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Will Alias 2015 work w/ new Mac Pro?

17 REPLIES 17
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Message 1 of 18
BillStephens8231
1013 Views, 17 Replies

Will Alias 2015 work w/ new Mac Pro?

Hi - I'm ready to upgrade to the new Mac Pro, but the available graphics cards (Dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of GDDR5 VRAM each) are not on the Alias 2015 Qualified Hardware list.  I know the stock answer is "if it's not on the list, Alias is not guaranteed to work with it" - but the new Macs have been out a while now and I'm wondering if anyone has experience working with Alias on the new machines.

 

Anyone?  Thanks!

 

Bill.

17 REPLIES 17
Message 2 of 18

Hello,

 

just to let all of you know, we are doing right now some internal tests here at Autodesk with the new black Mac, but the tests are not finished yet.

 

Best Regards,

 




Florian Coenen

Message 3 of 18

Thank you, Florian.  Please update this thread, and the 2015 Qualified Hardware charts, when the team has tested the new machine and/or graphics cards, will you?

 

Thanks!

Message 4 of 18

Yes, I will update the thread in order to let you know.

Regards,




Florian Coenen

Message 5 of 18
ravenzep
in reply to: Florian.Coenen

Can't you get  the same mac with NVIDIA ?

Message 6 of 18
djbill69
in reply to: ravenzep

Nope.  Unfortunately as pretty as the new Mac Pro is, it's just unfriendly that way.  It ships with AMD FirePro cards and that's it - you can't spec anything else, and they're not user-accessible to swap out.  Apple tells me it'll only work with those cards.

 

I'm an Apple fan, but this kind of user-unfriendly design is a real step backwards.  As an industrial designer I applaud the new form factor of their flagship machine, but if it's at the expense of real-world productivity, it's just not a successful design.

 

I've run Alias for 15 years on everything from Sun/Unix/O2 toasters to countless Windows machines to Mac Pros - I'd hate to have to switch platforms again because of Apple's choice of form over function.  I've always appreciated Apple for offering both; I hope that doesn't end here.

 

Bill Stephens - studiowestllc.com

 

 

Message 7 of 18
ravenzep
in reply to: djbill69

That s why i will never have a mac.

They are a no go to me, not scalable whatsoever.

They are such great machines, and i would love to have one, but with that lack of scalability, there is absolutely no way. I would like to have one, not for graphics reasons, but because of its audio stuff. Would be great for my DJing stuff and music recording.  They blow away the PCs in that area, with sound card aggregation, etc etc.

I wish you good luck, and hope you end up solving your problem.

 

Regards.

Message 8 of 18

Great Florian. I follow this with great interest. First and foremost the compatibility with the new Mac Pro and its graphic cards, and any other advice/experience in the different options available. Hope for a soon conclusion - and a positive one.

 

 

/Jesper Ståhl

Industrial Designer

www.jesperdesign.se

Message 9 of 18
j-carlton
in reply to: jesperdesign

I will also be following with interest. I was greatly disappointed with 2015 performance on a new Mac Book Pro (running Mavericks, with qualified NVIDIA GPU). I'm not sure what the issue was -- on paper, it should have performed much better.  Fortunately, Apple will take a unit back within 14 days, with no restocking fees.

 

I would consider a new Mac Pro, but after my laptop experience, I'd want to be sure 2015 runs well before buying.  

 

OSX is a superior platform -- returning to the good old days of UNIX without all the SGI BS.  I hope it will be better supported moving forward.

Message 10 of 18
ravenzep
in reply to: j-carlton

Have you tried running Alias on a workstation? That s where it should be run from.

The software wasnt designed for macs in the first place, either, and it hasnt changed much.

I like macs, dont get me wrong, but only for sound and painting. For 3D? Never. Jamais !

These things were not designed having a mac on its mind.

