Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

APPLE MAC PRO for AUTODESK SMOKE

J

Jiri Wolf

Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2009
Messages
24
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Hello everyone.
I'd like to ask you if anyone know the best configuration of apple Mac Pro for AUTODESK SMOKE.
I'm not MAC user so i'll appreciate any help. I'd like to connect 2x 30" LCD + 1x LCDTV fullhd.
I'd like to have iSCSI disk array because its cheaper than Fiber Channel and also i can use disk array for another workstation. Some of the people told me that SMOKE doesn't support iSCSI but only FC. If someone have SMOKE on apple pls send me your hardware configuration.

My thought:

Base configuration:
Two Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” 2.93Ghz
32GB of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM
4x 1TB 7200RPM SATA HDD
nVidia Quadro 4900SDI graphic card
AJA Kona3
Apple 8server012A1 Quad Port PCI Ethernet Network Card

External Disk Array(SAN iSCSI):
Promise VessRAID 1720i 2U, iSCSI SAN, 8x sATAII, SAS, 4xGbE
8x SSD Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+Series 230MB/s

Thank you for any advice.
 
Jiriwolf said:
Hello everyone.
I'd like to ask you if anyone know the best configuration of apple Mac Pro for AUTODESK SMOKE.
Click to expand...

I'm using Smoke on Mac since it came out , did a couple of jobs on it and love it. As a director for commercials most of my projects got finished on Discreet's/Autodesk's IFFFS products. With Smoke on Mac the prohibitive price point went down to a realm where I can afford it for myself, nice!

Jiriwolf said:
I'm not MAC user so i'll appreciate any help. I'd like to connect 2x 30" LCD + 1x LCDTV fullhd.
Click to expand...

Smoke on Mac is entirely the same as Smoke on Linux. That means its GUI is designed for only one monitor. There is no use for a second display as you may have it with NLEs. 30" displays are a) to big for convenient watching, b) Smoke has a "full playback" mode that ONLY works with a meaningful 24/23 1920 x 1200 display. IMHO a HP Dreamcolor or an EIZO Color Edge are the best offers for the money. Both displays are approx. 2k. You need one of those because of their colour accuracy and over all quality. Please be sure that you set the display to sRGB/Gamma 2.35 which matches ITU/EBU REC709 (1080p colour space) very closely.

Jiriwolf said:
I'd like to have iSCSI disk array because its cheaper than Fiber Channel and also i can use disk array for another workstation. Some of the people told me that SMOKE doesn't support iSCSI but only FC. If someone have SMOKE on apple pls send me your hardware configuration.
Click to expand...

Smoke works internally with DPX. That means all your renders are uncompressed DPX files which need a fast array for playback. I use a Areca SAS Raid which is currently 70% full and still delivers according to Smoke's own benchmarks approx. 700 MB/sec read speed. Areca raids are comparable cheap, around 5 - 5,5 K for 12 TB brutto.

Jiriwolf said:
My thought:
Base configuration:
Two Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” 2.93Ghz
32GB of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM
4x 1TB 7200RPM SATA HDD
Click to expand...

Get the second fastest MacPro. The fastest one costs much more and delivers only a small percentage more performance. Yes, Smoke loves RAM, 32 is enough. Additional hard drives can be added to your needs. I use the additional slots only for a) cloning and updating the system backup (after you have done that you have to remove the disk, Smoke dislikes two systems and won't start) and b) for backuping projects off your raid. Since 2 TB are cheaper than 1 TB I started using those for intermediated backups (the final one go to tape).

Jiriwolf said:
nVidia Quadro 4900SDI graphic card
AJA Kona3
Apple 8server012A1 Quad Port PCI Ethernet Network Card
Click to expand...

There is no Nvidia SDi on the Mac. Get the latest Quadro card, in the moment it's the Nvidia Quadro 4800. Smoke's performance is higly depending on the graphics card.

