Pixinsight Mac vs PC versions

[rreed]

Hi all, Is the Mac version of Pixinsight on par with the PC version in terms of speed, feature set and lack of bugs?  Given a similar processor, would the Mac version run as fast as the PC version for most tasks? If the PC version runs significantly faster, would it be better to run it in a VM such as Fusion using Windows 7 Pro on a Mac than using the native Mac version? I might even consider using and learning the Unix version under Fusion on a Mac (though I don't know Unix at all right now). Thanks! Rick

[NGC7789]

Right now the Mac version is a bit behind as the latest updates have not been released on that platform.

For maximum performance you should run on a Linux platform. You can establish a dual boot which I think is a better option than a VM.

[jkmorse]

Reed,

If you are bored, you can look back at my posts about my adventures in converting to Linux.  The good news is that even a liberal arts major with fumble fingers was able to sort it out and the people here are great at helping you get a Linux system set up.

On your more fundamental question of which is better, I have worked with PI on all three systems.  Ranking them, Linux is by far the cleanest, best supported and fastest.  Next, I would go with Windows, and it works with all three iterations, Windows 7, 8.1 and 10, though if you can stay with 7, I would, just because of its other benefits over the other two generally).  Last is the Mac version which is always lagging a bit behind in features and updates.

Hope that helps,

Jim

[Juan Conejero]

I've got good news for Mac users. After a lot of hard work and hacking, I have a 1.8.4 OS X version of PixInsight finished. I still want to test it more, but I think it's ready for release now. So at least the Linux, OS X and Windows versions are now synchronized. The FreeBSD version still needs work, mainly because of Qt building problems.

Is the Mac version of Pixinsight on par with the PC version in terms of speed, feature set and lack of bugs?

The new 1.8.4 version for OS X works remarkably well, and it comes with important new features that put it closer to the performance and reliability of the reference Linux version.

Given a similar processor, would the Mac version run as fast as the PC version for most tasks?

The Windows and OS X versions of PixInsight are basically equally fast. The Linux version is the fastest in all of our tests, but the differences are generally small in terms of CPU performance. The Linux kernel is extremely efficient for swap file I/O, which can be an important advantage for large and complex projects. For informed OS and hardware decisions, take a look at the PixInsight Benchmark project.

would it be better to run it in a VM such as Fusion using Windows 7 Pro on a Mac than using the native Mac version?

Never. The native OS X version will always work faster and more reliably than Windows on a virtual machine.

[rreed]

Hi Juan, Thanks. That's very exciting! I wonder if you could give me your recommendation on a GPU choice for a new (just announced) iMac 27" with i7-6700k processor with 64 gb of ram. I know the current iteration of PixInsight doesn't use the GPU for acceleration but that a future version might (though I read it would be for Nvidia cards only). So does it matter which video card?

AMD Radeon R9 M395X with 4 GB GDDR5 VRAM +$250
AMD Radeon R9 M395 with 2 GB GDDR5 VRAM
AMD Radeon R9 M390 with 2 GB GDDR5 VRAM -$50

[BlueFang]

I've got good news for Mac users. After a lot of hard work and hacking, I have a 1.8.4 OS X version of PixInsight finished. I still want to test it more, but I think it's ready for release now. So at least the Linux, OS X and Windows versions are now synchronized. The FreeBSD version still needs work, mainly because of Qt building problems.

Is the Mac version of Pixinsight on par with the PC version in terms of speed, feature set and lack of bugs?

The new 1.8.4 version for OS X works remarkably well, and it comes with important new features that put it closer to the performance and reliability of the reference Linux version.

Given a similar processor, would the Mac version run as fast as the PC version for most tasks?

The Windows and OS X versions of PixInsight are basically equally fast. The Linux version is the fastest in all of our tests, but the differences are generally small in terms of CPU performance. The Linux kernel is extremely efficient for swap file I/O, which can be an important advantage for large and complex projects. For informed OS and hardware decisions, take a look at the PixInsight Benchmark project.

would it be better to run it in a VM such as Fusion using Windows 7 Pro on a Mac than using the native Mac version?

Never. The native OS X version will always work faster and more reliably than Windows on a virtual machine.

This is great news... looking forward to the update whenever it is ready!

Also, as a rather new user of PI, is there a tutorial anywhere which goes over PI setup for those of us with gobs of memory and processor cores? Or does PI do a fairly good job of memory utilization by default. As an example, how can I make sure PI is fully utilizing my 20GB of RAM and not prematurely caching data to my HD?

[mmirot]

Hi Juan, Thanks. That's very exciting! I wonder if you could give me your recommendation on a GPU choice for a new (just announced) iMac 27" with i7-6700k processor with 64 gb of ram. I know the current iteration of PixInsight doesn't use the GPU for acceleration but that a future version might (though I read it would be for Nvidia cards only). So does it matter which video card?

AMD Radeon R9 M395X with 4 GB GDDR5 VRAM +$250
AMD Radeon R9 M395 with 2 GB GDDR5 VRAM
AMD Radeon R9 M390 with 2 GB GDDR5 VRAM -$50

Juan stated a few weeks back this will remain on the back burner for quite awhile. You might be able to search for the message.
Apparently the gain is in performance is likely to be quite limited too.
So for now don't waste your $$.

Max

Max

[herman]

Looking forward to this new Mac release.  One of the areas I'm a little confused about is scaling (both UI and image) on high DPI monitors.  I have both a MacBook Pro 15 with Retina display and a Windows 10 machine with 24" 4K display.  The new UI scaling looks good on the Win10/4K machine so that is what I'm looking forward to most on Mac version.  But... the area I'm confused on is the image itself.  On Win10/4K the image is not scaled, which I think is correct actually.  This is how Photoshop CC behaves as well, including on the Mac version.  But the Mac version of PI appears to scale the image also.  Is this the expected behavior for the current Mac version of PI?  If so, is this something that will change on the new version of PI for Mac?

[Juan Conejero]

I have just uploaded a prerelease of new version 1.8.4.1187 for OS X and Linux:

http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=9193.0

The new version should support high-dpi displays automatically on all platforms, including OS X of course. It can also be configured manually to work on high-resolution displays, when necessary, so it is very flexible in this regard. All your feedback will be very welcome.

But the Mac version of PI appears to scale the image also.  Is this the expected behavior for the current Mac version of PI?  If so, is this something that will change on the new version of PI for Mac?

Absolutely. The new version does not scale images, just user interface elements such as text, buttons, etc.