AMD just lost Dreamworks

[Phynaz]

Okay, you're right, Intel can't code software to use it's own instruction set extensions.

Happy now?

BTW, AVX has nothing to do with Avid. AVX = Advanced Vector Extensions, a set of 256 bit wide very fast SSE instructions. Otherwise known as what makes Larabee go fast. It's not a platform, it's an instruction set. We're in the cpu forum here, not the Avid plug-in forum.

Please, please read before you post incorrect information. It can cause people that aren't as savy as others to think the information is correct. A lot of people don't verify what they "hear".

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Viditor

Edit:If you're curious as to how long I've been in the industry, keep in mind that I cut my teeth on a Quantel Mirage (which we programmed in Pascal!) and quad tape...

omg

pascal.... i remember taking that in AP Comp Sci back wayyyyyyyyyy long ago.

*poking vid*
Your old. Hehe.

 

[sonoran]

Originally posted by: Viditor

since they are close to real time rendering in uncompressed 2k already, a 40x increase seems a bit silly

So why would they state "They send it out and have to wait overnight to actually see what they've done"? Waiting overnight doesn't seem like "close to real time" to me.

And I'm sure you're right - they couldn't care less what platform they're using. All they care about is that they have the fastest rendering hardware they can afford to buy. And clearly they decided that was likely to be Nehalem and, in the future, Larrabee. I'm sure they (like a large segment of the market) will go back to AMD if they pull some magic uber-processor out of their hat.

* Not speaking for Intel Corp *

 

[Phynaz]

That's because Viditor is talking about transcoding and rasterization, not animation and rendering. His years of experience in video editing is a mute argument, as we aren't talking about video editing.

I've been driving a car for forty years, and have held a racing license for the last 22. That doesn't mean I know how to design an engine.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
I put a warning in one of the above posts... The use of the word "ignorance" in that context is a personal attack..These are not tolerated.

Enough said ?

Difference of opinion is allowed, calling people ignorant is NOT allowed.

It looks as if you need to buy a dictionary. The word ignorant is never, and can never, be an insult, since the word means uninformed.

 

[NXIL]

Also, I am highly dubious of Intel's engineer's ability to convert anything in AVX space.

Yes, they are a bunch of screw ups.

Q1 2008:

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/...n-and-johnson-to-rise/

Santa Clara, California-based Intel remains the leading maker of semiconductors. In the past year, its revenues were $38.3 billion and its net income totaled $6.97 billion. Its EPS growth forecast for the year is 9.7%, which is better than the technology sector average and the S&P 500.

1. They have the worst record in high-end graphics of any major competitor in the space

Hmm, Intel does Apple Mac; I think they are pretty good in that space.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wall-e.htm

Wall-E: ~ $140,000,000 dollars in about 2 weeks.

Pixar built out with Intel in 2003:

http://digitalcontentproducer...._pixar_builds_massive/

Pixar's new RenderFarm, used to create the digital images for each frame of animation in its movies, will consist of 1024 Intel Xeon processors inside of eight new RackSaver BladeRack supercomputing clusters running Pixar's own RenderMan software. The RenderFarm features two terabytes of memory and 60 terabytes of disk space. Each Intel Xeon processor at 2.8 GHz is about five times faster than the older RISC-based processors in Pixar's outgoing RenderFarm. Pixar is using the system for its film, "The Incredibles," scheduled for a 2004 release.

That Render Farm did "The Incredibles": it was OK, but I guess those disabled Intel engineers weren't able to come through for them.

Each BladeRack contains 66 dual-processor servers in an innovative arrangement that provides excellent cooling for very dense clusters. Pixar worked closely with RackSaver and Intel on the design of the systems, which are built around the tailored Intel SE7500WV2 server board. Pixar also utilized the assistance of Intel Solution Services and the sophistication of Intel compilers and performance tuning tools to boost the performance of their RenderMan software by 50 percent on the Intel-based systems.

Here's a picture of it: looks pretty professional to me: 2006 photo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetwilitekid/85940485/

2. Most of the guys who can write those tools already work for either Lucas, SKG, or Disney.

One word V: school. Books and teachers. Young kids, new faces. Lots of energy, new ideas. Or, are we to assume that in a few decades, when all the people at Disney and SKG die off that we will go back to black and white film?

