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Posted by: djellison Jun 21 2006, 03:20 PM

Thinking out loud here...project 'SHOFFICE' kicks off in July - the Shed that will turn into my little office and official UMSF HQ....

Come early winter, I'll be upgrading my PC, as I need more power for the bigger mosaics I'm working on...

Currently my two machiens are..

3.2G P4, 2048Mb DDR3200, WD Raptor 72Gb System disk, and then various 7200RPM SATA and IDE drives for other purposes, and a 19" tft ( 1280 x 1024 )

My laptop's a 1.83 Ghz Centrino thing with 2048Mb of DDR2 and a 100gb 7200 RPM drive, with a 1920 x 1200 17" screen.

My plans will probably be for a mid-range Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB DDR2, the 72Gb Raptor as the system disk, but a pair of 500 GB Segates in mirrored Raid as the main storage for 'live' projects, with hopefully, one of those cunning two drive NAS's again in mirrored raid for archived data etc. My current desktop machine will then become a little slave in the corner, doing things like forum backups at 2am when my ISP isn't counting the bandwidth etc

I was lusting after the 30" Apple and Dell displays - but realisticly they're a bit too pricey - so I'll probably stretch to the 24" Dell 2407 display, possibly with the 19" tft as a second screen....not sure yet though.

Storage is the real pain though - becasue obviously, every ounce has to be replicated for backup, but buy using a Raid array, one eliminates a single-drive-failure nightmare arrising.

Anyway - thought I'd open up a thread to do comparisons...perhaps we could even set up a PTGUI project as an UMSF system benchmark?

Doug

Posted by: paxdan Jun 21 2006, 03:38 PM

mmm how d'you like them Apples?

I have a dinky 12" 1Ghz G4 PowerBook.

Methinks you should get a Dual Booting 17" MacBook Pro

Then again I do like them Apples

Posted by: Borek Jun 21 2006, 03:43 PM

I've recently upgraded my system to 1 GB RAM just to be able to make large image stitch jobs with PTGui/Enblend combo, but here we're talking a different level really

Borek

Posted by: DEChengst Jun 21 2006, 03:50 PM

My collection as it was two years ago:

http://paranoid.dechengst.nl/geekporn/serverroom/img_0558.jpg

In the mean time an AS4100 and two DECstations were added. The white PC under the left side of the table is the box that is the webserver that's hosting the picture. The black one on the right side is my workstation. It's a P4 2.4 GHz, 768 MB RAM, 120 GB Seagate IDE and a Matrox G450. Plans to upgrade ?? None I won't spend any money on a PC until the current one breaks down.

Posted by: angel1801 Jun 21 2006, 04:02 PM

I have a Intel™ Celeron™ D-330 running at 2.666Ghz with 256MB or RAM with a CD-RW drive.

Windows XP Pro pre-installed.

I have a 1500K download/256K internet connection.

Posted by: Nix Jun 21 2006, 04:10 PM

I'm upgrading in a few months. FWIW, I was thinking of trying AMD cpu (AM2 Athlon 64 X2 5000+) but I'm not sure yet.

What I am starting to be pretty sure about is display. I've been reading a lot of reviews lately and found the Apple's do frequently show color-shifting (which, IMO, will drive us CRAZY for matching histograms manually)

I was dying for this one;

http://www.eizo.com/products/lcd/S2410W/index.asp

turns out though quite some of them have ..-color shifting
their 21" ColorEdge seems to be a very pleasing display, which is in the same league as the Lacie 321 or its 'parent-panel'; the NEC 2180UX which is the exact same lcd for about $ 500 less. (at least so they say)

money, money, money -if I had some more I'd go for a NEC Spectraview 22"

I'm not about to invest too much in a display though since Canon and a few other companies have something new for 2007. First should be television, then pc displays.

http://www.canon.com/technology/display/
here's similar technology reviewed;

http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=384&page=1

I remember reading something about a display consisting entirely of led's which can take values 0-1 perfectly, resulting in contrast ratios of 100000:1 !!!

Nico

Posted by: Nix Jun 21 2006, 04:18 PM

Forgot; going up from 1 gig of memory to 2 does not make a very spectacular difference for stitching purposes.

I have 3 now, and plan to go up to 4 as Doug intends to do but I'm not expecting a world of difference.

