mac pro vs pc help?

[nanofrog]

yes i know. right now i have just over 1 GB free of my 14 GB while running the windows 7 VM and not doing much in Leopard, though the webserver is still running of course.

What other resources are being used?

 

[twoodcc]

What other resources are being used?

attached is a screenshot of activity monitor

 

[nanofrog]

attached is a screenshot of activity monitor

VM is definitely using memory.

Could you repeat for CPU?
(It might offer some additional details that might help).

 

[twoodcc]

VM is definitely using memory.

Could you repeat for CPU?
(It might offer some additional details that might help).

sure. but now i'm down to like 230 MB of free RAM. though most is inactive ram.

attached is the screenshot of CPU

 

[Tesselator]

VirtualBox, I haven't tried that one yet. Anything special?

Also I wonder why Windows wants so much CPU in it's typical idle state?

Mine does that too. Here's two screenshots. The first is Parallels DeskTop running Vista 64 and Ubuntu Studio 64, the second is Ubuntu Studio 64 and Kubuntu 64.

Even though both times Parallels is running two VMs the one with Windows causes the CPUs to stay right around 70% ~ 80% even though windoze is not running any user apps nor background tasks that I'm aware of.


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[nanofrog]

sure. but now i'm down to like 230 MB of free RAM. though most is inactive ram.

attached is the screenshot of CPU

The CPU is showing mostly idle, so you've clock cycles available. Though I'm assuming you aren't really taxing it with anything.

As far as memory, does your VM have dynamic allocation, and if so, is it enabled?

Personally, I prefer to just load a system with memory for a VM environment, and leave any dynamic setting off. But that's me.

VirtualBox, I haven't tried that one yet. Anything special?

Also I wonder why Windows wants so much CPU in it's typical idle state?

Mine does that too. Here's two screenshots. The first is Parallels DeskTop running Vista 64 and Ubuntu Studio 64, the second is Ubuntu Studio 64 and Kubuntu 64.

Even though both times Parallels is running two VMs the one with Windows causes the CPUs to stay right around 70% ~ 80% even though windoze is not running any user apps nor background tasks that I'm aware of.


.

"Not Responding"... what's up with that?

It would make me leary of trusting the usage data, as I'd assume everythings frozen.

 

[Tesselator]

"Not Responding"... what's up with that?

It would make me leary of trusting the usage data, as I'd assume everythings frozen.

No no... it's supposed to be that way. It's all working correctly. I read about it here: http://forum.parallels.com/ but I can't find the post that explained it. It looks like they removed the thread. Maybe it's a trade secret or something LOL

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[twoodcc]

The CPU is showing mostly idle, so you've clock cycles available. Though I'm assuming you aren't really taxing it with anything.

As far as memory, does your VM have dynamic allocation, and if so, is it enabled?

Personally, I prefer to just load a system with memory for a VM environment, and leave any dynamic setting off. But that's me.

afaik, it does not have a dynamic setting. i gave it like 1200 MB of ram to use, but it seems to be using a little more for some reason. right now it's using 1.87 GB. and i have a total of 104 MB free. so weird.

all i have running is the VM, safari, terminal, itunes, and activity monitor. that's it. and my free ram just keeps going down. of course, i still have the web server running. i think that might the problem. i'm running scripts that tax the webserver.

 

[nanofrog]

No no... it's supposed to be that way. It's all working correctly. I read about it here: http://forum.parallels.com/ but I can't find the post that explained it. It looks like they removed the thread. Maybe it's a trade secret or something LOL

.

Weird. I would have figured there was a major problem, and spent nearly forever trying to search for a solution.

afaik, it does not have a dynamic setting. i gave it like 1200 MB of ram to use, but it seems to be using a little more for some reason. right now it's using 1.87 GB. and i have a total of 104 MB free. so weird.

That sucks.

all i have running is the VM, safari, terminal, itunes, and activity monitor. that's it. and my free ram just keeps going down. of course, i still have the web server running. i think that might the problem. i'm running scripts that tax the webserver.

Quite possible, as something's using memory, and not releasing anything unused.

 

[Paus]

What kind of resources do you need for all of this?

Well I would need the following to produce a succesfull machinima:

After effects CS3 (on Mac and Windows)
Fraps (but im going to steer away from fraps because of the codec that I cant run on Mac for some reason, so some other recording program)
iMovie (09)
WoWmodelviewer (link: http://www.wowmodelviewer.org/ )
WoWmapviewer (is the same as the modelviewer, but shows maps instead of models. You can make camera movements as a background in a machinima for example.)