Cal-Arts, USC, UCLA....and, people like the guy who did "Sky Captain" on his Mac at home....there are lots of them out there, eager and willing to use new tools and ideas to create cool new stuff. [Note: yes, I know Sky Captain sucked.....but you have to give the guy credit....]

a 40x increase seems a bit silly

"640K is enough for anyone". "There is a total world market for about 4 computers".

I remember reading back in the early 80's that IBM did some tests with people off the street with their new dual floppy 8088 IBM PC. Looking at the DOS ">" prompt, one guy typed in "What is the capital of Ohio?", or something like that, and of course got an error message: there was much hilarity from the human interface testers....it's about 25 years later: type that into Google, and get the capital, the mayor;s email and phone #, a satellite photo of the city that can show you people in their back yards pools, guides, blogs, web cams and on and on. It's friggin amazing.

Intel helped a lot with all that.

I have a feeling that the new Intel hardware and software are going to work fine; not perfect.....there will be bugs and issues to address....but I think the Intel Engineers will do fine.

 

[Phynaz]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: Markfw900
I put a warning in one of the above posts... The use of the word "ignorance" in that context is a personal attack..These are not tolerated.

Enough said ?

Difference of opinion is allowed, calling people ignorant is NOT allowed.

It looks as if you need to buy a dictionary. The word ignorant is never, and can never, be an insult, since the word means uninformed.

I feel the same way.

Ignorance can be fixed, stupidity can't.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: Phynaz
That's because Viditor is talking about transcoding and rasterization, not animation and rendering. His years of experience in video editing is a mute argument, as we aren't talking about video editing.

I've been driving a car for forty years, and have held a racing license for the last 22. That doesn't mean I know how to design an engine.

Firstly, I work in both animation and rendering on at least 6 different platforms (I had a small hand in Babylon 5 for example) as well as editing and production. Also, modern editing transitions and effects are all rendered...you are trying to apply video game situations to Broadcast Graphics.

Second, it's moot, not mute...

3rd (and this is for you sonoran), I think katzenberg is doing a little selling there (something he's quite famous for in the industry)...
The current system (IIRC) is set up so that all modelling is done during the day and then rendering is done at night. The issue is that they currently don't have the network and storage set up properly for high speed rendering at each workstation, so that they do it in jobs from a centralized render farm instead. If they build out the individual workstations so that they avoid the render farm, they can certainly increase the speed...but this is more a matter of throwing money at the problem than a revolutiuonary platform. My guess is that this is exactly what Intel has done as their part of the bargain, giving SKG plenty more multi-socket/multi-core goodness with plenty of memory to go with it (and probably some nice SAN systems to help out as well).

 

[Viditor]

Nixar...

1. What does a company's revenues have to do with their ability to get into a segment they've never successfully been in before?

2. Intel's graphics profits were for IGPs... While they certainly lead the market in sales in revenue, they also most certainly trail the market in high-end product.

3. The render farm at Pixar had nothing to do with Intel's engineers writing software for rendering farms or workstations

4. As to the bit about school, I don't see where it gets you an experienced Intel engineer already writing those new tools today...it does take a wee bit of time there.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Phynaz
Funny, I look up Dreamworks and see them listed as the distributer for 49 movies.

Me thinks you need to get your info from a more reliable source than a tabloid.

You are wrong.

Viacom/Paramount purchased Dreamworks and has distribution rights for 59 films with an 8% cut after selling the library to a group led by George Soros.

From The New York Times (tabloid of record)
Soros Group Said to Be Near Deal for DreamWorks Library
March 17, 2006

Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures was near a deal last night to sell the film library of Dreamworks SKG for about $900 million to an investment fund controlled by George Soros, people involved in the talks said.

From Forbes (another tabloid of record)
Soros Group Buys Viacom's DreamWorks Film Library
3.17.06

Viacom retains ownership of music publishing and certain other rights related to the catalog--including sequel and merchandising rights.

Dreamworks SKG after teetering with bankruptcy was broken into little teeny pieces five years ago. Electronic Arts purchased the video game subsidiary more than 7 years ago. Viacom/Paramount purchased the movie/music of Dreamworks SKG and DreamWorks Animation was spun off into a separate company.

The deal between Soros and Paramount was closed several months ago.


When you are uniformed, Pynez, you should consider Google.

 

[NXIL]

1. What does a company's revenues have to do with their ability to get into a segment they've never successfully been in before?

They can invest in it: they can hire people with the skills and enthusiasm to make it work. Vid, I will stick with car analogies, because they are simple, it's easy, and you seem to ignore any data that does not fit your AMD prejudices.