Of course multi-tasking is sweet.
Better results of upgrading memory might be possible with latencies of 2-2.5 probably, I'm not sure.

Nico

Posted by: djellison Jun 21 2006, 04:25 PM

I'm thinking of starting at 2 ( really fast DDR2 can be £100 a gig or more ) and then seing if another 2 might make sense at a later date

Doug

Posted by: Nix Jun 21 2006, 05:03 PM

Yup, fast is pricey.

I should add my memory 'runs' at 400 Mhz so it's definitely not the fastest around.

Nico

Posted by: djellison Jun 21 2006, 05:07 PM

Part of me thinks I should go for a dual core S939 CPU, because top end ddr ram is so much cheaper than ddr2 and I have 2gb of it that I could split to begin with...still not quite decided really

Posted by: Nix Jun 21 2006, 06:34 PM

It's not a bad idea to invest in better ddr than 'standard' ddr2.

I'm having a lot of doubts too, yet I have plenty of time to decide before I can start buying
And then I'm drooling over some new lenses for the camera too

Nico

Posted by: Bob Shaw Jun 21 2006, 11:03 PM

I always advise my clients to steer clear of whatever is latest and most sexy unless they want to play the latest games; models which were cutting edge a year ago are now highly affordable. I also tell them to, in most cases, ignore the spec and buy on price - there's *always* a faster machine out there.

As regards memory - invest in strips which make most sense in terms of upgrades, so that you don't end up populating all your slots too early.

As for RAID, internal IDE is OK, but an external RAID box is best - or a dedicated Network Attached Storage box. In any case, buy a good UPS, and populate the RAID array with identical drives - then buy a spare HD. Remember that a single drive will normally be faster than a RAID array, so for image crunching you're still committed to a big local HD.

Now, as to backup, I'd avoid tape under almost any circumstances - I just don't think it's either reliable or practical. Removeable HD caddies are the single best bet.

Bob Shaw

Posted by: lyford Jun 21 2006, 11:48 PM

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/06/21/matrox_ships_epica/

And ditto Bob Shaw's good advice. I have been burned before with tape backup.

Posted by: jamescanvin Jun 22 2006, 12:42 AM

I do all my processing on a 1.67GHz G4 Apple PowerBook with 1Gb RAM - It's slow for big mosics, but gets there in the end.

James

Posted by: djellison Jun 22 2006, 12:49 AM

I must admit - the Mac Book Pro is very VERY enticing....what's the score w.r.t. pan software on OS X, particularly given the intel switch?

Posted by: dvandorn Jun 22 2006, 12:52 AM

I've got a 2.8 GHz PentIV system (HP Media Center model, very similar to their Pavilion), recently upgraded to 1 GB RAM, also recently upgraded to a 17" flat panel monitor. Amazing, how much prices have come down -- the additional 512 MB of RAM only cost $50, and the monitor was only $230.

It came with a 160 GB IDE internal drive, a CD drive and a CD/DVD burner drive. I've since added an external IDE drive, also 160 GB. (My roommate is a hard-core trainfan, and I'm a trainfan too, though a somewhat less passionate one than he-- I have about 250 GB devoted to Microsoft Train Simulator, at the moment.)

Of course, it has the standard USB ports, plus a bunch of slots for memory sticks and cards from digital cameras and such that I actually don't have much use for... and it has a TV receiver card in it that I also have no real use for at the moment (since I have a perfectly fine DVR and digital cable receiver from my local cable company). But I got the system for free from a friend a couple of years ago, so I was happy to get it, whether or not I had immediate use for all of the bells and whistles. (He had gotten it from a friend of his who had screwed up Windows real bad, and gave it to me to see if I could reload the software. I could.)

Interestingly, it runs a variant of Windows XP called Windows XP Media Center Edition. It's pretty much identical to regular XP, as near as I can tell -- I believe it just has some additional tools it uses with the TV receiver.

It has a nice 2:1 amplified sound system, complete with subwoofer, as well. I'll tell you, when I drive a big ol' steam train through the tunnels on Donner Pass, the neighbors can all hear it! (Better yet, I bet they can feel it in their teeth... *grin*...)

