Why use a G4?

[hoffman2k]

How long before you can hook up to processor of a pc to use with a mac or vice versa?

Not going to happen. The day Apple port their OS to x86 is the day they go out of business - and also the day OSX stops working as well as it does now.

-Paws

I'm more talking about being able to use the raw processing power of another machine instead of porting the OS.
Like is possible now with macs and logic 7.

[Mbazzy]

Think Hoffmann has a point there , with the advent of Gigabyte Ethernet in the mainstream , I think the hurdles for distributed processing have been lowered in the audiofield ... maybe not crossplatform yet , but surely in the pipeline ... maybe this is something where the OpenSource movement could chip in for us, audiopeople as Linux/FreeBSD already is used very extensively in eg. rendering farms for CGI applications.

With MacOSX as a kindred OS to the other POSIX compliant OS some nice things might be in the not so far future ....

[Mbazzy]

Btw, there hasn't been too much speculating about the new Sony/Toshiba/IBM "Cell CPU" in the audio field . I've accidently tripped over a few articles , including this extensive analysis (I can't vouch for the quality though ) ... it did make me wonder if the 'G5' powerbook 'delay' , might have something to do with this ? The author does make some interesting points regarding G5/Mac OSX/Cell compatability ... http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell1.html

[Jalope]

I've never understood why mac's garner just a poultry 2% of the market. If it's such a great machine why doesn't it have at least twice that? Can it really just be about cost? Or are Apple happy with there 2%? Their actions tell me that this isn't so, or perhaps they're just trying to maintain their market share.

[3phase]

mac g4 + osx = slower but stable

p4 + winxp = faster but unstable

This isn't really true. XP can be perfectly stable, as I'm sure plenty of people here will attest.

And it's not OSX that's slow (I think you'll find it's rather efficient, actually), it's Live on OSX.

-Paws

stability is relativ... Is one crash the day stable? I am on a mac...
And where comes unstability from? Is it a single applikation? Rewiring two? The audio or midi drivers? the OS? All together?
Stable is something different for me...especially when its not so easy to find the source of problems because there are to many that interact..
I wouldnt state the PC platform more unstable as the the mac platform..this is history..it maybe was like that in the late 90´s
I am back to OS 9...its more fun... At least wright now

Sven

[invol]

Its funny that this discussion is about as common as water in the oceans. I've been using Apple computers since 1982 and am totally biased in favor of Macs. That said, if you are new to this discussion or never had a Mac, then consider this.

In 2005 performance in terms of raw power between a decent PC and a Mac are not that different (given any number of variables). The main difference is preference and what you are comfortable with. But here's the kicker. If you buy a Mac, you WILL be more likely to spend time focusing on your creativity. If you use Windows, there is a much higher percentage chance that you will have longer downtime if you have a problem. With newer PCs, when everything is working they function great, but run into a problem and see you next week unless you're a Windows geek.

The whole argument about cheaper is pretty much void at this point if you are looking at performance. To get an preconfigured "Audio PC" you're going to spend as much as a G5.

Also, I teach audio at a college in NYC using G4 towers/OS X. Most of my (primarily lower income) students come to the program as either low end PC users or not having a computer at all. When they leave the program they almost all buy a Mac.

Have fun!

[dave999z]

I am a MAC fan. I use MACs. But Apple and OS X do frustrate me.

When I was using Cubase version 4 on OS 9 on a 350MHZ G3, I could have 8 audio tracks, probably 5 VSTi tracks, and VST effects loaded up too without choking.

On a 1 GHZ G4 running Panther and Live, or Logic, etc. (take your pick), I can't come close to that.

The processors, bus, drives, etc., all get faster, as the OS has become a bloated piece of crap. I love the GUI in OS X, but have you ever looked at how many processes are running just by booting up and idling? And there's not much you can do (akin to disabling extensions in OS 9) to optimize things. It's an amazing OS. But it's designed to do everything, which is wonderful for for people who do email, design, internet, word processing, etc. simultaneously on one machine. But all that bloated code results in pretty unimpressive performance for audio apps. Seriously, I hardly have more functionality now than 5 years ago in OS 9. More complete, better developed versions of apps, certainly. But raw power is pretty pathetic... the achievements in chip design cannot pick up the slack for OS and apps that constantly demand more power to do the same damn things they could do before on less power.

Can't compare it to windows because I don't use windows.

Just my thoughts.

Dave

[Angstrom]

OS has become a bloated piece of crap ..snip .. Can't compare it to windows because I don't use windows.

wow, because Windows is like a totally sleek cut down OS !

* searches for sarcasm emoticon *

I have 33 processes currently running on this XP machine, I am forever hunting them down and killing them !

[Machinesworking]

Just for the record a coder for NI stated that the performance hit for OSX VS OS9 is about 10%. Most of the piggishness comes from the software itself. Logic 7, Live 4, SX, plug ins in general have all grown into these huge monsters, the extra CPU in modern PC's and macs is being used for new features.
I loved running DP 2.7.2 and tons of old plug ins in OS9, but realistically Reactor and Logic + Space Designer, or Live 4 and BFD are just better sounding. It's the price you pay, that's all.

On that line though, if I use the lean plug ins, I notice the difference in CPU hit for sure, it's just that it gets tempting to run 10 instances of Reactor with a convolution reverb on each track.