Thats about the most essential part of machinima for me

As for running OS X, you have the option of a hack, but buying a Mac is much easier.

Defintely buying a Mac

Worst case, do what's needed in Windows, save the data, and reboot into OS X for editing. A PITA as far as convenience, but it would work.

Yeah I did it that way for some time, but thats a rather slow process as you've mentioned After I figured that out I recorded and edited my movies entirely inside Windows. Problem is I get frustrated working with Windows (it gives me a negative feeling in my stomach, im serious!).
So I just want to be able to stay inside the Mac enviremont on one screen and being able to edit on the other. That would be ideal

And as it's from a vendor, the system does carry a warranty.

Hmm... Never really thought about that So you're saying I can test this setting I have in mind, try to VM Windows the way I want and record and edit the way I want - to test if all goes smooth, and if it doesn't I can just return the Mac Pro without a hassle? That would be great if this is true!

But yes, I do this sometimes. Not Machinima but I'll screen record video (using OS X) of 3D applications running on Vista VM. I'm not using the fastest tool available for this. I'm using an app called Snapz Pro X ( http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/ ) for video and one called Layers for stills ( http://the.layersapp.com/about/ ). In Snapz I guess I'm guaranteed to get 640 x 480 @ 30FPS. And I guess I could get 720p at 12 or 15 FPS tho I haven't tried it specifically as a test. I've copied entire DVD movies at 24FPS (~90min.) just to see if it would work. It did.

Wow! Thats some great information! I'll defenitly give those programs a try when I get my beautifull machine
Btw, you have this spec:

BTW, My machine spec: 2006 MP 1.1 motherboard, Dual 2.66 x5355 xeons (8-cores total), 12GB RAM, 7300 GT NVidia w/256 MB), Software RAID, etc. etc.

Would that be comparable with my setting?:
(hmm... going to the Mac store now to copy paste my specs, and they are saying its beeing updated! ) Hmm... let me think, i had the following I think:

One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" processor, 8 gig memory, 640GB hard drive x2 and the GTX 285 when its released in June!.

Would that be comparible eventhough you have 8 cores and I have 4? I wonder if that would matter in performance when recording in VM...

Well, here's a little budgeting for you - Do you own another computer that you play WoW on? If so, if it has a spare DVI-out, you can just buy a Blackmagic Intensity card and an HDMI-DVI adapter - then record live to a speedy RAID array. If it does not have that, and instead uses a VGA port, there are such things as VGA-component adapters, I think the blackmagic intensity pro has a breakout cable with component on it. Buy two HDDs, run them in software RAID-0, and back up to a larger, slower drive on a quad 2.66; you should be able to do that with little to no problem, and it would probably be easier with two machines (one being the "broadcast" machine and the Mac being the recorder/editor) then having an all-in-one solution, and it would probably save a ton of money on cores that may not be needed. The only downside is that I think the Intensity only records in a 16:9 ratio... that may cause some headaches if your computer monitor is not 16:9 or does not support 1:1 pixel mapping.

Hmm.. gonna read this 5 times and maybe then I will fully understand

I'm into machinima... Not WoW Machinima, but that's how I would work with the program

Nice to see a fellow machinimator on here.

Hell yeah!
btw check out this first machinima I made within the first week of my Macbook Pro

http://www.vimeo.com/1480391

Well thank you guys so much so far for helping me! Some very helpfull people on here

- Paus\Waus

 

[Dr.Pants]

Basically, all I was saying in my post is that you do not have to strain your 4-core with a VM. Sorry, I must not have read your post correctly... But I think my idea was full of #@($. Basically, I was saying that if you have a seperate machine, you could get a Blackmagic Intensity card, which has an HDMI-in for recording purposes. That way, you could use a DVI port on a different machine and not have to BS with the VMs. You could "clone" the monitor output which would have your programs running full screen and the Intensity capturing the image on the MacPro.

The downside to the Intensity is its recording modes, and capturing from a PC I'm not too sure of yet... I would read up on it. Basically, it captures 1080i/59.94, 1080i/50, 720p/59.94, 720p/50, NTSC and PAL (<- from their webpage). Don't take my word that recording off of DVI will work, I would call or email blackmagic. I would confirm it myself, but... its coming on the next paycheck

I would comment on the vid, but I'm on dial-up atm...

 

[nanofrog]

Paus, Yes, you can test your intended software/configuration out on the Mac Pro, and see if it will work for you.

Just be sure to get it done in time to make the return deadline.

 

[twoodcc]

well i still havent decided on what i'm going to do. i think i'm going to just wait until after wwdc to do anything though.

but i'm still hoping to get more suggestions on which way to go