-the other Doug

Posted by: Bob Shaw Jun 22 2006, 01:20 AM

Doug:

Panorama Maker certainly works on pre-Intel PowerBooks - it exports to VR as well. Dunno about the Intel side of things, but from what I hear things like Photoshop CS are NOT yet optimised for the new silicon - ie go for a non Intel, but cheaper model until the new software starts to show.

Another option is to ditch Windows and go for Linux - don't know any Penguin Pano software, though...

Bob Shaw

Posted by: Sunspot Jun 22 2006, 08:38 AM

I'm getting a new computer soon. My current PC is a 667mhz Celeron, 320MB RAM, 15GB hard drive and Windows ME - i've been using it for 5 and a half years. It crashes at least twice every day, doesnt start up properly maybe 60% of the time and is now prone to crashing when I shut down.

I feel like a change, so i'm probably getting a Mac Mini or MacBook.

Posted by: Nix Jun 22 2006, 10:18 AM

Whatever you do, beware of Lacie D2 externals. I had a 200 Gb but recently had to take it out of its casing and plug it inside the pc (it wouldn't mount anymore). I was very glad all of the data was still there.

In the store they told me there are frequent problems with the IDE-Firewire interfaces. Don't know about the USB editions.

Nico

Posted by: PhilCo126 Jun 22 2006, 10:44 AM

My PC sits (of course) in a Chieftec body, CPU Pentium 4 2.80 GHz, 2 Giga RAM, Hard Disk 100 Giga and a proper screen to view Mars pans

Posted by: edstrick Jun 23 2006, 10:17 AM

Frankenputer-IV is a 1800 mhz AMD running win 98se with some heritage software going back to a 1989 XT clone. They're called Frankenputer's cause about every 3 years, I'd buy a new case, MB, CPU and Memory and Frankenstein the drives and reasonably up-to-date-cards into the new machine from the previous Frankenputer. F-III (~500 mhz Pentium 2) is still in use for text editing (Word for DOS 5.0) and running Win 3x programs if I want to boot that partition. F-II (120 Mhz Pentium 1) would probably run if I put cards in it. F-I (40 Mhz AMD) died when the nicad leaked after it was retired ... green corrosion all over one end of the MB!

I've also got "Media Monster", a 2400 Mhz AMD machine running XP, for copying LP's to CD and video work and stuff, but It's rarely up and running, I don't have TIME to learn the software, and ROOM to keep it setup any length of time. There's also an inactive Sun Sparcstation discarded from work with our 32 bit image processing software on it, but again, no room to run it till I set up an in-construction fire and storm resistant concrete-block "media-room" building.

Posted by: paxdan Jun 23 2006, 10:50 AM

True, however, the point of the MacBooks Pro's is they they dual boot. In fact they do better than that they can run OSX, XP and Linux in parallel. Therefore it doesn't matter that Photoshop is not yet optomised for OSX as you can run it in XP on your MacBook whilst using OSX.

Check out this video of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uvQTTPr9Rw&eurl=utilising a http://blog.medallia.com/2006/05/smacbook_pro.html.

Posted by: Tesheiner Jun 23 2006, 11:35 AM

That reminds me of a situation many years (15?) ago when we tried to upgrade a 'puter at work.
The initial idea was to upgrade just the MB and CPU but due to other additional incompatibilities we ended changing almost all the pieces. At the end, the only remains from the original machine were the casing and power-supply and, oh, we had to keep an older HD on it (in addition to the newer one), just connected to the power-supply but not to the HD controller. The reason was to act as a current load, otherwise the power supply would simply switch off because the current demand from the newer MB, CPU, HD, boards, etc. were not enough to drive it.

Posted by: CosmicRocker Jun 24 2006, 07:07 AM

I have been pleased with my AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800, but of course, I am comparing it to my old 1.4 Athlon X1 machine with 512 MB. I put 2 GB of generic DDR2 in the new machine, and occasionally wonder if I should have purchased more memory, or higher quality memory. I seem to be able to run many applications with large files simultaneously, without hesitations, but MMB in panorama mode displaying all of the images in that Spirit sol 807-855 collection at full res sometimes bogs it down. There must be hundreds of pancams and navcams in that collection, so I am not complaining.

