I hate Macs!!

[goobimama]

Btw, you need a graphics card with Texture and Lighting to enable some of the more advanced visual effects in the Mac OS X UI. Such as the raindrop effect while dropping widgets into the dashboard. Or the Smoke effect which burns alongside of Disco (Man you should see this).

And Gaming isn't all that bad. We've got Blizzard with all their games. Doom 3 runs just fine on full resolution on the X1600 ATi. Sure its not meant for gaming, but that doesn't mean that we can't play the odd game or two...(who the hell am I kidding. Its got no games at all worth the mention!!! heheh)

 

[Aberforth]

And Gaming isn't all that bad. We've got Blizzard with all their games. Doom 3 runs just fine on full resolution on the X1600 ATi. Sure its not meant for gaming, but that doesn't mean that we can't play the odd game or two...(who the hell am I kidding. Its got no games at all worth the mention!!! heheh)

Get MS Flight Simulator 2004 working on OSX 10 at 30+ FPS and I'm dumping my lappy tomorrow.

 

[rajasekharan]

well there is one application i love to work with "shake" . . a marvelous one . it only works in mac . i need to Dual boot my pc somehow . to find one for Linux is quiet difficult too . well about o.s i like all ,as long as it helps my need .

 

[audio_sadhu]

hi
this is my first post on this forum.
And these are just my personal thoughts on mac vs pc or whatever..not statements and i already understand that not everyone may feel the same as me...so pls dont take anything personally or as a statement about macs or pcs..these are just my opinions.
i have been using macs and pcs for a long time
my first pc was a 0866 runnig BASIC and the first "cheap little television" looking mac way way back.
as kids most of us were attracted to the mac because it was white had a gui and a rainbox on the monitor..lol
it also had a game.
the pc we used had a green screen and i used that to learn BASIC.
later i started using pcs more because it had games like digger,space patrol, pac man and moonbugs..i dont know if any of you guys ever played those games or not cos this is waay back in the day.
lol i remember i had the second highest score in moonbugs the higest score was held by my dads boss a 57 year old bearded 'shikari' who used to come to our house every evening to play games...lol
anyway the next 13 years i exclusively used pcs.
it was only when i was studying digital art in new york last year that i saw another mac..believe it!!!..macs are hard to find..lol
anyway, i now use macs and pcs(both) everyday.
i own a mac pro with(these r the highlights of my specs) 2 dual 3.00ghz intels
2 gb ram( i gb is apple and one gb is kingston)
an ati radeon x1900 with 512mb
and a 30" apple hd monitor(matte).
i use my mac exclusively for digital art purposes...i mean exclusively..i will sometime browse the web to search for a photoshop/maya tutorial or to get pictures to serve as a basis for a matte painting..maybe listen to a preview of a song, on itunes for inspiration or use itunes to download songs to my/my girlfriends ipod, watch some videos etc.Apart from that i only use it for digital art, mainly photoshop,jasc painter, bryce 3d, processing, imageready, illustrator, sometimes dreamweaver or flash, but very rarely, maya, final cut hd and logic pro 7. No ofice,no games etc..
i might scan photos or import digital images,video,analong audio etc, but thats all i use my mac for.
people who say a mac never crashes are lying, straight up, my mac has crashed 7 times since i bought it in december. i have installed no software on my own all the software i have came pre-installed.
And yes, files that are being used sometmes do get deleted.
Macs are not particularly faster than windows, and now with vista not particularly, easier to use.

A few problems i have faced with my macpro are:-

1) Bootcamp SUCKS
no seriously, it does photoshop loaded so slow and a maya full quality final render render took soo long that i cancelled it. so until it gives a comparable perfomance

2) The audio sequencer i have for windows is Cubase SX3 and that got killed too..very high latency, audio I/O signal drops, when i loaded too many vstis it froze for 3 minutes.
3) It also gets a little slow if i run too many programs at the same time, the apple tech people recommended that i needed 4 gigs of ram to hit the sweet spot of the mac. Also the apple online support people tried to convince me to buy very very expensive ram from apple saying that they do not guarantee the results otherwise, their ram is high quality, goes through stringent quality control etc etc...that is just bs i bought one gb kingston ram and replaced the ram that came with my mac..no drop in perfomance or stability..so yeah if your ram being 'perfect' etc gives you a hard on go for apple ram or kingston is same perfomance but much cheaper.

4) I am also dissapointed with the onboard audio..since mac is supposed to be for professionals in the field of AV they should atleast provide a better sound solution. I am pissed off at apple for the crappy audio solution they have provided..altough, apple customer support told me that they understood that audio pros would still go for an external audio card. Yes, i understand that too, but for more than $6,000 i expect more than that.

