Pixar Switches to Mac OS X and G5s

fmorgan writes "No big surprise here: when Apple introduced the G5 at 2003 WWDC, it become more a question of 'when' Pixar will move to G5s, than 'if'). At the same conference, Apple showed a new codec for Mac OS X named 'Pixlet,' developed with Pixar. In last year O'Reilly's Mac OS X conference, there was a presentation on how Pixar moved their desktop/office environment to Mac OS X. Now it seems it's the main production work: 'Apple's Don Peebeles said that Pixar has used Linux and Intel-based architecture in 2003, but that Pixar was switching to Mac OS X and G5 workstations for its production work: Peebles went on to say that this switch was "a move that no doubt made common CEO Steve Jobs very happy."'"

Didn't this happen a while ago?

[The Lost Supertone]

I seem to remember someone from Pixar saying that they were moving over to G5 work stations. As for the Render Farm I believe they just purchased a whole lot of 2.8Ghz Xeons (if I remember correctly) and so it would probably not make sense for them to go and buy a ton of Macs for that right at the moment. Besides Steve knows when Apple's upgrade schedule is. They will buy Dual 3Ghz or 4Ghz Xserves before they need to render the next Pixar release I bet.

Re:not only makes steve happy, makes sense

[jamshid42]

No, you are remembering correctly, WETA does use Linux-based server farms.

Well, with this pairing, that means whenever I take my kids to see the latest Pixar movie, I will be stuck with Apple commercials on top of all of the other commercials, the RIAA documentary, and all of the half-hour long previews that pretty much show you the whole movie (or at least the best parts).

Re:Renderman!

[levork]

Pixar isn't changing the farm. As for RenderMan, the current release is already available for OSX in a beta form.

SGI's

[vasqzr]

This isn't Jurassic Park.

Plus, they only had a 117 Sun workstations in the original Toy Story render farm.

Disney's "Toy Story" Uses More Than 100 Sun Workstations to Render Images for First All-Computer-Based Movi [sun.com]

How does this affect me?

[mefus]

I've heard of renderman and recall the pixar ppl have developers actively contributing to Linux.

Will this affect Linux development in any significant way?

I use a G5 at work but I don't use it for anything that might be affected by this. It's mostly a number cruncher/web browser.

Actually they have, in a way...

[the_skywise]

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114653,0 0.asp

The gossip is that Eisner was considering quicktime, but went with Windows after Jobs decided to take Pixar away from Disney.

Re:For the price

[vasqzr]

Virginia Tech's "Big Mac" has proved the G5 to be very powerful in a cluster.

G5 not Consumer

[CoolMoDee]

umm.. the G5 isn't a consumer machine. It is a professional workstation. Apple's consumer machines are the iBook/eMac/iMac. Pretty much Anything with an X or Power infront of it are professional machines.

Re:*Shrug*

[gobbo]

Well, Pixar can afford to buy Apple stuff, *and* Apple have someone on the inside.... I think it'll work out alright, Apple doesn't make bad stuff, just stuff that isn't worth what they are charging...

Oh puhleez, that's so 1999! Have you priced out performance / price ratios for tier 1 manufacturers? G5's do smackingly well, especially against Dells and the like, often coming out much cheaper before considering things like support costs and reliability and resale. Pixar isn't going to build their own bargain bin beige boxes. Look at VirginiaTech's shopping research, they paid full price to Apple and it was still cheaper/faster than Dell.

Re:Looking at G5's for my data center too

[Raindance]

Actually more modern Intel processors run an 800mhz frontside bus.

However, your point is well taken that the G5 architecture seems to impliment a better memory architecture.

Re:And if Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it was better when they used FreeBSD, and they had a bitch of a time moving it to Windows 2000. Yes it works pretty well now, but they spent a lot of money and effort getting it that way, when it already worked just fine on FreeBSD when they purchased it.

If Hotmail were owned by anyone else other than MS, it wouldn't never been moved to Windows 2000. It is just a plainly stupid business and technology decision for anyone else.

Re:FSB correction

[aristotle-dude]

Can I get a dual P4? No? We are talking about clustering dual CPU machines, not a bunch of cheap desktop boxes crammed into 1U units.

Re:Steve Jobs as CEO can redefine "necessary"

[thatguywhoiam]

Steve Jobs isn't a particularly staunch fan of GNU/Linux, nor of software freedom

What about this? [apple.com]

Re:I don't know why,

[terevos]

The default size of the install is not what defines bloatware. If Windows XP came with every game and every Application that was made for the PC, that wouldn't necessarily be bloatware.

Bloatware is when a product has so many _useless_ features that cause it to be large. (IE. Microsoft Office, Open Office)

Is linux bloated because you can install a good 4 CDs worth of stuff on your system install? No. You have options. And you have a wide variety of applications and tools at your disposal.

