LW computer specs

[snickrep]

Hello,
For those that dont remember me I was the annoying person complaining about which 3D app I should get. Instead of going around asking which 3D app I should get I decided to download demo's. I kind of ruled out Maya since it is too expensive for me and ruled out electric image universe because the community is small and the program is pretty much dead. So I ordered a copy of Lightwave discovery and got it in the mail a few days ago. I also downloaded the Cinema 4D R8 XL demo. I was playing around with Cinema 4D since I liked it better than lightwave. But then I decided to do something serious with both programs and make a low-poly character model. I changed my mind and liked the lightwave interface a lot better. I knew the shortcut keys and I made a low-poly human body using the bevel tool and sub-patching tool. My problem is if Lightwave will run good on my machine. I was working with lightwave on a PC at the time and I dont have discovery edition anymore. I could order a new copy, but it took a while to send. My machine specs are:

iMac PowerPC G4 800Mhz

Mac OS 10.2

256MB of ram

60GB hard drive

Geforce2 MX 32MB of video ram

I just hope that will be fast enough for rotating and moving my objects on screen and rendering. I dont want any slowdown.

The PC specs I was using was:

Intel Celeron 1.2Ghz

Windows XP Home Edition

256MB of ram

60GB hard drive

Intel Graphic Chip 64MB of video ram

With the PC specs, there was quite a few slow down with lightwave.

[Iceman]

With those iMac specs lightwave should run just fine. Any way Apple's coming out with Mac OS 10.3 which sounds like it will run a lot faster than even 10.2. Btw Macs are built for high end graphics;).

Iceman

[snickrep]

I dont think macs are built for 3D though. I am a user a cgtalk.com where professional 3D artists like to hang out and they say PC is the better platform for doing anything 3D. This is why I am worried about the whole lightwave working on my mac thing. I use the cinema 4D demo on my mac, but have only worked with LW on a PC and it worked very slow on the PC I used it on. the PC specs are showed above.

[NCarter]

Macs are perfectly good for 3D modelling and rendering, unless you feel you require absolutely maximal processor speeds and the ability to run 3D Studio Max. If you're some kind of 3D virtuoso, you might care about every last ounce of performance but normal people don't need to worry about it!

BTW, I suggest you stick some more memory in your Mac. Running a large program with only 256Mb can make everything pretty sluggish. I'd add at least another 256Mb if you want to reduce slowdown and do serious work.

[Iceman]

Originally posted by NCarter
BTW, I suggest you stick some more memory in your Mac. Running a large program with only 256Mb can make everything pretty sluggish. I'd add at least another 256Mb if you want to reduce slowdown and do serious work.

Hmm I have 256 of ram I recomend an extra 512 if you can get it. OS X is a ram hog. I buy my hardware from www.macsales.com you can get stuff really inexpensive there.

Iceman

[morgant]

That iMac should handle LightWave perfectly fine. I believe LightWave was first intro'd before the G4 was at 800MHz in any Macs. I would definitely suggest adding 512MB RAM, it'll make the system run smoother, especially with large applications running.

I have 1.25GBs of RAM in my 400MHz PowerMac G4 (GE), and that makes it's performance much closer to our 733MHz PowerMac G4 with 512MB RAM (so close, in fact, that I rarely can tell the difference).

[Ian Kerr]

I run LW with a G4 350mhz/512MB of RAM/Rage 128. Rendering will take time, no way around that unless you have a pile of money to spend on a render farm. I render most of my stuff at night while I sleep...

[-Rice-]

I am running Lightwave 7.5a on my iMac 333 with 160 mg ram. Granted that is not the fastest, but for games and low poly count its quite fine. A great book on learning lightwave is Dan Ablans Inside Lightwave. Its huge but covers all aspects of the program. Expect to spend a lot of time with this one. And concerning Electric Image, its not dead. I have made more money off of this one program than all others combined (although I do use photo shop for creating textures). For games maybe, but it does one hell of a job rendering, and it is fast.

Good luck in this endeavor,

Rice

[Greg Gant]

Originally posted by snickrep
I dont think macs are built for 3D though.

They weren't but the G5 with gobs of ram and 64 bit processing now I'd say different.

Really the Mac is somewhat lacking in the 3D department with popular packages like Soft Demoge (SP?) and 3D Max as no-shows. 3D max is only sorely missed because of the extreme popularity it has among game devs and has plenty o' plugins making it the king of the midrange 3D apps. Besides that, the Macintosh is by no means a bad platform, but the PC does have the upper hand.

[AJ Infinity]

I run LW on a G3. I don't do alot of scene renders. Just modelling and texturing and sometimes skeletal animation. I have 384MB of ram also. LW's pretty fast on my machine. I once rendered this beautiful sunset scene (btw, it looked alot better than what Bryce could do...but that's a given.) and it took under 20 min or so (I don't think I remember the time correctly.

Greg_Gant: I doubt 3ds max willl ever come to the Mac. I'm sure SoftImage may come soon. LW runs pretty beautifully on high end G4s. On OS9, LW performance is pretty bad though.