LightWave on the Mac iBook

[LightWaver3D]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I figures somebody will move my post if it is not. Anyway, this summer I'm going to get a job at the nearby public library in order to save enough money to buy a new computer. Since I'm not 16 yet, I have to go through this special program, so I won't get paid quite minimum wage. But by the end of the summer I should have amassed a good $2,500, which is a small fortune for me. Ok, now, I would like to buy a laptop so that I could also use it while I'm at school (for those that don't know I go to Cal State LA). Also, I recently decided that I would make the switch from Wintel to Mac. So I guess my question is basically, how does LightWave 5.6 perform on the iBook 600? I'm sure by the time I buy the laptop they'll have stuck the G4 on it, but I'm just asking a hypothetical question. Thanks in advance. Sorry if this is such a long post, but I thought I'd give you guys the overall background.

PS I've also posted this in the Computer and Web Design forum.

[Jason .T]

I've some bad news, I'm afraid. LW 5.6 won't work on the Mac at all. Only from version 7 onwards has there been any Mac specific version.
The best thing would be to contact Newtek directly and ask if LW 7 can run on an iBook. I've only ever run LW from a desktop machine, but I have heard of people running it on Laptops; most particularly one's with a GeForce Go! graphics card installed.

[LightWaver3D]

Not that I don't believe you, but are you sure? I could have sworn that I saw Mac versions of LightWave. And I'm pretty sure people that use LightWave have used it on Mac. Maybe they had to use some sort of Windows emulator. Well, I'd really appreciate it if anyone else could help me out. Thanks Jason.

Also, I only have the demo version of LW 7, and I really can't use it effectively, partly because of its limitations, and partly because I'm still too used to using 5.6.

[Jsteel2001]

LW 7.0 and 7.0b are the only versions of LW designed to work in the Mac OS X enviroment. Anything prior to that will only work in Classic (Mac OS 9.2 or earlier).

7.0b is incredibly fast, but those benchamarks are on a G4. The iBook has a G3 which performs the same (more or less) as the G4 EXCEPT whenever it comes to AltiVec enabled programs. The G3 has no AltiVec support and therefore you can't take advantage of the speed increase.

So yes, it will run on the iBook. But it's not going to run quite like you think it will.

The iBook only has a ATi Rage Mobility 128 with 8MB of SDRAM.

You're just not going to see all of the power that you want in that iBook. You would in a PowerBook G4. It would be even better if you could get a desktop system, but sadly that would be a pain in the ass to carry around campus...

[LightWaver3D]

Well, as I understand it, the iBook comes with 9.2 also, so it should be able to run 5.6. As far as the speed goes, I'm fairly sure I will notice an increase from what I'm using right now. The computer that I have is using a Cyrix MII, basically a generic Pentium II, running at 300 mhz! That's not a lot, and any new system that I buy today would be way faster. Plus, I only have 64 megs of Ram, a 1.92 gig hard drive, and 4 megs of video RAM. Plus, by this fall I'm sure they'll have been able to squeeze the G4 into the iBook, along with more video ram, maybe even the GeForce Go thingy.

[Jsteel2001]

*shrugs* your money...

[LightWaver3D]

Yeah, it is my money. But I didn't intend my last post to sound like I was disregarding your information. It's just that, from everything that I've found and that people have told me, I think it would be a good purchase over an equivalent Wintel system. Sorry if I sounded arrogant.

[SiW]

A couple of things.. firstly, you'd have to buy the Mac version of LW 5.6, even if you have the Windows version, unless Newtek has some kind of sidegrade option.. that'd be great. But it would make a lot more sense going with LW7, for this reason:

New Macs come with OS X installed as the default OS, together with OS 9.2 (Classic) in a dual boot arrangement. Now, you can run Classic apps in OS X, but to do so, the OS loads the whole of OS 9 into memory. So at this stage, you have the memory-eating OS X as a base, then the whole of OS 9 eating more memory, and then a memory-eating 3D app on top of the pile. It's not a great situation at all.

So yeah, LW7 on OS X is much better =)

However, it should also be said that you can also boot fully into OS 9, so you wouldn't have that memory overhead, if you did for some reason buy a Mac version of LW 5.6. (Oh yeah, Jason's wrong; there's been Mac versions of LW for a long time now)

To answer your original question (sort of), LW7 performs quite well on my G3 500 iMac (well, the demo at least) in OS X, but not something I'd want to do any real work in, mainly because of the weak gfx card.

You seem bent on going with the Mac, but I'll be honest, as much as I love the Mac, you'll get a much better deal if you buy a Sony notebook and continue running Windows. If money wasn't an issue I'd say go buy a tricked-out Titanium Powerbook, but.. =*)

Hope this helps in some way.

[Arrghman]

im almost positive that you can trade in your liscense and software for the equivlent liscense and software of LW for another platform, if that helps any...

[LightWaver3D]

I'm grateful that you guys are still responding to my post. Thanks for all the clarifications, SiW. I am pretty bent on buying the iBook, so I think I may have to upgrade to L7. Actually, I got an email from NewTek that said they had a few copies of Aura and LightWave 6.5 that they were selling for $995. That's a pretty good deal, and I'd be able to upgrade to 7 without going from 5.6 to 6 to 6.5 to 7. Anyway, I've got until the fall to decide what I'm going to to. And, I'd rather not buy a PowerBook. They are faster, but they're kind of ugly, and way too big to be easily transported (ok, it'll be easier than a desktop, but not as easy as an iBook). Now, about what Arrghman said, I could probably do the switch except there are two major problems. First, I doubt NewTek has any Mac copies of 5.6 lying around. Secondly, I got my copy of 5.6 from someone else, and he transferred his license to me. Anyway, that latter reason might cause some problems. Finally, I think what I will end up doing is using the L7 demo on the iBook. Then, on my parents computer I could install 5.6 and use LightWave there. That sounds like it will work, seeing as how I won't be transferring any objects or scenes from the Mac to the PC. Thanks again guys.

[NanoGator]

Eeep don't buy a Mac laptop unless you have a USB Dongle!!

Trust me on that!! I'm pretty sure they don't have a paralell port, even if they did I'm pretty sure Mac dongles are different.

LW 7 has a USB dongle, and my understanding is that Newtek allows a user with one of these dongles to go back and forth between PC. (you should confirm it with them.)

I'd recommend either upgrading LW (7 is a HUGE update over 5.6, even 6.5 is) or going with a Wintel laptop running Windows 2000 and some type of Geforce acelleration. If you dont have 3D Acelleration don't bother with LW7 at all, it's entire interface is OpenGL driven.

*Whew*

[LightWaver3D]

So that's why the 7 demo is so slow on my computer. Anyway, thanks for the advice, but I've decided that I'm just going to use LightWave on my parents computer. Then, I can use the 7 demo on the iBook. Besides, I've still got about 7 or 8 months until I have the money, so I'm pretty sure Apple will update the iBook by then.