Jiriwolf said:
External Disk Array(SAN iSCSI):
Promise VessRAID 1720i 2U, iSCSI SAN, 8x sATAII, SAS, 4xGbE
8x SSD Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+Series 230MB/s
Click to expand...

230 MB/sec is too slow. Don't safe money here. The raid should be R6 with a hot spare. With my Areca raid a disk went bad. I kept working and the raid controller rebuilded the new disk in the background.

From your post it sounds that you haven't touched Smoke on Mac yet. It's not the cheapest solution on the market. A working system will cost you 30+k plus the annual fee. You want Sparks (Sapphire will be available in 4 weeks) that adds another 4k, you need a Wacom A3 board (Smoke's interface is NOT made for mouse) and a sound monitoring system. With a good chair (Herman Miller Aeron) and a client monitor with SDI off the AJA card your suite will be easily over 40k.

A bundle with a 3K PC, CS5 (Premier Pro, AE), CineForm and additional software such as Syntheyes for tracking will be equally performing and cost a 4th of a Smoke on Mac system. OTOH, Smoke is faster and allows client supervised sessions. But it's much, much harder to learn. If speed and the ability to do all your stuff in one application is your goal, go for it.

Hope that helps,

Hans
 
Thank you for all helpfull commnets.

Hans von Sonntag said:
Smoke on Mac is entirely the same as Smoke on Linux. That means its GUI is designed for only one monitor. There is no use for a second display as you may have it with NLEs. 30" displays are a) to big for convenient watching, b) Smoke has a "full playback" mode that ONLY works with a meaningful 24/23 1920 x 1200 display. IMHO a HP Dreamcolor or an EIZO Color Edge are the best offers for the money. Both displays are approx. 2k. You need one of those because of their colour accuracy and over all quality. Please be sure that you set the display to sRGB/Gamma 2.35 which matches ITU/EBU REC709 (1080p colour space) very closely.
Click to expand...
So if i have 2x fullhd lcd. can i use one for GUI (schematic node view) and one for full playback?

Hans von Sonntag said:
Smoke works internally with DPX. That means all your renders are uncompressed DPX files which need a fast array for playback. I use a Areca SAS Raid which is currently 70% full and still delivers according to Smoke's own benchmarks approx. 700 MB/sec read speed. Areca raids are comparable cheap, around 5 - 5,5 K for 12 TB brutto.
Click to expand...
About disk array, you mean something like "Areca ARC-1222x" + "ARC-4030Ml" + 8x HDD
i'd like to use SSD disk (SSD Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+Series 230MB/s) so teoreticly in RAID5 i can get about 1100MB/s


Hans von Sonntag said:
There is no Nvidia SDi on the Mac. Get the latest Quadro card, in the moment it's the Nvidia Quadro 4800. Smoke's performance is higly depending on the graphics card.
Click to expand...
There's no quadro in the apple store so if i buy Quadro from another store will it work on MAC?

Hans von Sonntag said:
From your post it sounds that you haven't touched Smoke on Mac yet. It's not the cheapest solution on the market. A working system will cost you 30+k plus the annual fee. You want Sparks (Sapphire will be available in 4 weeks) that adds another 4k, you need a Wacom A3 board (Smoke's interface is NOT made for mouse) and a sound monitoring system. With a good chair (Herman Miller Aeron) and a client monitor with SDI off the AJA card your suite will be easily over 40k.
Click to expand...
Yes i have no experiences in SMOKE. I'm using Foundry NUKE, autodesk combustion and adobe AE but i need for clients on-line system. IFFFS for linux is out of my budget.
About the AJA KONA3, is there some acceleration for SMOKE is it useful?
 
You need the Mac version of the Quadro FX4800 (which works under Bootcamp as well, BTW).
 