Re:Here's what I see coming...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pixar switched from Suns and SGIs.
I think you meant they "switched to a 1/2 - to 1/3-times as expensive per seat hardware/software platform".

Re:Steve Jobs as CEO can redefine "necessary"

[leperkuhn]

Please, don't mod up posts like this for "insightful." A while ago Apple helped bring a version of Linux to the Mac, they had an entire section on their website on the project.
Additionally, Darwin is Open Source, not GNU, but you can still get the code. Third, Apple is presenting at Linux shows. It's my opinion (and many others I'd assume ) that Apple wants Linux to thrive. Why? Any program written for Linux have the possibility of running on OSX, especially when KDE and GNOME are up and running. Hell, apple might even bundle KDE and GNOME eventually.

My 2 cents.

Re:Could see this coming....

[malducin]

The rendar farm however still uses a mixture of SUNs and SGI

Well maybe. Pixar switched to RackSaver Linux blade servers for their renderfarm about a year ago. Their website still lists them as clients though that could have changed.

Pixar switches from Sun to Intel [com.com]
RackSaver Customers [racksaver.com]

Re:Could see this coming....

[BoomerSooner]

Your pipe isn't fat enough. I was doing an audit of GTE billing in the late 90's and was looking for some of the biggest bills. Sure enough Dreamworks had a very large bill for their pipes (something like 30 OC-3's or something). Pretty big for a non-telco related company.

Note: my memory isn't that good so if someone wants to shed some more detail I'd be interested in an update!

Re:Pixlet is lossy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's higher quality than JPEG at the same bandwidth (it's actually much more similar to JPEG2000).

It's also significantly faster. Trying to watch a 1920x1200 HD preview in JPEG is not pretty on most systems without a hardware codec.

With the continual increases in resolution and demands for quality 'good enough' tends to become not good enough.

Re:There is no technical or financial merit to thi

[Anonymous Coward]

Pixar dosen't use Maya--if you haven't figured that out yet. However, Maya Complete is available for OS X, so I don't see your point.

I see no reason why a Mac would be any less able to do 3D computation than a Sun, SGI or a Linux machine.

But I do see why having a whole cluster of OS X machines would be beneficial: XGrid... Not to mention all of the tools that OS X comes with that make it very easy to manage so many machines.

G5 v intel

[mattyrobinson69]

IIRC, the G5 can outperform a comparable x86 processor in one area - floating point operations.

For rendering, floating point operations are probably the most important thing for a rendering farm.

(disclaimer: i did say IIRC)

Re:Steve Jobs as CEO can redefine "necessary"

[BoomerSooner]

Here you go dumbass [apple.com].

They contribute back to GCC, BSD, etc. They don't however give their GUI Cocoa/Carbon away for free to OSS. If you don't like it, don't use it. If you don't want people using free software to enhance their products, don't release it as OSS.

I hate when people bitch about someone following the license software is released under. BTW, did you build BSD? Didn't think so.

Re:Looking at G5's for my data center too

[EriktheGreen]

To clarify the bus speed issue, the front side bus in any Xeon or P4 system must be shared by all CPUs, meaning that 800Mhz FSB effectively is a 200Mhz fsb for four cpu machines. I suspect the situation is worse with hyperthreading turned on, since that tends to increase utilization of the FSB, at least in theory.

Opterons on the other hand have an integrated memory controller on die, and each cpu in a multi-cpu system has its path to core memory.

I suppose you could just get all single cpu machines, but that would be even more expensive than multi-cpu Xeons, and far more expensive than the Opterons... Erik

Re:G5 v intel

[Anonymous Coward]

outperform would be putting it mildly.

fmad

Re:Here's what I see coming...

[SamBaughman]

Take a look at price/performance on the dual G5's. Many other people have, and they have been pretty unanimous that the Apple's win. See University of Virginia.

Please, please, PLEASE tell me you aren't referencing "Big Mac" at Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia are two entirely distinct insitutions.

Slight correction

[DavidinAla]

It's not the University of Virginia, but rather Virginia Tech, that built the G5-based supercomputer. They're fiercely competitive universities, not the same thing. :-)

Re:System arch

[Wiz]

No, neither one is going to help you there.

1. The power consumpution is about the same. Intel are the heat freaks at the moment. IBM & AMD share process technology after all.

2. The system bus is the same for both systems, 800MHz HT channels.

As I see it, the Opteron is the x86 equiv of for the PPC 970. They are very similar!

Re:System arch

[harlows_monkeys]

Looking at only the chip is a big mistake - the G5's have a very nice architecture, like a much faster system bus

The fastest Apple G5 has a 1 GHz bus. The slowest Opteron has a 1.4 GHz bus, and the fastest has a 2.2 GHz bus.

