[ccp4bb]: Re: [cnsbb] OSX: a great Linux alternative. But Stereo?

[Juergen Bosch <jbosch@biochem.mpg.de>]

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Sorry folks,

I have to add some more lines to this topic *g*


1) Dual 800 Problem was mainly based on problems concerning L2 and / 
or L3 Cache which in some case seem to have disappeared by simple 
rebooting the machine (I still would not like to have one of those 
machines, knowing something might be wrong). Others had to change the 
mainboard an the problem was fixed - sure you have a gap of 
approximately 2 - 8 week without your loved Mac - just assuming you 
loved it before the error occurred.

Next, you'll probably face the problem to find one Dual 800 at the 
moment, the actual Dual machine is the Dual 1 Gig (yes also Moto 
managed to break the 1 Gig Hertz borderline), as far as I know no 
problems occurred with these machines. In summer we'll se another 
speedbump to 1.25 Ghz and in autumn or latest beginning of next year 
the G5 will be introduced.

2) concerning Stereo:
Alwyn should have a link I send him almost 6 month ago , I can't find 
it unfortunately.
3d Gamers are the people who could lead to an improvement also for science.


3) 3000+ Native OS X applications you can find for example here:

http://www.osx.hyperjeff.nat/Apps

further useful Link:

http://chemistry.ucsc.edu/~wgscott/crystallography_on_OS_X.html

4) Considering speed, it really depends what you are doing just take 
these few measured times as one of many examples:
This is a Povray 3.1 Example:

The Task was rendering a Quicktime Movie rotating my molecule by 360° 
around an axis 600 x 600 Pixel. Of course with antialiasing, 
lighteffects etc.

The Mac will produce you a finished Qt File, on SGI or Linux, you'll 
first have to write out 360 .tga Files and then convert them with 
e.g. makemovie to a final QT File, which takes another 10 - 15 
minutes (This is not added in the following statistics)

The Mac is a single 867 G4 running with OS 9.22 (still)
Our Linux based System is either a Intel Pentium 3 with 1000 Mhz or 
an AMD with 1300 Mhz both running with SuSe 7.2

And here are some facts: (Maybe I should mention, that Povray is not 
using the Altivec Engine, so for optimized programs you might 
experience a performance boost of a factor of 2 - 4)

AMD@1300     49271 Seconds   136.86 Seconds/frame
G4@867       49446 Seconds   137.35 Seconds/frame
Intel@1000   81345 Seconds   225.96 Seconds/frame

Well I think that's enough for now.

Juergen


Juergen Bosch                                                   Tel 
-49 -89 8578 2648
Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry                           Fax 
-49 -89 8578 2641
Department of Molecular Structural Biology 
bosch@biochem.mpg.de
Am Klopferspitz 18a 
jbosch@biochem.mpg.de
D-82152 Martinsried, Germany