Here's another whole setup with changes based on your comments:

Mac Pro, 2x 2.66GHz“Nehalem“, 32GB 1066MHz RAM, 1TB, Geforce GT120 (8499usd)
2x WD Caviar Black 3.5" 2TB WD2001FASS (430usd)
AJA Video KONA 3 Uncompressed Dual Link HD-SDI/SDI/HD-SDI PCI-E (2990usd)
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac by PNY(1799usd)
Areca1222X IOP348@800 SAS-RAID 0/1/5/6/10 2x8088,512MB,PCI-E8 (574usd)
ARECA ARC-4030ML, SATA tower 8xHDD, 2xSFF-8088,220W (857usd)
8 x Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+ Series (2560usd)
2x HP 24" DreamColor LP2480zx (3800usd)
Wacom Intuos4 XL Cad Edition A3 Graphics Tablet (945usd)
Autodesk SMOKE on MAC (15000usd)

PRICE FOR ALL=37454USD
 
Last edited:
That looks like a very workable solution. Hans is also correct about the CPUs. The 2.93GHz ones cost a lot more. They do offer about a 10% overall performance boost, so you need to ask yourself if that money is worth 10%. And for tasks that are not very CPU-intensive or that require continuous user interaction, you will never see that speed difference.

What monitor are you going to drive with your Kona card?
 
Hi Jiri,

Jiriwolf said:
So if i have 2x fullhd lcd. can i use one for GUI (schematic node view) and one for full playback?
Click to expand...

Not to my knowledge. I have never seen an IFFFS system, and Smoke on the Mac is such a system just based on OSX-Unix, that has a two monitor setup for the GUI. Also, I haven't found anything in the preferences that deals with a second monitor apart from SDI broadcast out, of course.


Jiriwolf said:
About disk array, you mean something like "Areca ARC-1222x" + "ARC-4030Ml" + 8x HDD
i'd like to use SSD disk (SSD Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+Series 230MB/s) so teoreticly in RAID5 i can get about 1100MB/s
Click to expand...

This is the controller I use: http://www.areca.com.tw/products/pcietosas1680series.htm

This is the successor of my JBOD: http://www.xtore.com/ProductInfo.aspx?ref=XB-RM1-3163-SR-A

I cannot comment on SSDs. But I know that Smoke is very TB hungry. You need plenty of storage. Currently I'm working on a Red shot 15 min. project in 1080p that is already bloated to 2.5 TB, and we've shot just about 1 hour on footage and only converted the selected shots into DPX.

Besides other things Jeff is a very knowledgeable expert on post production IT-systems. Ask him if your need more detailed answers.



Jiriwolf said:
There's no quadro in the apple store so if i buy Quadro from another store will it work on MAC?
Click to expand...

Uli ist right, of course. You have to purchase the 4800 card by a certified Apple reseller.


Jiriwolf said:
Yes i have no experiences in SMOKE. I'm using Foundry NUKE, autodesk combustion and adobe AE but i need for clients on-line system. IFFFS for linux is out of my budget.
Click to expand...

You know that Smoke on Mac is NOT the same as Smoke Advanced on Linux, meaning that you don't have the Batch module as a node based compositor like you are used to in Shake/Nuke. Smoke on Mac has only the Action module which offers plenty of power for 3D compositing but is more designed like AE's compositing adding some nodal abilities. Smoke on Mac is primarily a finishing NLE solution with very powerful conforming tools plus a paint, text and CC module and the famous Action module. It's made for client supervised online sessions and for every one who need things done quickly.

Jiriwolf said:
About the AJA KONA3, is there some acceleration for SMOKE is it useful?
Click to expand...

No. The AJA card is needed for a client monitor via SDI. Smoke 2011 is now able to make use of the MacPro's core audio. If you don't need a client monitor Smoke works fine without the AJA card.

Hans
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
That looks like a very workable solution. Hans is also correct about the CPUs. The 2.93GHz ones cost a lot more. They do offer about a 10% overall performance boost, so you need to ask yourself if that money is worth 10%. And for tasks that are not very CPU-intensive or that require continuous user interaction, you will never see that speed difference.

What monitor are you going to drive with your Kona card?
Click to expand...
Hi, thanks. Yes i decided that 2.66Ghz will be enough.