The thing I am most interested in upgrading now is the display, and Nico's "pretty sure about" comment caught my attention. That is what is most bewildering to me at the moment. I almost started a topic asking what are the best displays to use for color imagery work, but this looks to be an opportunity to insert that question here.

What we see on our monitors is critical to the quality of the work we can produce. I have long been under the impression that the principle advantage of LCD monitors was mostly ergonomic, and that CRTs remained superior for image rendition. Today, a modreately priced, wide-screen LCD monitor was delivered to my son, who purchased it for 3D gaming and portability. To test it, we connected it to my computer in dual screen mode, to compare the monitors side by side.

We tried a number of tests before he "just had to" carry it off to his friend's house, who has broadband. It was most interesting to stretch a Photoshop or MMB window across both his LCD monitor and my CRT, and then pan the image across the two monitors. To my surprise, MER color panoramas looked much better on the LCD than on the CRT. We ran the CRT at 1280x1024 and the wide screen LCD at 1440x900, which was it's native resolution, but I could detect little, if any, difference between the resolution of the monitors as I zoomed to high magnifications. But the color contrast was like day versus night.

So, now I am considering upgrading to a dual LCD monitor desktop, and am posing this question to the imagery gurus here: "Where have I gone wrong?" I've spent much of the night reading about CRT/LCD comparisons, and I'm still confused.

Posted by: edstrick Jun 24 2006, 10:38 AM

"..That reminds me of a situation many years (15?) ago when we tried to upgrade a 'puter at work...."

With the Frankenputers, what would usually happen is that I'd progressively upgrade drives, cards as-needed during the 3 years between system upgrades. So when the time came for a system upgrade, the old system would be the most obsolete stuff. It would then be "back-graded" with cards and drives that had been retired during upgrades to replace the stuff moving to the new system.

It's amazing what old junk is good for. A year ago, I hauled out a 0.85 Gig drive when Frankenputer 4 wouldn't even "beep" on powerup after a thunderstorm. I put a stripped version of Win98 on it using a Media Monster, striped F4 down to almost nothing, and put the "sacrificial" drive in F4. Booted just fine. Turned out that apparently the ETHERNET card had been fried THROUGH the still-working cable-modem and prevented the machine from booting. Cable modem (apparently damaged) fried a second ethernet card before I got RoadRunner to swap it out for a new one.

Posted by: djellison Jun 24 2006, 06:54 PM

My current PC has a floppy drive that's more than a decade old.....so basically I've just been upgrading ever since

Doug

Posted by: lyford Jun 25 2006, 04:42 AM

Hmmmmm, anyone in the mood in this thread for an Atari vs. Amiga flame war?

Posted by: Sunspot Jun 25 2006, 08:26 AM

I still have an Amiga A1200

Posted by: CosmicRocker Jun 25 2006, 08:43 AM

I think I have some Amigas and Ataris up in the attic somewhere. You'd have to ask my (grown up) kids about them.

I'm still hoping to get some expert advice before I buy two new monitors to be used for exploring other planets...

Posted by: Nix Jun 25 2006, 08:53 AM

I'd pick these;

If I could;

two 21" NEC Spectraview

If I manage;

two 21" Eizo Coloredge or two 21" NEC Multisync 2180UX or two 19" NEC Spectraview

'tight' budget;

two 20" Lacie 120

(or me personally probably one 21" Eizo Coloredge / NEC 21" Multisync 2180UX / Lacie 21" 321, I still have the CRT's..)

That would be my choice I'd like to hear others on this too though..

Nico

Posted by: CosmicRocker Jun 25 2006, 09:24 AM

Thank you, Nico. I really do appreciate your comment. Ouch! Even your low-end selection is quite expensive for my dream, dual wide desktop. ...back to the drawing board...

...and I too, would like to hear from others.

edited to correct a grammatical error. I really hate those.

Posted by: Bill Harris Jun 25 2006, 10:52 AM

From 1993 to 2004 I used a state-of-the-art 486 with 32Mb memory and a 256 Mb hard drive. It died and/or software became hard to get so I upgraded to a off-the-rack Dell with a fast processor, lot's of memory and a huge hard drive. I'm not sure what it's got but I'll dig around and add it to this post.

"Back then", my 'puter was hand-assembled with the best of the best components. Since then my priorities changed and nowadays it's easier to buy something usable and replace every couple of years.