Now i still love my mac.
It looks good.
It enhances my creativity in a way a pc never can..i dont know what is it but a mac makes my creative juics flow unlike any pc ever has.
my creative output and productivity is increased on a mac since everything is so user friendly and easy that i dont even have to worry about stuff other than my art or music..
I like the lack of games on a mac because that would proove to be a distraction to me.
I love my apple hd 30" display it is just gorgeous and actually looks better than my 1080 hdtv.
I like how my work flows on a mac as opposed to pc where i usually end up playing games, messing with the os or just keeping my system maintained and tweaked, which i like doing on a pc not on a mac, i dont know why..lol but pcs just beg to be took apart and explore the os mess with the registry tweak etc but on a mac i dont get that urge.
Upgrading is easier the inside of a mac is clean..HDDs and ram can be bought by other manafacturers no need to only go to apple etc..

So its not like mac is the **** or mac is ****.
Macs and pcs are both basically different OSs the perfomance of a computer depends on the hardware as well as the software so if you build a windows vista running on the same specs as my mac im sure it would kick ass as good as my mac maybe even better if someone is building it on their own cos they can configure everything to their needs.
In India it is cheaper to have a computer assembled in america it is more expensive.
In India it may be cheaper to go to nehru place or lamington road and buy cheap parts but in america(generally-im not including ebay etc rather im talking about physical dealerships/shops) but in america if you buy each part seperate it is generally more expensive than say buying a computer with the same specs from dell. this is not true for high end systems. very true for low-end and mid-class systems.
In America apple gives education discounts.
Dell sent me a 45% off copon. So it is generally cheaper to buy a company machine.
I think the reason for the popularity for the mac has been
a)show-off value
b)apple gives great discounts to educational instutions and research based instutions
c)i think that appeles main customers are schools,universities,r&d places and professional gfx companies not people like you and me.
d) i dont think apple is worth paying more for
e) Some people are scared of technology apple hides technology well and is very easy to use therefore some people love it.
f) some people just use computers for casual purposes such as email and internet, to them the looks of a computer is more important than the specs.
g) Some people like me buy apple just because it has a certain program on which they are dependent upon to make their living(logic pro7 in my case)
h) Some people are more productive on a mac some more on a pc..so yea just like all of you said its just personal choice...its not like mac is better than the pc or vice versa its all about what is more suited to your needs, style and what environment you are comfortable.
In my case the heavy discount i was getting from apple and my university as well as the preloaded software(esp logic 7) that made me lean towards the mac and thats what made me bought it. otherwise i would have bought the dell and used it for digital art purposes only also..no games etc because that is the role i wanted my computer to serve..because i already have a vista loaded laptop for my games,msoffice,class notes,research,games etc.

In the end its all about choice and personal taste.
A mac can crash if you f k with it and overload it with too much stuff just like a pc.

both are just computers. both are just as good as the other.choice.choice.choice.

btw apples marketing is kick ass there are actually more macs being used in the united states than in the last 5 years..that is the job of marketing to lie and tempt you into buying a product that you have actually no need for.

 

[Kiran.dks]

people who say a mac never crashes are lying, straight up, my mac has crashed 7 times since i bought it in december. i have installed no software on my own all the software i have came pre-installed.
And yes, files that are being used sometmes do get deleted.
Macs are not particularly faster than windows..................
...................................................................

7 times crash since december!
Nice to see a BIG first post!

 

[audio_sadhu]

thanks kiran
macs generally dont crash that much
but since i use lots of VSTis at a time upto 34 and have a lot of wav and audio files on my computer as well as maya etc it does tend to get a little owerwhelmed and first it gets slow but as project material increases(audio samples,loops,vstis analong audio wav data etc) it starts freezing and then crashing until you run a thorough cleaning/mantainence..and i know for a fact that this is not the case of just one "lemonhead" machine because during the end of the semester at our university R&D lab(which by the way has 48 macs)lots of them crash because students put lots of stuff on them..
i guess a pc is the same if you abuse them they will abuse you..

 

[gxsaurav]

Btw, you need a graphics card with Texture and Lighting to enable some of the more advanced visual effects in the Mac OS X UI. Such as the raindrop effect while dropping widgets into the dashboard. Or the Smoke effect which burns alongside of Disco (Man you should see this).
)

This is available from Geforce 6100/GMA 900/Radeon x200 days in PC. Onboard graphics does sux for gaming, but it has enough texel power for runing an OS. & By the way, all gfx card obviously support texture & lightning man....you should learn a bit about how gfx cards work

@ audio_sadhu

Yup, Macs have been long used in 2D & 3D desigining cos What u see is what u get, the color model is CMYK so, it's easier to work in it directly. Your Mac pro looks juicy, wanna rent it for some 3ds max renderings

I was hoping to hear something from someone pro, in this field.