About the KONA card i don't know exactly if its useful for smoke but i'd like use some big LCDTV for client or some HDSDI monitor. But not sure exactly what will be enough. I saw a lot of color grading station without SDI monitor.
 
Hans von Sonntag said:
Hi Jiri,
This is the controller I use: http://www.areca.com.tw/products/pcietosas1680series.htm

This is the successor of my JBOD: http://www.xtore.com/ProductInfo.aspx?ref=XB-RM1-3163-SR-A

I cannot comment on SSDs. But I know that Smoke is very TB hungry. You need plenty of storage. Currently I'm working on a Red shot 15 min. project in 1080p that is already bloated to 2.5 TB, and we've shot just about 1 hour on footage and only converted the selected shots into DPX.

Besides other things Jeff is a very knowledgeable expert on post production IT-systems. Ask him if your need more detailed answers.
Click to expand...

Thank you,
I'd like to use manly for finishing tv commercials (about 30s of video each) so i think that about 1TB fast disk array will be enough + some backup.

How many PCI-e MAC PRO has?

About the client monitor what you recommend to use?
 
Jiriwolf said:
Hi, thanks. Yes i decided that 2.66Ghz will be enough.

About the KONA card i don't know exactly if its useful for smoke but i'd like use some big LCDTV for client or some HDSDI monitor. But not sure exactly what will be enough. I saw a lot of color grading station without SDI monitor.
Click to expand...

Smoke on Mac's only program monitor option is via SDI and for that you need the AJA Kona3 NOT any other Kona will do it. Panasonic manufactures nice 1080p plasmas that can be very well used when using a SDI-HDMI adaptor.

Hans
 
Jiriwolf said:
Thank you,
I'd like to use manly for finishing tv commercials (about 30s of video each) so i think that about 1TB fast disk array will be enough + some backup.

How many PCI-e MAC PRO has?

About the client monitor what you recommend to use?
Click to expand...

Seriously, 30" TVCs or not - 1TB won't bring you anywhere. A few TVCs and your raid is full. Even if you would never online a music video or anything else longer than 30 seconds Smoke's stone will be filled up in days.

I think a MacPro has 5 PCI-e slots.

Check out Panasonic plasmas 12 (?) series.

Hans
 
All Mac Pro models up to this point have 4 PCI-E slots. The primary slot is double-width for graphics cards that have the extra heat pipe system on them or for routing accessory connections out of a vacant slot opening.

1TB isn't enough storage to do anything with. Even 30-secont TV spots, especially if you're working with hi-res HD/2K/4K material. You will also want the RAID to be as fast as you can make it. Storage space is always one of the biggest performance bottlenecks.

For a plasma monitor, the latest are the 13th-generation. But Panasonic changed their model numbering. The newest 1080p Pro Plasma models are the TH-xxPF20U series where xx is the screen size in inches and they have 42 and 50 inch models with 58 and larger coming soon. I personally would recommend the new VT25 series prosumer panels. Same PDP panel as the pro model and overall a lot more capable with full calibration controls. Use an AJA 3G SDI to HDMI converter for SDI input. About 3 weeks ago, I bought a 50" VT25 w/ AJA converter and both together were about $200 cheaper than the TH-50PF20U pro model. The Pro model also does not have SDI input unless you buy the additional $2500 HD-SDI interface.

Some of the newer Samsung LED HDTVs are pretty nice too as well as the Samsung plasmas. If you're considering LED LCD as an option, the 2009 model Samsungs are actually superior to the 2010 models, go figure... The new ones have terrible light leaks in the corners among other issues. The top of the line 47" Samsung LED from 2009 currently sells for about $600 more than what I paid for my new Panasonic VT25 plasma.
 
Hello,

The current Mac Pro has four PCIe slots - (2) 16x and (2) 4x lanes. (http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html)

Definitely stick to the 2.66GHz unit. You'll save a lot of cash that can go towards ram.

