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Greetings!  This is my first post.  I'm currently using an iPad to run FRAX video very successfully!  However, I would like to be able to render MDB3 video and I'm considering a MACBook Air as a replacement for my really old PC to run MDB3.  I understand MDB3 is available to run on both PC and MAC but I really like my iPad and Apple technology.  Does anyone have a really good reason why a MACBook Air won't suffice?  I'm planning on rendering videos that are about two minutes long.

I realize there's probably strong feelings on both sides of this topic.  And probably pros and cons on both sides.  So I don't want to start a battle here.  I just want to know if there are people successfully running MDB3 on a MAC and/or if there's uniform opinion against MAC.

Thanks,
Tom

Modern "thin and light" notebooks are not really made for running software that hogs the CPU for hours on end. Portable computing devices are always a compromise between portability and computation.

The MacBook Air is a fine ultraportable (as is, say Dell's XPS 13, or some others), but it does not have a particularly fast processor. It might not sustain full speed over longer computations due to heat. There is even a theoretical risk that the thermal stress of ongoing computation can shorten the expected lifespan of the device.

If you do buy an Air, you should do so primarily for portability. A computer that is meant to be a fractal pixel production machine should be beefier and cooled very well, in my humble opinion.


On the other hand, if you find the speed of an iPad acceptable, an ultrabook ight do for you as well.

Hi Tom,

Welcome to fractalforums!

I can't tell you if Mac or a Windows based PC is better for M3D, but you do need CPU power. M3D does not use the GPU, so the graphics card is less important. Since M3D is 32 bit, you don't need more than 4 GB of memory. Jesse programmed for Windows-PC's. I don't know if there is a speed impact for the "translation" to MAC-OS.