Often times I find myself on the internet. Well, that is, when I’m not working. Which is usually only for a few minutes a day. Or something like that.
So in these rare times when I’m online, I tend to search for information, research, reviews, benchmarks, articles, etc. Some of the pages I stumble on are very useful and I either stop searching, due to a satisfied goal, or I get pointed in the next best direction. Either way, I often want to say thanks to these sites.
So I click an ad. *GASP*
Yes. I click ads as a way of saying thanks to my purveyors of information. I know they don’t add up to much – typically a google ad click pays less than $0.50 (50 cents). But hey, I think it’s pretty fair.
You may or may not have noticed ads on my blog, if you read via rss, then you probably haven’t. They’re there. I’m not allowed to tell you to click them. But if you’re wanting to say thanks for anything I’ve posted or will post… you know what to do
So – you need a website, and a domain, and have somehow narrowed the choice of domain provider and hosting solution down to either GoDaddy or Hostmonster.
My “authority” on the subject: I provide some web design services and I operate over a dozen of my own various sites.
So, here’s what I can share with you from my own personal experience with both. Personally, and for Loklo Media, I use GoDaddy for my domains and deluxe hosting plan.
GoDaddy
I find that the “backend” controls are a bit confusing, but very powerful in what they allow and provide. Recently the Deluxe hosting went from 1500MB (1.5 GB) of Bandwidth per month to Unlimited, which is awesome. (I don’t use much bandwidth, and neither will you, unless you’re streaming movies, or offering several large files for public download consumption). It also gives me 1.5GB of storage. Now, while it’s not “unlimited”, it’s still more than I’ll ever use. And I use a lot. The “average” website will normally use less than 100MB, with 1-2 databases. But the deluxe plans allow me to host multiple sites (multiple domains) on the same plan. So, as I said above, I’ve got about a dozen or more sites, but I don’t have to pay for extra hosting. Just domain purchase and renewals.
I like my GoDaddy setup. FTP works, and had I been more wise at the beginning of it all, I would have requested to have my account set up with SSH access instead of FTP. I can still transfer over to a SSH account, but it means backing up all of my databases and transferring them, which I don’t want to do. So I just live with FTP for now. (If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it).
Hostmonster is great for the price… it’s low, and it’s “unlimited” (fine print says that unlimited is more of a loosely defined “lots”, and they say “within reason”). Though you can hace unlimited storage, bandwidth, subdomains, domains, emails, databases, etc. Price for price, feature for feature, Hostmonster is a better deal than GoDaddy. But I prefer GoDaddy’s backend over Hostmonster’s backend most of the time.
Hostmonster uses the fairly standard cPanel for backend control of features, stats, email, settings, etc. This is nicer for the average user, and is easier to drill down and find the feature or setting you want to change. But I find that it’s not as flexible once you want to make a change. At least with DNS type stuff.
I personally don’t use Hostmonster, but it’s what I recommend for my clients – of course I always give them a choice, and let them have it in their (or their business) name. So I’ve used it a fair amount.
I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Technical Training Professionals for over a year, working on various combined cycle and water treatment plant animations. Not all of the animation that they have in their courses were done by Loklo Media, as they’ve been in business longer than I’ve been producing 3D content – but for mroe than a year now, I have been the exclusive 3D producer.
I get photos, sometimes old models, and at best some PDF drawings showing the vessels, valve trees, etc. I get to reconstruct the scene as close as possible for both overview animation(s) of the whole plant, as well as individual vessel training animations for each stage of the processes. Some of the screenshots I posted from the Radeon vs Firepro post were from one of the water treatment processes.
More of TTP’s products can be found on their website:
I’ve decided to become a mirror for a popular PC technician diagnostic CD image, called Hiren’s Boot CD. It’s an awesome disk, which should be in every geek’s bench. It is bootable, and gives you all sorts of drive, partition, diagnostic, etc type tools, as well as AV scans, testing and more within windows through it’s AutoRun Menu. Check it Out! http://www.hirensbootcd.net/
Loklo Media is also sponsoring the new Lethbridge News website. It’s by the people, for the people, etc type news. If you’re from Lethbridge, you should head over there too.
Ahh… finally. I found a review that gives me what I’ve been looking for for months now. But it’s my own, that I’m creating now. I couldn’t find any hard proof of whether or not the Firepro v4800 (top-entry level) Workstation video card is better or worse than my existing Gigabyte Radeon HD4870.