I usually purchase ram from www.owcomputing.com or www.crucial.com. You'll save yourself a good deal of cash when putting in 32gigs at a time. Apple is asking $3700 for the Mac Pro memory, which can be had at OWComputing for $1200.00 in 4GB modules.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#1066-memory

For hard drive arrays, I'm using two CalDigit HDOne 8-TB array in RAID 6 and one in RAID 5 (gives you a little over 5.5 gigs and you can blow two drives at once). Excellent hardware and their support is amazing. They actually answer the phone. (www.caldigit.com) Bought em from B&H for around $3700 while the 16TB models run around $6600.

I would also recommend jamming a few 1TB drives into the Mac Pro itself as it will have three slots available after the boot drive slot is full (for a total of four). Handy to have to dump stuff off onto. You could always swap in a fast SSD for the boot drive if you really want to crank it up.

Stay away from the Apple RAID card. Way too expensive and has poor performance with some odd limitations.

The nVidia Quadro 4800 is $1800.00 and isn't listed as an optional add-on when pricing out the Mac Pro (for whatever reason). Apple does sell it in the Display section of the store;

http://store.apple.com/us/product/TW386LL/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTA4MzU2Nzg&s=topSellers

Do note that the current lineup of Mac Pro's are quite stale. They haven't been refreshed in far too long. We were actually hoping to see if new units were going to be quietly unveiled at the Apple WWDC on June 7th but nothing came out of it.

A new Mac Mini was released a few days ago but that's really not helping. Hah!

If you can put off for a bit, the new units _have_ to be coming out soon. The big changes I'm hoping to see are more than two 16x slots, better video card options, and USB 3.0. Unfortunately all of these seem to be wishful thinking. As 10.6.4 just came out and the kext's (software support files for hardware devices) reveal nothing about support for new video cards. Sigh.

It would be deliriously wonderful if they actually _added_ more slots but as I remember from my time at NeXT Computer (Steve Jobs previous company before returning to Apple), he hates slots. Go figure.

I'm wondering if the holdup may be about the new cable interconnect technology Intel has been working on with several 3rd party hardware manufacturers including Apple. It's call "Light Peak" (http://techresearch.intel.com/UserFiles/en-us/File/OpticalIO/LightPeakOverview.pdf). Basically an optical cable technology that allows from 10Gb/s with scaling up to 100Gb/s. Apparently Apple brought the concept to Intel to develop.

Last year in September at the IDF conference, Intel had a demo of the technology running on a custom Mac Pro as seen here;

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/26/exclusive-apple-dictated-light-peak-creation-to-intel-could-be/

It would be a pipe dream to think Apple would release the new Mac Pro's with this technology (and what would we do with it initially?) but it would be an exciting addition.

More here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak

Hope this helps!

Best,

ATF
 
Definitely hold off on the new Mac Pro if you can wait. But realistically, I'm expecting a new Mac Pro with the next round of Intel CPUs, which means sometime from the end of July to September, around Siggraph. Sometimes you just can't wait though...

Hopefully we'll see USB3.0 implemented and I'd love to see a 10Gbps network port.

Lightpeak looks promising, but it seems to still be at least a year away.
 
Last edited:
Just to make sure that this point was clear from another poster:

All the IFFFS products want one(1) 1920x1200 monitor. They don't like or use anything else. I haven't used Smoke on mac, but the product lines are consistent across platforms.

If you are feeling ritzy with your broadcast monitor we are enjoying our new Cinetal immensely.
 
Hi Carl

What was the price of your CineTal?

I've read great things about the new Dolby monitor but @ $42k and only 1920x1080 42" it does seem steep for technology that is advancing so fast the ROI would be a major risk.
 
The CineTal was just over 20k for the 42" with bells and/or whistles.

It's a truly lovely monitor and we have no concerns or regrets with it simply cause we are pretty much exclusively a commercial joint. So we do not have to worry about 3d anytime soon, sizes over 1920x1080, and we are willing to pay a bit for the WOW factor to keep the agency folks happy in their flame sessions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top