Re:Slight correction

[jocknerd]

Technically, he was correct. Virginia Tech IS "The University of Virginia", not that school in Charlottesville.

Re:Made on a Mac

[thatguywhoiam]

Now, is Pixar going to end every movie with a shitty gif of a spinning Apple logo that says "Made on a Mac" ?

Oh probably. It'll go next to the Apple logos that are already there for Shake, RAYZ/Chalice, Logic, or what have you...

Re:Pixlet is lossy

[mcwop]

Here is a page comparing the codecs [kenstone.net] in various ways.

Re:good or bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple bad for Linux? Here [yellowdoglinux.com]'s where you can find the most beautiful Linux box you could ever have hoped for. Cluster them if it makes you happy---it's supported. But you say Unix based operating systems are more scalable for clusters and render farms. What do you think Mac OS X/Darwin is? Do you want to look at the source? Try starting here [opendarwin.org].

What propaganda are you talking about, anyway? Are you a troll or could you really just be this stupid? The Virginia Tech cluster was not made at the prompting of Apple, but some researcher did his homework and decided to use it. They came up with something that worked better than anything for the money and also landed third place in the Top 500 [top500.org] honestly. That's not just marketing spiel. A third party decided to use Macs for their cluster, and a third party that ranks these things honestly gave the cluster a well deserved third place. Do you honestly think Apple has no right to use this fact to promote their product?

As for the media thing, I don't know how anyone could honestly argue that Linux is easier to use for photography and movies than the Mac with its native software. What FUD has Apple spread about Linux with respect to media? Why would they have to? In this area, they don't even need to so much as acknowledge the existence of Linux because the people using Linux for media would use it anyway and no one else would bother using Linux for that. Life's too short.

Re:why not SGI?

[SmackCrackandPot]

When large companies such as Pixar decide to make a large decision like this, they will determine the price/performance ratios of all the available systems. The overall price includes the cost of all the systems including discounts, support/maintenance and the cost of changing over. Performance is measured using benchmark related to the required task. For PIXAR, this is the RenderMark(*). Ultimately, each system will be reduced down to X dollars per RenderMark. The vendor with the most Rendermarks per dollar will be the winner.

At present, Apple has the most powerful systems. That isn't to say SGI, Sun or anyone else won't make an effort to catch up. From: Sun Microsystems [sun.com]

Evaluating Rendering Performance Pixar has developed a benchmark standard to produce a single metric that characterizes a computing system's rendering power. The larger the RenderMark, the greater the system's rendering capacity. The RenderMark is derived from the elapsed time of a set of four jobs that stress important aspects of rendering: Ball. A ball with shading, nubs, and motion blur Pixar. The Pixar logo that includes complex geometry and typesetting designed by Pixar's Typestry software Magic. A RenderMan marketing poster depicting magician's hats and wands, including lots of texture-mapping Bike Shop. A bicycle shop scene from Pixar's Red's Dream, where one of the biggest challenges is the number of spokes to render

From Computer Graphics World [pennnet.com] A 1000 RenderMark CPU computes the same frame twice as fast as a 500 RenderMark CPU.) The first Toy Story (1995) used 50,000 RenderMarks for rendering; A Bug's Life (1998) needed 700,000 RenderMarks; and Toy Story 2 (1999) took 1.1 million. Monsters, Inc. re quired 2.5 million Render Marks, more than the first three films combined.

Re:How does this affect me?

[raga]

The folk at Apple contribute an insanely small amount to Linux development overall (they contribute, not saying they don't, but spitting in the ocean doesn't add that much water overall).

If by Linux, you mean the kernel, AFAIK, Apple has not contributed anything (since MKLinux 7+ years ago?) But they do contribute significantly to other OSS projects. [konqueror.org]

Apple never ported shake to Linux, never will.

Umm,,, are you sure they haven't ported it to Linux? [apple.com] From the Apple website:
Shake 3 is also available for Linux for a suggested retail price of $9,900 (US)

Everyone looks at bang-per-buck. Opterons on Linux are cheaper and a lot more bang-per-buck.

Don't know how you can make that assertion, but the VaTech cluster [top500.org] proves that G5s are the biggest bang-per-buck.

The other issue is that Linux is OSS. Need a change? Fix it to meet your needs. Can you do that as easily with OSX? No. You have to tell a mac developer who may or may not make the change you need to best suit your needs.

This sounds like a parrot repeating sounds ("Linux is OSS") it has heard many times, but knows not what it mean. No common user needs to change Linux (the os/kernel) to "meet their needs". And if you do have such a "need" and are knowledgeable enough to get under the hood to do so in Linux, then you should also be perfectly capable of doing the same to Darwin. For apps, just as you are at the mercy of a "Mac developer", you are also at the mercy of a "Linux developer".