Unboxing Video:
Fatures-wise, they are similar.
Both with 1GB GDDR5 VRam, both ATI.
Firepro has 2x Display Ports + DVI, Radeon has HDMI + DP + DVI.
MY question was this: in 3DS Max, real world scenario, which is better.
My quick conclusion now – the FirePro, but only marginally.
Here’s the system I was using:
Asus P5N-MX uATX board, 4GB Ram (2x2GB PC2-6400 OCZ), Intel Q6600 Quad OC’d to 2.92GHz
Windows 7 Home Prem x64, dual monitors – Samsung 226BW + Acer x203w – both at 1680×1050. Both With DVI, Samsung (primary) as DVI, the Acer via adapter (HDMI from radeon, DP from FirePro).
3DS Max Design 2010 SP1, running in Direct3D mode (9).
As you can see, the system is nothing short of budget/average for a home workstation.
Test Scene: from a current project… it’s got 1637 Objects, 77 Shapes, 4 omni lights (no shadows), 1 Camera, 95 Helpers (all groups I think). 2,755,615 Faces (1,451,778 verts). Mostly camera animation, texture Offset animation, object visibility track fades in and out. (It’s a technical training animation for a water plant.) Almost all objects have Mental Ray’s A&D material, some are using texture maps, most are non-square images, and not all are shown in the viewport. (How’s that for real-world testing??!!) Using scene lighting, not default. Not using Hardware shading, as it seems slower and less than good/accurate – for either card.
Findings with Radeon HD 4870
Not too bad.
Smooth+Highlights: Slinging it around with an average of two viewports open, sometimes one, usually between 6-16 FPS according to Max’s built-in stats tool.
Wireframe: nigh-unusable
Smooth+highlights+edged faces: nigh unusable (let’s be real… who cares about numbers, right?)
Viewport Transparency: glitchy – in smooth+highlights, which is the only mode I’m almost always in, object visibility seemed almost random. VERY hard to be efficient at animating things that fade in and out, without constantly referring to curve editor/track view.
Viewport Transparency: never tried in edged faces mode, due to performance.
other: Camera object z-buffer seemed to be backwards, always underneath the geometry until the view was nudged, showing the camera briefly (or showing it in Wireframe, which was slow).
Smooth+highlights: about the same as above – which didn’t really surprise me.
Wireframe: holy fast, Batman! Definite driver improvements there, which makes sense. I’ve never seen anyone play a game in wireframe mode. Average about 18-26 FPS
Smooth+Highlights+Edged Faces: A little slower than Smooth+Highlights, but usable.
Viewport Transparency with Smooth+highlights: still glitchy… awww, this isn’t looking good.
Viewport Transparency with Smoth+Highlights+Edged Faces: Now we’re talking! it Looks Accurate! And it’s at a usable, comfortable speed! (around 7-10 fps). This might be my new viewport shading mode of choice.
other: camera object good in all view modes… yay!
Oh, and the Firepro allows me to comfortably use 8xAA also, which I never (recently) bothered to test on the Radeon, for obvious performance issues.
Bottom Line Conclusion: Up to you. I Paid just shy of $200 CAD for my card with shipping and GST (tax in Canada). If it means not screwing up timing of visibility tracks, and the ability to select the camera a fraction of a second quicker, then it’s worth it to upgrade. If you’re building a new system, and don’t have the extra cash for anything higher up, then it’s a great choice.
How does it compare to newer ATI 5XXX series? New GTX 4XX series? I don’t know. If someone gave me these cards to test them back and forth, I’d do it. Hopefully this comparison/review gives enough real world data to bridge the gap between gaming vs. workstation.
Cheers!
Update: It seems This page gets some traffic from people looking to get the 4800 for Blender. It does work very well with Blender – I can’t complain. But I never complained before… Blender’s viewport is stunning (speed-wise) compared to Max, for the most part. High multi-res still slows down, even with 2.53 and the v4800 – with VBOs turned on. But in sculpt mode, it’s faaast. Exit back to object mode, and it’s slow. I didn’t do any real comparison between the radeon and Firepro for Blender – sorry. But, from what I can tell, you can stick with a decent or better gaming card to save some cash.
Loklo Media is a small business which provides Web Design and 3D Animation services. This Blog is a way to give back to the community and customers. Feel Free To Read and Subscribe or Bookmark so that you get all the latest and greatest!