 

 

Message 11 of 18
j-carlton
in reply to: ravenzep

Thx for the post. I can say firsthand, Alias runs very well on an early 2011 Mac Book Pro (Sandy Bridge) with the standard AMD GPU.  

 

Of course, a desktop would have more grunt -- but for me, being portable is important in order to be effective at different client locations/meetings/reviews.  A laptop is a must. I thought I would never go back to a desktop - though one could argue for the portability of the new Mac Pro. It is smaller than I thought it would be, and a stunning piece of industrial design (must be seen in person before judging).

 

Alias was originally written in/for UNIX, which is basically what OSX runs on.  One can even run the tried and true UNIX commands in the OSX terminal window (very cool), though it's not as necessary as it was back in the SGI days. I know nothing about the ins and outs of writing/adapting code for Windows, but I have worked Alias in XP for years, and OSX is much more stable. If I ever go back to windows, it will be kicking and screaming.    

 

The fact is, most large corporate infrastructures support only Windows, which means there is a small percentage of us running Alias on Macs. It is unfortunate, as the Mac OS is far superior IMHO.  I agree the downside is less hardware flexibility, but software manufacturers would only have to optimize to a few standard setups (and not a wide range of options).

 

My recent surprise was how sluggish Alias 2015 ran on a brand new (April 2014), top of line Mac Book Pro. Much slower than on my 2011 laptop.  So, I am very interested to hear reports of others experiences with 2015, on any new Mac plaform.

 

Message 12 of 18

Well, based on some positive hearsay from a couple of sources, I've taken the plunge and ordered the new Mac Pro.  I'm expecting delivery in about two weeks and the first thing I'll do is fire up Alias and see how it goes.  

 

From a horsepower standpoint, it should be outstanding - 8-core 3.0GHz processor, 32GB of 1866MHz memory, dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of VRAM each.  I was told by Alias a few years ago that it's optimized to utilize up to 8 processors, hence the 8-core selection (can anyone confirm that's still the case?)

 

If Alias doesn't play nice with the GPUs then I'll be (dejectedly) returning it, but based on what I've heard this week I'm cautiously optimistic.  With current projects I should be able to give it a thorough test in the first few days.  I'll update this thread either way with my experience.

 

Had my first Mac in the 80s; started using Alias in the late 90's, and after years of other OSs I happily switched to Alias for Mac on the first version that made it possible (v2010?) - and I agree with j-carlton's assessment that it's been a remarkably stable and efficient platform.  I've made my living with this combination for years and wouldn't go back to Windows if you paid me.  

 

In two weeks I'll let you know how it goes.  Fingers crossed...

 

Bill.

www.StudioWestLLC.com

Message 13 of 18
ravenzep
in reply to: BillStephens8231

I like macs, but I have always been reluctant about getting one. Maybe some cultural bug, LOL.

Anyway, just for the record, Alias 2015 is sluggish on my PC too, apparently is not only  on the mac as you mentioned.

Even the paint tools are way slower than the 2014 version. And my  PC has a nvidia titan, 32 GB ram, and a powerful i7 with 8 cores, which should perfectly suffice.

Good luck with your new purchase.


Regards

Message 14 of 18
TheHangman
in reply to: Florian.Coenen

I appreciate the fact that Alias Autostudio 2015 certified AMD Firepro M6100 now... as Automotive 2014 did not. 

and so far I did not experience problem with speed, but I few crashes about importing IGES or STEP. 

 

Just for reference of my hardware it is:

 

I7 4900mq. 

AMD Firepro M6100.

32GB.

500 Hybrid HD

256 SSD

 

If this solved your issue please mark this posting "Accept as Solution". Or if you like something that was said and it was helpful, Kudoskudos.PNG are appreciated. Thanks!!!! Smiley Happy
Message 15 of 18

Bill, Have you tried your new Mac Pro desktop yet?  