OK, I promise not to feed the trolls again.

cheers- raga

Re:For the price

[anourkey]

Actually, It might outperform a beowulf cluster in some sense. With the Beowulf cluster, you have to set up nodes for processing and typically aren't user nodes. The scheduler will queue up tasks to the nodes as they are requested. However, Apple still has their XGrid technology lurking around Pixar I'm sure. With XGrid, all the machines act as a cluster where Mac's with free processes to spare can work on computations for other nodes. Also, the G5's altivec provides a definite performance boost since most of the work is render work which is probably easill parallelized/verctorized. Just from checking the Apple website (yeah, I'm sure it is biased) for the HPC LINPACK benchmarks, the XServe Dual 2GHz G5 is 9GFlops where as the DUAL 2GHz opteron is 5.91 GFlops. Just my $0.02

Already done!

[goombah99]

Zilla, which foreshadowed Xgrid, shipped on all the NeXT computer. and let any next user donate their clock cycles. see here [slashdot.org]

Re:But are they using Cinema Displays ?

[spitzak]

Colors only need to be matched between two different images displayed on the same screen. This is quite possible even if the screen is adjusted completely wonky.

FUD that's simple to disprove.

[sqweak]

Good luck convincing a jury that you switched to a 2- to 3-times as expensive per seat hardware/software platform and it had nothing to do with the fact that the same guy is CEO at both companies.

from apple's shake page [apple.com]

Shake 3 For Mac OS X $4,950.00

Shake 3 is also available for Linux for a suggested retail price of $9,900 (US) with an annual maintenance of $1485 (US). Render-only versions of Shake 3 are free on Mac OS X and are available for Linux for a suggested retail price of $3,900 (US) with an annual maintenance of $585 (US).

even after buying a loaded dual g5 (composite workstation) or a xserve (rendering) facilities are saving money by switching to apple. Shake is also more stable on Mac than Linux.

(yes, i realize pixar deals mostly in 3d and not compositing, however, most VFX facilities do both)

Expensive licenses?

[TheInternet]

Pixar certainly doesn't have to worry about being shaken down for expensive licenses

You have a point in general, but Mac OS X only costs $130, and every machine comes with a copy. The lack of expensive licenses has nothing to do with them being Pixar.

- Scott

Re:good or bad?

[lavaface]

Why would no bother using linux for media? It's a perfectly viable option, if some of the big names made ports. At this point, I don't even want to touch commercial software, so perhaps I'm exempt from this to begin with, but to completely disqualify linux from being a viable media option on no basis is a bit harsh.

You clearly don't use your computer for serious media work. While I agree that, in theory, there's nothing stopping Linux from being viable, the reality is there is so much you cannot do. I use Final Cut Pro, After Effects and Pro Tools/Logic. Nothing on Linux compares. Eventually, I'm sure Linux will catch up with Open Source solutions AS THEY ARE TODAY. But even iMovie trumps any Linux video editor I've encountered. Audacity is fine for basic mixes but offers no where near the amount of prescision and ease of use that commercial software provides. Fine for basic demos and turning records to MP3s but not good enough for consistent, heavy production. I understand your concerns and can truly say, yes, Apple's offerings are superior to their Windows or Linux equivalents. Try it out!

Re:Argh - well

[Radon Knight]

2. Mac OSX is not even 64bit capabale as far as i know?

You know not. OS X 10.3 is 64 bit "capabale."

Re:Argh - well (64bit software)I just HAVE to ask

[Senjaz]

Mac OS X 10.3 only supports a 32 bit virtual address space per process although it can address more than 4GB RAM in total.

From Mac.Ars [arstechnica.com]:

It was originally hoped that Panther would be truly 64-bit after the PPC 970 was announced, but that turned out not to be the case. For an OS to be 64-bit, you need the following: the ability to address more than 4GB of RAM, the ability to use 64-bit integers for "fast math," and support for a 64-bit address space for each process. What is Panther missing?

One may run up to 8GB of RAM in the G5s, which is twice the amount supported by a 32-bit OS. Indeed, the G5 will even support 2GB DIMMs, so if you have an inordinate amount of disposable income you can run your aluminum tower with 16GB of RAM. Panther also provides support for 64-bit integers. However, the virtual address space for processes in Panther is 32-bit, which means that applications still hit the 4GB ceiling. Thus, while Panther breaks the RAM limitations of a 32-bit OS and offers 64-bit integers, it doesn't support 64-bit addresses spaces for the applications.

Re:Ownership

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch .html

Best way to get information on publically owned companies.