Vray, Bootcamp and Macbook Pro Questions

[danieljhatton]

Hi guys,

I know this subject has been touched on numerous times but if its ok, I would love some help from you beautiful people.

I was thinking of purchasing a Macbook Pro 17''. I was just wondering about the following;

A. Can it run x64 Vista?
B. Can I use my StudioMax 2009 (x64) and Vray on it?
C. Am I able to use strip rendering via my PC and Mac at the same time?

In terms of the macbook itself. There is an option to purchase 8GIG of ram but its an extra €1000? Can this particular Macbook RAM be upgraded at a lesser price? Also, would it be worth purchasing the better graphics card as well?

Thanks for taking the time on my questions. Really appreciate it!

Danny

[danieljhatton]

Ok, just looked at the specs again and it shows that the Macbook Pro 17'' comes with the follwing graphics.

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT with 256MB or 512MB of GDDR3 memory

Quite good!

[dcullipher]

Macbook Pro

I have a bunch of Macs in addition to my PC machines running windows for rendering. To answer your questions directly.

A) Bootcamp has drivers and setup processes specifically for Vista 64. XP64 is more difficult but vista is good to go. Another nice thing is if you get VMWare Fusion for mac or one of the other virtual machines apps you can mount the Bootcamp drive and boot it while in the Mac OS.

B) With Bootcamp you basically setup the option to boot into mac or PC natively so you will get all the performance of the machine for 3dsmax as you would running a Winbook.

C) Do not buy RAM from the apple site, there is ALOT of markup there. You can find a better deal here http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memor...o/Upgrade/DDR3 I use them for all of my mac ram for many years now. However the 4G chips are a rare item right now so a bit expensive wherever you go.

Once you have it setup you can runn BB server like any other machine for strip renders or distributed rendering.

I would also recommend getting the AppleCare plan its this best bargain or a warranty for all the support. I will do my best to answer any mac questions I can for you.

[danieljhatton]

dcullipher,

Thanks a mill for your reply! Real help. Definatly going to get a macbook now.

I am torn wether to go the whole hog and get 17'', but my brain keeps telling me to go for the 15''. Basicaly what I want to do is all my main Studio Max Work on my PC and tinker with rendering settings, final images while I am in the living room on the Macbook.

I think the spec of the 17'' is much better. The battery, the anti-glare option, the capability of going to 8Gb of RAM. I would get the Apple Care within the year. Probably a month before the warranty ran out.

Another benfit is being able to get the VAT back so...

Thanks for your help.!

[etown]

I'm pretty sure you can't run 64bit OS on a macbook pro. I believe only the towers support 64bit. Anyone confirm?

[dcullipher]

It works fine. Bootcamp just gives the OS native access to the hardware. Here is a step by step http://simpable.com/software/mbp-64bit-vista/

Although XP64 is a problem I think.

I live for the 17". The extra screen resolution is awesome, just like my 27" work monitor. This is great when traveling or wanting to show clients something in MAX at their office. Also 8G of ram is a huge deal for me.

[danieljhatton]

Is there any benchmarks for vray and the macbook pro's?. Its just that I am now considering a Alienware laptop and want to know how they compare.

[dcullipher]

If you are using it for only 3dsmax, and can take the weight, the Quad alienware is going to be best for your use. Until a new macbook pro comes out with a quadcore. If you want some of the mac software then you could get the alienware and an iMac and then use the imac to help with rendering sometimes. This is coming from a hardcore mac user