than Windows (Linux version is in beta). Hiero runs better on OSX. The OSX versions of all the software obviously have much better Quicktime support for offline ProRes files. Maya it depends on what you are doing. Rendering tends to be faster on OSX and Linux, but Viewport response is better on Linux and Windows, but is not bad at all on OSX. We work with all the major vendors including some non-vfx CAD/Design companies and Apple is definitely on their radar.
We started out as a Windows (workstation) and Linux (server/farm) house. We had some Macs for running Shake (our pre-Nuke days) and everyone was fighting over those boxes. So when Maya matured on the OSX platform we made a whole pipeline shift. Originally I thought about Mac workstations and Linux server/farm, but my tests and price/benefit analysis took us all OSX (yes even OSX server). Despite higher server rooms costs, workstations were about the same if not cheaper (HP Z and Boxx), total cost of ownership over 3 years was significantly less than before and stability was much better. Go on set for a shoot and you will only see Mac laptops and Mac Pros.
As far as OpenGL goes, 90% of the apps, including 3D CAD apps are using OpenGL 2.1 still. Mari really pushes the bounds of OpenGL but even it is using 3.2. It is great that OSX 10.9 now supports OpenGL 4.1 but it takes software developers a long time to catch up. The hardware tessellation features along with OpenSubdiv might drive developers toward OpenGL 4.1.
So from a studio that does FX on movies like The Avengers and The Dark Knight rises, we are very excited about the new Mac Pro. Even when I worked for ILM on Pirates 3 I used a Mac Pro. Macs still have a strong presence on Hollywood features. We have been holding onto our old Mac Pro towers just waiting for this box.
And no VFX studios do not sit around building their own boxes, the man hours would negate any cost benefit. You lease them and have a support contract.
Forgot to mention, I am working on a feature now that is 5K native (will have a 4K crop for theatrical release) and I have no issues on my ancient 4,1 Mac Pro.
Actually, Dave Girard knows what he's talking about, despite being a serious online loudmouth and whiner. He's right though. Lack of CUDA will be a problem in the 3D animation & compositing realm unless Apple can persuade developers to invest in OpenCL. Unless they have already achieved this behind the scenes, it will take a very long time. On the other hand, Apple may have already lined up a nVidia card for the Mac Pro, but for whatever reason, are not ready to announce just yet.
Of possible interest, The Foundry, who demoed Mari the article, require CUDA support for all their new GPU rendering features in Nuke. Those features became available just a few months ago.
I doubt it takes more than two hours of labor to assemble a Mac Pro. In Texas you can find plenty of people who will do un-skilled factory jobs for $15 per hour. Overhead items like sick time, vacations and health care coverage might double that cost to $30 per hour. So in total there might be just under $100 of labor cost in a "Made IN USA" MacPro. For such an expensive item you don't notice the difference.
All the hard work of building the circuit boards and machining the metal parts is done by robots and CNC machines. All that is left is a hour or two of "screw driver work" and packing the unit in a shipping box.
The trouble with bringing those factory job back to the US is they are very low paying jobs.
I think that it's up to the average (whatever that means) consumer to decide what they need and what they don't need; it's their money after all.
Again, it's their money, or they got a budget to do so. Yes, people do buy nice toys they don't need. What else is new? It's most likely one of the reasons why we do have such a broad selection of toys right now.
What's wrong with the Mac mini?
In my book pro means making money with it. So what's the problem if one buys a 6K USD machine for making money? The thing with developing software is that there are not much other costs. Normally a computer is written off over 3 years, so that's 2K/year. Imagine that such a machine is used 1000 hrs/year for developing purposes. That's 2 USD/hr See? It's peanuts. (And let's not forget that a 3yo machine can still be sold, making 1K? 1.5K?)
Expensive for a hobbyist, sure. But for a pro? See up.
So, what's wrong with the Mac mini?
And what? Save 500 USD? For a pro that should be peanuts.
It sounds like you want a nice box on the cheap. That's just not Apple's field of operations. At least, I don't think so. So your options are and most likely will be for the foreseeable future to:
* get a hackingtosh
* get a Mac mini and learn to live with its shortcomings
* save more money and get a Mac Pro.
edit: forgot to mention second hand. But that will take some time.
Well, I thought of a cool solution to that problem. External Thunderbolt GPUs, anyone?
<< Why is this green?So are condescending posts. Lighten up.
He doesn't need to. Trolls have nothing better to do than waste space with stupid trashcan comments.
Slightly OT, but I hope old mac pros with their all aluminum chassis go on sale for cheap here soon, as in couple hundred bucks cheap (used grey market). I quite love the look of the case and would love to build a hackintosh out of one (by this I mean gut it, put in current gen hardware, and make it look like a Mac pro). I can ABSOLUTELY respect the engineering marvels that went into the new pro, and it's nothing short of amazing how small it is, but it just doesn't look good (yes, that is an opinion). Maybe it's the PC gamer in me that likes something in between a Plain Jane case and those gaudy plexiglass boxes with more ridiculous multicolored lights on them than there is actual hardware to show off.
Yep. My company uses it. And my boss is thrilled that we will soon be able to ditch our windows boot camp
It was great, but I like the retina MacBook Pro better. Also, a computer ought to be metal to dissipate the heat. The current Mac Pro does a great job of keeping cool. The new one is black but still metal, so I really want to see that thing in action even though I'd never buy one.
Not sure what you just said, but thanks for the info and perspective. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens in reality when it finally drops. I'm not in the target market for a Mac Pro since the iMacs have become more than good enough for my work, but I do have a strong curiosity to see how this all plays out.
You're missing the point. Mari isn't even available on the Mac yet. It actually wasn't even publicly announced to run on OS X until this week at WWDC and won't be released for a while, still. Their claim is that it runs faster than the software does on Linux and Windows.
I am really liking the new MacPro. I just hope Apple will bring a 30" 4k display alongside at launch. That would be awesome. Matte screen!