I'm thinking about buying either an iMac or a MacBook.

I'd like the MacBook for the whole portability but when I look over the specs, I see that it runs “Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950” as a video card. I was just wondering if Houdini will 1. work on that card (I have no idea), or 2. the card will be fast enough to run the program.

Why do you want a Macbook? I presume not for houdini or for power? Houdini doesn't run on MacOS. And I don't know how much a MacBook costs but for the same amount of money you can get a better Dell/Lenovo/HP notebook. Don't get an Intel graphics solution. The slowest ATI or NVidia chipset for notebooks gives a way better openGL performance then the best of Intel's GMA.

I understand that there's no Mac port for Houdini. I'm thinking of getting a Mac coz I've been using a lot of graphics programs and most of the companies out there that are hiring are asking for Mac fluency. My friend's Mac hasn't given her any problems whatsoever… ever. And she has a iBook G4. She recommended a Mac.

The only reason I'm asking about the Mac/Houdini compatibility is because I'm taking a 3D animation course in the fall that requires you to use Houdini. since my current laptop (a Sony Vaio P3 1.0Ghz, 512 Ram) is 1. screwy and 2. slow, and I'm eventually going to get a Mac anyways, I decided to go with a Intel Mac.

I had a feeling Intel Graphics would suck. But that's the only thing MacBook comes with. MacBook pro, however, offers the ATI. I'm hoping the Parallels or the Bootcamp would work.

I think you are mixing a few things up here. The reasons why you want to buy a Mac seem all wrong to me. I don't think companies care if you used graphic software on a Mac or not imho. I think they do care that you are fluent with the software. You should also decide if you prefer a laptop that you can use or a laptop that just looks good…as said, Intel graphics suck. The only reason i can think of buying a Mac notebook is that there are some (sound-related) programs that only run on OSX. If you want one anyway, get the pro-book. Still for the same amount of money you can buy a better notebook from another brand. All in all i see no reason to buy a Mac…

Sorry, but I don't really think that's fair of you to say that jyleafer's reasons are WRONG for wanting a mac… that's not being helpful. They're asking a legitimate question, not asking to be told that they're wrong in their preference or decisions… Just because someone likes/wants something that you don't like, doesn't make their reasoning wrong.

intel integrated graphic S-U-C-K-S for any kind of 3d/graphic thing, specialy that kind of fancy-packed apple integrated one.
And that's a fact.

ah, and this was the question:

I was just wondering if Houdini will 1. work on that card (I have no idea), or 2. the card will be fast enough to run the program.

1. most probably it won't, or it will but very bad;
2. the 1st answer has no real use since houdini WON'T work on macOS. maybe you can manage to install it via dual-boot thingy, I don't know. But in any case performance will SUCK.

If you get PowerBook and manage to run houdini via dual-boot you will still have problems since they have ATI cards, do a bit of search here on forum…

On the other hand if you plan to use maya/cinema4d I supose mac can be good solution.

Bottom line, if you want/wish/need/have whatever… to work with houdini DO NOT BUY apple notebook. It will be like buying a sleek chrome porche to drive it in the jungle…

Well… the mac would really just be for graphics and movie editing that I've been doing a whole lot of lately.

I'm just taking a course in 3D Animation(which uses Houdini) and wondered if I could use Parallels or Bootcamp to load the Apprentice version up.

Thanks for the info!

The Adobe creative suite tools (photoshop etc) aren't available for the Intel Macs except in slow emulation mode, so if they are important to you may want to wait, possibly till next year if the rumors are correct.

http://www.adobe.com/products/pdfs/intelmacsupport.pdf [adobe.com]

Parallels is going to be very slow (if it works at all) since it isn't going to use the native opengl graphic support (correct ?). Bootcamp may be a solution, if the ATI drivers were robust under XP (popular opinion seems to be they aren't).

It *is* going to be nice for movie editing using FCP, and you can now get a cheap copy of Shake as well.

-Drew

does anyone know if you can stick a Nvida card in one of th intel macs?
-k

I seriously doubt it, although I'll bet it will be among the things that's on hacker's lists… Apple won't support it, though.

Cheers,

J.C.

And there's also the problem that Apple apparently write some portion of their nVidia opengl drivers themselves. We've had problems porting some code from win32/linux to a Mac G5 with an nVidia card for this reason. In once case the same opengl code ran tens of times slower than on a PC with the equivalent chipset, meaning seconds per frame instead of frames per second.

-Drew