#Upgrading System for NT?
29 messages in this thread
Hi Everyone,
I want to upgrade my system to be able to run 3DS Max. Does anyone have any
suggestions?
I currently run 3DS 3 via DOS on a 486DX2-66 with 16MEGS of Ram. I have a 340
MEG hard drive with only 70 MEGS of free space. I am also using a Viper Card
with 2 Megs of VRAM.
I have been using this system to learn 3DS. I would like to be able to use
this system to produce some small jobs rendering/animation jobs as well. I do
not want to upgrade to a Pentium. I want to stay with the same processor for
now.
Does anyone have any recommendations on RAM, hard drives, video cards, etc. I
would like to spend no more than $1500 total for the upgrades <including the
price of NT>
Thanks
Chris
Chris,
Go back and retrieve some the old messages (last two weeks) and look at the
discussions we have been having on OpenGL, SGI Indigos, MAX, Multi-processor
boards, etc.
I think a lot of people are gearing up for MAX in a big way. I looking for
either a DEC Alpha or dual or quad Pentium 150s or 180s. I gotta! I'm
generating 3000-7000 frames a week. I tired of waiting on rendering! Plus I
gotta get an OpenGL card set, about $1500-3000.
Anyway, 32mb RAM is going to be the minimum. And I would put most of your money
in processor speed. Thats the key. I have a brand new Pentium 90 motherboard in
the box with processor I'll sell you for $450 with warranty. (I do hardware on
the side). Get at least a low-end GLint video card to take advantage of the
OpenGL support from NT. This will help allow realtime previews at a decent
speed (like 30fps).
To give you an idea what I use for Release 4 here's my hardware:
Pentium 100, 64MB ram (soon to go to 128), 4 gig Micropolis drive, ATI 4mb
Mach64 card, PAR board with 1.7 gig drive(soon to be doubled), TBC/IV board,
Microtek Scanmaker 3, Turtle Beach Monterey sound card, Full blown Fast machine
editing suite with 4 frame accurate VTRs. And a network of PCs hooked onto the
company HP9000 UNIX box for rendering at night.
Sorry you feel that way about the Pentium, the prices have really dropped. I
paid over $750 for our 90 boards. I just want to move them now. The Pentiums
have been a life saver!
Send me your thoughts. Bye!
Chris, I think you have pretty much answered your own question, here.
Since you have stated that you:
A) …would like to use this system to produce small rendering/animation jobs,
and
B)…want to stay with the same (486) processor…
I think your way is pretty clear.
3DS MAX is going to be geared toward the higher(est) end of PC 3D animation. It
will demand the very latest in processor power and speed as well as
considerable RAM requirements. I think you should forget about upgrading to MAX
for now, and concentrate on making your present machine a much more
professional 3DS Classic system (which will still be a very good 3D system for
some time to come) by adding RAM and hard disk space. 16 Mbs is really not
enough, even for Classic, to do much in the way of detailed scenes.
When you are ready to do more complicated, larger animations, and are ready to
go to a Pentium (or whatever high-end PC CPU may be supported at the time) and
>64MB RAM, MAX will be there waiting for you!
Hope this helps, and best of luck,
-Alan
Hi Alan,
As I mentioned in my post, I mainly want to use my personal current 486 system
for learning 3DS and for small jobs. I definitely want to increase my RAM from
16 to 32. I'm not sure how to go with the hard drive? I have been thinking
about getting a 1Meg IDE drive. Are there some fast drives out there
($400-600) that are recommended for 3DS?
I've currently got a Viper video card. I've read in some magazines about a
video capture board. I am not sure what that is? Maybe I should just hold off
thinking about that until I know I NEED one. <g>
Basically, what I want to do is learn 3DS really well on my own, produce some
small jobs, and put together a demo tape. Then, hopefully I will find an
employer who will foot the bill on a bigger system. That's my goal anyway.
Thanks,
Chris
Hi Chris,
Your 486 with 32MB should be fine for learning and doing jobs with 3DS Classic.
