Loklo Media 3D Animation Blog

So I’m trying to determine if I’ve got a real bottleneck somewhere in my system, or if it’s just that I’ve reached the upper performance threshold of what I’m trying to do.  I wish I had an infinite cash flow to allow me to buy more hardware, and the time to test it all – I haven’t been satisfied with results I’ve searched for and found all around the web.

So here’s my current System setup:

• Vista x64 (home prem, sp1)
• Intel q9550 OC’d to 3.2GHz (400×8.0)
• Asus P5Q-Pro motherboard
• 6GB DDR2 pc2-6400 Ram (all Patriot, 2x2GB + 2x1GB) at 1:1
• Main System drive, two partitions:  WDC WD3200AAKS-00B3A0 (320 GB Western Digital)
• Extra Data Drive, one partition: ST3500418AS (500gb Seagate)
• ATI FirePro v4800 1GB “professional” video card (doesn’t require extra power)
• 550W power supply
• OEM DVD burner
• LG 20.5″ screen via DVI
• Acer 20.5″ screen via DVI via DP adapter (x203w)
• basic multimedia keyboard, only for volume buttons
• standard logitech scroll mouse I’ve had forever
• Wacom bamboo Touch tablet, I sometimes use for textures
• Airport Extreme Base Station Gigabit router with 1tb attached drive

It’s a pretty solid system, overall.

Software I use:

• Adobe Photoshop CS
• Sony Vegas Platinum HD 10.0
• Autodesk 3DS Max Design 2010 x64
• Blender (2.49b up to quasi-current SVN/beta builds)
• Firefox 3.6.8 and 4.0beta
• Chrome sometimes
• Safari sometimes
• Internet Explorer (8) sometimes
• Open Office 3.2.1, or current
• Aero on/off, depending on how I feel
• NO sidebar widgets
• Panda Cloud Anti-virus
• Apache server
• Multi-mon which gives me a task bar on the second display
• wizmouse which lets me scroll windows as I hover over them without taking focus (clicking on them)

Overall, I think the firepro is less of a card than my ATI 4870 which I sold.  But the firepro has a couple redeeming features (accurate transparency and really fast wireframe) which makes me keep it for now.

I also think that maybe adding a sound card would help offload some sound processes from the CPU, as I often times have sound loaded in Max for animation timing, etc.

Here are the results from HD Tune on the two drives:

Main "C/L" System Drive, two partitions:

HD Tune Pro: WDC WD3200AAKS-00B3A0 Benchmark

Test capacity: full

Read transfer rate

Transfer Rate Minimum : 18.6 MB/s

Transfer Rate Maximum : 113.3 MB/s

Transfer Rate Average : 85.1 MB/s

Access Time           : 17.9 ms

Burst Rate            : 109.3 MB/s

CPU Usage             : 6.0%

-------------------

Extra "E" Data Drive, One Partition

HD Tune Pro: ST3500418AS Benchmark

Test capacity: full

Read transfer rate

Transfer Rate Minimum : 67.3 MB/s

Transfer Rate Maximum : 133.7 MB/s

Transfer Rate Average : 108.0 MB/s

Access Time           : 14.2 ms

Burst Rate            : 200.2 MB/s

CPU Usage             : 8.7%

I definitely think that the WD drive I’m using for my system drive is a bottleneck.  Or is it because It’s partitioned?  Again, I don’t really have time to do that level of testing – if anyone has comments, feel free to add them!

I won’t be upgrading this computer anytime soon, but will be considering a new build soon – either with a 6-core AMD or 6-core Intel, depending on how the budget pans out.  I’d love to build a 2P system with dual 6-core xeons…

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.

Cheers!

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).

RADEON is FOR SALE

Findings with FirePro v4800

Not Too Bad.

• 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.

So, I’ve taken the plunge, bought an old copy of XP Pro for good price, and decided that It would be worthwhile to have windows portable – so I can transfer my 3ds Max license as needed and work away from my desk once in a while. If it weren’t for Autodesk, I would not be doing this. Trust me.

So – enter the Bootcamp Assistant. I wanted a 21gb partition for Windows, and had 61gb free. But apparently I didn’t have enough contiguous free space available, so I had to settle with 14gb. (Found this out through multiple trial and error, running fsck from single user mode, trying to partition from bootable OS X installer disc, etc etc). So then I found nLite - a slick program to slipstream XP (or Vista), add service packs if needed, and remove unwanted components from XP, to minimize installed disk space. So I took out Outlook Express, all the unneeded languages, drivers, added SP3 (my disc was SP2), took out the games, and unneeded accessories, then burnt the disc again. Installed, and voila. It didn’t save as much room as I was hoping for, but every little bit helps on a 14 gb partition.

So I continued on with the Bootcamp process… It rebooted into the Windows installer (from the Disc), and there I had to reformat the partition again using the windows format, instead of the Mac format (found that out the hard way too… oh if only I read the manual first!). I decided to go with a FAT32 partition, so my files would be accessible from OS X. The rest, is just windows malarkey.

I still am not able to get iSight working in Windows on the MBP… driver won’t install properly. Not sure what to do. Not that it matters…

Yep. A lot.

My renders for my 8100 frame animation are taking a long time. My main quad core workstation motherboard is in the warranty process, leaving me with 2 instead of 3 quads for rendering. And the one that’s down is a little faster, with more ram. So, yeah, I feel it.

Maybe there’s a hexa-core, or octo-core, or dual hexa-core on the way from Santa? What, I can dream, can’t I?