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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

New Mac Pro Announced at WWDC! - It's OFFICIAL!

Jeff Kilgroe said:
Bruce, I see your points loud and clear, but I think your examples are blown out of proportion. When you mention NR, I hope you're not talking about NR in Resolve. Who uses that anyway?
Click to expand...

Haha, +9 billion :)

I was more imagining GPU-accelerated Neat Video (it already supports CUDA and OpenCL I think) running in Resolve 10+ via OpenFX!

Also how about other things like:
  • tone mapping (not overdone HDR-style but subtle) to optimize local contrast, etc.
  • better lens blurs (http://www.cs.ubc.ca/labs/imager/tr/2012/PolynomialOptics/) and lens flares (http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/resources/lensflareRendering/).
  • lens aberration correction? to take the distortion and CA out of the image before grading grade, then add it back in to taste.
  • better deconvolution for improved deblurring?
  • better color science tools not just a 3D LUT but you input the spectral characteristics of your lights (that you either estimate as tungsten or whatever, or read on set with an iPhone / Android-based spectrometer), your sensor and objects (human skin, say)... THEN we'd stand a chance at really getting a "film look" :)
  • optical flow motion blur / retiming
  • stereo disparity creative adjustment

That stuff is super exciting to me (and maybe REDUSERs in general if presented in a user-friendly manner).

I'd imagine that a couple of 2014/15-era GPUs could manage it in 4K. Three Titan 2's? How about it?

Jeff Kilgroe said:
The next version should have newer and better GPUs, more storage and will have HDMI 2.0 and some bug fixes.
Click to expand...

Yes! I might even buy the next version if the price / performance is there. And hey... HDMI 2.0 for 4K 60fps? 48fps 4K stereo?

I just can't help thinking that Apple knows this: which is part of why they decided NOT to make the GPU's easily upgradeable :) It must be my paranoid fear of built-in obsolescence. EG I buy a Mac Pro. Then I buy expensive Thunderbolt doodads to replace the PCIe doodads. Then I find an awesome GPU-accelerated plugin... and oh damn it, those Mac Pro GPUs are too slow. But that's OK... just buy the next model!

This blow is lessened by the fact that Macs usually have good resale - so you can always sell the old one. Plus, of course, the wealth of discounted software Apple gives you to run on it.

I do agree that in 5+ years GPUs will get so powerful you'll want them really close to main memory anyway. So the Mac Pro design is good from a long term perspective. Heck... gimme GPU, CPU and RAM on each side of the triangle :)

But yes: just vehemently, utterly opposed to buying version 1 for myself due to GPU. That's all! Thanks for patiently listening :)

Jeff Kilgroe said:
So yeah, I hear you in regards to the GPUs. But as always with Apple systems, if you need superior GPU power, you just have to look elsewhere. Nothing new here. I'm thankful they're actually giving us dual GPUs as a stock configuration. And not just for the purpose of attaching more displays -- actually for serious work. This is a big step for Apple. Most users, regardless of industry, are not going to miss the PCIe slots. Or at least not anywhere near as much as they think they will. People who will feel it most are those who are planning to replace a current Mac Pro with this new one, keeping existing hardware inside it or attached to it, instead of brining in the new one as its own entity and building from there.
Click to expand...

Totally agree again!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Bruce Allen said:
Some of us are interested in 48fps 4K stereo though... or 60fps 4K.
60fps 4K would be a pretty good way to show off Dragon, IMHO.
Click to expand...

Why stop there? Why not 120fps?!? Why not 120fps in 3D?!? :mad2:

Less then year ago 4K RT workflow was the stuff of dreams for all but few fortunate ones. Same goes for 4K display technology...
Get real Bruce, no offense. Finally it looks like there will be a reasonably priced turnkey system specifically designed for 4K workflows and you are going to pick on it because it can't do everything we can possibly throw at it? I don't know of anyone who is expecting these kind of filters (NR, tone-mapping, etc...) to happen in RT. Certainly not in 4K. You can build a PC monster with 666 GPU's, TB's of RAM and what not - and there will still be some kind of filter combination that will require it to render. So what? There will always be something better and more powerful around the corner. You can keep waiting and dreaming all you want. Some of us here have realistic expectations and can make the best out of the gear we can get. Get ROI ASAP and upgrade. Rinse, dry and repeat...

