Hey!
I have some plans to start out and try the IRIX system. Is it possible to run and install maya on a R5000 O2 machine?
what is the price for an old R5000? or is the machine to old
to start out with?
Thanks!
/abel
Ugh, well you would be dealing with technology from 1995. I'm sure it would run, but not all that well compared to a PC that costs much less. If IRIX is your main reason for using this O2, then I guess you don't have too many choices. Otherwise I'd suggest a Linux PC.
Possible yes.. but o2's are going for what now? 500$..? it would run very slow.. todays lowest end pc's would still beat it as long as you get a halfway decent video card. As someone else mentioned here.. its 5 years old.
Maya will run on a R5000 O2. It will be slower than a newer PC. There was a post in the 4 sale forum by a company selling 30 R5000 for $500 each.
Hey !!!
Thanks for all of your answers. The main reason for buying such an old machine was to learn the IRIX system. Thought it would be a great start out with. Is it possible to install and run the latest system on the machine?
I'll talk to my contact today about pricing, 500$ is a great price? What does the R5000 look like??? like the newer ones?
Thanks Again!
/abel
Hi there!
Sorry to break it to you guys but the O2 is still a GREAT computer, if you use it for what it was made for. Talk to your Maya sales rep before judging what will work fast or not...
I know heaps of people dont think SGI gear is up to it anymore but it is... no I dont work for SGI I simply support them. 
Please talk to a rep first...
Cheers!
Mark "Kodiak" Wylie
hardware guru, SGI promoter +
Yes, you can run the latest irix on a R5000 O2. The latest version is 6.5.12, I think.
The R5000 originally shipped with 6.3.
Yes, the R5000 O2 looks exactly like the new O2. The new ones just have the new sgi logo instead of silicon graphics.
As the post above states the O2 is still a good machine. It is.
If you like your new O2 it can always be upgraded to the newer R5200 processor. And a great thing about O2s is that since everything is tied together if you upgrade to the R5200 everything gets faster even graphics performance.
Also SGI gear does not crash like Win stuff does, if you want to use it it will always work, it wont have frozen or anything stupid like that, Linux is better but still not as intergrated as IRIX on an O2.
Mark "Kodiak" Wylie
hardware guru, SGI promoter +
Well I am afraid that I will have to dissagree. The O2 is still a great computer and very powerfull.
Do you like SUN boxes =oblagon=?
Oh and I have seen post production houses here that use the original Octanes, and O2s and they love them. They have a couple of Onyx2s to back them up for really big stuff, but I dont like to hear people dis SGI gear.
Please talk to your maya rep and tell them the problems...
I would rather use an O2 myself over a PC...
Please dont take this as a personal attack, I simply get SICK of people going on about how much SGI gear sucks in their opnion... and SGI gear is not obsolete, thank you.
Cheers!
Mark "Kodiak" Wylie
hardware guru, SGI promoter +
getting a r5000 o2 is a perfect machine to learn irix.
lesson 1: log in as root and enter in a shell rm -r .
and that should get you started
have fun
Very powerful? Come on, a low end pc can crush it for any current 3d work. They're nick named "slo-2's" for a reason. I love sgi.. I still got a indy and a indigo 2 kicking around here but they are pretty much web terminals for guests these days.
Actually, I have no reason to like or dislike SUN. Last I checked I can't get any of the applications I use for the sun. So its not even on my radar.
I work for a production company with over 120 sgi's and when a 1200$ pc outruns my Octane for everything I do thats a sign sgi has lost it. Heck look at their pathetic IA64 box.. its an exact clone of HP's and Dells machines with ATI video. SGI's lost it.
At work they are taking a look a linux in the long run on pc hardware. Alot of our local competitors have started switching over to linux and alot of the really big shops have already started the process.
(ignoring the fact we use mostly non-alias software) Even if
we did, what good will it do? Alias wavefront doesn't make the hardware. Look at the octane 2 when it first came out. The thing couldn't even run maya at all.. it failed the certification!!!!! It took them several months to get it stable.. now almost a year later they finally got a machine to us that doesn't flake out. Bad testing.
The only thing I'd take over a PC is a loaded Octane 2. Then again with the money I save I can buy a nice car.
Well, I know from working experience that anything before a recent revision octane is basically a POS to work with.
I'm sorry if I offended you. However I will make sure that people know both sides of the coin before dealing with sgi. I've seen too many people buy used irix boxes then wonder why maya runs so goddamn slow on them.
Nice advice!
Responces like that will earn you enormus amounts of credibility. Did you think that posibly someone who doesnt know very much about Irix might take you seriously?
Drat
no i dont. anyone willing to buy an o2 just to learn irix would not enter a command without first knowing what it does. he knows the power of unix, thats why he wants to learn. possibly you have been a master of irix for so long that you forgot what the first commands you learned were.
relax
bacon