Animation Master v19.0 Release

[Fuchur]

Those should be very nice systems... they are quite new and quite fast.

 

Mid-Range:

- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Boxed (Quad Core), 3.6 GHz

- GPU: GIGABYTE Radeon RX 550 OC 2 GB OC

- Mainboard: MSI B350M Gaming Pro

- RAM: G.Skill DDR4 Value RAM 2400 MHz 8GB

- SSD: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250 GB

- Powersupply: Corsaid VS-Series 550W

- Case: Antec Three Hundred Two (this really is not too important... you can use anything you want

[Fuchur]

Just to mention it: Those are all very new and very powerful systems.

It does not need to be that fast for A:M. But it will be helpful especially for rendering.

Especially 1700 will be a beast for rendering with netrenderer. (there are even better once, but those add little for too much money if you ask me... like 1700x or 1800x)

 

If you are after a less expensive computer let me know. It will be less powerful but should still be quite nice for A:M work. It just will be less fast when rendering stuff.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

 

If you are after a desktop, these are my current recommendations:

 

Highend:

- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Boxed mit Wraith Spire 8-Kern (Octa Core) CPU mit 3.00 GHz, Boxed mit Lüfter

- GPU: Gigabyte Radeon RX 560 Gaming OC 4 GB OC

- Mainboard: ASUS PRIME X370-PRO

- RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX Schwarz 16GB DDR4 Kit (2x8GB) 3000MHz C15

- SSD: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250 GB

- Powersupply: Corsaid VS-Series 550W

- Case: Antec Three Hundred Two (this really is not too important... you can use anything you want)

- Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S (only if you want to overclock... which you may want to do... if not, the boxed cooler will do very well)

 

Best regards

*Fuchur*

Very helpful *Fuchur*

I needed a detailed technical baseline and now I have that

Cheers

Bruce

 

 

No biggy .

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[pixelplucker]

Do you know if the Ryzen chip has all calls on each core like an i5 and i7 or is it still the same as the fx series where some functions are bridged between 2 cores?

My 8350 unlocked 4.0 4.2 turbos is blazingly fast on many things such as ordinary graphics apps and games but raw number crunching it seems to fall short as compared to a xeon of the same speed with half the cores.

 

From what I remember when I still had AM on my machine the render benchmarks where nearly identica between my 8350 and an 8 year old dual chip xeon 4 cores (8 cores total) running at 2.66 ea.

 

I think on a modern 4-6 core xeon system AM would really shine. Curious how the ryzen could compare.

 

FYI most Xeon motherboards do have dual sockets. Keeping that in mind you could consider dual 4 cores on them with the higher clock speed which woud actually be cheaper than a single 8 or 12 core chip and give you the clock speed as well as the extra cores for multi applications. The massive multi core chips, 12core +, will have lower clock speed due to heat.

 

As far as desktops if you were to get an i7 extreme (8 core) the extra cost of those machines make Xeons a better option for nearly the same money with the added bedefit of ecc memory which gives you incredible stability. Any thing less than am i7 extreme then AMD is a solid choice.

 

Bang for the buck I can't complain having my desktop in a thermaltake box casae (motherboard on its back) AMD 4.0 8 core, 32gb of memory adn rx 480 8gb all for under $900.

[Bruce Morgan]

Thanks Ken !

[robcat2075]

When I'm looking at published benchmarks of CPUs, I think that the "single threaded" version of "Cinebench" is likely the closest to mimicking what A:M does.

[Fuchur]

Just to say it if you are not a tech person: You may want to skip this post .

 

Do you know if the Ryzen chip has all calls on each core like an i5 and i7 or is it still the same as the fx series where some functions are bridged between 2 cores?

My 8350 unlocked 4.0 4.2 turbos is blazingly fast on many things such as ordinary graphics apps and games but raw number crunching it seems to fall short as compared to a xeon of the same speed with half the cores.

 

From what I remember when I still had AM on my machine the render benchmarks where nearly identica between my 8350 and an 8 year old dual chip xeon 4 cores (8 cores total) running at 2.66 ea.