Just like some other folks here, I used to think high of you Bruce until this recent outburst. The issue is not much about asking (which is perfectly fine), but rather (as I have pointed out before) you making unwarranted assumptions and make rather negative and aggressive comments based on that, making it clear to everyone else that you have already made up your mind. This is a perfect example of what I mean...:

Bruce Allen said:
I just can't help thinking that Apple knows this: which is part of why they decided NOT to make the GPU's easily upgradeable
Click to expand...

How the hell do you know that and can state it like that, as a fact?!? The machine is not yet out and still very little is know about its upgradability, customizability and pricing structure...

I seems that neither me nor anyone else here can get this through to you...

Good luck mate...

:sifone: Peter
 
Peter Majtan said:
How the hell do you know that and can state it like that, as a fact?!? The machine is not yet out and still very little is know about its upgradability, customizability and pricing structure...
Click to expand...

I'm not stating a fact. I'm stating a personal opinion based on the fact that the GPUs are obviously on a proprietary board.

Seriously: do you think there's a very high chance that it'll be cheap and easy to upgrade your Mac Pro to Titan 2s (or whatever the next big nVidia compute card is)? Honestly?

Anyway, please block me if you find my opinions upsetting.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
i sit true that 2 or more TB2 ports could be used together by a single device in order to increase bandwidth ?
in that case how many TB2 ports are necessary to have a x16 PCIe equivalent ?

I am also thinking that the new RedRocket X require a x16 bus ...

thanks

g
 
Bruce Allen said:
I'm not stating a fact. I'm stating a personal opinion based on the fact that the GPUs are obviously on a proprietary board.

Seriously: do you think there's a very high chance that it'll be cheap and easy to upgrade your Mac Pro to Titan 2s (or whatever the next big nVidia compute card is)? Honestly?

Anyway, please block me if you find my opinions upsetting.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

At this point it's is very clear that the GPU's in the Mac Pro are upgradable. This has been clarified by people who were at WWDC on other forums. It is entirely up to the GPU manufacturers to design their GPU to fit the new design. If ATI can do it I don't see why all the other Nvidia manufacturers can do it. After all they continuously redesign their GPU to fit on laptops, micro books, ultra books etc.

If FCPX, Smoke, ReSolVe, lightworks, Vegas, CS6 and Nuke can run on OpenGL, and OpenCL, without Cuda, I think software designers need to stop being lazy. For example the Mecury engine is a CPU, GPU, Ram, and storage speed combo, it gets better with premium components. That's the way all software should designed.
It's a sad state of affairs if you can't compute with 96gb ram, 1250mB/s flsh drives, dual GPU's, and 12 Super fast cores
 
shashbugu said:
At this point it's is very clear that the GPU's in the Mac Pro are upgradable. This has been clarified by people who were at WWDC on other forums. It is entirely up to the GPU manufacturers to design their GPU to fit the new design. If ATI can do it I don't see why all the other Nvidia manufacturers can do it. After all they continuously redesign their GPU to fit on laptops, micro books, ultra books etc.
Click to expand...

Well, fingers crossed. I mean, there are nVidia Titan drivers in OS X as of 10.8.4 I think.

Again though: do you really think it's going to be cheap and easy? Compared to all of those gamers using PCIe you have huge economies of scale against you... maybe I am a total pessimist. We'll see!

shashbugu said:
If FCPX, Smoke, ReSolVe, lightworks, Vegas, CS6 and Nuke can run on OpenGL, and OpenCL, without Cuda, I think software designers need to stop being lazy. For example the Mecury engine is a CPU, GPU, Ram, and storage speed combo, it gets better with premium components. That's the way all software should designed.
Click to expand...

I agree but OpenCL really sucked for a while. For example, the V-Ray guys initially tried to make V-Ray RT on OpenCL. It failed hard. On AMD's own equipment. They had to scrap the OpenCL version and build it again in CUDA. Nobody wants to do that.