 

I am anxiously awaiting your impressions of how well Alias runs on it.  Specifically looking for hardware shade performance with large wire files (over 150mb), and hopefully a lack of bugs. Considering the specs and price, I would expect it to be very fast at manipulating large shaded models with anti aliasing active.  Surprisingly, this was not my experience demo-ing Alias 2015 on a new Mac Book Pro (spring 2014 model, with NVIDIA GPU).

 

j

Message 16 of 18

 

Success!

 

I received the new machine last week and have put it through a heavy work cycle, and can say that Alias 2015 works well with the new hardware.  At least it has for me, so far.  Knock on wood.

 

For comparison I did a series of test renders on both my old and new machines.  The "old" is a mid 2010 Mac Pro, 2x2.93 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon (so, 12 cores), 32GB 1333 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 5870 card w/ 1024MB VRAM.  The new is an 8-core 3.0GHz processor, 32GB of 1866MHz memory, dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of VRAM each.

 

Render 1 (see attached file White3 below this reply), 5:38 old, 4:10 new (26% faster)

Render 2 (2 views simultaneously), 10:12 old, 7:03 new (31% faster)

Render 3 (3 views simultaneously), 6:01 old, 4:23 new (27% faster)

 

This works for me.  Call it 30% faster renders, times sometimes 20 renders a day = more sleep, less staring at progress bars.  Win.

 

It's not all good news though - and I can't figure this one out.  I also did some comparitive Compute Ambient Occlusion tests, and the new machine somehow performed slower (?).  Test 1 (detail = 4.0, smoothness = 400) went 2:10 old, 2:26 new (20% slower).  Test 2 (same settings, different file) went 1:29 old, 2:04 new (39% slower).  I don't know why.  

 

J-Carlton, I pulled up my largest wire file (130MB) with hardware shade and anti-alias, and am able to spin it freely - it performs excellently in this regard. Screenshot below.  On previous machines I'd never shade heavy components like derailleurs due to sluggish performance, but I'm free to do so now.

 

The computer itself is completely silent (eerily so) and emits a subtle but steady warm draft up out of the top.  It boots up nearly instantly.  It's gorgeous but for the cabling - it's got an unfortunate tangle of wires hanging off one side that's just depressing.  The lack of a second internal hard drive option necessitates a backup drive hanging off it, plus two monitors, two printers, Wacom tablet, power, and audio system cables combine to ruin an otherwise beautiful view.  Someday, when everything's wireless, we'll look back on this time with wonderment at the corded mess behind all of our machines.  I say this being old enough to remember cabled TV remotes.  Let's cut the cords, already, Cupertino.

 

I'll keep hammering the software and will post here if I find any bugs.  The only (very minor) issue so far is I've had it hang on exit a couple times - the window stayed up after exiting the program - hitting the Esc key made it disappear.

 

Otherwise it's two thumbs up from me.

 

Regards,

 

Bill.

www.studiowestllc.com

Message 17 of 18

Hey Bill 

 

Nice to hear your feedback... although I really think that AMD Firepro is succeeding with this range of graphic cards...

 

I guess Alias should improve a bit more in term of visualization tools as I find it funny that sometimes the hardware shades apply very fast and somethimes the exactly the same model and shades takes forever. 

 

I also have open a discussion about VISUALIZATION topic: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Alias-General/ALIAS-VISUALIZATION/td-p/5049154 

 

By the way I love the bikes designed on you link... they are awesome... 

 

Cheers

If this solved your issue please mark this posting "Accept as Solution". Or if you like something that was said and it was helpful, Kudoskudos.PNG are appreciated. Thanks!!!! Smiley Happy
Message 18 of 18
ravenzep
in reply to: TheHangman

Autodesk has a specific Vizualization tool, which is VRED. Personally, regarding VIZ, I think alias is fine as it is. Yes, could be better, but as it stands i think is pretty cool enough. When "hardcore" viz comes into play, i think VRED is there for the job 🙂 .

 

Nice to hear alias 2015 works well with the new macs. Congrats.

 

Have fun, mac boys 🙂

 

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