Do We Really Believe?

Started by rcallicotte, February 22, 2008, 09:42:26 AM

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rcallicotte

So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

old_blaggard

Wow, Aprils Fool's Day came early this year....
http://www.terragen.org - A great Terragen resource with models, contests, galleries, and forums.

dhavalmistry

Quote from: old_blaggard on February 22, 2008, 10:15:44 AM
Wow, Aprils Fool's Day came early this year....

totally agree with that!....


I am pretty sure microsoft has some trick up its sleeve in this one too...
"His blood-terragen level is 99.99%...he is definitely drunk on Terragen!"

Harvey Birdman

Sure, I believe... that it's another stalling tactic.

:)

And I believe in the giant talking bunny rabbit, too.   

;)   :D

rcallicotte

So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

matrix2003

Found this on Digg:
"Red Hat not impressed with Microsoft's interoperability plans"

http://tinyurl.com/288vdt
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-MATRIX2003-      ·DHV·  ....·´¯`*
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rcallicotte

"The European Commission takes note of today's announcement by Microsoft of its intention to commit to a number of principles in order to promote interoperability with some of its high market share software products. This announcement does not relate to the question of whether or not Microsoft has been complying with EU antitrust rules in this area in the past. The Commission would welcome any move towards genuine interoperability. Nonetheless, the Commission notes that today's announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability. In January 2008, the Commission initiated two formal antitrust investigations against Microsoft – one relating to interoperability, one relating to tying of separate software products (see MEMO/08/19). In the course of its ongoing interoperability investigation, the Commission will therefore verify whether Microsoft is complying with EU antitrust rules, whether the principles announced today would end any infringement were they implemented in practice, and whether or not the principles announced today are in fact implemented in practice. Today's announcement by Microsoft does not address the tying allegations." - from the European Commission on February 21, 2008
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

efflux

I just upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10. Awesome.

I have ATI graphics card so some problems with Open GL especially in Wine. However the latest Wine in a major improvement. TG2 is not perfect but that's my old graphics card. NVidia are better under Linux. TG2 works in Linux now if you have a recent graphics card. LightZone (my image editing app) is back in development for Linux. Blistering past even my Mac in performance.

Goodbye Windows  :D

rcallicotte

@efflux - You're using Linux with TG2 now?  How?  Is it as good as it sounds?
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

efflux

There is one problem on my systems here. It's an open GL issue. I know my ATI graphics cards will be causing this. You're much better with NVidia for Linux especially if you are using Wine. I'm going to pick up an NVidia card (or two since I still have two decent old PCs) to sort this. Wine 0.9.47 has sorted a lot of UI issues in Windows apps including TG2 but on my systems I have no preview or node graph. It's my graphics cards. However I have noticed a total speed up and fixing of the rest of the UI in TG2 and various other apps so UI speed is better than even Windows, certainly better than Mac which is sluggish. For rendering my Linux systems work with TG2. I'll get back on the forum when I have TG2 perfectly functioning but I know other people have reported that it is working totally AOK with the latest Wine.

As for rendering speeds, they are OK but I'll need to do a proper test of this. However OK is OK when it's a free OS that can be installed on an old system. There is an issue with multi core. I'm not sure how this will pan out when TG2 becomes multi core. My systems are not multi core but hyper threading. Linux runs brilliantly with the HT enabled but TG2 only sees half of the CPU so I keep HT disabled. Not sure if multi core apps will use multi cores under Wine. I have not looked into this at all. I'd assume they would.

I think it's really important that developers of rendering apps take note of Linux because it is so cheap and easy to set up a small Linux rendering farm. Not even necessary to have a full UI native app just rendering capabilities.

Also, as I mentioned, I use this app called Lightzone for post editing. It's a fantastic photo editing app. Originally they had a free Linux version then ditched it but now its in beta again. I tried it and it's great. I bought a Mac license but would happily run this under Linux. So now Linux has what I consider THE best image post processing tool - this is a big step. You also have Gimp to handle other stuff that Photoshop does. I just tried the very latest Gimp on Linux. It goes like shit off a shovel.

efflux

#10
Wine 0.9.57 now. Even with the ATI card TG2 is almost entirely functioning. UI has become a bit slow (now that preview and nodes are displaying) but that's my graphics card. Not much worse than OSX version. I'll be upgrading the card in the next few days for radical Open GL improvements in other apps. This should help TG2 UI as well. The only things I've found are no icons on the buttons and the secondary menus from the right click in node graphs have to be navigated using arrow keys. Very minor issues. Rendering times aren't good now but I've been messing with different kernels for real time audio pre-empt so this may have something to do with it. I'll try booting back to standard kernel.


rcallicotte

Cool.  Makes the whole Apple / Linux thing look even better.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

efflux

Well it's getting there bit by bit.

TG2 seems fine but I've yet to fully test rendering speeds. I know it's slower than when I previously tried it for some reason. I've got an old but powerful Quadro FX graphics card coming. That will improve TG2 but it's not the reason I'm getting it. I want it for Open GL in other apps.

I have Artrage (very cool painting app) working fully now under Wine with proper Wacom graphics tablet support. There was a problem with pressure (under Wine) before but now fixed. This is the one app that without question functions better in Wine than it does on Native Windows or OSX. In fact this app works so brilliantly under Wine that I've bought a Windows license for it. My Mac license doesn't cover the Windows version but it's $25 so no complaints.

Next I'm going for ZBrush. It works apparently.

efflux

#13
ZBrush 3.1 is a total Linux performer. It works perfectly and outperforms Windows. Not sure about the licensing activation, could be a problem but boy does it work and this is on a system that is not really exactly the same as my Windows box. Everything is the same except less RAM! This is brilliant.

The Quadro FX card will arrive probably tomorrow and I'll report back about TG2 but unfortunately it's not in the same league (yet) as ZBrush or Artrage. Those rocket under Wine.

Once I get the Quadro in, my Open GL poly count in native Linux apps will probably burn Modo (what happened to Modo Linux version? - Sad).

The latest Wings 3D is cool. Blender will be getting a tool redesign soon to be similar to the way Modo works. Not much beats Modo's renderer though.

Modo doesn't work or at least it didn't when I tried a while back. Might try again but it was so problematic I think it will probably fail again.

rcallicotte

Thanks for all of these updates.  I'm looking closely at which OS to use next and most of these programs are where my interest lies.

Next, I'm looking into Artrage.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?