OSX v OS 9 Dilemma

[agreenster]

I am using Cinema4DXL 7.3 for OS 9.2 right now, and am rendering with with multiple systems, varying from 400mHz G4, dual 800mHz Quick's, and my TiBook. The high end desktops are sporting anywhere from 1-1.5 gig of ram, but my laptop only has 512mB.

I want to switch over my usage of Cinema4D to OSX, (yes, it is OSX ready) but I utilize EVERY little bit of RAM that is on these systems to render. Since OSX uses an extra 64MB of ram to run the system software, will I run into memory problems because of this extra usage? I know OSX claims to streamline the RAM allocation, but I fear that switching over will do nothing but cause 'lack of memory' issues, expecially while rendering.

How beneficial will OSX be to me if I use extremely RAM intensive applications like Cinema4D? Somehow I think I will be better off using 9 because it only needs 64MB or ram to run, not 128.

I appreciate good feedback!

 

[mmcneil]

Possible Solution

Look for my post on creating a swap partition for OS X. You are right about memory intensive applications, but it doesn't sound nearly as bad as VPC.

In many ways OSX will be much more forgiving of memory intensive applications, it will allocate all they need when then need it as opposed to OS9 where you have to guess how much you need and set it.

 

[Beej]

mmcneil is right, you will probably see a decent speed increase with a dedicated swap partition (especially if you can put it on a different HD to the one you boot from).

As for the memory usage, you pretty much have to throw everything you know about memory management when you move from OS 9 to OS X. It's a very different situation.

My educated (but not too experienced in this area) guess would be that you might even see a speed increase if you moved to OS X.

 

[dantec]

Os X has VM. With this OS X uses as much ram as it needs...

I bet I could run Cinema 4D on my quicksilver with 384 ram. You have a dual 800 mhz system so speed isn't an issue.

I've also noticed, Mac OS 10 often puts most of its on processes in VM, when they are inactive, so in the end you won't lose too much ram!

 

[dantec]

Another thing, swap partitions are absolutely useless if you don't use more than your full capacity of ram... They are also useless if you use them on Macs with slow drives (iBook & first gen, iMacs for example).

 

[Choppaface]

i think you can get that tibook up to a gig of ram, no?

 

[crassusad44]

agreenster:

I belive you will see a real benefit of moving to OS X. The memory management is soooooo much better (see the other posts). Actually I have been doing some speed tests with Photoshop the last couple of days, and Photoshop 7.0 for OS X, is FASTER than Photoshop 6.0 for OS 9 on the same systems! And Photoshop 7.0 is still BETA software!!!! (one of my tests, 1 min 20 secs, compared to 52 secs) How about that!

 

[ilikeiBook]

Originally posted by Choppaface
i think you can get that tibook up to a gig of ram, no?

sure you can.

 

[zorglub]

C4DXL 7.3 works very well on OSX, no probs of RAM with my TiBook 550/512MoRam... but...

be carefull and keep a folder with your OS9 version, just because i have some problems with plugs like pyrocluster or sky.... they don't appear under OSX.

by the way, C4DXL OSX is rock solid...

z

 

[agreenster]

Thanks for the feedback guys- Ive been using C4D on OSX more often now. I havent run into any problems, and it renders exactly the same. But, my tower (gig of ram) is still needed to render large files. Well, now that I think about it, I havent really tried to push an OSX render yet to see if I can get an 'out of memory' message.....

What would be interesting is if it allocated Virtual Memory so flawlessly that it would render like a true 1gig machine.

Another question: Is it possible through OSX to allocate more virtual memory than your computer is expandible to? I know that on my G4 tower, I cant use virtual memory because I already have its maximum amout in built-in memory. I would love to do some rendering with 2gig of ram.

thanks!

 

[zorglub]

an app can onky takes 999 Mo of mem, i believe ?

so, it's a good question: what about really heavy scenes in C4D ...
or MAYA... or LW...???

z

 

[agreenster]

Update

Well glory be. OSX actually works.

I ran the following test:
400mHz G4 tower (1gig ram) OS 9.2 vs. 550mHZ G4 Powerbook (512MB ram) OSX.

-The OS9 machine rendered a frame in 4 min 45 seconds with 850 MB ram allocated to C4D. (I had to allocate this much because it uses about 600-700MB to render this particular frame. The extra 250-150 is just in case.)

-The OSX machine rendered the same frame in 4 minutes 14 seconds thru OSX and its virtual memory system.

HUH??? The computer with less ram did it faster? Maybe its the extra 150mHz processor speed, but regardless, I love that OSX just allocated the ram, and took care of the render with no questions, or me having to dink with VM through OS9. Its great.

What I REALLY cant wait for is to take my files to school, and throw it into our dual 800mHz G4 rendering farm. They all have over a gig of ram, and all are running OSX. I think there are five of them.

Quickly making the permanent switch to OSX..........