Audio latency has long been a problem. macs don't even have Intel HD Audio despite of the fact they are using Core duo & Intel chipsets. I wonder if M-Audio cards work in mac .

& 4 GB RAM, what the.....even Vista runs fine on 1 GB, & Super fine with 2 GB, more isn't required in case of Vista, unless application want it

that is the job of marketing to lie and tempt you into buying a product that you have actually no need for

U summed up the apple marketing terms in one line. lieing

@ rajasekharan

Shake is an awsome application, but again Limited by Apple's Markereting. Get this, Shake 4.1 for Mactel = $500 only, but u need atleast a $2300 Mac Pro to run it properly. Add to it more RAM, atleast 2 GB.

Shake for linux = $3000

Did someone said viral marketing?

 

[led_shankar]

So its not like mac is the **** or mac is ****.

 

[Kiran.dks]

This is available from Geforce 6100/GMA 900/Radeon x200 days in PC. Onboard graphics does sux for gaming, but it has enough texel power for runing an OS. & By the way, all gfx card obviously support texture & lightning man....you should learn a bit about how gfx cards work

Yep! Mac has got really a horrible video subsystem which makes it useless for advanced 3D rendering. Windows clearly wins in this area becoz of its open architecture. This advantage makes it best for Video cards ripping off advanced graphic rendering impeccably.

 

[gxsaurav]

Yep! Mac has got really a horrible video subsystem which makes it useless for advanced 3D rendering. Windows clearly wins in this area becoz of its open architecture. This advantage makes it best for Video cards ripping off advanced graphic rendering impeccably.

Yo, nothing like that. Macs do not have a horrible graphical sub system at all, it's all OpenGL, quite pro lavel

3D Rendering is of 3 types

1) In Game rendering, this is real time & used in games only

2) 3D animation & arch. Vis, like the ones done with 3Ds Max & Maya, this uses 0% GPU power & features, this is all CPU based rendering, this is the reason it's very difficult to achive such quality in games even with powerful GPU. Nvidia does have gelato & Maya does have Hardware rendering, but they only use the GPU's calculation ability while rendering, not the GPU features

3) Viewport rendering, this is what u see when u make something in 3Ds Max or Maya or blender or anything, This is pure openGL based, in case of application running on Windows, this is on the fly converted to DirectX data where aplicable with same quality. This is where pro lavel graphics card are required, so that they can work at the same time on shaders & see high quality in-viewport previews, all in full OpenGL

When it comes to workstations apps, Windows & Mac perform almost similar, cos these applications do not depend usually on the OS subsystem, they are self contained platforms.

DirectX alone makes it very easy for gaming, but trust me, DirectX up to version 9 was not made for anything other then gaming. Now DX 10 is here to take on OpenGL 2.0 in pro market, but i doubt if it will take over anytime soon, OpenGL 2.0 is already stablished

 

[blackpearl]

Hope this thread doesn't get hijacked

Somebody already tried to hijack it twice by mentioning Minisha Lamba , and poor gx_saurav missed nearly 2 hours of sleep.

Gx_saurav: You seem to know a lot about 3dsmax and maya. I've some questions regarding mental ray rendering in maya. Can you help me? Shall I create a thread in S/w troubleshooting?

 

[Kiran.dks]

Yo, nothing like that. Macs do not have a horrible graphical sub system at all, it's all OpenGL, quite pro lavel

3D Rendering is of 3 types

1) In Game rendering, this is real time & used in games only

2) 3D animation & arch. Vis, like the ones done with 3Ds Max & Maya, this uses 0% GPU power & features, this is all CPU based rendering, this is the ..................

Ahem... I am aware that it's OpenGL. Might be the word "horrible" is bit of a carry away. Anyways, do you mean to say that OpenGL is superior than Direct3D? And what about the status of consumed hardware resources availability to User? I heard that the OpenGL hides hardware details like whether it is even being used or not. Moreover OpenGL requires the manipulation of pixel buffers. This is much complicated than the Direct3D's method of rendering. This leads to large performance difference.

 

[goobimama]

Okay maybe it was Texture and Lighting 2.0. My point is that you need a graphics card to enable those effects (macbooks, ibooks, and mac minis don't have that feature). I state that I don't know how graphics cards work (per se)

Both my macs have never crashed (except when one disconnects a connected server. It takes about 15 minutes to realise something and then comes back to normal).

