In article <40b38da4@news.povray.org>,
 Stefan Viljoen <rylan@<deletehis> wrote:

> I was just wondering which operating system(s) you use in concocting your
> traces? 

Mac OS X on an iBook G4 for code editing and development, Linux on an 
Athlon XP2400  processor for heavy rendering.


> It seems that Windows has nicer programs (Moray for example) for designing
> scenes, but is not so hot on high-demand traces (big operating system
> memory/cpu time footprint - you cannot "switch off" the GUI). In
> comparison, Linux seems to offer more CPU cycles (run it in text mode for
> tracing, kill processes you don't need) and more stability (I've seen Linux
> systems stay up for weeks under a heavy PovRay load).

My Linux box stayed up for over 116 days at school...had to unplug it to 
move it back home. My laptop was rebooted recently...
Last login: Fri May 21 14:32:26 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
WhiteThing:~/% uptime
14:00  up 17 days, 19:32, 6 users, load averages: 0.49 0.44 0.32


> What do you use? It seems to me the best combination is design in Windows,
> final render in Linux. Anybody else do it this way? Do most guys who use
> UNIX/Linux for design and final rendering use an editor only to design, or
> which modelling programs do you prefer on UNIX/Linux for PovRay?

jEdit on Mac and Linux, XCode on Mac. No modelers...they're available, I 
just haven't used them. I've been meaning to look at Blender, though, 
and I also have Art Of Illusion and Meshwork installed. There are no 
modelers which allow you to access all the features of POV, and I tend 
to be a coder.


> I've had frequent problems using PovRay 3.5 under Win98SE and have regularly
> left an overnight trace running only to check in the morning and find that
> Windows had crashed. Are the newer Windows operating systems more stable
> for POV?

Certainly. A well-patched 2000 or XP are far better than 95 or 98. 
However, I haven't booted my PC into XP for...probably over a year.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: <chr### [at] tagpovrayorg>
http://tag.povray.org/

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