 

I think on a modern 4-6 core xeon system AM would really shine. Curious how the ryzen could compare.

 

FYI most Xeon motherboards do have dual sockets. Keeping that in mind you could consider dual 4 cores on them with the higher clock speed which woud actually be cheaper than a single 8 or 12 core chip and give you the clock speed as well as the extra cores for multi applications. The massive multi core chips, 12core +, will have lower clock speed due to heat.

 

As far as desktops if you were to get an i7 extreme (8 core) the extra cost of those machines make Xeons a better option for nearly the same money with the added bedefit of ecc memory which gives you incredible stability. Any thing less than am i7 extreme then AMD is a solid choice.

 

Bang for the buck I can't complain having my desktop in a thermaltake box casae (motherboard on its back) AMD 4.0 8 core, 32gb of memory adn rx 480 8gb all for under $900.

 

AMD is no longer using FX-based architecture (bulldozer) but a totally new one (Ryzen) closer to the one of Intel (but a little different because it is the much newer architecture). IPC of AMD Ryzen is much higher compared to the AMD FX architecture (more or less at the same as Intel to a little better, so it has to be said, that for instance the i7 7700k will win these single-core-tests in the end because it has a higher clockspeed... but we are talking about low % values here). Ryzen is supporting hyperthreading (SMB) and it is kicking anything Intel has at the moment when it comes to productivity/multi-threading for the same money by a factor of about 2. Actually the 1800x (8 core machine) is competing with the Intel Core i7-6900K (8 core machine) from Intel (about $1000) but only costs half the money (about $500). In some situations it even is faster then the 10 core intel which is much more expensive than even the 6900k.

 

The only CPU from Intel which is currently better suited for gaming (at a reasonable price difference) is the i7 7700k, but for productivity or multi-threaded applications it is only about half as fast, simply because we are talking about a 4 core vs 8 core systems (both with hyperthreading, so 8 threads vs 16 threads). For gaming that does not matter much (or is even a little less good to have more cores) and there you still can/should buy a 7700k but if you are after multithreaded applications or you are using your computer for gaming and productivity tasks, it really is a no brainer at the moment.

 

And while the 1800x is a little bit faster, it is basicly the same chip as the 1700 but the 1700 will save you some additional money.
So overclocking the 1700 will bring you close to the performance of the 1800x. Of cause the 1800x is a little easier to run at the same clockspeeds, but that is really up to you if 3% performance is worth $100-200 there...

 

For A:M we are really only talking about rendering... anything else in A:M will run with very equal speed on both systems, simple because both CPUs are very fast once. The i7 7700k might be faster or at a close to even performance if you are only using one instance of A:M to render, but if you are using Netrender or multiple instance, the Ryzen 1700, 1800 and 1800x will allow you to run 16 instances simultationously compared to 8 instances for the i7 and than AMD is the much better offer. Even the Ryzen 5 1600 will beat it here very noticeable but that chip is again less expensive.

 

Ryzen is currently quite a big deal all over the place. If you are only gaming with your computer (and it depends on the games...), than I recommend a i7 7700k which is faster on CPU-limited games or resolutions.
In any other situation the Ryzen is the better choice especially if you combine it with high frequence RAM.

 

If you are interested in benchmarks and technical stuff like that, you may want to have a look at this:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5RP1CPpFVE

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caDxAJMAu0w

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf_pUECRmAo

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3HwjOLghQw

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0XHDug7PNE

 

Intel is reacting to that with price drops and in a few weeks to month with the i9 will be out, but is to compare with AMD Epyc and AMD Threadripper-LineUps but that is not here yet and will be very expensive...

I'd say both (AMD Epyc/Threadripper or i9) are over the top for any person which is not using the computer in a work environment and really needs MANY cores in a full blown workstation.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[Bruce Morgan]

Excellent post !!!

and

it sounds like very fast chips are just over the horizon !

Thanks !

Cheers

Bruce

[robcat2075]

In my own case, since I do more modeling and animating than rendering and since most of what A:M does is single threaded, I'd favor a faster CPU with fewer cores over a slower one with more cores.

