Hey…
I brought a g4 quicksilver in the end,
733mhtz cpu
256 mb RAM
32mb Videocard
My "Atlantis " scene is instantiating torpedoes just fine. If I compare my pc with it:
CPU 900mhtz
768mb RAM
64mb VRAM
My PC is bigger in every way, but the g4 performs better. Bizzare.
Anyway, I am looking at a 512mb stick of Ram 4 g4, and I am wondering if it really makes any difference. Is the Unity project loaded into ram on opening? or Vram? Or other
Obviously bigger is better(unless u r comparing MAC vs PC )But is it really going to make any difference to how well Unity runs if I add 512 mb ram?
For the CPU, it’s not the MHz that matters. PPC and x68 are vastly different architectures, so 773MHz PPC and 900MHz x86 (which one? P3? Athlon? something else?) can be very different. I’m not sure which is faster.
Heck, even x86 is vastly different nowadays. A 1.8GHz Intel Core Duo beats the crap out of Pentium4 3GHz.
The same for video cards - it’s not the megabytes that matter for the speed in the first place, it’s the GPU.
Anyway, having more than 256MB for working in Unity should make a difference.
depending on what version of OSX you are running 256MB is the very minimum of RAM you can have. You should upgrade to at least 512MB as the Kernel task eats already about 100MB.
I would definitely want MORE than 512 total RAM. I don’t think that matched pairs matter for that G4 tower (but don’t quote me) so 256 + 512 = 768 should be pretty good. I have 1 GB and plan to go for 2 GB next time. OS X likes RAM–it helps prevent the spinning “beachball” wait pointer, by reducing HD access.
And as for MHz, that’s not a measure of speed–it’s just one factor among many, and often misleading. A very general rule is, if a chip is in the Intel “Netburst” family (Pentium 4, Pentium D, Celeron, most Xeons), then its Mhz are misleadingly high vs. the actual performance.
PowerPC G3/G4/G5, Intel Core and Core 2, many AMD chips, Itanium, and even Pentium M (which is really related to Core, not Pentium) all tend to offer better performance per Mhz than Pentium 4. The Pentium 4 design was marketing-driven (“make it sound fast on paper”) rather than being designed for best real-world speed. That’s why Intel finally did a great thing and scrapped the Pentium line and designed Core for real speed.
In short, MHz is how many times a chip runs per second. But to measure speed, you also have to ask how much work it gets DONE each time it runs. An older Pentium 4. if that’s what you have, often falls short of the G4 in that respect.
Also, PowerPCs have very good vector processing (“Velocity Engine”) compared to Intel’s SSE2. Intel now has SSE3 though, which I’m led to believe is quite good.
PS, much as I like the iMac’s looks, I still think Quicksilver is the best-looking computer ever made. Those big glassy handles look too cool–and none of those useless “speed holes” and garish chrome trim that they added after Quicksilver.
i’m running a 733 quicksilver with 1 gb ram and a 256 mb 9800 vid card. works fine with unity. recs… i’d definitely get more ram. i’d rather have more than 1 gb but won’t be doing anything til i get a g5 or an intel tower. i don’t know that i’d go as far as a 9800 for a vid card but i would upgrade that too. i went 9800 because i planned to get a new machine that i could put it in but that was a while ago. it’s already almost dated oh well. i think it’s actually giving me some probs because it’s too fast for the quicksilver. some of my 2d apps can take a long long time to refresh the screen. maybe it’s something else like dealing with postscript files or whatever. dunno. but for unity and other 3d apps it’s great. i forget… it’s a gforce mx2 - right? anyway, you’ll find most modeling apps painfully slow with that card. unity probably a bit slow but useable. no eye candy though. that card’s pixel shader 1 iirc.
Yeah I figured if it runs sweet now, a little topup will go a long way, So I found a smaller addition, 256, and financially that might allow me to get a 2nd hand monitor too. 1024x768 is a bit of a keyhole to look thru. In Dec, when we move to Australia I have to decide whether its worth taking g4 on the plane or just selling it. Its definately good to get started at home. I started the scripting/racing game tutorial last night, and thanks to everyone here who dunked my head in the scripting pool , I actually understand most of it, or rather i can see whats going on, whereas before it was just plain scary. thanks for taking the time you guys-I know there is some great responses to my threads and I will be posting back-once I return to those chapters in my project
And I should be getting My Unity license in a week or so, so things are looking great… The demo runs sweet as…Although the .obj files stopped being read once an .mb file turned up in my project…Doesnt recognize either now. I’ll go over everything and convert to FBX
See ya
AC
By the way anybody, you know the heightmap generator script in the procedural examples folder package, is it possible to have a meshcollider on the resultant mesh?Seeing resultant in scene view would be a bonus too
I dunno, 1.5GB here, and I’m able to run all my stuff at once with no beachballing and hardly any page-outs. However, there’s no way I could do that with 256MB. I figure you want at least 1GB for “real” work.
)But is it really going to make any difference to how well Unity runs if I add 512 mb ram?
oh well. i think it’s actually giving me some probs because it’s too fast for the quicksilver. some of my 2d apps can take a long long time to refresh the screen. maybe it’s something else like dealing with postscript files or whatever. dunno. but for unity and other 3d apps it’s great. i forget… it’s a gforce mx2 - right? anyway, you’ll find most modeling apps painfully slow with that card. unity probably a bit slow but useable. no eye candy though. that card’s pixel shader 1 iirc.
However, there’s no way I could do that with 256MB. I figure you want at least 1GB for “real” work.