How to shop for a used computer to run Studio Artist?

[Tom Wood]

Hello, I'm considering Studio Artist but I've never owned a Mac before. The sales page says the minimum requirement is a Power Mac running 8.6, which is pretty old. I will be using SA to apply paint effects to video clips that are around five minutes long, and then posted online. I need to buy a used computer, probably in the Power Mac line, and there are many choices on eBay. What is a middle range Power Mac (or other) that would do the work for me without a lot of extra time compared to a brand new machine? What should I be looking for in terms of the CPU speed and number of cores? I assume that a newer OS is better? Amount of memory? That sort of thing. Thanks, Tom PS: Howdy from Austin, Texas!

[Rondan]

I believe the new version (SA V4) is Windows compatible.

By the way, Macs now can also can run windows software. Good speed and memory are a big help in running SA.

If you are buying a Mac, an intel chip Mac with Snow Leopard would be the most up to date version.

I will let some of the others suggest specific hardware etc.

[Tom Wood]

The front page only mentions 3.5:

http://www.synthetik.com/

But I see links to discussions about 4.0. Is 4.0 for sale?

Thanks!

[Synthetik]

Studio Artist 4 does run on windows computers as well as macs. Synthetik is offering Studio Artist version 4 for sale to interested new windows users as a part of our early upgrade offer we made available to our existing customers. If you are interested please email techsupport AT synthetik DOT com. The www.synthetik.com web site does not reflect this special pre-release offer since 3.5 is still the 'official' release version.

Version 3.5 of Studio Artist does require a mac to run. Version 3.5 will run on very old macs running classic os if you use the classic 3.5 build. Version 3.5 also runs on the latest intel machines running osx 10.3, 10.4. 10.5, and 10.6, so it bridges a large range of different mac computers. We dropped support for really old macs in version 4, which currently requires a mac running osx 10.3.9 or later if you are running the mac build. And really you should be on a minimum of 10.4 i think, since we may be forced to drop 10.3.9 support at some point.

If you are running an intel mac i would suggest a minimum of osx 10.5. And if you are buying a used mac i would suggest getting an intel machine at this point as opposed to a PPC machine. At some point in the future Apple will force us to drop support for PPC machines, so the writing is on the wall for none intel macs. OSX 10.6 does not even run on them. I would not be surprised if carbon support was killed off entirely in OSX 10.7.

As far as machines go, the more cores the better. The more memory the better, especially if you are going to be working with large file sizes.

As mentioned, if you are a windows user, you can run windows as well as mac os on a modern mac using apple's bootcamp software or third party virtual machine software. Windows actually runs great on modern macs, so even if you are a windows user getting a mac as your computer might be a good decision.

[Tom Wood]

Thanks John!

I wrote tech support and told them the specs on my Windows machine to see if it's adequate for version 4.

I don't mind learning Mac though. For version 3.5 would something like this be okay for doing work on video:

http://cgi.ebay.com/2009-NVIDIA-Mac-Mini-2GB-120GB-OS-10-6_W0QQitem...

TW

[Tom Wood]

Hmmmm... Looks like those are upgradeable to 4GB RAM, so I'd do that if necessary.

[Synthetik]

This machine would be fine for using Studio Artist 3.5 or 4.

[Richard Feltner]

Hi Tom - try Mac of All Trades (www.macofalltrades) they have both the last of the Power PC's (the best) and Intels at good price points. I've bought 2 from them and can honestly say they are indistinguishable from new machines. In most cases they add on AppleCare after they completely refurb the computer. Much greater peace of mind than eBay.