 

The CPUs that can throttle up one core when the others are unused sound like an interesting solution but I haven't had one yet.

[itsjustme]

PCPartPicker.com ( https://pcpartpicker.com/ ) is a great place to check different combinations and price them. You can browse systems that others have put together or start from scratch.

 

I like having a laptop, so I go for one of the gaming laptops with a good video card and decent specs. At this point, I'm using an Asus ROG laptop, but I like MSI as well. The best deals I found were on NewEgg ( https://www.newegg.com/ ),

 

Hope that helps.

 

------------------------------

EDIT

------------------------------

 

The price hasn't been announced yet, but Asus will have a Ryzen laptop available sometime this year: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3197566/computers/asus-rog-teases-the-worlds-first-amd-ryzen-laptop.html

[Fuchur]

In my own case, since I do more modeling and animating than rendering and since most of what A:M does is single threaded, I'd favor a faster CPU with fewer cores over a slower one with more cores.

 

The CPUs that can throttle up one core when the others are unused sound like an interesting solution but I haven't had one yet.

 

In general that is true, BUT we are talking about very little differences per clock here... I doubt you would notice it. Running both at the same clock speeds, the Ryzen is even a little faster. You would very likely not do that because you can overclock the i7 7700k to about 4.5 (without going too crazy on overclocking... 5 GHz is possible too, but that is quite risky and needs a very good cooling solution and consumes a lot of power) while Ryzen can only go to 4.0 to 4.1 GHz (that is quite easily done, but there it will stay... maybe 4.2 GHz if you are lucky but over that is even with a good cooling solution just not possible). That is normal... a 8core chip (for instance i7-6900k) from Intel can not be run at 5 GHz or something like that neighter, because there is just more heat generated by 8cores than by 4cores.

 

If you see it like that, the i7 7700k is slightly faster for single core (maybe 5%) but if you are using After Effects, Premiere, Rendering out with Netrenderer or even compressing stuff using 7zip and stuff like that, it gets beaten up by about 50 - 80% by the Ryzen 8-core. (it highly depends on the tasks thrown at it)

 

That is a no brainer for me, simply because the average performance increase is that high and it is just more future proove to have an 8 core CPU instead of a 4 core simply because it is very unlikely that software will be written for less cores (or even single cores) in future and the software that is already available is not changing in performance anyway... that means you will receive a very reasonable performance today but potentially get even more out of it in future while lower core count-cpus will stay what they are now.

 

If you want to go the middle route, the AMD 1600 is a 6 core-CPU... it is a good one too, but for rendering the additional costs of the 1700 => 8 core are just small enough to get the 1700 too.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[Fuchur]

PCPartPicker.com ( https://pcpartpicker.com/ ) is a great place to check different combinations and price them. You can browse systems that others have put together or start from scratch.

 

I like having a laptop, so I go for one of the gaming laptops with a good video card and decent specs. At this point, I'm using an Asus ROG laptop, but I like MSI as well. The best deals I found were on NewEgg ( https://www.newegg.com/ ),

 

Hope that helps.

 

------------------------------

EDIT

------------------------------

 

The price hasn't been announced yet, but Asus will have a Ryzen laptop available sometime this year: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3197566/computers/asus-rog-teases-the-worlds-first-amd-ryzen-laptop.html

 

I really like the first website you showed there... very good to choose stuff .

This is the 1700-build I showed above (more or less):

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/QHFRXH

 

You may need an optical drive (blu-ray or dvd burner) and maybe a card reader would be nice too, but that is optional stuff. And of cause a display, mouse and keyboard.

 

Best wishes

*Fuchur*

[pixelplucker]

Thanks Fuchur for clarification on the ryzen. As far as desktops go I am pleased with AMD's performance for the most part and have always been a fan of the underdog. Previously AMD had been a hit or miss with chips they produced and you had to shop carefully to get the most for your money.