Since it takes a long while to write good code... I think there will be a gap for the next little while, sadly. Poor fellows are working overtime trying to learn GPU programming and they're faced with a choice between a proprietary standard (CUDA) and an open standard (OpenCL) which didn't work as advertised.

Believe it or not, I am rooting for OpenCL too :) You may have guessed I do not like proprietary things!

shashbugu said:
It's a sad state of affairs if you can't compute with 96gb ram, 1250mB/s flsh drives, dual GPU's, and 12 Super fast cores
Click to expand...

Haha! Well... sure!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Honestly for the most part, PC/MAC and windows/OSX have become pretty much the same. It makes almost no difference what machine I am working on when the hardware specs are the same. For those of you who say windows is better than OSX or OSX is way more stable that windows etc...then you have obviously not worked enough with either one lately. Stability and performance are now virtually indistinguishable between the two platforms... the debate between PC vs MAC has for the most become useless these days. The advantage of the MAC platform is the minimized threat of viruses and the ability to encode Prores...the advantage of PCs is the ability the easily upgrade to the latest hardware at a more affordable price...other than that they are pretty much similar! Get what ever platform you are comfortable with. Computers in generals are the worst form of investment anyway as they get obsolete faster than anything else.... I would rather spend 10K on grip/lenses/lighting than 10K on a single workstation that will be considered slow within 1.5 years. Ultimately Jeff Kilgroe nailed when he said " there will never ever be enough computing power or a big enough workstation for me to tackle what I want...." so true!!!! That is why I no longer chase the latest and greatest cutting edge workstations and just go with a more affordable one that meets our needs today (knowing that I will have to upgrade in a near future either way...so why spend 10K on it???)

P.S: ironically it's the same debate that goes on between iPhone and Androids...lol
 
Maz Mawlawi said:
Honestly for the most part, PC/MAC and windows/OSX have become pretty much the same. It makes almost no difference what machine I am working on when the hardware specs are the same. For those of you who say windows is better than OSX or OSX is way more stable that windows etc...then you have obviously not worked enough with either one lately. Stability and performance are now virtually indistinguishable between the two platforms... the debate between PC vs MAC has for the most become useless these days. The advantage of the MAC platform is the minimized threat of viruses and the ability to encode Prores...the advantage of PCs is the ability the easily upgrade to the latest hardware at a more affordable price...other than that they are pretty much similar! Get what ever platform you are comfortable with. Computers in generals are the worst form of investment anyway as they get obsolete faster than anything else.... I would rather spend 10K on grip/lenses/lighting than 10K on a single workstation that will be considered slow within 1.5 years. Ultimately Jeff Kilgroe nailed when he said " there will never ever be enough computing power or a big enough workstation for me to tackle what I want...." so true!!!! That is why I no longer chase the latest and greatest cutting edge workstations and just go with a more affordable one that meets our needs today (knowing that I will have to upgrade in a near future either way...so why spend 10K on it???)

P.S: ironically it's the same debate that goes on between iPhone and Androids...lol
Click to expand...
It's all about ROI. My 2008 Mac Pro has paid for itself many times over. not the latest and greatest but it does still earn money. That's what I would want out of the new Mac Pro.
 
Bruce Allen said:
Mari also runs brilliantly on very cheap gaming PCs available today.

It's a great piece of software.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

Bruce, have you actually seen the video and the tasks they were testing on system?

:sifone: Peter
 
Haters gonna hate, but this thing is awesome. I'm buying 2 (probably going to end up less than a RR-X).

BTW: The amount of Thunderbolt products on and coming to market has blown up over the past 12 months. I expect a whole slew of new TB stuff on it's way within the next 6. Personally I'm excited for CalDigits T8 Thunderbolt Raid. It's an 8-Bay revision on their HDPro2 that's going to be 32TB for about $5000 (unofficially quoted to me at NAB) getting you 800 MB/s in:out. Hopefully shipping this fall/winter. As Jeff mentioned, the Pegasus R6 is wicked fast and putting 2 together for 1400 MB/s is really cool. Imagine having 2 CD T8's in-line? That's serious storage, seriously fast, seriously portable, and all hooked up to a small tin can. I know there's a few out there who just love their PCI and SAS but I for one can't wait to toss all that junk out the window...
 
