Confused 3d Benchmarks

[noe]

I compared my sgi320(2x450 Mhz) against my G4-400, using cinebench 2000. I got some confused results when it comes to the OpenGL Test..

Rendering: G4-400=5.53, NT Dual 450 = 8.0 (Higher Score is better),
of course nt wins the 3d render task, but.....

OpenGL: G4-400 (Ati-Rage)= 5.64, Sgi320(Cobalt) = 6.16 (Higher=Better)
I can not believe that a crappy AtiRage Card should be as near as fast as this cobalt thing??? Shouldn't there be a big diff. like 200% or so??? Any Ideas? Maybe Cinebench is not able to really test cobalts OpenGL performance???

[deke-kincaid]

Benchmarks are crap for realworld speed tests. Too many Companies can tweak their drivers to go faster at specific benchmarks and it doesnt mean a thing. Also tests like the FPS in quake is pretty worthless for professional apps because it uses many parts of the video card that 3d apps like maya dont care about.

Do some realworld tests like putting a few different high poly model in maya and turning on the HUD to show polycount and FPS and do a rotation of the model(let it loop) and see what the fram rate is. Try this in wireframe mode, shaded mode and with hardware textures on. Make sure the camera is in the same place for both machines because the speed will change depending on how much of the model is in the frame.(also make sure both machines have backface culling on or off and make sure both machines are running at the same resolution/colors because this can influence the speed too).
Also benchmark both machines in rendering with the test provided on highend.:
http://www.highend3d.com/tests/maya/testcenter/
If you want to do a 2d test, do one with photoshop and an action. Set up one with resizing, cropping and guassian blurs and other filters and start the action on both machines at the same time and see which finishes first.

Deke

[noe]

cinebench is a real world test because it percists only of a few automated cinema4d task. A few scenes will be loaded turned in wireframe and shaded mode and be raytraced. Because Maya is not out yet for osx, I tried some other ("low end" like cinema4d) apps and real world tests to find out how pc's and macs are different. And they are indeed very different: Pc flies when 3d rendering and mac flies with photoshop. I am really wondering how maya performs on G4.

[safandjaro]

i'm not going to bash you just offer you some friendly advice....listen carefully. i work at a huge marketing agency in the digital marketing division. we specialize in broadcast 3d and digital effects production. before i arrived there, to my surprise all the artists were using macs! now i can understand the print creatives using macs since printers are calibrated with mac calibrations and most of them are mac dorks to begin with, but for doing 3D work?????? NO! The people in my department thought I was crazy for thinking a mere PC could outshine their precious babies. I was sick and tired of fighting a losing battle so I convinced one guy in my department to let me build him a PC. For less than $2,500 I built him a system with the following specs:

Athlon Thunderbird 1.2MHz (266fsb) (overclocked to 1435MHz)!!!
768 MB Kingmax PC150 SDRAM
30 GB IBM Deskstar 75GXP Ultra ATA/100 HD
Elsa Gladiac Ultra 64MB DDR
12x cd-writer
dvd drive
250MB internal zip
AWESOME case with GREAT cooling
19" Sony G400 Flat Monitor
and all the trimmings

I quickly put it to the test, first running a battery of benchmarks
1) 3D Mark 2000 - tests the graphics card's performance in gaming situations
2) Spec Viewperf 6.1.2 - Tests the OpenGL of the card in real life simulations of various high end programs
3) Cinebench 2000 - Tests the OpenGL of cinema 4DXL and the OpenGL of the graphics card and the speed of rendering. Great test as Cinema uses less than 2% of system resources.
4) Video compression - we compressed a video using quicktime 4.0 and sorenson 2.0 compression and timed the test
5) Photoshop - We ran a battery of Filter tests...I let him choose the filters and we had the 2 computers next to each other and hit apply at the same time and timed the results.

EVERY test we performed the PC SMOKED his G4 500....even the Quicktime test which is optimized for G4 velocity engine. None of this shocked me at all but needless to say these tests raised a few eyebrows. I mean some of the tests were like 4-10x faster on the PC...it was pathetic! I'm tired of MAC elitists trying to pawn their propoganda off on the uneducated consumer as something to be held on a pedastal and admired. Sure the boxes look nice and they are relatively easy almost insultingly easy at times to work with, but the mac users i know use this aura of elitism to sheild them from the truth. None of them know a damn thing about hardware and believe everything apple tells them about the power and value of their machines and it's all BS. My buddy's mac crashes AT LEAST three times a day...oops......i forgot to restart my windows 2000 machine last month......get my point? Do yourself a favor...don't wait for Maya to come to OSX....you'll be waiting for at least 6 months....then it has to be proven and tested and debugged for another year or two. Build yourself an NT box for 3 grand and then with the money you saved by not getting a "comparable" mac go on vacation and relax.......again, this is not meant as a personal diss to you or any other mac user. i understand why some people buy into the mac ideology and culture, but if you want to really work, especially in 3D, it only makes sense to build a PC. This is of course my opinion, but i believe it to be an educated one. I have been researching and benchmarking all sorts of configurations of systems for some time. don't underestimate the pc......too many mac users equate the pc with microsoft and they hate microsoft for ripping the mac os off.....you think i give two sh*ts about bill gates and microsoft? hell no! but i know what it takes to get work done. If you want to waste your money even more buy an sgi machine....the new octanes are only about $50,000. crap, if you could drive the thing to work then maybe i'd get one too, but until then....
good luck!

p.s. i get a little hot headed at times but i speak honestly, don't take it personally!

---

Windows 2000
Abit KT7 non-raid
Duron 700@1000
Elsa Gladiac Ultra 64MB DDR
512 MB Corsair SDRAM
21" Sony F500
3DMARK 2000 = 7104

[noe]

You're not bashing me, I agree fully with your answer. As I wrote I have PC's too especially for 3D work, but I am not a techinican and therefore I like the Mac's, they're really easy to install, and I never had any troubles with them. It always takes me much more time to configure my PC's than I would need for any Mac. But I can live with that point. I think the only points why apple can survive is: ease of use and sexappeal of the machines. Damned why is there no PC producer out there in the whole world who has any idea of good design - really I haven't seen any good designed PC's. Not Sgi, not Ibm, not Dell, not compaq, or any other has designquality which can be compared to apples - it does just not exist. I really wondering since years. Because I produce good designs and graphics I would like to work with well designed tools. Why should the box on my desk look like a shoebox or one of these ugly colani designs - its not an aeroplane! All around us is designed: tables, seats, lights, cars, coffeemachines, but PC's - no! It makes me sick - really. I am not joking: (In your eyes I may be stupid!!!) but I am thinking about taking my G4's Cover and building a PC in it!!!!!!!
I think sooner or later apple has to switch to intel or amd cpus. At the end it does not interest me if the Name is apple or not, I yust need some intelligent tools for working: for 3d this is maya and for it is finalcut.

[jandrew]

www.colorcase.com