 

I wish they came up with a chip that competed with the Xeons. Intel seems to still dominate the workstation and server market. My old Xeon workstation is still running and only reason I disbanded and turned it into a Sun server is because it has a proprietary power supply and the PCIE is outdated and does not support the newer cards very well. The extra power draw causes a chassis fault light to come on and the slower bus speed really diminishes the worthiness of a new cad card.

 

That machine had been running pretty much non stop going on 9 years. That workstation has the Intel Skulltrail board that Mac had used a custom version on their older Mac Pro workstations. Really solid machines.

 

Ill check the pc parts picker site out, usually buy parts from Newegg (I hate Amazon).

[pixelplucker]

PC parts picker doesn't allow adding 2 cpu's?

[Fuchur]

Thanks Fuchur for clarification on the ryzen. As far as desktops go I am pleased with AMD's performance for the most part and have always been a fan of the underdog. Previously AMD had been a hit or miss with chips they produced and you had to shop carefully to get the most for your money.

 

I wish they came up with a chip that competed with the Xeons. Intel seems to still dominate the workstation and server market. My old Xeon workstation is still running and only reason I disbanded and turned it into a Sun server is because it has a proprietary power supply and the PCIE is outdated and does not support the newer cards very well. The extra power draw causes a chassis fault light to come on and the slower bus speed really diminishes the worthiness of a new cad card.

 

That machine had been running pretty much non stop going on 9 years. That workstation has the Intel Skulltrail board that Mac had used a custom version on their older Mac Pro workstations. Really solid machines.

 

Ill check the pc parts picker site out, usually buy parts from Newegg (I hate Amazon).

Xeons are server processors for the most parts. I can not say too much about those but if you want to go in that direction you should have a look at AMD Epyc or threadripper. Those are not yet released so, but they are targeting the server and workstation market. (they have alot of cores...)

 

Both are based on the new Ryzen architecture too.

 

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[Bruce Morgan]

A funny concept has occurred but it sounds like

I am most likely to pick up a used P C WINDOWS 10 tower

(with the specs you have so kindly mentioned)

from a gamer who wants cash for his her upgrades

and call that my A:M

Thanks many times again

Cheers

Bruce

[robcat2075]

As far as I can ascertain, a "server" CPU...

 

-more cache

-more RAM capacity (TB instead of GB!)

-uses ECC RAM

-faster bus

-more cores
-multiple socket mother board possible

 

A "desktop" CPU CPU...

 

-faster clock speed

-extended instruction sets like SSE4
-onboard GPU (Intel only?))

[itsjustme]

PC parts picker doesn't allow adding 2 cpu's?

 

 

Here is a dual Xeon build: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/J68Ycf

 

So, there must be a way to do it.

[Fuchur]

As far as I can ascertain, a "server" CPU...

 

-more cache

-more RAM capacity (TB instead of GB!)

-uses ECC RAM

-faster bus

-more cores

-multiple socket mother board possible

-build to run 24/7

 

A "desktop" CPU CPU...

 

-faster clock speed

-extended instruction sets like SSE4

-onboard GPU (Intel only?))

 

That is quite correct, with the exception of the Intel iGPUs being the only integrated graphic solutions.

 

For Intel CPUs with integrate GPU are called "CPU with iGPU"... AMD calls them "APU". APUs are much more powerful for the graphic card component (and behave much better with A:M concerning the realtime display) but less fast for the CPU part. APUs are used for instance in the Xbox One S, the new XBox Scorpio, the PS4 and laptops (I myself have a HP Elite Book 745, which has a APU A10-7800 in it) or lower entry desktop computers (for instance if you want to play a few games but you are not that much into gaming).

 

New APUs with Ryzen are on their way, but not yet available.

But in any case: Dedicated GPUs are just faster and better than those integrated once. That is true for APUs and even more for iGPUs vom Intel (at least in most cases).

 

So if you are considering a real workstation or a gaming pc (or anything else more or less demanding on the GPU), you really should get a GPU from Nvidia (if you want to use Cuda at all) or AMD (OpenCL is a litle faster on those cards but they can't do CUDA => owned by Nvidia).