The size of hard drive you need depends largely on how many maps you'll want to
keep on hand and what kind of animations you intend to create and store.
Full-frame .TGAs can really add up (around a MB a piece) and Flics can get
really big too sometimes.
I'd just add the RAM and then get the largest/fastest HD you can afford. One
thing I've learned in this business: you can never have too much HD space!
Video capture can be a great thing for 3D artists. You can use a standard
camcorder to "grab" stills (and sometimes moving video) directly into the
computer. There's nothing like using it to make your own custom maps out of
materials you find. Gives your work an original touch, I think. I think there
is a fairly inexpensive and quite decent unit that will grab frames thru your
parallel port called snappy<?>. Maybe it'll do for you. Perhaps someone else
here can elaborate, as I'm not real familiar with this unit.
I think your plan sounds great! It's pretty much the way I went about getting
into this business. If there's a piece of 3D software that'll let you follow
your dreams like this, it's 3DS!
Best of luck,
-Alan
<…running NT on 486…>
I was running NT on a 486 50 with 32 Mb RAM and the biggest bottleneck I
encountered was poor video performance. I had a 1 Mb ISA card, and it just
crawled. You should probably have AT LEAST a 2 Mb card.
Studio ran pretty good, and with 32 Mb I was usually OK memory-wise. It taught
me to be economical with my maps.
If you are serious about 3D, you will also need a flatbed scanner. I use mine
all the time. I feel that a scanner is even more important than a video
capture card (of course, I've never used a capture card, so…). You can pick
up an very useful scanner for around $500 – $600.
You'll also need a good book. Watching that "rendering in progress" can get
pretty boring after a while.
John Hostick
DDV
>You'll also need a good book. Watching that "rendering in progress" can get
pretty boring after a while. <
or a cot! <g>
JNJ
Hi Chris,
it is realy easy:
Wait until 3DS MAX is available. At this time, most components are cheaper.
Yost Group said something about January or first quartal in 96. Why break down
your brain now?
Of course, a little more ram makes wonder… 😉
Greeting
Claus Diekmann
Hi Claus,
<< Yost Group said something about January or first quartal in 96. >>
Yost said "sometime this winter" .
>..under $1,500<
That would be very hard to do for NT. Your estimate would have to double to
quadruple to get the performance.
Whatever you do, don't get those cheap-frills E-IDE hd. They're not alway
compatible with NT since it hates drive more than 1 Gb. Trust me, I have many
collegues have this problem and they wish that they don't buy those cheap
stuffs in the first place.
32 Mb RAM is ok. I have both Workstation and Server. The Server Requires a more
than 12 Mb. Workstation is pretty forgiving on the minimium.
– TSL
Chris
I agree with Claus (Msg #287). Wait till "Max" comes out, and get your
best-deal system then. Your current 486 is ok for learning 3DS "Classic" and
even scraping by with NT 3.51 ( Back up your system, make a NTFS partition, run
Photoshop under NT on it, and learn those ropes – you'll be "converted"). Just
prepare to spend some dough when you really want to have a functional, high
performance NT system.
Phil Aro
>> make a NTFS partition <<
Can this be a logical partition (say 500mb extended) on a drive (like a 1.2
gig IDE physical size) that was fdisk'ed w/ DOS (mine are all fdisk'ed w/ Win95
now) or does it need to be a whole physical drive unto itself and fdisk'ed w/
NT?
And, while were at it, just what would one put on this drive? Just the NT/OS
or the apps too?
(sorry if my q's sound waydumb'n'dumber…)
– ej
Ernie:
>> Can this be a logical partition (say 500mb extended) on a drive…
Yes, it could. Or a separate drive. However, our last four NT installs here,
we just installed it in the Windoze 3.1 directory (which is what NT defaults
to, anyway) and everything works just fine, both new and old operating systems.