Honda: yeah, right, some little motorcyle maker is going to challenge GM and Ford. (Note: GM and Ford are burning through cash; they may have to declare bankruptcy in the next year or two. Honda won't.) Honda invested in new factories, and created reliable, thrifty cars that filled a need.

And, to return to your question that is a variant on "do you still beat your wife?", I will again remind you that Intel supplies Pixar; if you are in the video business, you realize that Pixar has an incredible (pun intended) record of success. I think their stuff looks pretty good. Intel *is* successful in this segment.

You mentioned IGPs: I don't get it: um, if you think they are using on board graphics at Pixar, I thinks you needs to take your meds.

3. The render farm at Pixar had nothing to do with Intel's engineers writing software for rendering farms or workstations

So, your point is....that Pixar should hire AMD software engineers? Well, a bunch of their folks just got laid off, with more to come, so I suppose there will be many available.

4. As to the bit about school, I don't see where it gets you an experienced Intel engineer already writing those new tools today...it does take a wee bit of time there.

Vid, how long does it take to bring a software engineer, i.e. programmer up to speed? SSE4 is new: 47 new instructions.

It was announced on September 27, 2006 at the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum, with vague details in a white paper;[1] more precise details of 47 instructions became available at the Spring 2007 Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, in the presentation.[2] The SSE4 Programming Reference is available from Intel.

It is, quite literally, not rocket science.

Regardless, your point is: that they should have gone with AMD? Why? For less speed, less power efficiency?

NXIL

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: NXIL

3. The render farm at Pixar had nothing to do with Intel's engineers writing software for rendering farms or workstations

So, your point is....that Pixar should hire AMD software engineers? Well, a bunch of their folks just got laid off, with more to come, so I suppose there will be many available.

actually this might be a good one.

Hier the engineers and developers that AMD laid off, so they write something more geared to rendering.

This would possibly be a winner expecially since AMD is cheaper hardware wise, and having a full IT staff that developed the hardware would be a winner.

 

[Phynaz]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: Phynaz
Funny, I look up Dreamworks and see them listed as the distributer for 49 movies.

Me thinks you need to get your info from a more reliable source than a tabloid.

You are wrong.

No, I'm right.

Here's a nice numbered list for you right here.

When you are uninformed booboo, you should consult an authoritative source. Or else your remarks could end up looking something less than intelletigent.

But you can go on believing whatever you wish, it's no sweat off my back.

 

[Phynaz]

Originally posted by: Viditor

Originally posted by: Phynaz
That's because Viditor is talking about transcoding and rasterization, not animation and rendering. His years of experience in video editing is a mute argument, as we aren't talking about video editing.

I've been driving a car for forty years, and have held a racing license for the last 22. That doesn't mean I know how to design an engine.

Firstly, I work in both animation and rendering on at least 6 different platforms (I had a small hand in Babylon 5 for example) as well as editing and production. Also, modern editing transitions and effects are all rendered...you are trying to apply video game situations to Broadcast Graphics.

Second, it's moot, not mute...

3rd (and this is for you sonoran), I think katzenberg is doing a little selling there (something he's quite famous for in the industry)...
The current system (IIRC) is set up so that all modelling is done during the day and then rendering is done at night. The issue is that they currently don't have the network and storage set up properly for high speed rendering at each workstation, so that they do it in jobs from a centralized render farm instead. If they build out the individual workstations so that they avoid the render farm, they can certainly increase the speed...but this is more a matter of throwing money at the problem than a revolutiuonary platform. My guess is that this is exactly what Intel has done as their part of the bargain, giving SKG plenty more multi-socket/multi-core goodness with plenty of memory to go with it (and probably some nice SAN systems to help out as well).

I notice you didn't reply to anything I said about AVX or Intel writing Dreamworks tools to use it.

And now you claim to know the details of Dreamworks proprietary workflow!

BTW, I did make one error. It seems the AVX instructions run by Larrabee are 512 bits wide, not 256.

As far as "selling" render times, well, there is one major reason why he can't make false statements - US security laws. Worker productivity is financially relavent information, and he is prevented from lying about it due to SarBox. If he says it take 16 hours to render a frame, then you can bet it take 16 hours. Unless he wants to spend a few years in prison.

This will be my last post, you can have your usuall last word.