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[pixelplucker]

Xeons are better at heavy calculations and much faster for floating point calculations. Not sure if AMD can compete in that area because Intel can just drop their prices. Intel is also coming out with an i9 series.

 

For pre-built desktops, the Dell XPS are pretty nice and can be upgraded. The warranty and support is nice too. The offshore the help that will look on Dell's website and read back the info you are looking for via live chat or phone! This can save hours of using hyperlinks and clicking with the left mouse button.

 

Kidding asside, they do make a descent desktop. Not crazy about their workstations which tend to use retail price on chips and have poor video card choices. By the time you customize one to suit your needs you can have a better machine by building yourself.

 

If your doing general graphics and using AM then a good desktop is all you need. 16gb+ mem, half descent card and a descent cpu like an FX, i5 or better.

[TheToadStool]

yes! I just got it installed for mac. It is indeed v19 with the new mascot ! So far so good. Very exciting, thank you !!!

 

 

Adam

[Fuchur]

Xeons are better at heavy calculations and much faster for floating point calculations. Not sure if AMD can compete in that area because Intel can just drop their prices. Intel is also coming out with an i9 series.

 

 

i9 is meant to compete with AMD Threadripper... but we do not know of neighter of them what they really can do till now... concerning Xeons: The competer from AMD will be the new AMD Epyc... it is no yet out, but it has a new architecture too. If they are more or less as nice as the Ryzen 7 lineup and have an equal performance boost over the previous CPUs, it will be a serious competor... but we just do not know about those till now since none of these (neighter i9 nor Threadrupper or Epyc) are available to the public till now.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[John Bigboote]

Hey- sorry to change topic back over to V19... I have installed it and am toying with a old project- is anyone else having trouble selecting keyframes in the timeline? It is not always predictable but about 50% of the time, I drag a rectangle around a group of keyframes (see image- arrow at bottom) and the keys will 'maybe' become selected. I can workaround by selecting a different bone in the PWS then reselecting the bone I want and trying again which resets my odds at 50%... is there a new feature or setting I don't know about? Seems like a bug.

[robcat2075]

ct- is anyone else having trouble selecting keyframes in the timeline?

 

I have had that problem although I don't seem to be having it today. There may be some circumstance that does it.

[Rodney]

is anyone else having trouble selecting keyframes in the timeline?

 

A report has been put in for this (two reports actually because it appears to have been accidentally duplicated).

See report 6793

 

The workaround is to crack open the channels so that only the one desired is exposed and then selection is possible.

One example is that of translation where trying to select a keyframe while all axis (X,Y and Z) are visible nothing can be selected but upon selecting any of the channels individually they can be selected.

[John Bigboote]

Thanks Rodney- that helped! Here is another for testing... may be a bug...When you have 2 objects with SSS in the same scene the render crashes...

[Rodney]

Here is another for testing... may be a bug...When you have 2 objects with SSS in the same scene the render crashes...

 

I don't use SSS much these days but if repeatable that definitely needs a report.

[robcat2075]

Thanks Rodney- that helped! Here is another for testing... may be a bug...When you have 2 objects with SSS in the same scene the render crashes...

 

It always helps to post a sample PRJ so we know we're doing what you're doing.

[robcat2075]

Running the ThreeTeapotsBenchmark on my 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600 Windows 7 PC I get

 

v17 5:11 per frame, 11.57 frames per hour

v18 4:59 per frame, 12.04 frames per hour 4% faster than v17

v19 4:35 per frame, 13.09 frames per hour 13% faster than v17

 

 

 

[robcat2075]

Here's comparison of times back to v15. Great work by Steffen on optimizing A:M and getting it to 64 bits!

 

[John Bigboote]

Great study, Rob. When used in NetRender with multiple renderers, the time-savings really adds UP! I have been putting V19 NetRender thru it's paces with some test projects- working well!

 

NOTE: I made a test project with 2 instances of SSS, and it did'nt crash upon render... so nevermind on that. I have so many belles and whistles turned-on in my renders- playing detective is no fun.

[nemyax]

I have so many belles and whistles turned-on

You and your turned-on belles.