Also, the biggest CPU pig I've noticed on the powerbook is the airport card, it's easily turned off.......

[Vercengetorex]

I am a MAC fan. I use MACs. But Apple and OS X do frustrate me.

When I was using Cubase version 4 on OS 9 on a 350MHZ G3, I could have 8 audio tracks, probably 5 VSTi tracks, and VST effects loaded up too without choking.

On a 1 GHZ G4 running Panther and Live, or Logic, etc. (take your pick), I can't come close to that.

My friend, if that is trully the case, I would begin investigating what is eating your processes, because frankly those figures are not normal. You should be able to easily acheive the equivalent of what you described above on your G4 in Logic, and probably even in Live (that will depend more on what VST(i)'s or Audio Units we are talking about)

[Pitch Black]

Anyone want to start an OS9 anarchist cabal wih me?

Running 2 first generation Tibook 500's here. One has a screen that is pink (call me Mr External Monitor), the other has a blown FW port due to an original Apple design flaw (Kids, DON"T hot-swap a bus-powered FW drive on a rev1 Tibook)

BUT, DAMN!! are they slick, slimmed down, stable as hell and fast enough for me.



(B4 y'all start flaming, I DO have Panther patitions on 'em too)

-p

[dave999z]

My friend, if that is trully the case, I would begin investigating what is eating your processes, because frankly those figures are not normal.

The thing is (someone made this point)... you can't really compare, because the instruments and effects ARE better. I know that. I know I have better effects algorithms and more complicated VSTi processing going on. It just seems to me that the increasing demands the software and OS make on the processor are outpacing both the increases in functionality and certainly the increases in processor capability. I don't claim I made and scientific or statistically significant comparison. But I have the sense I've spent much money but can only do a little more than 4-5 years ago. A lot of times we are forced to upgrade hardware, os, and software just to maintain compatibility (and it happens incrementally, which is why it's hard to refrain).

Dave

[Sandor Vennink]

The reason that Macs appear more secure than PCs are simply that virusproducers can't be bothered to write virii to attack Macs since to few people use them.

thats absolutely not true.....

before the release of panther, 12 high end prgrammers spent 8 weeks in stockholm attacking darwin until they coulnt be bothered anymore....not becasue they market share is 5-6%, but because they had exhausted all ideas....

sorry but no virii will attack it successfully....

the only problems i have ever had on osx since panther was with microsoft products i.e entourage...a little ironic dont you think

LOL.. omg c'mon man..

8 weeks? lol

Dude, they've had more than a decade for windows (and not just 12 guys..no my friend, millions)!! 8 weeks he says.. omg.. Now how are they supose to make something in 8 weeks? Think man..

My point being;

do NOT compare security of both OSes. You just can't because compared to Windows nobody is using OSX and OSX is far less compatible with other software.

Your nice mobile phone will get virusses too soon..why? Everybody has one.. Simpel as that so lets drop the security issue allready..

[onnomon]

do NOT compare security of both OSes. You just can't because compared to Windows nobody is using OSX and OSX is far less compatible with other software.

That's not really true. Since the OsX is based an open source unix-based kernel, and all the accompanying utilities, including the GCC compilers, it is MORE standardized than windows. I can get on any OsX machine and access any unix machine on the network (using ssh, rlogin, telnet,...) using the command shell, or the X-windows server, that comes with every mac. And let it be known that there are far more unix-based servers out there than windows. The X-windows architectural concept is far beyond microsoft's conceptualization. My system is rock-solid. While Logic and Live might bite the bullet, OsX hasn't. I admit there does seem to be a throughput mismatch between the G4's and similar generation intel/amd cpus. This is judged by real-world tests that have been conducted by Live users in this forum. Sidenote: My suspicion is a problem with the disk caching on the OsX side, either the kernel can't handle Live, or Live doesn't properly exploit the kernel. I believe Ableton should just implement their own application-level caching. This would remove the real need for the RAM button and we could get performance closer to that of Logic.

CoreAudio, being integrated into the lower-levels of the OS, allows a more seemless integration with applications, not just audio ones.

Now, add on top of this, that about decade ago I was a hard-core MSDOS developer. When it dawned on me, as a programmer, that microsoft picks and chooses which features they wish to document I realized how much of a puppet on a string I was. BTW: this was one of the issues they got sued over, because they were building secret API's into windows to allow their other microsoft applications to have special access. At that point I gave up any energy devoted to learning the reams of documentation required to program the windows API. I don't want microsoft programming my brain-cells. Yes, Apple does have their own reams of programming documentation, but they also use more standardized schemes built by the Open Software Foundation community. Yes, this is a more personal reason, but someone would probably find this amusing anyway.

Oh yeah...macs look cool, except that i've already defaced the backlit apple logo on my powerbook backside screen, a little.

To each their own, both provide powerful platforms to make top-notch music and sounds. your choice.

-dz

[Jalope]

But here's the kicker. If you buy a Mac, you WILL be more likely to spend time focusing on your creativity. If you use Windows, there is a much higher percentage chance that you will have longer downtime if you have a problem. With newer PCs, when everything is working they function great, but run into a problem and see you next week unless you're a Windows geek.

The whole argument about cheaper is pretty much void at this point if you are looking at performance. To get an preconfigured "Audio PC" you're going to spend as much as a G5.

This is such nonsense...