Greg Pyros
>>> Can this be a logical partition (say 500mb extended) on a drive…
Yes, it could. Or a separate drive. However, our last four NT installs here,
we just installed it in the Windoze 3.1 directory (which is what NT defaults
to, anyway) and everything works just fine, both new and old operating systems.
<<
But wait… We were talking about installing the NTFS. If you make a drive
NTFS then _ONLY_ NT can read that drive from then on, right?
BTW, thanks for the input! I'm planning on getting NT w/in a few weeks so am
boneing up on the specifics.
– ej
Ernie:
>> We were talking about installing the NTFS. If you make a drive NTFS
>> then _ONLY_ NT can read that drive from then on, right?
Correct, but I would recommend not creating an NTFS partition until all is
working smoothly and you don't need to access through DOS.
For example, you have a C: drive as DOS and D: as NTFS. The D: drive crashes.
Well, you can't restore NT on NTFS without having NT running! If you kept it
DOS, you could boot off a floppy or whatever and restore from a DOS tape.
Ever try to boot NT off a floppy? :^)
Greg Pyros
>> Ever try to boot NT off a floppy? <<
This might call for a ZIP drive!
– ej
NT boots fine from the first installation disk, Greg!<g,d,&r)
Seriously, I'm keeping my NT system all NT by creating a seperate NTFS
partition and installing all NT-oriented software in it. I know it's *supposed*
to work the other way, but I've heard some horror stories about dll's tripping
over each other if you try to run the same apps in 3.11 and NT from the same
directories, especially if the app is designed for both OS's and has different
dll's to deal with depending on which OS is running. And NT's disk access is
much faster with NTFS.
Granted, if there is a problem with the NTFS partition, you need to re-install
the OS (or you might get away with the Repair Disk!), but since NT supports the
Exabyte 8505 (and other SCSI backup devices) natively, you can easily restore
all apps, configurations, and data.
I suspect there's no single right answer here, but I just wanted folks to know
that there's more than one way go about this stuff. Your point about doing it
your way until things settle down is well-taken. It should be interesting to
see how both configurations work out.
What really kills me is, besides games, the only program I use that I still
need DOS for is 3DS!<g>
-Alan
I'm taking the same approach WRT installing NT on it's own NTFS partition w/
native apps. Have you tried the NT Backup program with your Exabyte?
I did the other day, and I really like it. It will back-up and verify multiple
partitions with just a few mouse clicks. Very nice! I backed-up C (FAT) and D
(NTFS) and verified both all by itself. Ok, Ok, I know that most backup apps
can do this, but I was impressed with the speed and fluency of the NT Backup,
especially considering it's an app that comes with the OS for free.
Funny thing, every time I use my 8505xl, I relish in the realization of what a
great investment it is.
— James — Choreo Motion —
Yup, totally agreed, James. The NT backup works flawlessly here.
Since NT sees the *whole* thing, NTFS and DOS/FAT, this is a viable solution
because of the very decent backup support in NT. A killer piece of hardware
like the 8505 doesn't hurt!
But I totally understand Greg's reasoning as well. We're all in this together
and we'll all learn together. There's pros and cons to all of these solutions.
And much depends on the way the particular system is being used, and how it
will be used during the transition period. Until we're all totally NT (could be
a while!) we'll just have to hang tough and do our best to make the transition
as painless as possible. Sharing information like this can only help everyone
here.
And this forum is a great place to do it!
-Alan
> But I totally understand Greg's reasoning as well. <
True. We need someone out in left field to test the envelope. (Just kidding,
Greg!!) <gd&r>
— James — Choreo Motion —
James:
>> True. We need someone out in left field to test the envelope.
>> (Just kidding, Greg!!)
That's left coast, not left field; how many times do I have to remind you? :^)
Greg Pyros
>Ok, Ok, I know that most backup apps can do this, but I was impressed with the
speed and fluency of the NT Backup, especially considering it's an app that
comes with the OS for free.<
The NT Backup is nice, it is a scaled down version of Arcada Backup. Adaptec
ships a version with the EZ-SCSI software that works under Windows 3.1. NT
Backup doesn't store catalogs on disk, so you have to read them off the tape
each time. The full Arcada has many more features, but it is around $300. There
is a 30day evaluation version on the Arcada WWW homepage.