How times have changed.

--Bill

Posted by: helvick Jun 25 2006, 11:39 AM

I've noticed that the trend here seems to somewhat reflect my own history. I've had a PC of one sort or another since 1988 upgrading on the fly but my current desktop is a highly modified Dell that has had hdd, cpu, graphics card and lan adaptor upgrades since it was bought 18 months ago.

However my employer has seen fit to provide me with an IBM T43p and it is just so nice to use that I find I rarely use my desktop anymore for anything apart from mass storage. It's got a 1600x1200 resolution display which is the loveliest monitor I've ever used. A good desktop still beats it hands down in terms of performance and storage but I don't spend enough time doing that level of heavy number crunching for that to matter to me any more.

Posted by: jrdahlman Jun 29 2006, 07:24 PM

While everyone else is talking about how big and fast their computers are, the computer I end up using the most is this:

A 1997 Toshiba Libretto 50CT: plain Pentium processor at a whopping 75 mHz! It has been beefed up: doubled its memory to 32 Meg, and replaced the standard 750MB drive with a 6-gig one (that barely fits in the case). It's even been upgraded to Windows 98 from 95. And it's way smaller than a laptop.

You see, while I certainly have more powerful machines at home and work, I rarely get to use them. My mornings are spent watching our son, while my work in the evenings forbids anything but company software on their computers. So I end up doing most of my own work with this little thing on the train. (When I'm not snoring due to the babysitting, that is.)

Too slow, you say? Even an old computer can seem fast if you don't mind being 5-10 years behind the times in software. For graphics processing, I use Paint Shop Pro version 4 and sometimes 5, as well as a simple batch processor called PicLab. I can use the NASA PDS file viewer, and Img2Png runs fine, if slowly. Of course, it works just fine for typing in pixel values into a spreadsheet. (Did anybody notice my Excel files were for version 5?) It has no hope of running Midnight Mars Browser or Photoshop (well, maybe Photoshop 2), but I don't expect it to.

I first saw this gadget on display in an electronics store years ago. So small, but a "real" Windows (not Windows CE!) computer. I dreamed, but it was over a thousand dollars at the time. Fortunately, wait a few years and what was thousands then just turns into a few hundred on Ebay. Finally sprang for it from an auction a few years ago. (This model goes for only $50-$100 now, so I've stocked up on spare parts.)

Toshiba actually still makes modern Librettos in Japan, but they were never a big hit in the U.S., so you can't get them here anymore.

Posted by: djellison Jun 29 2006, 07:42 PM

I HAVE ONE OF THOSE...

It's sort of retired now, but it was used for lap-timing on Scalextric racing

Doug

Posted by: DonPMitchell Jun 29 2006, 10:00 PM

http://www.mentallandscape.com/Computer_PC.htm

I like to have one machine with broad usability. I play games like World of Warcraft and Half-Life2, but I also do C++ development and run heavy number-crunching programs and ray tracers.

Currently I have a dual Opteron system. AMD seems to offer better math performance with lower heat production and energy consumption. I'm running Windows XP x64, which lets me address large memories. I installed 8 GB of ram, but now I wish I had put in 16. Not many commercial apps use that memory, but my own C++ programs easily consume that much.

My philosophy is to replace my computer when I think I can get a new one that is 4 times faster, so I tend to get several years of good use out of a machine. Then I spend the bucks on a bleeding-edge system. I'm more conservative about video cards, because I know a lot of people who have reliability problems when they by the fastest-clocked products. I've got an ATI X800 XL, which is considered fairly modest, but it runs the above-mentioned video games at 1920 x 1200 with no trouble.

Posted by: Bob Shaw Jun 30 2006, 12:51 AM

Doug:

I have a couple... ...the 50 is put away in the basement, but I still use my Libretto 70CT (64Mb RAM, 233Mhz, 20Gb HD) with a GPS card in a PCMCIA adapter and Autoroute and it's *still* a joy. It also gets used for photo slideshows, and is *always* assumed to be a cutting-edge bit of hardware! And it has astronomy software on it, too...

I'm still trying to get OpenGEM to run on my trusty old Sharp PC-3100 palmtop... ...just to prove I can.

Bob Shaw