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Maz Mawlawi said:
Honestly for the most part, PC/MAC and windows/OSX have become pretty much the same. It makes almost no difference what machine I am working on when the hardware specs are the same. For those of you who say windows is better than OSX or OSX is way more stable that windows etc...then you have obviously not worked enough with either one lately. Stability and performance are now virtually indistinguishable between the two platforms... the debate between PC vs MAC has for the most become useless these days. The advantage of the MAC platform is the minimized threat of viruses and the ability to encode Prores...the advantage of PCs is the ability the easily upgrade to the latest hardware at a more affordable price...other than that they are pretty much similar! Get what ever platform you are comfortable with. Computers in generals are the worst form of investment anyway as they get obsolete faster than anything else.... I would rather spend 10K on grip/lenses/lighting than 10K on a single workstation that will be considered slow within 1.5 years. Ultimately Jeff Kilgroe nailed when he said " there will never ever be enough computing power or a big enough workstation for me to tackle what I want...." so true!!!! That is why I no longer chase the latest and greatest cutting edge workstations and just go with a more affordable one that meets our needs today (knowing that I will have to upgrade in a near future either way...so why spend 10K on it???)

P.S: ironically it's the same debate that goes on between iPhone and Androids...lol
Click to expand...


I agree. Well said
 
Peter Majtan said:
Bruce, have you actually seen the video and the tasks they were testing on system?

:sifone: Peter
Click to expand...

I did't know about the video until it was posted here. For now I don't think there's any place to view it unless you have an Apple Developer login. Anyway, it looks pretty good. I'm already signed up for the Mari on Mac beta when it begins here in the next couple months. Mari is one of my most favorite apps.
 
Bruce Allen said:
You're just going to keep at it, aren't you, Peter? Yes, of course I have.

Why don't you just PM me next time and leave this thread uncluttered?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

For as long as you will keep making these hasty comments without putting things in perspective - you are bound to get responses like mine. I would like to see the "cheap gaming PC" you have mentioned to open up that 30GB texture set in Mari and work on it while being able to play the scene animation and see instant feedback, including all the image channels (such as bumb, specular, etc...)...

You may think I am a camera / grading junkie who has no idea about VFX or 3D needs. I have started in this industry on Softimage Creative Environment (yes - before it was called Softimage 3D) and slaved endless nights and weeks on end working in 3D with Mental Ray and Renderman first as a 3D artist, gradually working my way up to become a VFX supervisor on multi-million dollar feature films (such as Abhay in India on behalf of Cutting Edge Post from Brisbane, Australia). All through out while being fascinated with photography (I have a personal collection of over 60K 35mm slides and 2K 617 slides before switching to digital). This eventually merged into me being able to start shooting 2nd unit for VFX and working my way up to become a DoP. It was also at Cutting Edge where I was first introduced to professional color correction on the (back then million dollar plus) DaVinci 2K system. The reason I am saying this is for you to understand that my opinion is not biased from the camera/edit/grading PoV. I have gone through cardiac collapse at the age of 23 due to over-working myself with 3D/VFX. I, for one, find it amazing what is possible on this machine OOTB...

But don't take my word for it - the guys from Weta and Pixar that made that presentation are facing daily challenges that 99% of us would never do. And they clearly have stated that Mari has never run smoother with such a set of data. If you for a second think that they have not used custom-build PC's before - think again...

I was really hoping you would see the light at the end of the tunnel for what it is, given that this video is far more from your PoV, then the camera/edit/grade PoV I now represent. But no. You had to throw in another hasty comment failing to acknowledge that there is so much more to this "box" than we all can imagine for now...

:sifone: Peter
 
First off, Bruce is a smart, savvy guy and I respect him for having a point of view and defending it. I also agree with comments about thinking beyond brute force. My analogy would be pushing a car on flat ground, it's going to take a couple of strong folks to move it even a few hundred yards. However, if its even a few degrees of downhill slope its a piece of cake.

Until we actually get our hands on the new rig its hard to know just how much a fresh approach to the underlying architecture might tilt the equation.

Cheers - #19
 
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