 

[NXIL]

Viditor wrote:

If they build out the individual workstations so that they avoid the render farm, they can certainly increase the speed...but this is more a matter of throwing money at the problem than a revolutiuonary [sic] platform.

No, they are not going to render the frames on individual workstations.

Here is a simple basic article about their current setup: the one that is going to be replaced with smoking fast Intel gear:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pa...ks-HP,review-1095.html

There are 1500 Linux servers in DreamWorks? employ, and none of them rely on connected uninterruptable power supplies (UPS). But that makes sense: This is disposable computing, and any data accumulated is rendered moot by the next rendering. So, the blades of the render farm are only protected by surge suppressors. There is no need to save the hard drive information; if a few hard drives fail in the farm, there is no noticeable loss because the missing data is recalculated by other systems. Any missing data, especially only an hour or two worth, is easily covered by some of the other computers, which pick up the slack. Thus, there is no need to back up currently rendered information. Think grid computing. DreamWorks replaces a few to 10 hard-drives every month.

They are not "throwing money at the problem": they are investing in increased productivity; they will get some of the money back in reduced energy costs--you may have noticed that energy prices are climbing, substantially.

Consider:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS_per_watt

Most of the power a computer uses is converted into heat, so a system that takes fewer watts to do a job will require less cooling to maintain a given operating temperature. If installed where there is limited climate control, a lower power computer will operate at a lower temperature, which may make it more reliable. Reducing cooling demands make it easier to make a computer quiet. Reducing energy consumption can also make it less costly to run, and reduce the environmental impact from powering the computer (see green computing).

Note that the simple article said that people need earplugs to go into the server room--that's a lot of fans running.

AMD's gear is having energy efficiency issues.

They have some low-watt (55) Opterons (2300 series), but, these are clocked at 1.9Ghz...and time is money. (Lower watt but less powerful processors often waste energy, rather than save it...the machine runs for a longer time.)

Note: AMD is having these issues because they didn't throw some money at the problem and create 45nm fabs like Intel did.

GL

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: NXIL
Vid, how long does it take to bring a software engineer, i.e. programmer up to speed? SSE4 is new: 47 new instructions.

It was announced on September 27, 2006 at the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum, with vague details in a white paper;[1] more precise details of 47 instructions became available at the Spring 2007 Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, in the presentation.[2] The SSE4 Programming Reference is available from Intel.

It is, quite literally, not rocket science.

No, but writing optimized assembly code is pretty damn close. It would definately take a while to bring a programmer up to speed with 47 new instructions. I'm talking optimizations, not just usage. It's like the difference between getting 30MPG on a car, and 50MPG. Optimizations make all the difference in performance, and that performance isn't free. It takes quite a bit of time to program.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Phynaz

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: Phynaz
Funny, I look up Dreamworks and see them listed as the distributer for 49 movies.

Me thinks you need to get your info from a more reliable source than a tabloid.

You are wrong.

No, I'm right.

Here's a nice numbered list for you right here.

When you are uninformed booboo, you should consult an authoritative source. Or else your remarks could end up looking something less than intelletigent.

But you can go on believing whatever you wish, it's no sweat off my back.

Look very closely at the title of your link page: DreamWorks SKG

Now I will paste this from my above quote very slowly so you can read it:

Dreamworks SKG after teetering with bankruptcy was broken into little teeny pieces five years ago. Electronic Arts purchased the video game subsidiary more than 7 years ago. Viacom/Paramount purchased the movie/music of Dreamworks SKG and DreamWorks Animation was spun off into a separate company.

Since you decided to delete this from my quote I will paste it very slowly so you can read it again:

Viacom/Paramount purchased Dreamworks and has distribution rights for 59 films with an 8% cut after selling the library to a group led by George Soros.

From The New York Times (tabloid of record)
Soros Group Said to Be Near Deal for DreamWorks Library
March 17, 2006

Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures was near a deal last night to sell the film library of Dreamworks SKG for about $900 million to an investment fund controlled by George Soros, people involved in the talks said.

From Forbes (another tabloid of record)
Soros Group Buys Viacom's DreamWorks Film Library
3.17.06

Viacom retains ownership of music publishing and certain other rights related to the catalog--including sequel and merchandising rights.

btw - When you attack someone please consider using a dictionary when spelling intelligent.

 

[Idontcare]

This thread goes a long ways towards demonstrating the idea that it's not really the topic that brings out the passion in what a select few posters like to post about (be it Intel vs. AMD...or in this case who knows more about Dreamworks) but that it's just their nature to be passionate about whatever they are posting about.