 

[mehulved]

audio_sadhu pc's and windows aren't interchangeable words. There's a lot more to PC and we would appreciate it if you don't use those 2 words interchangeably.

 

[rajasekharan]

well both direct x and open GL are different and some features are never present in open GL like "reflection"....u can only fake a reflection , while u can easily create a reflection in direct x....

the reason why you have graphics card for texturing and lighting is to cut the load of the cpu.....you can do everything that you see in games in max with a low end card...all your HDRI, soft shadows works perfectly fine, there are two things that you look here weather you are running a mac or a pc
1.ram,ram,ram,ram....the more the merrier.
2.cpu
thats all , a graphic card helps in view port .....thats all.

of course , when you go to post production utilities like combustion...the graphic card plays a major role , since much is transfered to the card, but that again is with the view port.....

i believe the ability of mac to use more ram is the greatest plus point in 3d s/w.....and its this area where windows lags seriously


@gx_saurav.....well i will try to , ahem, *cough* crack *hmmm* it...

 

[mehulved]

U summed up the apple marketing terms in one line. lieing

Now plz don't say MS doesn't lie while marketing.

 

[borg]

Lol

Mac people are getting blasted here!

As far as I am concerned, I started computing on a Mac. It was a Mac LC with 4 Mb of ROM, 258 MB HDD & a 20 MHz processor!!!.

I still have it, but it doesn't work anymore.

I have switched to PC since then (for a lot of reasons including gaming). Now I use Kubuntu/XP dualboot, but i still follow Apple very closely. I still like Macs & will buy one when I can.

A Mac might not be a perfect machine (nothing is), but it has a certain something about it that attracts a lot of people.

 

[Aberforth]

Now plz don't say MS doesn't lie while marketing.

Of course they do. Its naive to think honesty would trigger a product to such a position in the market. Everybody likes throwing mud a competitors so that their product looks fresh. So do a lot of misinformed Linux users who use the wrong methods to market Linux and give it a bad name.

Steve Job's keynote addresses are quite manipulating...if we have a marketing guru award, Jobs would top the list. I was nearly tempted to think iPhone can beat Oxygen PDAs.

 

[gxsaurav]

Gx_saurav: You seem to know a lot about 3dsmax and maya. I've some questions regarding mental ray rendering in maya. Can you help me? Shall I create a thread in S/w troubleshooting?

Mental ray is my prefered renderer, I don't know about Maya's method, but since the renderer is same in 3ds max 9 & Maya 8.5 I will be able to help you, however, i m leaving lucknow on 22nd feb, got job in gurgaon, convergys, Windows XP/Vista tech service operative

Kiran_tech_mania

OpenGL is superior then DX in professional tasks, when it comes to gaming, each one has advantage over the other. I don't even know that much detail, so won't talk

i believe the ability of mac to use more ram is the greatest plus point in 3d s/w.....and its this area where windows lags seriously

Windows XP didn't use the idle RAM, Vista does, so this novelty is no longer exclusive to Mac now, again,...no reason going for Mac even if u r pro. However XP did used the idle RAM if an application asked for it. Trust me, you won't find a similarly configured Mac faster then XP/Vista in rendering or compositing

(Note that many workstations apps are not compatible with Vista yet)

Lol

Mac people are getting blasted here!

Macboys always get blasted, they come again & again & get pwned...still they come again with same old zibbrish, for no valid reason. I do admire there arrogance & ignorence though , it's one of a kind

Now plz don't say MS doesn't lie while marketing.

Microsoft, & other companies in PC industry are straight forward, they do not make fun of their competitors like Apple does, cos they don't have to. Apple & Mac people, have to convince & sing same tune again & again, while MS knows what people expect from their OS & why it dominates the market. Windows is made for Work out there......with some tweaking & free 3rd party apps you can make it designer & yeh, fun to use.

One thing PC sux right now is the current hardware design. Mac mini is a cool machine, at such a small size....it's really powerful for home usage. iMac Core duo design sux, trust me....iMac G4 was much better, & Mac Pro,, well....i will take an alienware or Dell over it anyway. Good thing is that the companies are realising that now Computers are not work machines, they are consumer devices, so they are coming with new designs, take a look at the new Acer desktops, so small yet powerful, & the HP touchscreen PC shown in CES 2006

 

[borg]

I still think Linux fanatics are by far more rabid & elitist than Mac users. Just go to any forum & criticise Linux in anyway & see what happens. We have seen the same many times on this very forum.


Congrats for the new job GX. You are the PSS (Product Support Specialist) guy now.