Perhaps what follows is why Apple has recently announced that Apple is a Mobile Device Company
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Macs vs. PCs in the Professional Graphics Industry
I’m talking about a system with 12 to 16GB of RAM, and a 2GB RAM professional equivalent level nVidia card ($400-$500 range street price). If you max it out to around $4000 you can get a system like this with 24GB of RAM. Try assembling that on a Mac. Bear in mind I’m talking about a monstrous workstation for significant Hollywood and Advertising projects — a $1200-$1500 dollar machine will run Maya and Adobe products for typical usage scenarios just great.
I can’t speak for other graphics pros but I personally hate the Mac interface. In my honest opinion Windows is just a far easier interface to work with. It’s a lot easier to organize my files. What the hell is a “chooser” anyway?
I would rather go Linux if possible, but you have to be pretty knowledgeable on what distributions/packages/upgrades to download and work with your software. However, Linux is great once it’s set up perfectly with just Maya/Renderman, if your work is limited to those software packages.
Only recently has Mudbox been ported to Linux. Honestly, most developers drag their feet to make a Linux version. But It takes a while to get a Apple version, let alone a Linux one. Right now I don’t see Linux making a immediate charge in the professional 3D and 2D graphics industry, at least not on workstations. There’s also too many variants of Linux.
Windows keeps it simple. I can run Zbrush, Maya, Photoshop, Mudbox and any other new app or plug-in very easily. While Linux versions of all these apps would help Linux gain serious momentum in both the 2D and 3D community, Apple and Mac no longer has the power or cache to be the “SGI” of the 21st century.
There are considerably less apps for the Mac now. Yes Maya does run on the Mac, but “runs” is about all I’ll give it credit for. It doesn’t work optimally. Maya runs better on the PC. The performance for Maya on Linux is best, but the graphics horsepower tends to be better on a Windows machine, as the drivers are still behind in Linux, so right now its a wash as to which of those two OSes are better for the balance of the work that I do.
There’s no real 64-bit apps for Mac yet, and Maya runs way faster in native 64-bit. There’s no point of a graphics professional going with Windows XP 32-bit anymore because our demands are so much greater now. So any comparisons from Mac to XP are meaningless, as XP is outdated. Only in my school where I teach kids how to use these software packages do they still run it on older computers.
Adobe products such as After Effects run better on the PC, and usually are used on the same workstations as Maya/3DStudio Max, so it doesn’t make sense for a graphics professional to own two platforms or dual boot on a x86 Mac. Another thing — Macs cannot currently use Corel Painter properly. You have to use a PC with it now if you like that product. This is due to screwed-up Wacom support and a few other things that make it undesirable for use with a Mac.
I’ve only worked at 2 places that used Apples for production stations. I still see a lot of graphic design and motion graphic houses still using them in niche roles, but only because they like to use Final Cut Pro. But most shops I’ve worked at use primarily PC. Macs are great for people who don’t want more than Adobe or Final Cut on their laptops. They are good laptop for that if your work is limited to those apps, but in my opinion are way overpriced.
Now, if you want a really serious portable graphics station, go to Dell, and you can make a fierce laptop for $1,600 that’s a i7 quad core, with a good ATI card. If you really want to go crazy, you can spend about $3,500-$4,000 on a Sager laptop, and with that you’re looking at a desktop replacement with 12GB of RAM and a top of the line Intel i7.
One other thing which I think is an important consideration, particularly if you are just getting into the industry or if you are trying to learn the software suites, is you can get a cheap PC and run all the apps if you look for the “student” versions. All of these are easy to find online.
On the other hand, the Macs have less selection in “student” versions and are harder to get running. There are so many people learning the software with PCs, that they won’t even consider switching to Mac.
All in all Apple has no real future in the digital FX industry. One of the few places where they have a niche is in audio production and video editing. Also Macs excel at DVD authoring output. They’ll keep that niche, but that’s about it.
Apple needs to really make leaps in technology in the hardware end to be a significant threat to PCs in graphics and visual arts. I don’t see Apple doing much more than iMacs and pretty laptops for the coming years. Their “Pro” desktops aren’t well regarded in our business. Apple should stick to overpriced electronic devices and their non-professional computers, where it looks like they are now making most of their money.