It is both educational and entertaining though.

I wonder if poly-sci majors get excited like this while watching C-SPAN :laugh:

 

[Modelworks]

I will gladly take the old render farm off their hands
Right now my render farm consist of 2 - dual quad core motherboards, so 16 cores to render.
Anything that goes to production I have to send out to commercial render farms.
And it gets very expensive , very fast.
One second of finished animation can cost $200 in just render time.
Last project was 18 seconds and with rendering, processing to film, total was $4600.00 in just my cost, not including my labor of creating the thing.

I'm really hoping that gpu rendering will continue to improve.
Right now though it just can't do radiosity, GI, and caustics with the needed level of realism. Everyone is focusing on ray tracing, but radiosity is where its at.


I can sympathize with the artist comments about doing work then waiting to see the result.
For example, I'm doing hair on a demonic dog type creature right now.
I can only do the simulation in real time up to about 50K hairs, after that I have to wait for the simulation to process then check it at various times, like 5 secs, 20 secs, only looking at one frame. Then render it out and hope that all the frames in between are to my liking

Someone asked me why I have a high post count in such a short time.
Simple, I do some work, start the render, and while I'm waiting I read the forums

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: NXIL
Vid, how long does it take to bring a software engineer, i.e. programmer up to speed? SSE4 is new: 47 new instructions.

It was announced on September 27, 2006 at the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum, with vague details in a white paper;[1] more precise details of 47 instructions became available at the Spring 2007 Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, in the presentation.[2] The SSE4 Programming Reference is available from Intel.

It is, quite literally, not rocket science.

No, but writing optimized assembly code is pretty damn close. It would definately take a while to bring a programmer up to speed with 47 new instructions. I'm talking optimizations, not just usage. It's like the difference between getting 30MPG on a car, and 50MPG. Optimizations make all the difference in performance, and that performance isn't free. It takes quite a bit of time to program.

Dreamworks and Pixar both have in house programming teams that do nothing but optimize shaders, renders and tools. If I were a programmer now looking to learn something new I would focus on mental ray and renderman. I always see job openings for programmers that know those systems well.

 

[NXIL]

Dear Larry,

Re: coding and rocket science:

No, but writing optimized assembly code is pretty damn close.

I agree completely, it is not at all easy, and takes time and training--

What I disagree with is this:

2. Most of the guys who can write those tools already work for either Lucas, SKG, or Disney.

...as though there will be no others. Rocket science/aeronautical engineering/space probe engineers (got to love the Phoenix Mars Lander....awesome): difficult to learn and practice, but, taken step by step, doable.

And by the way, if 'the guys who can write these tools' are at SKG: um, looks like it is Dreamworks SKG Animation studios that is buying the Intel gear.....

http://www.dreamworksanimation.com/

Sounds to me like this Intel thing will work out for them after all....

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
I will gladly take the old render farm off their hands
Right now my render farm consist of 2 - dual quad core motherboards, so 16 cores to render.
Anything that goes to production I have to send out to commercial render farms.
And it gets very expensive , very fast.
One second of finished animation can cost $200 in just render time.
Last project was 18 seconds and with rendering, processing to film, total was $4600.00 in just my cost, not including my labor of creating the thing.

I'm really hoping that gpu rendering will continue to improve.
Right now though it just can't do radiosity, GI, and caustics with the needed level of realism. Everyone is focusing on ray tracing, but radiosity is where its at.


I can sympathize with the artist comments about doing work then waiting to see the result.
For example, I'm doing hair on a demonic dog type creature right now.
I can only do the simulation in real time up to about 50K hairs, after that I have to wait for the simulation to process then check it at various times, like 5 secs, 20 secs, only looking at one frame. Then render it out and hope that all the frames in between are to my liking

Someone asked me why I have a high post count in such a short time.
Simple, I do some work, start the render, and while I'm waiting I read the forums

I feel your pain...
My very first animation was for a TV Guide special. It was a 10 second piece with multiple TV Guides flying through a starburst effect, and I did it on a Toaster and an Amiga 3000.
It took 2 weeks of rendering 24/7, and it still dropped 22 frames over all (which had to be re-rendered).
The only cool bit was that it was my first time using Lightwave (at the time it was a freebie software package that came with the Toaster), and I've been in love with the package ever since!