On Sun, 18 May 2003 21:11:04 -0400, Xilo Musimene <xil### [at] hotpopcom> wrote:
> > E.g. for PC i32:
> > - DOS
> > - W98
> > - W2K
> > - WXP
> > - Unix * v*.*
> > - Linux * v*.*
>
> Since the code to build povray is almost exactly the same for every 
> versions of Povray, it'd say the biggest bottleneck is with the system.

But the compiler and optimization flags are different.

> I'd say (though I don't have any true data about this) that Linux would 
> be the fastest of all.

Considering that the most popular compiler for Linux is GCC (because available 
"as is") and the most popular compiler for Windows is Intel C++ (because used
for official binaries) then I think you are wrong. Binary used on _the_same_
architecture with _the_same_ amount of CPU time will be faster on Windowses IMO.
The other thing are priority settings, memory swapping, need of other parallel
work and 

> (Forget about Unix on a PC, and I'd say DOS is 
> pretty obsolete now)

You might be surprised, but when the altiernative is to perform development on
Windows platform without buying compiler then the fastest free compiler under
Windows is... DJGPP working in DOS box. See
http://news.povray.org/povray.unofficial.patches/30656/

> Why?  Simply because I've tried many things that are exactly the same, 
> games like Unreal Tournament would run much faster on Linux instead of 
> WindowsXP.

POV-Ray is not a game. It does use different type of computation (better
accuracy) and it does not take benefits from some CPU goodies for simple
floating point accuracy as it is done in games. Such comparison is bad.

> I also get higher frame rate when running my own home written programs 
> on linux instead of WindowsXP.

This is not argument for anything except bad compiler with poor settings used
somewhere.

> Another good thing about linux is that at some time (about a year ago) I 
> started an animation render, the animation was a 1 minute (1500 frames) 
> of pure psychedelism, a camera looking through a lens at a wonderful 
> scene, my computer was render 24/24h, 7 days a week at 100% capacity (oh 
> and my CPU was overclocked, 433->527Mhz!) and this for about 30 days 
> without any kind of problems.

So ? I computed one still image 8000x8000 pixels on Windows NT within whole
month too and without any kind of problems. Problem of stability under Windowses
had gone long time ago. With careful administrator there is no problem with it.

Note it is not an OS flame war - I tried to point out how useless your arguments
are. For real POV driven production in long run I also think Linux based render
farm can be better thought users of this production line can take benefits from
using Windowses without any shame.

ABX

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