> it is a scaled down version of Arcada Backup. There is a 30day evaluation
version on the Arcada WWW homepage. <
Thanks for this tidbit. If I decide to get fancy with my backups, I'll have to
look into this! I have to admit, though, that the scaled down version has
about everything I need. I'm quite impressed with it.
— James — Choreo Motion —
Tim:
>> The NT Backup is nice, it is a scaled down version of Arcada Backup.
>> Adaptec ships a version with the EZ-SCSI software that works under
>> Windows 3.1.
Interesting – do you know if the NT Backup and EZ-SCSI WIN 3.1 versions can
interchange tapes? That would be great to hear!
Greg Pyros
>> The NT Backup is nice, it is a scaled down version of Arcada Backup.
>> Adaptec ships a version with the EZ-SCSI software that works under
>> Windows 3.1.
>Interesting – do you know if the NT Backup and EZ-SCSI WIN 3.1 versions can
interchange
>tapes? That would be great to hear!
Yes you can. I have several tapes of stuff I made Win3.1 that I use under NT
Backup. You can also append info to the tapes. It looks identical to NT Backup.
The problem is NT Backup does not save the catalogs, so you have to catalog the
tape before you can use it. With my HP C1533a DAT it doesn't take more than a
few minutes. The full Arcada Backup saves catalogs and can backup servers over
the net, supports autoloaders, schedules jobs, security, net monitoring, etc.
James,
How's the whole NT thing going for you? I've had a couple of small snags but
everything is going smoothly. I'm glad to hear that the 8505 is supported and
works well. I am heavily considering getting one in the near future.
BTW, do you know if TapeDisk works with NT?
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
> How's the whole NT thing going for you? <
So good it's almost scary! I haven't had one single problem. I recently
innstalled the W95 beta shell and I'm having fun with it. It reminds me so
much of OS/2 in many respects, except that NT has more serious support from
software developers. Very exciting!
> I am heavily considering getting [8505] in the near future. <
I went with an external unit. All I can say is that anyone who is serious
about animation in a production environment _cannot_ go wrong with an 8505.
It pays for itself very quickly.
> BTW, do you know if TapeDisk works with NT? <
I haven't been in contact with the folks at TapeDisk for a few months. Last I
heard they were hard at work on an NT version of TapeDisk. It's my guess that
NT's security makes such an application difficult to implement. So they have
their work cut out for them. As for running the DOS version of TapeDisk under
NT, I haven't tried it.
Even if it worked, only DOS applications running in the same session as
TapeDisk would have acces to it. Since 3DS is what I mostly use with TD, and
since 3DS Classic doesn't run under NT, I really have no reason (yet) to run
TapeDisk under NT.
3DS MAX & TapeDisk NT will be as good or better duo than Classic & TD Dos. I
can hardly wait!
— James — Choreo Motion —
James,
>All I can say is that anyone who is serious about animation in a production
environment _cannot_ go wrong with an 8505. It pays for itself very quickly.<
This is an Exabyte drive, correct? Do you use it for uncompressed layoffs to
an Abekas, or just for backups? Is this the hardware compressed 2GB version?
>Tape Disk
I've heard this mentioned before, and know that it makes the tape look like a
drive, do you render to it?
JNJ
James,
Thanks for the info. I am glad to hear that NT is working so well for you.
After a bit of work I have everything running smoothly again, but I still can
not get Netscape to work. I have the RAS setup correctly and I can logon to
cserve no problem, but Netscape just says… the server does not have a DNS
entry. If you have gotten this to work, let me know your secrets…<g> I
tried the NT forum but I have left 3 messages in a week with no response.
Thanks again,
Andrew